Blogging through and answering the questions from G. I. Williamson’s The Westminster Confession of Faith for Study Classes for personal review and comprehension.
WCF. VI. Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof.
Sections 3-4.
1. State the basic facts concerning our lost condition?
Adam rebelled in the Garden of Eden, and his sin is our sin. Thus, Adam’s penalty is our penalty–Romans 5:12, 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.
2. Are these facts simple to understand or to explain?
No. As WCF. VII. notes, Adam was both the natural and federal head of all mankind, and this is so because God declared it to be so.
3. How do we know that it is right for God to condemn us for Adam’s sin?
We know it is right because we take God at his word–“and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” “And we know that it is just for God to do so, because he always does what is right” (74).
4. What teaching in the Bible is often overlooked in this matter?
It is often overlooked that there is a corporate aspect to mankind’s existence. “The Bible does not regard the human race as so many isolated individuals, each separately created by God (as were the angels), but as an organic unit created in one man–and then, one pair–having the power to produce offspring in their own likeness and image. Adam and Eve were the ‘root of all mankind.’ God has made ‘from one blood every nation’ (Acts 17:26)” (74-75).
5. What does the “creationist” teach as to the derivation of the soul?
A “creationist” believes that a man and woman generate the organic body, but that the derivation of the soul is a new creation of God that is infused or placed into the body.
6. What does the “traducianist” teach as to the derivation of the soul?
A “traducianist” (Latin for transmitter) believes that a man and woman generate both soul and body of their progeny, albeit this is a mysterious process that is not fully understood by man. This is consistent with the belief that Adam and Eve were the root of all mankind, as well as what the Bible says regarding human generation, e.g. Hebrews 7:10, For he [Levi] was yet in the loins of his father [Abraham], when Melchisedec met him. Genesis 46:26, All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were threescore and six.
7. Which do you favor, and why?
I favor the “traductionist.” Why? In addition to Biblical reasons given above, the teaching of the “creationist” seems deficient: if original sin is an imprint upon both soul and body, then a “creationist” implicitly teaches that God creates a new, sinful soul and places it in a body generated/begat by a man and woman. “How could the soul be created sinful by God?” (45) The answer to this rhetorical question is that it could not! for God is good!
8. In either case, what other principle helps explain our guilt in Adam’s sin?
Our guilt in Adam’s sin follows from the Biblical principle of representation. Adam was both the natural and the federal head of all mankind. “The act of Adam was the act of all men because he represented them” (76). Again, Romans 5:12: 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.
9. Why was only the first sin of Adam our responsibility?
The reason only the first sin of Adam was our responsibility is because “Adam terminated his representative actions with that one sin” (75).
10. How are all other sins related to this one?
All sins are related to this one because “by that one act he (and we) became corrupt and guilty. . . . He and we became totally depraved. And because our condition was that of being ‘wholly defiled in all faculties and parts of soul and body’ (WCF. VI. 2.), it followed that continual transgressions proceeded out of this condition” (75). All other sins are related to this one because will/desire/affections flow from nature, i.e. sinful will/desire/affections flow from depraved nature.