The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

Rationalists suppose the image of God in its religious aspect to have been
little, if at all, injured. The Romish theology has a Pelagianizing tendency.
The Fathers, of the Greek Church distinguish between the image of God
and his likeness, referring the one to the rational nature of man, and the
other to the spiritual nature of man.
The Reformation found a deep corruption in this, as in other
doctrines. Low views of justification prevailed because men had low views
of sin. Over against the spurious theology of the Church of Rome, the
Apology says: "Original righteousness was not only a just blending of the
qualities of the body, but, moreover, these gifts, the assured knowledge and
fear of God, trust in God, and the power of rectitude." The Formula
Concordiae: 248 "Original righteousness is the concreate image of God,
according to which, man in the beginning was created in truth, holiness,
and righteousness." Hollazius says, "The principal perfections constituting
the image of God, are excellence of understanding, perfect holiness, and
freedom of will, purity of desires, and a most sweet consent of the
affections, with the dictates of the understanding, and the government of
the will, all in conformity with the wisdom, holiness, and purity of God.
The less principal perfections of this image were: freedom from every taint
of sin in the body, immunity from corrupting passions in the body, its
immortality, and the full power of ruling all earthly creatures."
6. To a correct conception of original sin it presupposes correct views
of sin in general, as having its proper cause in the finite will, not in the
infinite will, and as embracing the condition of the finite will, as well as its
overt acts.
The state of corruption.
The need of redemption rests upon the fall from God through sin.
Sin is the transgression of the law, or rather, it is that which is not
consonant with the law, it is the antilegal, the unlegal, and the non-legal;
John iii. 4, aÓnomi÷a. Melanchthon defines sin to be: "a defect, or
inclination, or action, conflicting with the law of God." Calovius defines it
still more compactly, but with the same sense, as: Illegality, or deformity
from the law: that is, the opposite to conformity
248 "Solida Declaratio," p. 640.