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Are We Born in Sin? Edwards Answers the Objection | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reform thinking. It's good to be here.
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  Today we are taking you back about 0300 years or so to a
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  controversy that might sound purely academic.
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  It definitely sounds that way on the surface.
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  But it actually governs so much of how we understand human
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  nature, responsibility, and even salvation.
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  We're looking at a battle fought by Jonathan Edwards, one of the
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  most brilliant minds in American history.
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  And it all hangs on one seemingly simple question.
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  What does it mean for the will to be truly free?
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  That's right. For those of you listening, this
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  is really a master class in philosophical warfare.
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  Edwards wasn't just, you know, engaging in some minor debate.
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  He correctly saw this specific controversy, the definition of
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  the will as the linchpin. The linchpin for what?
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  For everything, it either upholds or completely demolishes
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  the orthodox doctrine of original sin.
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  If you change this definition, the entire building of Christian
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  theology, at least as the Reformers understood it, just
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  falls over. OK, so let's set the scene.
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  The target for the opposition was original sin.
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  They were trying to completely get rid of the idea that a
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  condition, you know, an inherited nature, could be
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  sinful. Right.
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  But to do that, they had to go for the foundation first.
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  They had to attack the will. And that's what we're digging
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  into. We want to uncover why Edwards
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  saw this as the hinge that almost all Christian doctrine
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  swing on. Our sources show Edwards was
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  taking on a theological movement and he represents them with a
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  figure he just calls Doctor T. And Doctor T was trying to make
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  man the autonomous self originating cause of his own
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  moral status. So our mission today is to
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  unpack this opposing definition of freedom.
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  They called it self determination, this idea of
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  radical autonomy. And then, and this is the really
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  fascinating part, to analyze Edwards logical arguments that
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  show why this position is just riddled with crippling self
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  contradictions. It all comes down to a core high
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  stakes question, a question that you can still hear in
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  discussions about blame and justice today.
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  And that question is, can a condition, a disposition, be
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  called sinful or blameworthy if it's inherited, if it's
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  unavoidable, and if it didn't come from a specific choice that
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  you made? Let's.
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  Start with some context. I mean, terms like Pelagian and
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  Armenian can often just sound like, you know, historical
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  jargon. So who were Edwards opponents
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  really, and what was their big goal?
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  Edwards puts them into 3 buckets.
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  Basically you have the ancient Pelagians, the later Armenians,
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  and then the modern divines of his own day.
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  And what did they all have in common?
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  They all shared a very high view of humanity's natural moral
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  ability, especially when it came to the will.
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  The ancient Pelagians, for example.
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  They argue that humans are born morally neutral, like a blank
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  slate. So from birth we're perfectly
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  capable of choosing good without any kind of special divine help,
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  and sin is always just the specific choice we make later
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  on. That's the core of the Pelagian
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  heritage, yes. Arminianism, which came later,
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  Sauce of that a little bit. They'd often talk about a kind
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  of preventing grace or common grace.
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  But they kept the main idea. They kept the central principle
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  that the human will must have the ultimate self determining
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  power to accept or reject to God.
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  Otherwise, they argued, man isn't morally responsible for
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  them. Accountability required the
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  power to choose otherwise. And Edwards points to this
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  figure, Doctor T, as a major proponent of this view.
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  Now, Edwards used the pseudonym because he wanted to focus on
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  the argument, not the man. But we have a good idea of who
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  he was talking about. Oh yes, the critique was aimed
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  at prominent voices in the Armenian camp at the time,
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  people like Daniel Whitby, who is very influential in arguing
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  against the Reformed position. Doctor T was an aggressive
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  critic of the Orthodox consensus.
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  And Edwards noted that this idea of freedom, this was their grand
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  favorite point. It was the single most
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  fundamental piece of their entire religious system.
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  They really believe that if you could just prove this one
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  definition of freedom, everything else they taught just
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  followed naturally. And this is where it gets really
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  interesting, I think, especially for us today.
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  Edwards saw that the implications went way beyond the
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  church. He suggested that the arguments
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  the Armenians were using would also build a strong fortress for
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  the Deists. Why would that be?
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  How would a theological argument about grace help deism?
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  Well, deists believed in a clockmaker God who doesn't
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  intervene. They often rejected things like
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  special revelation or miracles because they seem to contradict
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  human reason. I see.
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  So if Doctor T's definition of freedom is true, if morality
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  requires total human autonomy, then a lot of doctrines that
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  Edwards believe were plainly taught in Scripture start to
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  look unreasonable. Doctrines like what?
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  Like sovereign election or efficacious grace, those
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  doctrines seem to contradict this philosophical idea of
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  what's fair for a moral agent. Edward saw them throwing out
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  scriptures plain teaching on human depravity in favor of a
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  man made standard of reason. So they were specifically going
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  after the official reform standards.
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  The main target was a proposition from the Assembly of
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  Divines, the writers of the Westminster Standards.
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  And that proposition states that man is by nature utterly
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  corrupt. This standard teaches that the
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  corruption is so deep it affects the whole person, including the
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  will, making him unable to choose spiritual good on his
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  own. And Doctor T's response to this?
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  He was not subtle. He explicitly declared the
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  Westminster proposition to be false, just straight up false.
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  And he felt totally justified because his whole framework,
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  this idea of self determination, just had no room for the idea of
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  a natural inherited corruption. Which brings us right to the
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  point of conflict. Why couldn't he accept it?
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  Doctor T argued that sins simply cannot be natural or necessary.
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  This is the heart of the whole thing.
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  The Orthodox Reformed view is that a sinful disposition is
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  part of our nature at birth. It's what we inherit from Adam,
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  a state often called habitual depravity.
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  And if that state is natural, Doctor T says that means it's
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  necessary. It's unavoidable, something we
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  can't help. Exactly, and for him the
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  conclusion is obvious. If it's necessary, then it
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  cannot be sin and we can't be blamed for it.
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  Doctor T just sees it as illogical and unjust to assign
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  moral guilt or condemnation to a condition if that condition is
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  inherent and unchosen. It's like punishing a stone for
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  falling. That's a perfect analogy.
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  He's saying it's a category error, and that sets the stage
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  perfectly for the key battle, which is all about definitions.
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  To really get why Doctor T's objection felt so powerful to
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  his followers, and frankly, why it's still so appealing to many
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  people today, we have to drill down into his foundational
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  premise, this specific radical definition of freedom he
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  required. OK, let's spend some time here,
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  because, as you said, Edwards himself claimed that there's no
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  one thing more fundamental to the whole Armenian system than
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  this definition of the will. If they lose this point, they
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  lose everything. So let's unpack it slowly.
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  They define the freedom of the will as consisting in the wills
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  self determination. What does that actually mean?
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  It means the will is like an independent autonomous agent.
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  It has its own power to determine its own acts without
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  being determined by anything else, external or internal.
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  So not determined by motives or your own inclinations.
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  Right. Not by previous motives, not by
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  inclinations, not for the any antecedent, 'cause when the will
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  acts, it acts because it chose to act, period.
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  And it could have chosen otherwise, no matter what came
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  before. So the wing in just following
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  the strongest desire it has, it's actually creating the
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  desire for its own action. It's radically sovereign over
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  its own choices. That's a great way to put it.
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  And this self determining power, they assert, is absolutely
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  essential to moral agency. Doctor T and his allies claimed
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  it was quote necessary to the very existence of virtue and
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  sin. In other words, if an act is
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  caused by some prior necessity, or if it just flows out of a
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  necessary state of being, it loses its moral quality.
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  Completely. It just becomes a natural event,
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  like the tides rolling in without this specific type of
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  freedom. The ability to choose
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  independently of any internal necessity and act can't be good
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  or evil. It's just a predictable,
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  unblameworthy motion. And that leaves right to their
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  key principle. Nothing can be but what proceeds
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  from our choice. That is their non negotiable
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  line in the sand. Moral fault demands an active
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  chosen volition. You can't be blamed for a
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  passive state of being or an inherited condition.
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  Guilt needs the signature of a self determined choice.
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  Let's use that legal analogy again.
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  Imagine a court system where blame is strictly tied to
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  voluntariness. You can't be fined for your
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  height or your eye color or for having a genetic disease you
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  were born with. Right, because you didn't choose
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  those things. So Doctor T applies that exact
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  rule to the soul being born with a corrupt nature.
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  A state you didn't choose is morally irrelevant.
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  Guilt only starts the moment the will, which was previously
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  neutral, actively and independently chooses a corrupt
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  act. The whole framework is built in
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  direct opposition to the idea of necessity or unavoidability.
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  Since the Orthodox Reformed position says the disposition to
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  sin is there at birth, Doctor Chief says Well then that sin is
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  natural and therefore necessary. And the conclusion for them is
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  logically bulletproof. If sin is necessary, it cannot
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  be sin, and that's how they can just declare the assembly of
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  Divine's proposition to be false.
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  Right. They aren't arguing that man
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  doesn't sin. They're arguing that the state
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  of being born corrupt can't qualify a sin because it's
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  unavoidable. Edward saw this immediately.
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  He saw the strategic stakes. He even conceded that if this
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  particular peculiar notion of freedom, this radical self
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  determining will, could be established, it would give his
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  opponents an impregnable castle. It would make them logically
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  invincible against the doctrines of grace.
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  Let's trace that out. If the will determines itself,
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  that creates a huge problem for the idea of God's sovereignty
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  and salvation. So how does changing this one
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  definition undermine the rest of Reformed theology?
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  It's a domino effect. First, if sin has to be chosen,
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  then original sin, the inherited corruption, is gone.
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  Man starts out neutral, or at least close to it.
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  Second, if man starts neutral, he must have the natural
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  autonomous ability to choose good.
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  Third, if he chooses good autonomously, then his
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  conversion is kicked off by his own self determined choice, not
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  by God's exclusive efficacious grace.
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  Which means doctrines like the sovereignty of grace and
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  election are just subverted if the difference between one
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  person being saved and another being lost is just the
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  autonomous choice of the human will.
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  The grace isn't sovereign, it's just enabling.
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  Man becomes the deciding factor, the efficacious operation of the
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  Holy Spirit, which the Reformed position sees as this necessary,
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  very divine intervention to make a dead will alive.
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  That becomes unnecessary, or at least it can't be compulsory.
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  So the Holy Spirit can only persuade or enable, but the
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  final decision has to be left to the uncaused choice of man.
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  Correct. And that shifts the credit, the
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  true initiative for salvation, from God to man.
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  This is why Edwards said that settling this one point governs
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  the outcome of almost every theological controversy.
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  It's the keystone holding their entire system up.
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  So if Edwards wants to defend the orthodox position that we're
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  born corrupt and we need sovereign grace, he can't just
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  argue about original sin. He has to 1st go and destroy
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  their definition of the self determining will.
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  And that's exactly what he does. Let's quickly review the
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  specific arguments Dr. T used to tear down that Westminster
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  proposition because seeing how confident he was is key to
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  appreciating Edward's counterattack.
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  Right. Doctor T was very insistent on
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  where blame must reside. He argues that the cause alone
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  is chargeable with blame, not the effect.
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  This is central. It's his way of making sure that
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  moral responsibility only sticks to acts of will.
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  If a man has a corrupt nature that he didn't choose, that's
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  the effect. He can't be blamed for it.
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  He can only be blamed for the specific active, self determined
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  choice, the cause that leads to a bad action.
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  Let's go back to that self driving car analogy.
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  Dr. T is basically saying that if the car crashes, you can only
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  blame the programmer who wrote the code, or you could blame the
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  car if it decided to rewrite its own code.
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  That's the self determination part.
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  Right, but if the crash was just due to factory installed
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  necessary code and inherited flaw, then the crash itself is
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  innocent. The only thing you can blame is
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  the original choice to install that code.
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  And since we didn't choose our inherited nature, that corrupted
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  nature can't be our sin. And this argument from necessity
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  is the one he leans on the most. According to Edwards, Dr. T
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  insists more upon the argument from necessity than any other.
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  And the logic flows like this one.
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  If a disposition is natural or inherited, it's necessary,
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  unavoidable. 2. If it's necessary, it can't be a
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  fault, because fault requires choice three.
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  Therefore, original sin has to be rejected.
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  And to tie it all up, Doctor T dogmatically asserts that sin
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  has to originate from a disobedient will.
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  Meaning there's no such thing as a passive, inherited sin, He
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  says Adam's sin came from his disobedient will and quote.
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  So must every man's sin and all the sin in the world be.
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  Every single sin has to trace his lineage back to a preceding
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  self determined choice. If it didn't come from a chosen
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  disobedient will, it's not sin. Period.
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  And this creates a system that seems on the surface, very
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  tight, very rational. But Edwards argues that this
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  rational system is wound so tightly around its own narrow
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  definitions that it just starts to choke itself.
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  His counter critique is so brilliant because he doesn't
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  just reject the conclusion, he shows that the very premises Dr.
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  T uses are contradictory. He makes it impossible for their
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  own system to explain moral reality.
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  Exactly. And this is where it gets really
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  interesting. Edwards stops defending and goes
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  on the attack, laying siege to Doctor T's fortress of self
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  determination by exposing 3 growth inconsistencies.
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  Right before Doctor T went about declaring the Orthodox view
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  false, Edwards says he really should have checked to see if
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  his own system was collapsing under its own internal strain.
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  And these aren't small flaws. They're contradictions that
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  destroy the very definition of moral agency they were trying to
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  build. Let's start with the first one.
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  This one deals with separating the moral quality of the choice,
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  the cause, from the moral quality of the action that
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  results from it, the effect. Doctor T tried to split.
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  Them apart and Edward shows that's logically impossible.
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  OK, so let's review Doctor T's two non negotiable claims again.
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  Claim A Nothing is sinful unless it proceeds from our choice.
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  That's the effect. Right and claim B.
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  The cause alone is chargeable with blame, not the effect.
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  So if we accept claim B that only the choice, the cause, is
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  blameworthy, then the effect of that choice, whether it's
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  telling a lie or a resulting state of depravity, can't
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  actually be sinful. But wait a minute.
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  If the effect isn't sinful, then how can the choice that produces
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  the effect be blameworthy? I choose to lift my hand.
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  The effect is my hand moving. That choice is neutral unless
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  the effect is morally relevant. Like choosing to lift my hand to
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  strike someone. Exactly.
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  The choice to lift your hand only becomes wicked because
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  striking the person's wicked. If the resulting action the
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  effect isn't morally blamable, then the self determining choice
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  that produced it is just a neutral action.
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  Edwards reduction here is just paralyzing.
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  If only the cause is to blame, the effect is innocent.
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  But if the effect is innocent, the cause is just a neutral
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  motion and is also innocent. Sin just vanishes.
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  He summarized the contradiction perfectly.
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  He said nothing can be sinful but the effective choice, and
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  yet the effective choice never can be sinful but only the
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  cause. The logic demands that sin
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  exists only in the effect, the action, but responsibility
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  exists only in the cause, the choice.
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  By splitting them, Doctor T makes it impossible for sin to
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  exist under his own definition. He's created a system that
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  logically removes guilt from the world.
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  Let's use that arsonist analogy again.
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  Doctor T is saying the crime is only the volition to strike the
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  match, the cause. And Edwards points out that if
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  the resulting fire, the destruction, the damage is
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  declared innocent because it's just an effect, then striking
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  the match is an arson is just lighting a stick.
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  It's only a wicked choice because the result is wicked.
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  You cannot hold on to the moral quality of the cause while
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  stripping it from the effect. They're tied together.
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  By insisting on separating them, Doctor T collapses moral
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  accountability itself. Wow, OK, that's the first one.
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  What about the second inconsistency?
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  This one seems like Edwards's most powerful blow because it
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  prevents Dr. TS system from even getting started.
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  It does. It attacks the very origin of
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  sin within the self determination framework.
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  The premise Dr. T holds is simple.
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  If a choice is sinful, it has to come from a previous self
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  determined choice to be blameworthy.
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  Why? Because sin must always come
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  from choice, and that choice must be the cause.
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  So if I make a sinful choice right now, that choice must have
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  been caused by a prior sinful disposition, which in turn must
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  have been caused by a prior self determined choice to adopt that
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  disposition. Precisely.
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  The logical chain has to go backward.
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  This sinful choice came from an earlier sinful choice, which
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  came from an even earlier 1, and so on.
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  But I can't go on forever. It has to eventually reach a
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  prime or original act of choice in the sequence the very first
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  volition toward evil. And here comes the checkmate.
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  This very first act, by definition, cannot proceed from
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  a previous choice. It's the beginning, since
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  there's no prior choice to 'cause it.
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  Edwards notes that it is quote necessary as to us, or at least
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  it's not caused by a choice. Oh, and if we apply Doctor TS
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  own fundamental rule to this original act, the rule that if
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  it's necessary or uncaused by a choice, it cannot be sin.
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  Then the origin point of all evil must be declared innocent.
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  That's the breakdown. It is Doctor TS system needs sin
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  to have a chosen origin, but the origin itself, by the structure
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  of the argument, cannot be chosen.
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  So the ultimate foundation of all subsequent evil under their
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  own system has to be innocent. If the source of the river isn't
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  wet, how can the river be wet? If the first act of will toward
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  evil is innocent, how can any subsequent act that flows from
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  it be guilty? That is genuinely paralyzing.
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  So if sin can't start with a blameworthy act, it can't exist
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  at all. According to their own rules,
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  they successfully protect man from inherited sin, but only by
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  making the initial responsible act of sin logically impossible
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  to begin. With Edwards analysis just
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  showed that the self determining will, defined as a choice
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  uncaused by any prior inclination or necessity, is a
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  fiction. It requires an uncaused cause
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  for moral evil and then immediately argues that this
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  uncaused cause can't be sin because it wasn't caused by a
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  choice. The system eats itself.
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  So what's the third inconsistency?
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  This one you said is about the internal state of the Sinner
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  before where the sin happens. That's right, and this is where
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  Edwards points out that Doctor T is forced to make concessions
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  about human nature that directly violate his core argument
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  against original sin. It's focused on Adam's first
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  sin. Doctor T had to explain how
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  Adam, who supposedly started out morally neutral, fell.
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  And what was his explanation? Doctor T asserted that Adam
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  could not sin without a sinful inclination or a disobedient
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  will existing beforehand. This inclination is what
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  produced the act of choice. That sounds reasonable enough.
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  I mean, no one chooses something without an inclination toward
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  it, right? But for Doctor T, this admission
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  is lethal. He even concedes that the moral
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  law forbids these latent principles of sin.
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  Wait. If a latent principle of sin, a
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  sinful inclination, is forbidden by the moral law, then it is by
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  definition sinful. Exactly.
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  And Edwards immediately asks the crushing question, If the sinful
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  inclination exists before the sinful act, how did the man get
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  it? Doctor T insisted that all sin
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  must proceed from a self determined choice.
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  But if this inclination precedes the first choice, it cannot be
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  the result of that choice. It has to be an antecedent
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  unchosen state. Which is the direct
• 19:53
  contradiction. It is if this inclination does
• 19:56
  not proceed from a choice, it violates Dr. T's foundational
• 19:59
  rule that nothing can be sinful without proceeding from a chosen
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  act. Doctor T is forced to admit that
• 20:05
  necessary unchosen dispositions, these latent principles, can be
• 20:09
  sinful principles, and that directly undermines his entire
• 20:13
  objection to original sin. So he argues against the
• 20:16
  sinfulness of an inherited nature on the grounds that it's
• 20:18
  necessary and unchosen. But then he admits that Adam's
• 20:21
  first sin required a necessary unchosen sinful inclination to
• 20:25
  exist first. He's applying two different
• 20:26
  standards, one for the inherited nature of all humanity and
• 20:30
  another for the internal state of the first human.
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  That's precisely Edwards's point.
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  Doctor's scheme requires him to say that nature, if unchosen,
• 20:38
  can't be sinful. But then he has to concede that
• 20:40
  sin requires A sinful nature to exist before the choice happens.
• 20:44
  The internal logic just fails. Edwards argues that Doctor's
• 20:47
  doctrine is therefore philosophically false and that
• 20:50
  any impartial judge, seeing the impossibility of this definition
• 20:53
  of moral agency, has to reject the Armenian platform.
• 20:57
  It's so clear that Edwards wasn't just debating scripture
• 21:00
  here. He was using pure logic to show
• 21:02
  that the Pelagian Armenian view of freedom doesn't just disagree
• 21:06
  with the Bible, it makes moral life itself unintelligible.
• 21:10
  It does. It creates A moral agent who has
• 21:12
  to be radically autonomous to be responsible, yet who in that
• 21:17
  radical economy is incapable of initiating the the very first
• 21:20
  blameworthy ACT necessary to account for sins existence in
• 21:23
  the world. It's an exercise in futility.
• 21:26
  So we've established that this conflict over original sin is
• 21:29
  really at its root a conflict over the definition of freedom.
• 21:32
  The self determination view tries to create a moral agent
• 21:35
  who is totally divorced from any necessary inherited state.
• 21:38
  They're trying to make man autonomous in the origin of his
• 21:41
  own sin. And conversely, Edwards
• 21:44
  understood that if the will is determined by the strongest
• 21:47
  motive or inclination, and if man is born with a necessary
• 21:50
  inherent inclination toward evil, then conversion must be a
• 21:53
  sovereign act of God to change that inclination.
• 21:56
  The will is still free in a sense.
• 21:58
  Yes, free in the sense that it acts according to its strongest
• 22:01
  desire, but its desire, its nature, is corrupted.
• 22:05
  This definition of the will really is the peace holding the
• 22:08
  entire theological structure together.
• 22:10
  If you alter this one piece defining freedom as radical
• 22:13
  autonomy, the whole structure of Reformed doctrines from how we
• 22:17
  understand guilt to how we see divine rescue, it all just
• 22:20
  collapses, right? If the will determines itself,
• 22:23
  then we don't need efficacious grace, we just need persuasive
• 22:26
  encouragement. If sin must be chosen, then we
• 22:29
  aren't born lost. We just make bad choices and
• 22:31
  we're capable of making good ones.
• 22:33
  This historical discussion is so relevant for today.
• 22:36
  It shows you that these abstract theological definitions have
• 22:40
  radical practical effects on how we understand our nature, our
• 22:44
  guilt, and our need for rescue. I mean, whenever you hear modern
• 22:48
  discussions about moral failure or the nature of human evil,
• 22:52
  you're hearing echoes of this 18th century debate.
• 22:55
  Is evil something inherent, or is it always just a series of
• 22:58
  poor choices? Exactly.
• 23:00
  Understanding this battleground helps you identify the core
• 23:03
  conflict in any religious or philosophical discussion about
• 23:07
  human nature. It forces a decision.
• 23:09
  Does freedom lie in the ability to choose without necessity,
• 23:12
  which is the Armenian position? Or does freedom lie in the
• 23:15
  ability to choose according to one's inclination, even if that
• 23:18
  inclination is necessarily corrupt, which is the Edwards
• 23:21
  position? Edwards admitted that his
• 23:23
  opponent's view of the will, if it could be logically
• 23:25
  established, would be an impregnable castle against
• 23:28
  reformed theology. But he showed through rigorous
• 23:31
  logic that their castle was built on sand and internal
• 23:34
  contradictions. He made their premises
• 23:36
  impossible to hold. Which leaves us with a final
• 23:38
  thought to Mull over. It does.
• 23:41
  If moral fault must proceed from a self determined choice, as
• 23:45
  Doctor T insists, then the source of all good choices must
• 23:48
  also be self determined. This raises a huge question
• 23:52
  about God's grace. If we need salvation because we
• 23:55
  are incapable of choosing good, but moral responsibility
• 23:58
  requires autonomous choice, what does this say about the nature
• 24:02
  of God's grace if that grace has to somehow intervene before the
• 24:05
  will makes its first truly good choice?
• 24:07
  So we'll leave you with a challenge.
• 24:09
  Consider whether true freedom is simply the ability to choose
• 24:12
  without compulsion, or whether true freedom is the restored
• 24:15
  ability to choose what is truly good and ability.
• 24:17
  Edwards would argue only sovereign, effectual grace can
• 24:20
  restore.