Tag: federal headship

The Phantom Reality of Representationism

by Ken Hamrick

This is an informal discussion of the concluding part of John Murray’s book, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin, (Phillipsburg, NJ: Wm. B. Eerdman, 1959). As a Realist, I disagree with Murray’s Representationist view (which is also a Nominalistic Federal view).

Realism is the biblical principle of a shared identity grounded in a spiritual union or singularity of spiritual origin–and more broadly, Realism is a paradigm in which God’s justice depends on substantial reality; whereas Nominalism is the denial of any identifying union of immaterial substance within the man, Adam–and more broadly, it is a paradigm in which substantial reality is not necessary to God’s justice. Realists, from their paradigm, seek a justice that is commensurate with the facts of substantial reality and find it in a real union of immaterial substance inside Adam; whereas Nominalists see no necessity for justice to be dependent on the facts of substantial reality, but instead, include the nonsubstantial thoughts of God as sufficient ground for justice, and so they are content to locate man’s union with Adam as inside God’s mind alone.

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A Realist’s Review of J.V. Fesko’s ‘Death in Adam, Life in Christ,’ Part 2

by Ken Hamrick

Continuing from Part 1

Fesko’s misrepresentations are disturbing. As I read his section on Augustine[23], I thought maybe he had misunderstood Augustine when Fesko claimed that Realism was about a “biological” union in Adam—that Realism claimed a physical presence of all men in Adam.

However, after Fesko described the views of Shedd and Baird (the Realist School of the 19th century), and showed that he does indeed understand that the view is about the propagation of the soul and the “co-agency” of all men while in Adam[24], he continues for the remainder of the book to refer to Realism as “biological” and “physical transmission”—not as additional to “spiritual” or “immaterial transmission” (which he ignores) but as if “physical” and “biological” accurately described the Realistic view. Misunderstanding Augustine might be excusable, but continuing the error even after showing a basic understanding of Shedd and Baird is inexcusable! Fesko says,

Continue reading “A Realist’s Review of J.V. Fesko’s ‘Death in Adam, Life in Christ,’ Part 2” →

A Realist’s Review of J.V. Fesko’s ‘Death in Adam, Life in Christ,’ Part 1

by Ken Hamrick

J. V. Fesko is Academic Dean and Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary in California, and has written many books. I found this book[1] to be substantive and thought provoking. It is well worth the reading—and I think it demands a response.

Fesko writes in the preface, “[…T]here are few, if any, books that treat both imputed guilt and righteousness. When it came to the history of the doctrine of imputation, there are hardly any monographs that treat the doctrine.” Fesko is a proponent of the modern Reformed view of Covenant (or, Federal) Theology, and defends that view against the main alternatives, historical and contemporary—including the Realistic view. While it is not his main purpose to engage the Realistic view, it is my main purpose in this article to address his engagement of that view, which I have found to be lacking.

Continue reading “A Realist’s Review of J.V. Fesko’s ‘Death in Adam, Life in Christ,’ Part 1” →

Realism & The Fall: A Response to Steve Farish

By Ken Hamrick

The Winter 2017 issue of The Founders Journal contains a brief, informative article on Original Sin, by Steve Farish, entitled, “The Fall Brought Condemnation and Corruption.”[1] To his credit, he does not present only the representationist “party line,” but also tries to present the realist side and its problems. This is commendable. But as a realist, I would like to engage Mr. Farish on some of his points. The realist perspective has much more to offer than he has presented.

From the start, Mr. Farish defines the realistic view in a way that no realist would: “The Realistic View […] understands Paul in Romans 5:12 to mean that all human beings were physically present seminally in Adam at the time of his sin […], so that when Adam sinned, all human beings literally and physically sinned in him.” The terms, “physically present,” and, “physically sinned,” utterly miss the point of the realistic view. 

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Origin of the Soul: A Defense of Paternal Traducianism

Also posted at SBC Open Forum.

By Ken Hamrick

Was your soul newly created for you by God, or was it passed down to you from the previous generations, much like your DNA was, and originally came from Adam? This may seem an obscure question, but it is actually foundational to most of theology. Whether or not you have ever considered the question before, the theology that you hold has built much of its doctrinal understanding upon an assumed answer to this question—and most have assumed that the soul is newly created by God in every case. The paper that follows is an excerpt of the current draft of a much larger work in progress, entitled, Mechanics of Atonement: Restoring Reality to Imputation. There is heavy emphasis on Turretin, since I have not found a more thorough argument than his. [Note: Although early theologians, such as Turretin, refer to the “soul,” it is in a dichotomistic way that is interchangeable with “spirit.” Early tradition used the term, “soul,” almost exclusively to refer to the immaterial component of a man, reserving the term, “spirit,” for the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this was to avoid confusion between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit. The Bible does use “spirit” as well as “soul” when referring to man’s immaterial component or nature (the inner man as opposed to the outer man). Both words are used interchangeably throughout this paper, except where otherwise specified.]

[20,000 words] The spirit is what make us most like God, and makes us everlasting beings. Continue reading “Origin of the Soul: A Defense of Paternal Traducianism” →