Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle

Henri Blocher, Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle. New Studies in Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.158 pp. $18.00.

The Christian doctrine of original sin, according to Henri Blocher, "tries to account for sin as a universal phenomenon and yet a matter of personal responsibility, for its being 'natural' in a sense and yet contrary to our true 'nature,' for its being there even as we stand before God and under God" (p. 12). Indeed, the doctrine's relevance for our time is hard to square with its recent neglect. Such neglect prompted this fresh exposition of the doctrine with Holy Scripture claimed as the norma normans. Acknowledging his indebtedness to Augustine, Franqois Turretin, Blaise Pascal, Jonathan Edwards, Soren Kierkegaard, John Murray, and Paul Ricoeur, Blocher nonetheless avers that

we treasure tradition not by servile adherence to it, but by, as it were, sitting on the shoulders of fathers and elder brothers who were giants indeed, and thus do we hope to be granted the grace of seeing even further and ever more clearly. (p. 13)

And the result is not your Fathers' doctrine of original sin.

1. SITTING ON THE SHOULDERS OF TRADITIONAL GIANTS

The Fathers' crucial divide was between Pelagian and Augustinian explanations of Rom 5:12-21, the key text: humans imitating Adam's sin or humans having Adam's sin imputed to them. On the Pelagian view, there is no causal relationship whatever between "through one man sin entered into the world" and "death spread to all people," between "through one man" and "all sinned." "Death spread to all people" because "all sinned" in and of themselves, following Adam. The implication is that (at least theoretically) each person could avoid sinning and thereby attain life by obedience.

Moreover, the seeds of newer versions of Pelagianism lie in the fertile soils of modern science, literary-critical studies, and theological interpretations of early Genesis. On these bases, many have taken Gen 2:43:24 as the symbol-laden story of Everyperson, to the detriment of any historical fall from created goodness. So, after combating some Pelagianisms in chap. 1 ("Original sin as taught in Holy Scripture," that is, universal, natural, inherited, and Adamic), Blocher's chap. 2 on "Original sin as Adamic event" can combat newer ones. There, in the fine tradition of his earlier In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (InterVarsity, 1984), he carefully defends a nuanced interpretation of Genesis that retains a historical fall.

If we follow that line, then we may also join with Augustine's rejection of the Pelagian approach to Romans 5, for at least three reasons. First, it makes a hash of v. 14, where some persons die despite not imitating Adam. How could death thus reign over them on the Pelagian account? Second, however we understand the Adam-Christ typology in the passage, the "gift" language precludes imitating Christ to attain righteousness (the analogue of the Pelagian approach to Adam). Third, there is an apparent causal link throughout the passage between Adam's sin and human sin, condemnation, and death (a dominant argument of John Murray's magisterial account The Imputation of Adam's Sin, Eerdmans, 1959; note vv. 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19). Admittedly, the causal link is not specified, but the universality of sin and death seems inexplicable on the Pelagian view.

Having opted for imputation, one must decide between a realist and a representative view of human participation in Adam's sin. On Augustine's realist view, described well by S. Lewis Johnson ("Romans 5:12-An Exercise in Exegesis and Theology," in New Dimensions in New Testament Study [ed. Richard N. Longenecker and Merrill C. Tenney; Grand Rapids: Zondervan 1974], 298-316), all human nature participated in Adam's sin as his natural progeny, while still not differentiated as individuals. This "seminal headship" view seems to accord well with Heb 7:9-10, and is appealing for the extent of human participation with Adam. Our guilt seems a bit "justified" in that case.

But not so fast-significant problems arise. First, why Adam and not Eve? This seems to raise the issue of representation, not just realism via human generation. Second, why just the one sin, and the one sin of Adam, rather than all those of subsequent humans? Third, v. 14 is significant again: real participation in Adam's sin is not exactly the issue as regards death's reign. Moreover, the contrary view of "federal headship" would appeal to the larger logic of the passage, specifically the Adam-Christ linkage. We are not justified by relationship to Christ through human generation-we do not really participate in his righteousness.

So most (even mildly) Calvinistic evangelicals are left with Murray's representative view, in which we are imputed Adam's sin, condemnation, and death because we participated with him acting as our federal head. Likewise by God's grace Christ becomes the federal head of "the many" who are imputed righteousness unto life. This is, on Blocher's terms, a "tight" view of the Adam-Christ relation in Romans 5. Moo notes that the case for this view rests in large measure on linking vv. 12, 18, and 19 together (Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996], 327). That is, the "all sinned" of v. 12 is explained as participation in Adam's sin because in vv. 18-19 "one transgression" (Adam's actus) results in condemnation (guilty status) and being constituted sinners (a sinful habitus). Ergo, Adam's actus (vv. 18-19) must also have been ours (v. 12). For this tradition, the unity of Pauline logic in the passage-and the synergy of the Adam-Christ typology-hang on this explanation.