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Sinlessness and Moral Responsibility: A Problem in Christology1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

T. A. Hart
T. A. Hart
Affiliation:
Department of Divinity with Religious StudiesUniversity of AberdeenOld Aberdeen AB9 2UB
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Extract

Our concern in this paper will be with the traditional Christian claim that Jesus of Nazareth was ‘tempted in all respects as we are, yet without sin.’ (Heb.4:15) In its dogmatic, as opposed to its biblical, version, this claim can be identified in two distinct forms. First there is what we may denote the weaker form, in which it is claimed simply that in actual fact Jesus committed no sin: and second there is the stronger form according to which he was actually and in principle quite incapable of committing sin. Put differently, in terms of the distinctions of scholastic theology, we may either confess of the Incarnate posse non peccare or non posse peccare.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , February 1995 , pp. 37 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1995

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References

2 ‘The Sinlessness of Jesus’; in Religion, Reason and The Self, Eds. Sutherland, S R and Roberts, T A, Cardiff, 1989.Google Scholar

3 See ‘The Theology of the Humanity of Christ’ in Christ, Faith and History, Eds. Sykes, S. W. and Clayton, J. P. (Cambridge, 1972) pp. 56f.Google Scholar

4 The Person of Christ (London, 1933) p.274.Google Scholar

5 Op. cit., p.61.

6 London, 1909.

7 Ibid., p.301.

8 See Christologies Ancient and Modern (Oxford, 1910), chs VI and VII.Google Scholar

9 See further Mackie, J. L., Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (London, 1977), ch. 9 ‘Determinism, Responsibility and Choice’Google Scholar. Also Swinburne, R., Responsibility and Atonement (Oxford, 1989), ch. 3 ‘The Relevance of Free Will’CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mackie admits that certain elements in particular views of human freedom are incompatible with determinism as he understands it, but argues that it is perfectly possible (and desirable) to construct a meaningful view of human morality and responsibility which omits these elements (see pp.225–6).

10 See ‘Towards a reasonable libertarianism’ in Honderich, Ted (ed.) Essays on Freedom of Action (London, 1973), p.37.Google Scholar

11 Op. cit., p.218–9.

12 See further on this Downie, R. S. and Telfer, E., Respect for Persons (London, 1969), p.97f.Google Scholar

13 See Responsibility and Atonement, p.52. Cf the judgment of Wiggins that ‘Compatibilist resolutions to the problem of freedom must wear an appearance of superficiality, however serious or deep the reflections from which they originate, until what they offer by way of freedom can be compared with something else, whether actual or possible or only seemingly imaginable, which is known to be the best that any indeterminist or libertarian could describe.’ (Op. cit., p.33)

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid., p.51.

16 Ibid., p.63.

17 See R. S. Downie and E. Telfer, op. cit., p. 106.

18 The Genealogy of Morals I. s.13, cited in Swinburne, op. cit., p.63.

19 See Swinburne op. cit., p.63, n.21.

20 ‘Philosophers and Theologians on the Freedom of the Will’ in The Theology of the Sacraments and Other Essays, p. 128.

21 Ibid., p. 134.

22 See op. cit., p.224.

23 Op. cit., p. 106.

24 From New Left Review no. 58, cited in Wiggins op. cit., p.53.

25 Op. cit., p.53.

26 See ‘D. M. Baillie: A Theology of Paradox’ in Fergusson, D. A. S. (Ed.) Christ, Church and Society: Essays on John Baillie and Donald Baillie, (T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1993, p. 81)Google Scholar. Baillie's, treatment of the ‘paradox of grace’ is to be found in chapter five of God Was In Christ (London, 1948).Google Scholar

27 See op. cit., p.301–2.

28 I am grateful to Professor Paul Helm for his observation that, since in theory there might be supposed to be more than one ‘sinless’ choice in a given set of moral circumstances, it is not necessary to embrace a strict philosophical determinism in order to affirm the doctrine of non posse peccare. Nonetheless, determinism in its compatibilist versions does claim to offer a coherent philosophical account of how every sinful choice was absolutely excluded from Christ's moral life while yet leaving the language of freedom and responsibility intact. Its attractions for those wishing to maintain the doctrine, therefore, would seem to be considerable.