On Original Sin in Vol I of the Works - Edwards - X - Chapter 3 of Part IV

Required reading
The great Christian doctrine of original sin defended in Volume I of the Works by Jonathan Edwards (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 3 of Part IV.

My summary.

Today Edwards continues answering objections to the doctrine of original sin.

The objection dealt with today is that the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity is unjust and unreasonable.

Edwards's primary observation is the fact that God deals with Adam and his posterity as one.  

He then gives the following answers to the difficulties of this fact

Firstly, 'That appointing Adam to stand, in this great affair, as the moral head of his posterity, and so treating them as one with him, as standing or falling with him, is injurious to them. To which I answer, it is demonstrably otherwise; that such a constitution was so far from being injurious to Adam's posterity, any more than if every one had been appointed to stand for himself personally, that it was, in itself considered, attended with a more eligible probability of a happy issue than the latter would have been: and so a constitution that truly expresses the goodness of its Author.'

Secondly, 'It being thus manifest, that this constitution, by which Adam and his posterity are dealt with as one, is not unreasonable on account of its being injurious and hurtful to the interest of mankind, the only thing remaining in the objection, against such a constitution, is the impropriety of it, as implying falsehood, and contradiction to the true nature of things; as hereby they are viewed and treated as one, who are not one, but wholly distinct; and no arbitrary constitution can ever make that to be true, which in itself considered is not true. This objection, however specious, is really founded on a false hypothesis, and wrong notion of what we call sameness or oneness, among created things; and the seeming force of the objection arises from ignorance or inconsideration of the degree, in which created identity or oneness with past existence, in general, depends on the sovereign constitution and law of the supreme Author and Disposer of the universe.'

What grabbed me

I liked this concluding remark: 'From what has been observed it may appear, there is no sure ground to conclude, that it must be an absurd and impossible thing, for the race of mankind truly to partake of the sin of the first apostacy, so as that this, in reality and propriety, shall become their sin; by virtue of a real union between the root and branches of mankind, (truly and properly availing to such a consequence,) established by the author of the whole system of the universe; to whose establishments are owing all propriety and reality of union, in any part of that system; and by virtue of the full consent of the hearts of Adam's posterity to that first apostacy. And therefore the sin of the apostacy is not theirs, merely because God imputes it to them; but it is truly and properly theirs, and on that ground God imputes it to them.'

If God imputes Adam's sin to his posterity because he views them as one, then the sin of apostacy is indeed theirs.  

As Edwards says earlier: 'But what extreme arrogance would it be in us, to take upon us to act as judges of the beauty and wisdom of the laws and established constitutions of the supreme Lord and Creator of the universe!'

Next week's reading

Read Chapter 4 of Part IV.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.