Are Men Born Sinners? - Library of Theology

lame. The consequences of the crimes of a murderer, a drunkard, a pirate, may pass over
from them, and affect thousands, and whelm them in ruin. But this does not prove that
they are blameworthy. In the divine administration none are regarded as guilty who are
not guilty; none are condemned who do not deserve to be condemned. All who sink to
hell are sinners.
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Footnotes for Anthology
1. Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Systematic Theology, Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing
Co., Grand Rap[ids, 1953, p. 1.
2. Charles G. Finney, Sermons on Gospel Themes, Dodd, Mead & Company, New York,
1876, pp. 78-80.
3. Charles G. Finey, An Autobiography, Fleming H. Revell Company, Old Tappan, 1908,
pp. 56-60, 123-126, 234-238.
4. Finney, Lectures on Systematic Theology, pp. ix, x, 228-229; 233-234; 240-258.
5. Henry C. Sheldon, System of Christian Doctrine, Jennings & Graham, Cincinnati,
1912, pp. 311-321.
6. 2 Cor 5:14; Rom 6:6; Gal. 2:20.
7. That Paul could not have meant that the race literally shared in Adam's sin is seen in
the representatin of verse 14 that a part of mankind did not sin after the similitude of
Adam's transgression. These were indeed sinners, in Paul's view, as violating the dectates
of conscience. But the fact that they were not regarded as sinners in the sense of Adam,
who transgressed a positive precept, implies that his sin was not viewed as actually theirs.
With the above interpretation the following from Professor George B. Stevens may be
compared: "In what sense, according to Paul's characteristic modes of thought, does he
mean that all men sinned when Adam sinned? They sinned in the same sense in which
believers were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Chrit died upon the cross.
The believer's renewal is conceived as wrought in advance by those acts and experiences
of Christ in which it has its ground. As the consequences of his vicarious sufferings are
traced back to their cause, so are the consequences which flowed from the begining of sin
in Adam traced back to that original fount of evil and identified with it; but the latter
statement should no more be treated as a rigid logical formula that the former, its
counterpart." (Pauline Theology, pp. 135,136.)