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Does Original Sin Make God the Author of Evil? | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Reformed thinking, Welcome back to the deep dive.
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  Today we are getting into one of the most intellectually rigorous
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  and I think, theologically necessary questions in Christian
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  thought. It's a big one.
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  A big one, Yeah, the structure of original thin.
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  We're going back to the source, really to the arguments of
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  Jonathan Edwards in the 18th century.
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  And specifically, his defense of what he calls native depravity
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  against a pretty sharp challenger from his time, a man
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  we just know as Doctor T. Right.
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  And this isn't just, you know, a dusty historical debate.
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  For anyone trying to really understand the architecture of
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  reformed thought on human nature, this is central stuff.
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  It really is. It gets to the very core of how
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  total corruption can be native to us from birth.
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  Exactly. So our mission for you listening
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  is to grasp how Edwards pulls this off.
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  How does he account for total corruption, this native
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  depravity, without stumbling into the trap that Doctor T so
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  carefully laid for him? Which is the charge that you're
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  making God, the Holy Creator, the direct active cause of evil
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  in the human soul. And that's a theological line
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  you just can't cross. It's a it's the tightrope walk.
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  It is. I mean, the puzzle is right
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  there in front of you. If God forms every single one of
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  us, and every one of us shows up in the world with a nature that
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  has already bent against him, a sinful nature.
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  Well, the question writes itself, doesn't it?
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  Did God create that corruption? Doctor T certainly thought so.
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  He basically said, look, if you believe in a sinful nature from
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  birth, you're charging God, the author of our nature, with being
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  the direct source of that sin. And Edwards knew he had to
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  dismantle that argument from the ground up.
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  He had to show that the source of corruption is structural, not
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  substantial. OK, that's a key distinction
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  right there. He had to correct a really
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  fundamental mistake in Doctor TS thinking.
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  Yes, the assumption that corruption has to be a positive
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  influence. Like what?
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  Like a stain. Or, or a chemical, an injection
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  of poison, something God would have to actively, you know, put
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  there. But Edward says no, that's not
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  it at all. He argues that sin is defined
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  first and foremost by an absence, a privation.
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  And that single distinction, is it a positive edition or is it a
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  consequential absence that is the entire battlefield?
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  If you missed that point, the whole doctrine kind of falls
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  apart under Doctor T's accusation against God's
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  character. It does.
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  OK, so let's unpack this defense.
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  Let's start with the grand objection itself, the thing that
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  forced Edwards to lay all this out.
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  Let's set the stage. So the premise of Doctor T's
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  argument, he says that believing men are born with a sinful
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  nature is, and this is his phrase, highly injurious to the
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  character of God. This isn't just an academic
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  disagreement for him. Oh no.
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  It's a moral attack on God's nature.
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  He frames it with, you know, a lot of rhetorical power.
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  He asks how the person who formed us in the womb can be
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  making something that is at the same time hateful to him.
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  It's a powerful image. It is.
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  He's saying, look, if God makes the creature, and that
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  creature's very nature is sinful from the get go, then you can't
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  get around calling God the author of that sin.
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  For him, creation is a positive act, so the result must be God's
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  direct work. It's a logical trap, isn't it?
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  If you assume that every quality of a thing is positively put
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  there by its maker, right? And sin is a quality.
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  Right then the Maker put the sin there.
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  Doctor T felt he had the doctrine completely.
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  He wasn't just talking about, you know, human weakness.
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  He was defending divine holiness as he saw it.
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  And this leads us straight to that core assumption you
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  mentioned the idea of a positive infusion.
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  Right, Edward saw that this was the linchpin of the whole
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  argument. Doctor T just takes it for
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  granted that depravity has to be a positive quality, something
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  the creator has to actively introduce.
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  And the sources show he used some very specific, almost
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  medical language. He did words like a taint, A
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  tincture, or an infection. He pictures it as something that
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  has to be actively infused or rot into the mind.
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  That language is so important. Taint, tincture, infection.
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  It makes corruption sound like a material substance.
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  Exactly like a chemical additive, it suggests depravity
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  needs its own separate active positive cause to exist.
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  And if you grant him that premise, his conclusion is,
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  well, it's pretty much unavoidable.
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  It is. If sin is this positive thing
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  that gets implanted, then the Creator, the one forming the
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  person, must be the one implanting these evil
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  dispositions right there in the womb.
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  And for Doctor T, that's just a non starter.
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  It's completely incompatible with a holy and just God.
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  He can't accept a God who actively installs moral malware
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  in us at birth. He.
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  Finds it unthinkable. OK.
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  But hang on, before we get to Edward's solution, let me just
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  play Doctor T's advocate for a second here.
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  Go for it. Let's say Edwards is right and
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  sin is just. The absence of something good,
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  the absence of spiritual influence.
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  Doesn't God still have to bear the responsibility for that?
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  How so? Because.
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  God is the one who chose to withhold that influence.
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  It's sort of like saying, oh, I didn't cause the house fire, I
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  just decided not to give the building any water after I knew
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  it was absolutely necessary to prevent a disaster.
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  I see. Isn't that knowing withdrawal of
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  a necessary grace still in some sense an authoring act?
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  That is the highest level of the challenge, and Edwards knew he
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  had to meet it head on. His answer has to separate the
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  author of our nature, which is God, from the cause of our sin,
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  which He. Says is.
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  Man's own nature. Reacting to that privation,
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  Edwards argues there is, and I'm quoting here, not the least need
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  of supposing any evil quality infused, implanted, or wrought
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  into the nature of man by any positive cause at all.
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  So he completely changes the terms of the debate.
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  He. Does he says God is responsible
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  for the created structure, but man is responsible for the sin
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  that comes from that structure failing?
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  OK, so he's not saying it's a positive infusion of evil.
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  He's saying it's the result of a just penal consequence.
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  Yes, the. Withholding of a special divine
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  influence. To defend that he has to give us
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  a complete anatomy of the human soul as it was originally
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  designed. He.
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  Doesn't try to downplay depravity at all.
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  Not at all, He just gives it a new and I would say a more
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  accurate architecture. Let's get into that.
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  Edward's Anatomy of the soul. He solves this whole problem by
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  first showing us the perfect design.
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  He says God put two very different kinds of principles in
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  man at creation, right? And they weren't meant to
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  compete. They were designed for perfect
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  harmony, a perfect hierarchy. You have the.
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  Natural and the supernatural. Exactly the principles you need
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  just to exist as a human, and the principles you need for
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  holiness. So.
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  Let's start at the bottom with the inferior or natural
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  principles. Edwards calls these the servant
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  principles. These.
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  Are the basic building blocks of mere human nature.
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  They define us as self aware, active beings.
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  So things like self love, natural appetites.
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  Yes, and passions. They are what drive a person to
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  seek their own liberty, honor, and pleasure.
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  Edwin's is very clear. These things are inseparable
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  from what it means to be human. They aren't evil in themselves.
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  They're like the basic operating system.
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  You. Couldn't be human without them,
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  you. Couldn't.
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  If you took them away, you wouldn't have human nature
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  anymore. And there's a specific biblical
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  term for these drives when they get out of control.
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  Right Edwards points out that when these principles are left
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  alone and left to themselves, Scripture calls them the FES.
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  Which is so helpful because it clarifies that flesh isn't just
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  about our physical bodies, it's about this whole complex of
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  natural desires when they're in charge.
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  Precisely. And in Eden, their intended role
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  was to be in strict subordination.
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  They were given only to serve. The engine, but not the driver.
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  That's a perfect way to put it. And they always remain, no
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  matter what a person's spiritual state is, even after the fall,
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  even in a regenerate person. Human nature would be human
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  nature still, but their proper place is on the bottom rung.
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  OK. So if the inferior principles
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  are the engine and the chassis of the car, we still need a
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  driver and maybe a GPS, yes? And that brings us to the
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  superior or supernatural principles.
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  This is what Edwards calls the governor and.
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  These are from a completely different category A.
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  Different order entirely. They reflect the spiritual image
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  of God. They are the spiritual, holy and
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  divine principles. And he summarizes them all as
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  basically being contained in one thing.
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  Divine love. That's the essence of it.
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  This is the capacity for true holiness, true righteousness.
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  It's the part of humanity that was designed to be in communion
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  with God and reflect his nature. We.
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  Hear scriptural terms for this, like the spirit or the divine
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  nature right, but the. Critical point Edwards makes is
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  about their source. He calls them supernatural for a
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  reason. They don't.
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  Just spring up from our own human existence like self
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  preservation does, no? They depend entirely on man's
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  union and communion with God. They are maintained by the
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  constant communications and influences of God's Spirit.
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  They are a gift and a connection that has to be actively
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  maintained that. Dependency is everything to his
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  argument. It's the whole key.
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  These principles were the governor put there by God to
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  possess the throne in the heart and maintain absolute dominion.
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  Their whole job was to keep the natural principles, self love,
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  appetites, wholly subordinate and subservient to God's law and
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  glory. So.
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  When it's all working as designed, you have a perfect
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  creature. The engine of self love is
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  running, but it's being directed by the divine driver, which is
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  divine love. Yes, Edwards describes that
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  original state as one where all was in excellent order, peace
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  and beautiful harmony. It's a structure of
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  righteousness. And having that clear structure
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  is what makes his whole defense work, because now when we look
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  at the fall, we're not looking for something evil that God
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  added we're. Looking for something good that
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  God as a just judge removed. Let's move to that then.
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  The mechanism of corruption. Privation, not infusion.
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  It all starts with the event of the fall.
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  Adam sinned. He incurred God's curse.
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  What was the immediate structural consequence for his
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  soul? The immediate consequence was
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  the withdrawal of the governor. This is the core of Edwards
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  argument. The corruption that followed
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  comes from privation, the simple and justified withholding of a
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  special divine influence. Why?
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  Was it justified? Because in Edwards's view, it
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  was utterly improper and inconsistent with the
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  constitution God had established for a holy God to keep
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  maintaining that intimate communion, the very source of
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  those superior principles, with a creature in open rebellion.
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  So. It wasn't that the spirit
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  virtual image of God just, you know, fizzled out on its own.
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  The power cord was pulled. God left Adam.
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  That's. It exactly the moment God
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  withdrew that vital connection, that flow of the Spirit, that
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  sustained spiritual life, the superior divine principles
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  wholly ceased. They just vanished.
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  Why? Because their source had been
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  cut off. That's the great moment of
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  structural ruin. The governor is gone.
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  And this is where he brings in that unforgettable illustration,
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  the candle analogy. Yes, it's so effective because
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  it perfectly illustrates the nature of privation, he says.
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  The end of these superior principles is just like light
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  ceasing in a room when you take the candle out.
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  The person who took the candle away didn't have to pump a
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  substance called darkness into the room of.
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  Course not. Darkness is just the inevitable,
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  necessary result of the absence of light.
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  Darkness isn't a positive creation, it's just a
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  consequence of the light no longer being there.
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  You. Know, I think this is a point we
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  have to really emphasize because it can be hard for us to think
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  about sin this way, right? I mean, well, when we see a
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  really wicked act, like a murder or some malicious act of pride,
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  it feels like a very positive thing.
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  It feels like a massive addition of evil substance into the
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  world, right? It's an action.
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  It's a presence. But Edwards is saying that even
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  that positive, wicked act is just the outward expression of a
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  deeper absence. Precisely.
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  The ACT itself is positive, yes, but it's metaphysical root is
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  negative. It comes from the absence of
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  that regulating divine principle.
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  God didn't have to create some new positive evil in Adam's
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  heart. He.
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  Just withdrew the divine light. And man was instantly left in a
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  state of spiritual darkness. The result was woeful corruption
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  and ruin. Nothing but flesh without
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  spirit. There's a.
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  Difference between saying a machine was poisoned a.
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  Causative infusion and. Saying the machine's operating
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  system crashed. Now the raw hardware drivers are
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  just running wild and chaotically A.
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  Privation followed by consequential disorder, Yes, so.
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  What does that structural ruin actually look like?
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  What happens in that instant when the Governor of Divine Love
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  is gone? The.
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  Inferior principles, self love and the natural appetites.
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  They are suddenly left alone and left to themselves.
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  And since they're designed for action, for self preservation,
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  they don't just sit there quietly.
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  Not for a second. They immediately become the
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  absolute masters of the heart because there is no spiritual
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  authority, no counterweight left to keep them in their
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  subordinate role it. Sounds like pure chaos.
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  And it wasn't a slow decline, no.
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  It was immediate. Edwards calls it a fatal
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  catastrophe, a turning of all things upside down.
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  The result is an odious and dreadful confusion.
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  So these natural principles, they're meant to pursue
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  self-interest, but in the original design that was all
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  contained within the greater goal of God's glory.
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  Right. But now, with that divine
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  constraint gone, the engine is running without brakes, without
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  steering, without a map. It's just pursuing its own
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  immediate ends as if they were the supreme good.
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  OK, so let's look really closely at the consequences of that
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  failure, the reign of the flesh, because this is the moment total
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  depravity really takes hold. Yes, the natural drives which
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  were once good servants become inherently destructive the
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  moment they start to. Rule and to help us visualize
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  that danger, Edwards gives us another really powerful
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  metaphor, the fire analogy. He.
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  Does he says these uncontrolled inferior principles are like
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  fire in a house? Fire is a good servant, but a
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  bad master. Exactly.
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  It's very useful when it's kept in its place in the hearth, but
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  if you let it take over the whole house, it brings
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  everything to destruction. Self love is necessary to live,
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  but when it becomes the supreme principle, it just consumes
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  everything our relationship with God, our relationships with
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  other people and. That gets to a critical
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  philosophical point. Self love, when it's properly
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  ordered, is love for the self under God.
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  But when disorder reigns, it becomes love for the self as God
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  and. That leads directly to what
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  Edwards calls the inversion of allegiance.
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  When self love becomes the supreme thing, man man
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  immediately sets up himself and the objects of his private
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  affections and appetites as supreme.
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  That's. It that's the fundamental
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  definition of sin, isn't it? Taking God's place on the throne
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  of your own heart. And it's why every human heart
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  is by nature corrupt. Man is now by default pursuing
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  his own honor, his own pleasure, his own liberty, without regard
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  to God's honor or law. Self glorification automatically
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  replaces God glorification as the mainspring of the soul it.
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  Becomes the new operating principle.
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  But Edwards takes it a step further.
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  He doesn't just say this leads to chaos.
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  He says the structural failure results in active enmity against
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  God. Why?
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  Why is mere self love necessarily act of hostility?
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  Can't a self-centered person just be indifferent to God?
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  Just ignore him? No.
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  And the reason is because God doesn't permit indifference.
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  God still exists, and He still requires supreme allegiance and
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  absolute dominion over that person's heart.
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  He. Doesn't change his demands just
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  because we've changed not. At all.
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  So the humor human heart, which is now run entirely by self love
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  and private interest, finds the demands of the true king,
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  demands which required the submission of that private
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  interest to be completely repulsive, no?
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  Conflict is absolutely guaranteed if the supreme Master
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  of my heart is my pleasure, and God's law demands that His
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  pleasure be supreme. Then your very nature, your very
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  structure, is in direct, constant and active opposition
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  to his lawful rule. That's what he means by the
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  state of war, yes. The immediate consequence of the
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  superior principles being gone is enmity in the heart.
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  The will refuses to acknowledge God's supreme authority, and
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  from that one root this private, self-centered original, every
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  specific lust and every depraved disposition naturally grows.
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  So you can trace the whole chain of logic, the prization, the
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  withdrawal of the Spirit. Leads to structural ruin.
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  Self love seizes the throne. Which necessarily leads to
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  active corruption, the war against God, it's.
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  A brilliant summary of corruption Edwards has now
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  accounted for the total corruption of the heart, the
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  fact that every part of us is disordered without ever needing
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  God to put any positive evil into us.
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  It's a system failure, and that failure is followed by a
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  necessary revolt of the subordinate parts.
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  Precisely OK. So that seems to solve Doctor
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  T's main objection about God's holiness.
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  But we're not quite done because Doctor T would still have a
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  follow up question. He'd say, fine, Adam ruined
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  himself, I'll grant you that. But how does this state of
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  absence, this privation, get passed down to every single
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  generation after him? Right.
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  Why is the entire human race born without the governor if God
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  is actively forming each new soul from nothing?
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  This is the transmission problem, and it pushes us into,
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  well, some pretty deep theological waters it.
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  Does it gets into the principles of creation itself?
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  Doctor TS point would be if God creates the soul of an infant
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  and that soul is missing this necessary spiritual principle,
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  then God is the one doing the withholding and.
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  Therefore, God is the one creating the corrupt state.
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  He's back to his original charge.
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  So Edwards has to address this, and he does it by carefully
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  defining what he means by the course of nature.
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  It's. A term he has to be very precise
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  about. Extremely.
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  He defines the course of nature not as some independent self
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  running machine, but as nothing but the established order of the
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  agency and operation of the Author of Nature.
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  In other words, it's just God's settled, consistent way of doing
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  things. It's his method.
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  The keyword is consistency. God operates according to the
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  rules and systems that He himself established at the
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  beginning. And one of those fundamental
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  rules is the relationship between Adam and all of his
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  descendants. A.
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  Relationship that reformed theology calls federal headship
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  or the covenant of works. Edwards uses a natural analogy
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  to illustrate it. He calls it the root and branch
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  connection. OK.
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  What does that mean? He.
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  Says that Adam's posterity. That's all of us.
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  We are derived from him according to an established
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  course of nature. Just like branches come from an
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  oak tree or an acorn comes from an oak.
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  So there's a natural organic connection.
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  Yes, and it illustrates a fixed lot of nature.
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  The good qualities hunting in the tree should also be wanting
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  in the branches. If the root is sick, the
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  branches will be sick. But hold on, we have to be
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  careful there. The analogy only goes so far,
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  doesn't it? The physical body might descend
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  naturally like that, but Christian theology holds that
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  God creates the soul new for every single infant.
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  That's the critical difficulty, you're right.
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  How does the absence of a spiritual quality like divine
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  love get transmitted through a natural law when the spiritual
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  part of the child is a fresh creation?
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  It seems like a contradiction. It's not.
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  But to solve it, you have to link that natural law of
• 19:12
  propagation to the legal reality of the Covenant.
• 19:16
  Adam didn't just lose that spiritual principle for himself
• 19:19
  personally, he lost it as the federal head of the entire human
• 19:22
  race. He was our representative.
• 19:24
  So. When he fell, the whole race he
• 19:26
  represented fell with him. Legally speaking, yes.
• 19:30
  Therefore, when God continues to create souls according to His
• 19:33
  established order, the course of nature, He acts in a way that is
• 19:37
  consistent with the prior judicial sentence that was
• 19:40
  passed on the racist representative.
• 19:42
  This is where we get to the idea of withholding His divine
• 19:44
  justice. Exactly since Adam, the root in
• 19:46
  the head, lost that vital spiritual influence as a penal
• 19:49
  consequence for his rebellion. It was a.
• 19:51
  Punishment. It was a just punishment, and so
• 19:54
  God acts consistently and justly by withholding those same
• 19:58
  influences from all the. Of that fallen race, every
• 20:02
  infant comes into existence as part of a fallen federal
• 20:05
  structure and. So they come into the world
• 20:07
  without that supernatural maintenance system already in
• 20:10
  place. The.
• 20:10
  Result is they come into existence as mere flesh.
• 20:14
  They are entirely under the government of their own inferior
• 20:17
  principles because they lack the necessary governor from the
• 20:20
  start. So.
• 20:21
  They aren't born actively hating God yet, but their internal
• 20:24
  structure is set up in such a way that hostility toward God is
• 20:28
  their only possible moral trajectory.
• 20:30
  That's it. No positive evil needs to be
• 20:32
  implanted by God. The corruption is the necessary,
• 20:35
  consistent and just result of the absence of the spiritual
• 20:39
  governor. God is simply treating the
• 20:41
  branches according to the established state of the root.
• 20:43
  He's upholding the terms of his own covenant and.
• 20:46
  This allows Edwards to finally land the plane and achieve his
• 20:48
  main goal, reconciling God's authorship.
• 20:51
  He. Can say with perfect consistency
• 20:53
  that God is the author of our being.
• 20:56
  He creates the soul. He creates the necessary natural
• 20:59
  principles like self love and the passions.
• 21:02
  But he is not the author of the sin.
• 21:04
  The sin is the disorder and the enmity that results when those
• 21:07
  natural principles are left to themselves, which they
• 21:10
  inevitably are, because the spiritual governor was justly
• 21:13
  withdrawn from the race in Adam. God is responsible for the
• 21:17
  design of the house. Man is responsible for the fire
• 21:20
  that burns it down when the safety systems are removed.
• 21:23
  A. Good way to put it.
• 21:24
  Edwards uses one final analogy to really nail this distinction
• 21:28
  down, comparing it to a wicked adult he.
• 21:30
  Does he says imagine God permits a wicked adult man to continue
• 21:34
  in his wickedness by withholding further grace?
• 21:37
  Maybe God doesn't send a preacher to him or doesn't move
• 21:40
  on his heart to bring repentance.
• 21:42
  In that case, we wouldn't say God is the author of that man's
• 21:44
  ongoing sin, would we? No, of course not.
• 21:47
  The man's sin is causing caused by his own corrupt nature, his
• 21:50
  own unchecked self love. God's role is permissive and
• 21:53
  judicial, not causative. And Edwards says the same
• 21:56
  principle applies to the infinite birth.
• 21:59
  God is not the author of sin when He allows a child to be
• 22:02
  born without that supernatural grace that was forfeited by the
• 22:06
  head of the human race. His argument against Doctor T
• 22:09
  holds firm. To withhold the influence
• 22:12
  without which nature will become corrupt is an act of divine
• 22:15
  justice. It is not the creation of evil.
• 22:18
  The corruption is the work of our unchecked self love, and
• 22:21
  God's role in it is that of a righteous judge upholding the
• 22:24
  constitutional integrity of His created order.
• 22:26
  It's a masterful defense it. Really is this has been a
• 22:29
  structurally precise and I think really necessary deep dive.
• 22:33
  So to kind of synthesize the key take away for you the listener,
• 22:36
  it's this depravity for Edwards is a catastrophic structural
• 22:40
  failure. It's a state of confusion and
• 22:43
  self idolatry that results from the absence of the spiritual
• 22:46
  governor, which is divine love, not from the addition of some
• 22:49
  evil substance and. That distinction, privation
• 22:52
  versus positive infusion, is what lets us affirm the full
• 22:55
  biblical scope of total depravity.
• 22:57
  The. Fact that our entire being is
• 22:59
  disordered and opposed to God. While at the same time
• 23:02
  maintaining God's perfect holiness and justice and
• 23:04
  creation. It means the spiritual life
• 23:07
  isn't about just fixing a small flaw in an otherwise good
• 23:10
  system. No, it's about restoring the
• 23:13
  lost presence of God's Spirit to regain that proper order.
• 23:17
  It's about re enthroning divine love in the heart.
• 23:20
  That structural insight just changes how you see everything.
• 23:24
  We recognize that those natural principles, self love, the
• 23:28
  desire for liberty, for honor, for pleasure, they are necessary
• 23:32
  parts of us. They.
• 23:33
  Don't vanish when a person is regenerated.
• 23:36
  The fire doesn't leave the house.
• 23:37
  It's just put back in the heart that's placed back under proper
• 23:40
  governance. Which raises one final and I
• 23:43
  could pretty provocative question for you to think about
• 23:45
  as you reflect on all this and you know, apply it to your own
• 23:47
  life since. Those natural principles do
• 23:49
  remain even in the regenerate soul.
• 23:52
  How do we distinguish moment by moment between the right use of
• 23:55
  those natural desires when they're serving God, and the
• 23:58
  sinful dominion of the flesh where self love is trying to
• 24:01
  seize the throne all over again in our own hearts today?
• 24:04
  Something to wrestle with as you pursue that spiritual order.
• 24:08
  Thank you for diving deep with us.
• 24:10
  Until next time.