Wednesday, September 15, 2021

William Lane Craig (Protestant) on the Problems with the Forensic Imputation Interpretation of Romans 5:12, 18-19

  

Now it is crucial that we understand the first proffered explanation of our solidarity with Adam (sinning in and with Adam) in fact does nothing to explain why people consistently sin, for imputation is purely a legal or forensic notion that has no effect whatever on a person’s moral character. Moo later explains, “Paul is insisting that people were really ‘made’ sinners through Adam’s act of disobedience just as they are really ‘made righteous’ through Christ’s obedience. But this ‘making righteous’ . . . means not to become ‘morally righteous’ people but to become ‘judicially righteous’—to be judged acquitted, cleared of all charges” (Moo, Romans, 372. The proper legal notion here is not acquittal but rather pardon. God’s guilty verdict is not overturned, as through there had been a miscarriage of justice; rather, we are graciously given a divine pardon for our crimes). Similarly, “people can be ‘made’ sinners in the sense that God considers them to be such by regarding Adam’s act as, at the same time, their act. . . . IT seems fair, then, . . . to speak of imputation here.” So “we are dealing with a real, though forensic, situation: people actually become sinners in solidarity with Christ—again, by God’s decision” (Moo, Romans, 372). Such forensic transactions cannot explain why people consistently turn from good to evil. Just as the pardon of a condemned criminal does not make him suddenly a virtuous person but simply no longer legally guilty, so also the imputation of legal guilt does not transform the moral character of an otherwise blameless person. . . . Moo’s argument in favour of imputation depends on reading v. 12 in light of vv. 18-19. Moo acknowledges that his interpretation “rests almost entirely in the juxtaposition of v. 12 with vv. 18-19” (Moo, Romans, 354). But that understates the situation; rather, his interpretation rests almost entirely, as he initially stated, on reading v. 12 “in light of vv. 18-19.” But that seems to stand things on their head; vv. 18-19, which complete the original sentence interrupted after v. 12d, ought more naturally to be read in light of v. 12. In that way, Paul does not need to take back, as it were, something he has already said; rather, he stands by it. Paul says that just as Adam’s sin was followed by death, so “death spread to all men because all men sinned.” Most commentators construe eph hō as a causal conjunction, “because,” and take “all men sinned” to refer to people’s own individual acts of sin. So Adam was the floodgate through which sin and death entered the world, and death then spread to all men because each one sinned in his own turn. (Paul does not here address the question why, though one recalls his remarks in 1:20-23.) When Paul affirms that “by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,” that “one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men,” that “because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man,” and that “many died through one man’s trespass,” he may be understood to trace all sinning and, hence, condemnation and death back to Adam’s initial transgression, through which sin entered the world. That Adam is singled out instead of Eve is as plausibly an expression of Jewish patriarchy (she was, after all, Adam’s “helper”) as an affirmation of Adam’s federal headship of the human race.

 

Scholars who, like Moo, find in 4 Ezra 7.118 an anticipation of the doctrine of the imputation of Adam’s sin to all men typically fail to quote the verse in context:

 

I answered and said, “This is my first and last word: It would have been better if the earth had not produced Adam, or else, when it had produced him, had restrained him from sinning. For what good is it to all that they live in sorrow now and expect punishment after death? O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants. For what good is it to us, if an eternal age has been promised to us, but we have done deeds that bring death? And what good is that an everlasting hope has been promised us, but we have miserably failed? Or that safe and healthful habitations have been reserved for us, but we have lived wickedly? Or that the glory of the Most High will defend those who have led a pure life, but we have walked in the most wicked ways? Or that a paradise shall be revealed, whose fruit remains unspoiled and in which are abundance and healing, but we shall not enter it, because we have lived in unseemly places? Or that the faces of those who practiced self-control shall shine more than the stars but our faces shall be blacker than darkness? For while we lived and committed iniquity we did not consider what we should suffer after death.”

 

He answered and said, “This is the meaning of the context which every man who is born on earth shall wage, that if he is defeated he shall suffer what you have said, but if he is victorious he shall receive what I have said.” (4 Ezra 7.116-29)

 

The text actually expresses beautifully the balance between Ada’s failure and people’s responsibility for their own acts of sin, just as we find in Rom 5:12: “as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (It is worth noting that despite espousing a view like Moo’s, Fitzmyer denies that there is any clear reference in pre-Christian Jewish literature to such a notion as the incorporation of all human beings in Adam [Romans, 412]. Similarly, Dunn thinks that the concept of corporate personality is more of a hindrance than a help here [Romans 1-8, 272). (William Lane Craig, In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2021], 230, 232-33, emphasis in bold added)

 

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