Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

over which man has no control. The Scriptural grounds for the use of means remain:
God commands the use of means; the means ordained by God are adapted to the end
contemplated; ordinarily the end is not attained, except by the use of the appointed
means; and God has promised to bless the use of those means.
c. It encourages delay in conversion. It is also asserted that this doctrine encourages
delay in conversion. If a man believes that he cannot change his heart, cannot repent
and believe the gospel, he will feel that he can only passively abide the time when it will
please God to change the direction of his life. Now there may be, and experience teaches
that there are, some who actually adopt that attitude; but as a rule the effect of the
doctrine under consideration will be quite different. If sinners, to whom sin has grown
very dear, were conscious of the power to change their lives at will, they would be
tempted to defer it to the last moment. But if one is conscious of the fact that a very
desirable thing is beyond the compass of his own powers, he will instinctively seek help
outside of himself. The sinner who feels that way about salvation, will seek help with
the great Physician of the soul, and thus acknowledge his own disability.
B. ACTUAL SIN.
Roman Catholics and Arminians minimized the idea of original sin, and then
developed doctrines, such as those of the washing away of original sin (though not only
that) by baptism, and of sufficient grace, by which its seriousness is greatly obscured.
The emphasis is clearly altogether on actual sins. Pelagians, Socinians, modern liberal
theologians, and — strange as it may seem — also the Theology of Crisis, recognize
only actual sins. It must be said, however, that this theology does speak of sin in the
singular as well as in the plural, that is, it does recognize a solidarity in sin, which some
of the others have not recognized. Reformed theology has always given due recognition
to original sin and to the relation in which it stands to actual sins.
1. THE RELATION BETWEEN ORIGINAL AND ACTUAL SIN. The former originated in a free
act of Adam as the representative of the human race, a transgression of the law of God
and a corruption of human nature, which rendered him liable to the punishment of
God. In the sight of God his sin was the sin of all his descendants, so that they are born
as sinners, that is in a state of guilt and in a polluted condition. Original sin is both a
state and an inherent quality of pollution in man. Every man is guilty in Adam, and is
consequently born with a depraved and corrupt nature. And this inner corruption is the
unholy fountain of all actual sins. When we speak of actual sin or peccatum actuale, we
use the word “actual” or “actuale” in a comprehensive sense. The term “actual sins”
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