“…she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat… and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons… And the Lord God called unto Adam… ‘Where art thou?’ And he said, ‘…I hid myself.’… Unto the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception… And unto Adam He said, ‘…cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life…’… Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden…”
Gen. 3:6-10, 16-17, 23
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:”
Rom. 5:12
.
.
Order of Contents
Intro
Westminster
On Mediate Imputation
Proponents
Moderates
Contra
.
.
Intro
This view is not recommended. More will be forthcoming.
.
.
Mediate Imputation in Relation to the Westminster Standards
Order of Quotes
Cunningham
C. Hodge
Warfield
.
1800’s
William Cunningham
The Reformers & the Theology of the Reformation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1862), ‘Calvin & Beza’, p. 382
“It has been made a question among the Presbyterians of the United States, though we do not remember that the point has been mooted in this country, whether the Westminster Confession condemns the view of Placæus; and the general opinion there seems to be, that there is nothing in the Confession so precise and definite as to make it unwarrantable for one who believes only in mediate and consequent imputation to subscribe it.
The leading statement upon the subject is this (ch. 5, section 3):
“They (our first parents) being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.”
Now this statement, read in the light of the discussions which Placæus occasioned, is certainly vague and indefinite, and resembles much more closely the deliverances given on this subject in the Confession of the sixteenth century than that embodied in the Consensus [Formula Helvetica] of 1675. The Confession was completed about the end of 1646, not quite two years after the [French] National Synod of Charenton. It is probable that the members of the Assembly were not yet much acquainted with the discussions which had been going on in France, and were in consequence not impressed with the necessity of being minute and precise in their deliverance upon this subject.
It is a curious circumstance, that both in the Larger and the Shorter Catechisms, there are statements upon this point more full and explicit, and more distinctly exclusive of the views of Placæus. The Larger Catechism (Q. 22) says:
“The covenant being made with Adam, as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation sinned in him, and fell with him, in that first transgression;”
and both Catechisms, more distinctly than the Confession, represent the guilt of Adam’s first sin as the first, and in some sense the leading, element in the sinfulness of man’s natural condition. More than a year elapsed between the completion of the Confession and that of the Catechisms; and we think it by no means unlikely, though we are not aware of any actual historical evidence bearing upon the point, that during this interval the members of the Assembly may have got fuller information concerning the bearing of the discussions going on in France, and that this may have led them to bring out somewhat more fully and explicitly in the Catechisms the views which, in common with the great body of Calvinistic divines, they undoubtedly entertained about the imputation of Adam’s sin. Every one who has read Placæus’s book will see, that he would, without hesitation, have subscribed the statement in the Confession, but that he would have had extreme difficulty in devising any plausible pretence for concurring in what has been quoted from the Larger Catechism.†”
† [The last sentence may be true of Placaeus, though this should be confirmed, but numerous other theologians either holding to mediate imputation, or sympathetic with it, could affirm what Larger Catechism Q. 22 affirms.]
.
Charles Hodge
‘Retrospect of the History of the Princeton Review’ in The Biblical Repertory & Princeton Review: Index Volume (Philadelphia: Peter Walker, 1870–1871), pp. 22–23
“It is not enough that a doctrine be erroneous, or that it be dangerous in its tendency; if it be not subversive of one or more of the constituent elements of the Reformed faith, it is not incompatible with the honest adoption of our Confession. It cannot be denied that ever since the Reformation, more or less diversity in the statement and explanation of the doctrines of Calvinism has prevailed in the Reformed Churches. It is equally notorious that for fifty or sixty years such diversities have existed and been tolerated in our own church; nay, that they still exist, and are avowed by Old-school men.
If a man holds that all mankind, since the fall of Adam, and in consequence of his sin, are born in a state of condemnation and sin, whether he accounts for that fact on the ground of immediate or mediate imputation, or on the realistic theory, he was regarded as within the integrity of the system. In like manner, if he admitted the sinner’s inability, it was not considered as a proper ground of discipline that he regarded that inability as moral, instead of natural as well as moral…
We do not say that the diversities above referred to are unimportant. We regard many of them as of great importance. All we say is, that they have existed, and been tolerated in the purest Calvinistic churches, our own among the rest.”
.
B.B. Warfield
‘Imputation’, ‘6. La Place & Later Theologians & Schools’
“It [mediate imputation] was adopted by theologians like Wyttenbach, Endemann, Stapfer, Roell, Vitringa, Venema; and after a while it found its way through Britain to America, where it has had an interesting history — forming one of the stages through which the New England Theology (q.v.) passed on its way to its ultimate denial of the quality of sin involving guilt to anything but the voluntary acts of a free agent; and finally becoming one of the characteristic tenets of the so-called ‘New School Theology’ of the Presbyterian Churches [which were governed by the Westminster Confession and catechisms].”
.
.
On the History & View of Mediate Imputation
Order of Contents
Articles
Book
Quote
French Synods
America
Latin
.
Articles
1800’s
Cunningham, William – pp. 379-90 in The Reformers & the Theology of the Reformation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1862), ‘Calvin & Beza’
Cunningham interprets Stapfer as holding to mediate imputation (pp. 383-84); Shedd below provides quotes that Stapfer upheld an immediate imputation (p. 164 fn.).
Shedd, William G.T. – pp. 158-66 in A History of Christian Doctrine 15th ed. (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1863), vol. 2, ch. 7, ‘Anthropology of the Reformers’
Shedd provides quotes that Stapfer and Jonathan Edwards upheld an immediate imputation (p. 164 fn.).
Dabney, Robert L. – pp. 340-34 of Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1972) at Calvin & Calvinism
Dabney draws upon Stapfer and argues against Charles Hodge.
.
1900’s
Warfield, B.B. – ‘6. La Place & Later Theologians & Schools’ in ‘Imputation’ in ch. 10, Studies in Theology
Berkhof, Louis – pp. 153-54 & 157 in History of Christian Doctrines (1937; Banner of Truth, 1969), chs. 4-5
.
2000’s
Storms, Sam – ‘Mediate or Immediate Imputation?’ (2009) 30 paragraphs
Storms, largely following the lead of John Murray, analyzes especially Jonathan Edwards on Original Sin.
Taylor, Matt – ‘The Mediate View of Imputation of Sin’ (2016) 3 paragraphs
Taylor concisely summarizes the view from three secondary sources: C. Hodge, A.H. Strong and J. Miley.
.
Book
2000’s
Jenkins, David Llewellyn – Saumur Redux: Josué de la Place & the Question of Adam’s Sin Ref (Leaping Cat Press, 2008) 62 pp.
Jenkins is supportive of la Place’s teaching. Here is a helpful review of the pamphlet by Stephen Hampton.
.
Quote
William Cunningham
Historical Theology 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1863), vol. 1, pp. 510-11
“Those, then, who hold the Calvinistic view of the state of the case with respect to the moral character and condition of men, may not unreasonably be asked whether they can give any other account of the origin, or any explanation of the cause, of this fearful state of things. Now, in the history of the discussions which have taken place upon this subject, we can trace four pretty distinct courses which have been taken by theologians who all admitted the total native depravity of mankind:
First, some have refused to attempt any explanation of the state of the case, beyond the general statement that Scripture represents it as in some way or other connected with, and resulting from, the fall of Adam, and have denied, expressly or by plain implication, the common Calvinistic doctrine of imputation.
A second class, comprehending the great body of Calvinistic divines, have regarded it as, in some measure and to some extent, explained by the principle of its being a penal infliction upon men, resulting from the imputation to them of the guilt of Adam’s first sin.
A third class, while refusing to admit in words the doctrine of imputation, as commonly stated by orthodox divines, have yet put forth such views of the connection between Adam and his posterity, and of the bearing of his first sin upon them, as embody the sum and substance of all, or almost all, that the avowed defenders of the doctrine of imputation intend by it.
And, lastly, there is a fourth class, who, while professing in words to hold the doctrine of the imputation of Adam’s sin, yet practically and substantially neutralize it or explain it away, especially by means of a distinction they have devised between immediate or antecedent, and mediate or consequent imputation—denying the former, which is the only true and proper imputation, and admitting only the latter.
It is quite plain that it is only the first two of these four divisions of theological opinion that can be regarded as important, or even real and substantial. For, on the one hand, those who belong to the third class… may yet be really ranked under the second class, because they admit the whole substance of what the doctrine of imputation is usually understood to include or involve; while, on the other hand, those who belong to the fourth class, admitting imputation in words, but denying it in reality and substance, belong properly to the first class.”
.
French Reformed National Synods
Quotes
ed. John Quick,Synodicon in Gallia reformata, or, The Acts, Decisions, Decrees & Canons of those Famous National Councils of the Reformed Churches in France (London: Parkhurst, 1692)
Synod 28, of Charenton, 1644-1645, ch. 14, 10. Article of General Matters, pp. 473-74
“There was a report made in the synod of a certain writing, both printed and manuscript, holding forth this doctrine, that the whole nature of original sin consisted only in that corruption, which is hereditary to all Adam’s posterity, and residing originally in all men, and denies the imputation of his first sin. This synod condemns the said doctrine as far as it restrains the nature of original sin to the sole hereditary corruption of Adam’s posterity, to the excluding of the imputation of that first sin by which he fell, and interdicts on pain of all Church-censures all pastors, professors, and others, who shall treat of this question, to depart from the common received opinion of the Protestant Churches, who (over and besides that corruption) have all acknowledged the imputation of Adam’s first sin unto his posterity. And all synods and colloquies, who shall hereafter proceed to the reception of scholars into the holy ministry, are obliged to see them sign and subscribe this present act.”
.
Synod 29, of Loudun, 1659-1660, ch. 8, Observations upon reading the last National Synod of Charenton, 1644, p. 532
“11. On reading that article of the last national synod concerning Original Sin, diverse provinces demanding with great importunity that this Assembly would be pleased to moderate it; this decree was made, That for the future all pastors and proposans who should offer themselves unto the holy ministry, shall be only obliged to subscribe unto the Tenth and Eleventh Article of the Confession of Faith held by all the Reformed Churches of this Kingdom; and in the mean while all persons are forbidden to preach or print anything against the imputation mentioned by the said synod in that article before named, nor shall anything more or less be changed in it.”
[Confession of Faith (1559), “Article 10: We believe that all the offspring of Adam are infected with the contagion of Original Sin; which is a vice hereditary to us by propagation, and not only by imitation, as the Pelagians asserted, whose errors are detested by us. Nor do we think it necessary to inquire how this sin comes to be derived from one unto another: For it is sufficient that those things which God gave to Adam were not given to him alone, but also to all his posterity; and therefore we, in his person, being deprived of all those good Gifts, are fallen into this poverty and malediction.
Article 11: We believe that this stain of Original Sin, is sin indeed; for it has that mischievous power in it as to condemn all mankind, even infants that are unborn, as yet in their mother’s womb, and God Himself does account it such; yea, and that even after baptism, as to the filth thereof, it is always sin. Howbeit, they who are the children of God shall never be condemned for it, because that God, of his rich grace and sovereign mercy, does not impute it to them. Moreover, we say, that it is such a depravedness as does continually produce the fruits of malice and rebellion against God; so that even the choicest of God’s saints, although they do resist it, yet are they defiled with very many infirmities and offences, so long as they live in this world.”]
.
In America
Quote
B.B. Warfield
‘Imputation’, ‘6. La Place & Later Theologians & Schools’
“La Place’s innovation was as a matter of course condemned by the Reformed world, formally at the Synod of Charenton (1644-1645) and in the Helvetic Consensus (1675) and by argument at the hands of the leading theologians — Rivetus, Turretin, Maresius, Driessen, Leydecker, and Marck.
But the tendencies of the time were in its favor and it made its way. It was adopted by theologians like Wyttenbach, Endemann, Stapfer, Roell, Vitringa, Venema; and after a while it found its way through Britain to America, where it has had an interesting history — forming one of the stages through which the New England Theology (q.v.) passed on its way to its ultimate denial of the quality of sin involving guilt to anything but the voluntary acts of a free agent; and finally becoming one of the characteristic tenets of the so-called “New School Theology” of the Presbyterian Churches.
Thus it has come about that there has been much debate in America upon “imputation,” in the sense of the imputation of Adam’s sin, and diverse types of theology have been framed, especially among the Congregationalists and Presbyterians, centering in differences of conception of this doctrine. Among the Presbyterians, for example, four such types are well marked, each of which has been taught by theologians of distinction. These are
(1) the ‘Federalistic,’ characterized by its adherence to the doctrine of ‘immediate imputation,’ represented, for example, by Dr. Charles Hodge;
(2) the ‘New School,’ characterized by its adherence to the doctrine of ‘mediate imputation,’ represented, for example, by Dr. Henry B. Smith;
(3) the ‘Realistic,’ which teaches that all mankind were present in Adam as generic humanity, and sinned in him, and are therefore guilty of his and their common sin, represented, for example, by Dr. W. G. T. Shedd; and
(4) one which may be called the ‘Agnostic,’ characterized by an attempt to accept the fact of the transmission of both guilt and depravity from Adam without framing a theory of the mode of their transmission or of their relations one to the other, represented, for example, by Dr. R. W. Landis.”
.
Latin Articles
1700’s
Vitringa, Sr., Campegius – pp. 347-54 in The Doctrine of the Christian Religion, Summarily Described through Aphorisms (d. 1722)
On the history of the issue, see pp. 352-54.
De Moor, Bernard – ch. 15, section 32 in A Continuous Commentary on John Marck’s Compendium of Didactic & Elenctic Christian Theology (Leiden, 1761-71), vol. 3, pp. 260-87
.
.
Proponents
Order of Contents
Articles
Latin
.
Articles
1600’s
Baxter, Richard – pp. 144-49 & 172-79 of Two Disputations of Original Sin (London: Robert Gibbs, 1675) at Calvin & Calvinism
Baxter defends mediate imputation and argues against immediate imputation. Baxter’s discussion, set in the purpose of a different question, is complex and polemical, and therein difficult.
.
1700’s
ed. Heppe, Heinrich – pp. 333-34 of Reformed Dogmatics ed. Bizer, trans. Thomson (1950; Wipf & Stock, 2007)
Heppe (d. 1879) says that the most famous opponent of the “prevalent view”, that is of “direct imputation,” besides Placaeus, was Daniel Whitby (d. 1726; an Anglican Arminian, later with Unitarian tendencies). Samuel Endemann (1727-1789) was a professor at Marburg, Germany, in the reformed tradition. Heppe provides his list of five arguments typically given for direct imputation, which Endemann then refutes by number.
See Heppe’s larger context on original sin and imputation (pp. 330-36), which favors immediate imputation.
Venema, Herman – pp. 517-32 in Translation of Hermann Venema’s inedited Institutes of Theology tr. Alexander W. Brown (d. 1787; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1850), ch. 31, Effects of the Fall
Venema gives the most detailed defense of mediate imputation in English, it appears.
.
1800’s
Smith, Henry Boynton – ch. 7, ‘Of So-Called Mediate Imputation’ & p. 325 in System of Christian Theology (NY: A.C. Armstrong, 1884), pp. 314-323, 325 See also his larger discussion of Original Sin starting in ch. 4, p. 283. ToC
.
Latin
1600’s
de la Place, Joshua – A Disputation on the Imputation of Adam’s First Sin… (Salmur, 1655) 480 pp. ToC
.
1700’s
Wyttenbach
Roell
.
.
Moderates
Order of Contents
Article
Latin
.
Article
1800’s
Dabney, Robert L. – pp. 340-34 of Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1972) at Calvin & Calvinism
Dabney draws upon Stapfer and argues against Charles Hodge.
.
Latin Articles
Vitringa, Sr., Campegius – pp. 347-54 in The Doctrine of the Christian Religion, Summarily Described through Aphorisms (d. 1722)
Stapfer, Institutes of Polemical Theology, vol. 1, p. 236; vol. 4, pp. 513-14 & 561-66
.
.
Contra
Order of Contents
Articles 4
Quote 1
Latin 1
.
Articles
1600’s
Turretin, Francis – 9. ‘Whether the actual disobedience of Adam is imputed by an immediate and antecedent imputation to all his posterity springing from him by natural generation. We affirm.’ in Institutes of Elenctic Theology (P&R), vol. 1, 9th Topic, ‘Sin in General & in Particular’, pp. 613-29 See especially pp. 614-15, sections 5-6.
.
1800’s
Chalmers, Thomas
Lecture 25, p. 132 rt col to 133 top in Lectures on Romans (1863), on Rom. 5:12-21
Cunningham (Reformers, p. 384) says in this volume of Chalmers that he “gives some indications that he had adopted this doctrine” of mediate imputation. Yet it is not seen where, and in Chalmers’s linked section above, while at the beginning of the paragraph he seems that he may be calling an immediate imputation into question, yet by the end of the paragraph he is giving support to it.
Cunningham says (Ibid.) that in Chalmers’s Institutes, below, he “retracted his error;” yet, while Chalmers therein clearly teaches an immediate imputation, he never, that we have seen, said that he ever held otherwise.
pp. 454-59 & 465-69 in Institutes of Theology (Thomas Constable, 1849), vol. 1
Princeton – Theological Essays, vol. 1, pp. 146-
.
2000’s
Taylor, Matt – ‘Evaluation of Mediate Imputation’ (2016) 3 paragraphs
.
Quote
1600’s
Helvetic Consensus Formula 1675
“Canon 10: God entered into the Covenant of Works not only with Adam for himself, but also, in him as the head androot with the whole human race. Man would, by virtue of the blessing of the nature derived from Adam, inherit also the same perfection, provided he continued in it. So Adam by his sorrowful fall sinned and lost the benefits promised in the Covenant not only for himself, but also for the whole human race that would be born by the flesh. We hold, therefore, that the sin of Adam is imputed by the mysterious and just judgment of God to all his posterity. For the Apostle testifies that “in Adam all sinned, by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (Rom 5:12,19) and “in Adam all die” (I Cor 15:21–22). But there appears no way in which hereditary corruption could fall, as a spiritual death, upon the whole human race by the just judgment of God, unless some sin of that race preceded, incurring the penalty of that death. For God, the most supreme Judge of all the earth, punishes none but the guilty.
Canon 11: For a double reason, therefore, man, because of sin, is by nature, and hence from his birth, before committing any actual sin, exposed to God’s wrath and curse; first, on account of the transgression and disobedience which he committed in the loins of Adam; and, secondly, on account of the consequent hereditary corruption implanted to his very conception, whereby his whole nature is depraved and spiritually dead; so that original sin may rightly be regarded as twofold, imputed sin and inherent hereditary sin.
Canon 12: Accordingly we can not, without harm to the Divine truth, agree with those who deny that Adam represented his posterity by God’s intention, and that his sin is imputed, therefore, immediately to his posterity; and under this mediate and consequent imputation not only destroy the imputation of the first sin, but also expose the doctrine of hereditary corruption to grave danger.”
.
Latin
1600’s
Rivet, Andrew – The Decree of the National Synod of the Reformed Churches in France held at Charenton… 1644-1645, on the Imputation of the First Sin to all Adam’s Posterity, to which is annexed the Consensus of the Confessions of the Protestant Churches & Doctores which have flourished in them from the first Reformation, also the Consensus of the Old Ecclesiasiastical Writers & of the Scholastics of the Roman Church… 2nd ed. (Geneva: Chovet, 1647) 213 pp. ToC Author Index
Maresius
Driessen
Leydecker
Marck
De Moore
.
.
.
Related Pages