§ 73. In all men, original sin is always issuing in actual sin.
Melanchthon, Loc. Th., p. 123: Semper cum peccato originali sunt peccata actualia. Augustine c. Julian.: Lex ista quae est in membris … manet in carne mortali … quia operatur desideria contra quae dimicant fideles.—Conf. Gall. xi.: Dicimus praeterea hanc perversitatem semper edere fructus aliquos malitiae et rebellionis, adeo ut etiam qui sanctitate excellunt quamvis ei resistant, multis tamen infirmitatibus et delictis sint contaminati quamdiu in hoc mundo versantur.
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This proposition is to be taken in its most universal sense; it is only as we exclude Him from the context of universal sinfulness that we acquit even Christ of actual sin. Taken thus universally, however, it is an expression of our Christian consciousness. The more definitely and vividly anyone sets the Redeemer before him, the more he realizes that he is at no moment free from sin. He knows this, however, not simply from his own personal idiosyncrasy, but in a universal way, e.g., inasmuch as he is a constituent portion of humanity as a whole; i.e. he knows it through his consciousness as enlarged to a racial consciousness, and thus knows it true of others as well as of himself. And this consciousness goes back to that of universal sinfulness; it is, in fact, simply the latter from another point of view. For the disposition to sin, of which our apprehension is at once inward and timeless, would not be a reality at all unless it were constantly manifesting itself; and conversely, that which does manifest itself would merely be something adhering to us from without and therefore no sin, unless it formed part of the manifestation and temporal process of original sin. And just as all that is involved in original sin must manifest itself somewhere in the measure in which it is variously distributed among men, so it necessarily has a part in every act (Bewegung) of every man in whom it is present and makes some element thereof to be sin in manifestation. Thus throughout the entire range of sinful humanity there is not a single perfectly good action, i.e. one that purely expresses the power of the God-consciousness; nor is there one perfectly pure moment, i.e. one in which something does not exist in secret antagonism to the God-consciousness.
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It would not at all harmonize with this universal consciousness, however, were we to restrict actual sin to those cases in which our sinfulness breaks forth externally in actions perceptible by others as well as by ourselves. Such outbreakings of sin always depend upon external conditions—conditions quite different from those that have brought about this or that definite sinful state. Just as those last, the external solicitations, can evoke only such inner movements as are already prepared for in the personality of the individual, so the sinfulness of one’s condition cannot depend upon the occurrence of circumstances favourable or unfavourable to its outward manifestation. In point of fact, the sinfulness of a man’s condition is not in itself really aggravated by its finding external expression, for actual sin in the precise sense is present even where the sinful element shows itself only internally, and enters into a moment of consciousness merely as a thought or a desire.1 Just as love, as an inward affection, is the fulfilling of the law, since it infallibly manifests itself in outward act on every given opportunity, so, for the same reason, evil desire, though working only within, is already actual sin. And this is a principle which, if we take the term ‘desire’ in its widest sense, applies to all actual sin, with the exception perhaps of those cases in which the activity of the God-consciousness seems to be obstructed only by slothfulness; although these cases, too, may well be traced to a desire that only awaits its opportunity. Any explanation of actual sin, whether more or less general, will be valid only in so far as it teaches that actual sin springs from an underlying sinfulness, and as it can easily be united with the consciousness of the need of redemption.2
While we regard the original sinfulness from which all actual sin proceeds as the corporate act and the corporate guilt of the human race—distributed among individuals in respect of place and time not equally and uniformly, but unequally—yet this means no more than that in one individual one type of sin is specially predominant and another less so, while in another individual the case is reversed, according as in each case, conformably with his personal temperament, a weaker enticement only is needed for one kind of sin than for another. It must certainly not be taken to mean that, apart from redemption, any given individual is so well secured by his personality against any of the various forms of sin that he could not possibly fall into it. On the contrary, our consciousness testifies in each of us that neither he nor any other, if thrown upon his own resources, has within him a perfect security against any form of evil; for every observant person discovers in himself so many anticipations and, so to say, germs of all evil that, if only the incentive that must always be added to the original sinfulness in order to produce actual sin could become strong enough, any kind of evil, if not habitually yet in particular cases, might emerge as actual sin.3