Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

“immediate” imputation of his guilt to his descendants are not yet clearly expressed in
their works. According to Luther we are accounted guilty by God because of the
indwelling sin inherited from Adam. Calvin speaks in a somewhat similar vein. He
holds that, since Adam was not only the progenitor but the root of the human race, all
his descendants are born with a corrupt nature; and that both the guilt of Adam’s sin
and their own inborn corruption are imputed to them as sin. The development of the
federal theology brought the idea of Adam as the representative of the human race to
the foreground, and led to a clearer distinction between the transmission of the guilt
and of the pollution of Adam’s sin. Without denying that our native corruption also
constitutes guilt in the sight of God, federal theology stressed the fact that there is an
“immediate” imputation of Adam’s guilt to those whom he represented as the head of
the covenant.
Socinians and Arminians both rejected the idea of the imputation of Adam’s sin to
his descendants. Placeus, of the school of Saumur, advocated the idea of “mediate”
imputation. Denying all immediate imputation, he held that because we inherit a sinful
nature from Adam, we are deserving of being treated as if we had committed the
original offense. This was something new in Reformed theology, and Rivet had no
difficulty in proving this by collecting a long line of testimonies. A debate ensued in
which “immediate” and “mediate” imputation were represented as mutually exclusive
doctrines; and in which it was made to appear as if the real question was, whether man
is guilty in the sight of God solely on account of Adam’s sin, imputed to him, or solely
on account of his own inherent sin. The former was not the doctrine of the Reformed
Churches, and the latter was not taught in them before the time of Placeus. The
teachings of the latter found their way into New England theology, and became
especially characteristic of the New School (New Haven) theology. In modern liberal
theology the doctrine of the transmission of sin from Adam to his posterity is entirely
discredited. It prefers to seek the explanation of the evil that is in the world in an animal
inheritance, which is not itself sinful. Strange to say, even Barth and Brunner, though
violently opposed to liberal theology, do not regard the universal sinfulness of the
human race as the result of Adam’s sin. Historically, the latter occupies a unique place
merely as the first sinner.
B. THE UNIVERSALITY OF SIN.
Few will be inclined to deny the presence of evil in the human heart, however much
they may differ as to the nature of this evil and as to the way in which it originated.
262