Against God and Nature: The Doctrine of Sin

by Thomas H. McCall, John S. Feinberg (Editor)

Without a proper understanding of sin, there can never be a proper understanding of the gospel. Sin is opposed both to God’s will and to nature, leaving us in need of God’s grace and redemption. This comprehensive exploration of the doctrine of sin looks at what the Bible teaches about sin's origin, nature, and consequences, engaging with historical and contemporary movements. Dealing with difficult issues such as original sin, angelic sin, corporate sin, greater and lesser sins, and more, this book ends with a discussion on divine grace, which is the only hope for the problem of sin.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Anthropology

448 pages, Hardcover

Published June 25, 2019

About the author

Dr. McCall is Professor of Theology and Scholar-in-Residence at Asbury University. Prior to this, he served for sixteen years as Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, where he was also the Director of the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding. During this same time, he held an appointment as Professorial Fellow in Exegetical and Analytic Theology at the University of St. Andrews.

Dr. McCall is ordained in the Wesleyan Church and has pastored churches in southwestern Michigan and southcentral Alaska.

Reviews

[Ben Makuh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sin is one of those tricky words that we suppose we have a grasp of, but upon closer inspection turns out to be a bit more slippery to talk about than we first imagined. Though we might at first blush say sin is something like “doing bad things” or “being a bad person“ or even “breaking God’s law,” all of these fail to adequately capture all there is to say about sin. Our discussion of sin might also venture off in various related directions: where did it come from? Is sinfulness inherent in what it means to be human? What has the forbidden fruit narrative in Genesis 3 to do with me? How ought we think regarding sin in the life of the Christ follower? What happens when I sin? Is it a failure of justice to forgive a sin?

Thomas McCall in his recent monograph, Against God and Nature, seeks to put forth a logically coherent and biblically faithful theory of sin that provides clarity to our modern cultural context regarding how we ought to think about sin. This is hardly the first theology of sin ever written, but as the title suggests, McCall wishes to make his mark in saying that sin is not only against God, but that it is fundamentally also against nature and against reason.

McCall works hard to articulate a biblically faithful understanding of sin that engages with current debates about sin and its satellite issues. For as the series introduction argues, “systematic theology attempts to address itself not only to the timeless issues presented in Scripture but also to the current issues of one’s day and culture, [so] each theology will to some extent need to be redone in each generation.”1 There is much to commend about McCall’s work, and I will discuss the positive contributions he makes to the conversation, but then I will explain why I think it falls short of being something I could recommend.

Against God and… Stuff? What is a Nature?
Pop Christianity, regrettably, tends to lean toward fluffiness when it comes to expressing what, exactly, its belief system entails. Our songs are filled with religious vocabulary (“grace,” “sin,” “redemption,” “brokenness,” “love”) and emotional fervor, but when we are pressed to explain what sin really is or what transgression means for those under grace, we come up short of an answer. Common sayings like “to err is human” reveal that we have uncritically folded the corruption of humanity into the definition of what it means to be human, even though doing so has troubling consequences.

This is where McCall’s work shines brightly: his chapter on humanity, human nature, the sin nature, and what it means to sin against God and nature is a fantastic articulation of key Christian convictions. He ably demonstrates the futility of arriving at a definition of human nature by induction from our lived experience, because we have no sin-free point of reference. Instead, we must work backwards (as it were) from Christ the paragon of humanity to an understanding of what is essential to human nature and what is corruption.

He also is helpfully specific about what the word nature itself can and must mean. It is not enough, he contends, to talk about natures as if they were merely the sum of arbitrarily chosen attributes.2 No, when we speak of the Divine Nature, for instance, it is a bounded, discrete set of attributes that we must deal with, or else we are not speaking of God. These attributes are exegetically derived, and we do not have the freedom nor the ability for ourselves to determine what constitutes the Divine Nature or what constitutes human nature.

Another immensely beneficial aspect of Against God and Nature was his examination of not only “The Law“ as a general category, but specifics such as OT purity laws. As a modern reader of levitical laws about uncleanness and their related purification rituals, it is easy to skim over them as rather odd, uncomfortable to read about, and just downright yucky. Why the weirdly detailed laws about menstruation or seminal emission? Why the laws about touching dead bodies? Do we really need to go there? McCall argues that these are sort of vivid object lessons of the movement away from “life” towards “death” and a “loss of vitality.”3 They are meant to teach us that we live in the corruption and decay and death of this world, while God dwells in the purity of unapproachable light. This is not a subject that gets much attention, and it is a wonderful thing that McCall digs into it.

Against Christians With Whom I Disagree
For all that’s good and helpful about Against God and Nature, it’s hard to escape the feeling that he goes overboard in his airing of grievances against Reformed theology. This greatly weakened the rhetorical force of the book as an evangelical theology, for instead of aiming for a maximally catholic and orthodox common ground among the Christians to whom he writes, he descends into name-calling and intramural othering.4 It would be one thing to say, “Here are exegetical and historical reasons why the Reformed perspective on this doctrine or that doctrine fails to logically satisfy,“ and indeed he does do some of that, but he also can level utterly preposterous straw man arguments that I had to read multiple times to make sure he was not joking.

For example, he particularly goes after federal headship (which is a relatively common position regarding original sin among Reformed folks): “No one was around to vote for or approve Adam as our federal head at all,” McCall avers. “So how, …is [federal headship] not legal fiction?”5 The implication is obvious: an individual would only be morally responsible for Adam’s sin if one personally made a conscious decision to vote for him to be a federal head, or representative leader, over oneself. Such a view seems so myopically American as to be self-satire. Could it possibly be that God elected Adam as the federal head of humanity, and without first collecting my vote? It is absolutely fair to say that such a position is a bitter pill, but to reject it out of hand because it fails to follow the American form of government is beyond ludicrous. It is fair to say that federal headship seems hard to square with passages like Deuteronomy 24:16 (“Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin”), but on the other hand, this verse and others related are hard to square with original sin in general, and that’s the whole reason there are all these theories of original sin in the first place. Lastly, it is also worth saying that these arguments can be flipped and leveled against the substitutionary atonement as well: is it not a “legal fiction“ for the blood of Jesus to cover anyone who failed to vote for him to be the Last Adam? I don’t fault McCall for taking umbrage with Federal Headship, but I do wish he would’ve argued against it on its own terms.

Against Compatibilism
McCall is not secretive about his reliance upon a libertarian free will in order to construct his notion of moral responsibility. In order for sin to even be sin, our decisions to stray must be authentically ours and cannot be imposed externally, for then the ultimate moral responsibility lies with another. Sin is when an individual exercises their free will against God and against nature.

This position is hardly unique to McCall, though there are others. An alternative view on the freedom of our choices is called “compatibilism,” i.e. that the choices we freely make are compatible with divine sovereignty. This is to be distinguished from the (heterodox) view called determinism, which is the idea that no choices are freely made and that the universe is merely a clock within which we are cogs. McCall seems rather uninterested in portraying compatibilism charitably, immediately defining it as “soft determinism“ and a fad among young Calvinists. He does not examine why it might appeal, but he does offer what he thinks to be an unassailable argument against it: “It is implausible to think that we have moral responsibility for events over which we have no causal control.”6 Of course, a paragraph before he admits that compatibilism actually does leave room for causal control, in that we really can freely make decisions in accord with our will even if we do not have the power over our will itself. The inconsistency goes unnoticed in the attempt to align compatibilism with determinism, and it is another example of the unhelpful othering quality of the book: instead of locking arms with orthodox compatibilists against the heresy of determinism, he frames the argument so as to box them out.

McCall wants to situate free will at the headwaters of his theory of sin, but he doesn’t get much further past the fairly standard arguments therewith. He is able to demonstrate that compatibilism is unworkable when you have already accepted libertarian free will as a given, but he never offers a critique of the position on its own terms or within its own coherent framework of things. Nor does he offer much of an argument for how to think about systemic sin or the corporate guilt of a people when moral responsibility rests entirely upon individual choice.

Life is not Fair
A common thread tying these problematic concerns together is that McCall works very hard to make sin and moral responsibility fair and palatable, but life is not at all fair! A corruption-only view of original sin (which he argues for over natural headship, federal headship, and the rest) feels more fair than something like federal headship because it merely handicaps the individual, but in my view the fairness of a doctrine is irrelevant to its truth.

A libertarian understanding of free will makes us feel like our decisions bear real, moral weight, but to hang the whole of hamartiology upon it is to so emphasize individual morality that there is little meaningful room to speak of guilt in a corporate sense in the family, church, nation, or whatever community we happen to be talking about. I want to be clear that the interplay between individual and corporate scopes of guilt is complex, and I doubt I could speak all that much more articulately about it. This theology of sin, however, simply does not advance the conversation in this regard.

To be fair, he does argue that “What these [liberation] theologians have in common is a deep sense that sin cannot adequately be considered in individualistic terms,” and that “we should be open to any insights that we might gain about the structural impact of sin,” but that seems relatively difficult to square with his thoroughgoingly individualistic understanding of sin as the exercise of one’s free will against God and nature.7 To state it another way, if our theory is that sin is always individual and yet it can have downstream impact upon social, cultural, and political structures, then it seems reasonable to speak of these systemic issues not as sins but as byproducts of sins, and not something we are in any way guilty for.

Conclusion
The introduction defends the task of writing yet another theology of sin arguing that systematic theology is contextually situated and is aimed at answering the issues of the day.8 A theology of sin seems like a salient opportunity to talk about any of the evils of our day, such as white supremacy and the continued legacy of American slavery, immigration, gun violence, or the nearly dominant worldview that sees almost every evil through the lens of oppressors and the oppressed. While he does interact with these topics in a limited way in his discussion of liberation theologians, taking that tack makes these issues sound much less mainstream than they really are. If the book is explicitly framed as timely and culturally contextualized then it seems that should be a rigorous focus of the theology much in the same way that application is a rigorous focus of the NIV Application Commentaries.

His exploration of what a nature is, and his going so far as to say that sin is not just going against God but against nature as well has been and continues to be one of the most valuable things I meditate upon from this book. He does a decent job of talking about what makes a thing a sin and works hard to at least mention ancillary topics and viewpoints on almost every chapter in the book, but in the final analysis Against God and Nature fails to say much that hasn’t already been said, and indulges in othering and hyper-exclusivity to the point that many evangelicals cannot affirm what he is writing, much less other Christians. I long for more theologies that strive for common ground with other Christians, that challenge and critique common positions, but at the end of the day leave space at the table for those who confess the creeds.

DISCLAIMER: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of a fair, unbiased review.

References
1. McCall, Thomas. Against God and Nature (Crossway, 2019), Kindle Electronic Edition, loc. 254.
2. McCall, Against God and Nature, loc. 5753.
3. McCall, Against God and Nature, loc. 6131.
4. For a beautiful example of a work that aims at this sort of maximal common ground, see the Reforming Catholic Confession of which Dr. McCall is a signatory.
5. McCall, Against God and Nature, loc. 5077.
6. McCall, Against God and Nature, loc. 4761.
7. McCall, Against God and Nature, loc. 6897.
8. McCall, Against God and Nature, loc. 254.

[Joseph Knowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Against God and Nature: The Doctrine of Sin by Thomas McCall
OVERVIEW
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Length: 13-15 hrs. to read (402 pages)

Short Summary:
In Against God and Nature, Thomas McCall offers readers a comprehensive, well-organized treatment of the doctrine of sin. Although taking a systematic approach, McCall does not miss opportunities for pastoral application.

Who Should Read This Book?
This book definitely finds itself on the more academic end of the spectrum. Despite its occasional dives into philosophical concepts, however, the educated layman will find the book useful, if challenging at various points. Given the wealth of other works cited, pastors might also find the work helpful as a reference volume, though they should be aware of the author’s underlying theological and philosophical commitments.

***NOTE: I RECEIVED A FREE REVIEW COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM THE PUBLISHER IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.***

SUMMARY
The How:
Against God and Nature is part of the Foundations of Evangelical Theology Series published by Crossway and edited by John S. Feinberg. An introduction to this volume is followed by seven additional chapters, each of which focuses on a discrete topic. McCall begins, appropriately, with a chapter on “Sin According to Scripture,” over the course of which he lays out the Biblical vocabulary of sin and then walks the reader through the Bible’s many passages on sin. Subsequent chapters cover such topics as the origin of sin, the doctrine of original sin, and the results of sin, while an appendix proposes a way to reconcile the supposed difficulties between the idea of “the original sinners” and contemporary scientific thought.

The entire series of books is intended to offer an entry point into the various topics. On that score, this volume does a fair job. While most of McCall’s discussion will be accessible to the beginner, some of the deeper philosophical passages will likely require a little slogging for some readers.

The Why:

Christians can “understand sin rightly only in relation to God–and thus to know sin better is to know God better.” (pg. 31). Some significant segment of professing Christians, it is probably fair to say, have never thought very long and hard about the topics this book addresses. McCall, I think, is correct to say that through a better understanding of what sin is and how it affects everything, we gain not only a better understanding, but also a greater appreciation of the Gospel.

ANALYSIS
As noted above, the first two chapters comprise the introduction and a discussion of sin through the course of Scripture. Few, I think, would quibble with McCall’s definition of sin: “Sin is whatever is opposed to God’s will, as that will reflects God’s holy character and as that will is expressed by God’s commands.” Indeed, it’s hard to see much practical difference between McCall’s definition and that of the much more famous Westminster Shorter Catechism: “Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.”

Although I find myself largely in agreement with the materials in the first two chapters, some of McCall’s points seem to be made with language that I would regard as slightly too loose. For instance, McCall writes that God “offers a pathway for all who suffer or sin to experience his blessing.” (pg. 53, emphasis added). Granted that McCall is not writing a book on soteriology, but rather hamartiology. Nevertheless, from my vantage point, the word “pathway” falls short of the kind of definite atonement that I believe Scripture teaches.

McCall’s decision to refer several times to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (the first time on page 115 in the chapter on “The Origin of Sin”) was a little puzzling to me. True, there will be points of agreement between Roman Catholics and Protestants on doctrines of sin, but why not compile the same information from Protestant sources?

Chapter 3, which contains McCall’s discussion of the origin of sin, also contains an interesting discussion on the origin of “angelic sin.” I suspect that for some Christians, it is a topic that has always been somewhat in the peripheries of their theological thought and I found McCall’s discussion interesting. However, he seems to draw from sources that are primarily of the Medieval period or earlier. Perhaps the topic has not garnered much in-depth discussion since then, but I was left with the impression that a more balanced discussion would have incorporated a broader array of sources.

One of the chapters that I found the most engaging was Chapter 4 on the doctrine of original sin. McCall identifies six major theories of original sin. He posits, however, that “none of the major theories of original sin can claim to be demanded by Romans 5 . . . the viability (or lack thereof) and strength of the various theories will have to be decided on other, and broader, theological grounds.” (pg. 184).

He categorizes the theories as follows:

Symbolic/existential
Corruption-only
Federalism
Realism
Mediate views
Conditional imputation of guilt

Under the first of those theories “the sin of Adam and Eve [was] purely symbolic of the passage of humans . . . from a kind of innocence to sin and alienation.” Modern science, this view holds, make the notion of an original pair of humans untenable (a topic McCall deals with directly in the appendix). McCall rightly dismisses this view as being excluded by the text of Romans 5:12-21.

Corruption-only theories of original sin affirm the “corruption in original sin without a corresponding affirmation of guilt.” (pg. 156, emphasis in original). This view is probably most closely-identified with the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, but also holds sway in the Orthodox Church and in the thinking of the Reformer Ulrich Zwingli. McCall writes that adherents of such a view “are often drawn to it because . . . they worry that any corresponding claims about original guilt are [not] congruent with true justice.” (pg. 159). One of the questions this view seems to leave unanswered, however, is that if imputed guilt is unjust, how could imputed righteousness be any more just or congruent with God’s true grace and mercy?

Federalist views of original sin insist that Adam’s posterity inherit not only the corruption of sin, but also his guilt, as the “federal head or legally appointed representative of humanity.” McCall fairly outlines the federalist position, I think, but still manages to give the view short shrift when he quips that, “To say that this view is counterintuitive is to put it mildly.” (pg. 162).

Realism is the view that McCall proposes as “the most prominent alternative to the federalist position.” (pg. 166). Here is where McCall places Augustine and Jonathan Edwards. In this view, “there is a sense in which we are one–that is, really one, rather that just viewed as one in a legal sense–with Adam.” (pg. 166). By making the unity with Adam real in a way that other views do not, the realist view avoids some of the criticism lobbed against federalism. McCall acknowledges, however, that realism is not without its critics.

McCall also outlines some “mediate views” which hold that “we are both corrupted by original sin and guilty for it–but that the sin for which we are guilty is not exactly the sin of Adam.” (pg. 170). He discusses Anselm in some depth here, but (perhaps surprisingly to some) also cites generously from John Calvin. He concludes this section by discussing a proposal by Millar Erickson that “we suffer guilt from original sin, but it is only a conditional guilt (until ratified by us).” (pg. 175).

On the “soft determinism” or “compatibilism” of Jonathan Edwards, McCall refers to I Corinthians 10:12-13, which refers to “the way of escape” from temptation. Citing William Lane Craig, McCall concludes from this passage that “one had the power either to succumb or to take the way out–that is to say, one had libertarian freedom.” (pg. 186). However, this seems to misunderstand what Edwards and others say about the human will. Even if Craig correctly interprets “a way/the way,” that does not mean man could choose the way because he does not (cannot) will such a choice. Edwards was laboriously particular about distinguishing moral inability and natural inability in his work Freedom of the Will, but McCall seems to misunderstand or ignore the distinction.

It is in the latter part of the same chapter, in discussing the “Metaphysics and Morals of Original Sin,” that one of McCall’s previously unstated philosophical commitments begins to poke through. He writes: “[F]or those who can embrace Molinism, the mediate view offers a way to hold both to the full-blown or robust doctrine of original sin . . . and to the moral responsibility without which the doctrine of sin collapses entirely.” (pg. 199). A passing reference to Molinism might have been attributable merely to the author’s fleshing out the implications of the mediate view of original sin were it not for subsequent endorsements of the controversial doctrine: “Here I follow the helpful summary of Thomas P. Flint, Divine Providence: The Molinist Account” (pg. 347, n. 27) and “various versions of the broadly traditional accounts [of divine providence], with Molinism and Thomism taking pride of place in most discussions.” (pg. 352).

One of the ideas that McCall comes back to throughout the book is whether sin and the fall were necessary or essential.

“If being sinful is essential to being human, then Christ is either a sinner (and thus himself in need of salvation) or not really human (and thus not able to be our Savior). Either way leads to outright heresy. What Christ reveals to us in the incarnation, however, is that being sinful is not essential to human nature. He was fully and completely human–yet without sin. Sin is not essential to being human. To the contrary, as we shall see shortly, it is a perversion of genuine, authentic, and healthy humanity.” (pg. 210).

This seems, however, to present a false dichotomy. The distinction between a common attribute and an essential one seems valid, but when what is common has actually become universal–in other words, common to everyone–what is left of that distinction?

In Chapter 5 on “The ‘Sin Nature’ and the ‘Nature’ of Sin” McCall writes: “[W]e should be open to the possibility that they [i.e., liberationist, feminist, etc., conclusions about sin] may offer helpful–if sometimes uncomfortable–insights into sin and its impact. In particular, we should be open to any insights that we might gain about the structural impact of sin.” (pg. 264) This seems to be a dangerous concession in favor of theologians that McCall admits (in the same paragraph!) are sometimes “opposed to classical Christian orthodoxy” and are “out of step with Scripture.” Given the questionable starting point for black liberation theology and other such ideologies, it would be infinitely better to work within the bounds of Scripture and classical Christian orthodoxy if it is truly necessary to delve into any “structural impact of sin.”

Regarding the results of sin, McCall writes in Chapter 6 that “depravity can be said to be ‘total’ in the broadly extensive sense that it impacts all members of the human race. . . . The second way that this depravity is said to be ‘total’ is in the sense that all parts of aspects of the human person are negatively impacted by it.” (pg. 309, emphasis in original) My only reservation here is with the word “impact,” because it seems to leave room for the Semi-Pelagian view to creep in (a view that McCall himself rejects). It leaves the door open for one to say, “Yes, every part of our being is impacted, but it’s not so much of an impact that it totally corrupts my ability to respond to God.”

Finally, the appendix contains an interesting discussion about how Christians need not choose between contemporary science and traditional Christian doctrine when it comes to the topic of the origins of human life and human sin. McCall gives scant attention to the young earth point of view, but that can be excused, perhaps, given that this is merely an appendix and not a comprehensive treatise on that topic. The discussion did, however, yield a new favorite, quirky phrase: the “Pregnant Hitch-hiking Monkey Thesis.”

CONCLUSION
In terms of achieving the goal of writing a book on the doctrine of sin that is both accessible to a general reader while also being helpful to academics, I think Thomas McCall more or less succeeds. He does a good job of fairly presenting the range of views on these important topics.

Before picking up this book, I had not read any of Thomas McCall’s writing (at least, not outside the context of the appendix to W. Robert Godfrey’s book Saving the Reformation). Perhaps if I had done so (or at least remembered that he was the co-author of a recent biography of Jacob Arminius), I would not have felt as if his views on some of the underlying theological and philosophical issues were not readily apparent. In Against God and Nature, however, there is ample material to give beginners a good overview of the doctrine of sin as well as supply seemingly countless avenues for further and deeper study.

Along the way (as one can see from the quotations below), McCall takes ample opportunity to impress upon the reader not merely that the doctrine of sin is important as a matter of academic study, but also that it is important for each reader in his or her daily life. As he puts it, near the beginning of the book, “The study of sin brings us to a recognition of our desperate need of divine grace, and it points us ahead to the beauty and hope of the Christian gospel.”

FAVORITE QUOTES
*We cannot have an adequate understanding of it [sin] precisely as sin apart from divine revelation and the theological reflection that is made possible by that revelation. (pg. 27)

*For sin is not, and cannot be reduced to, the mere transgression of a set of law or an abstract moral code. No–no indeed! Sin is the treacherous rejection of the Holy One for whose love we were made! (pg. 69)

*The sin itself consists not in eating the fruit that elsewhere God pronounced “good”; the sin consists in the disregard and rejection of God’s will and ways. In this light, we can begin to see that it is such rejection and rebellion that is so terribly heinous–and even the things we think small or insignificant are momentous when done in opposition to the revealed will of God. (pg. 117)

*Sin is contrary to reason rightly ordered. (pg. 235)

*Confronted with my own transgression, I do no good to myself or my neighbor to focus on myself by denying that my action was really sinful. If I sin against my neighbor and my Lord, I should confess that sin, trust God for his forgiveness in Christ and empowerment by the Holy Spirit, and seek further reconciliation while thanking God for his provision in Christ. I should not seek to do for myself what God has done for me in Christ. I should not seek to justify myself. (pg. 250)

*The love of God is a holy love. It cannot be reduced to sentimentality or indulgence; it does not ignore or brush away or indulge our sinfulness. Instead it is expressed in a way that is pointed directly at our sin problem. There is no divine holiness that can be considered in abstraction from God’s love. And there is no divine love that is not pure and holy. (pg. 329)

*We may tend to see these [i.e., the wrath of God and the love of God] as if they are in tension or even opposition, but the Bible itself does not do so. (pg. 334)

*Repentance should not in any sense be understood as somehow preparatory for grace– as if somehow we make ourselves acceptable accounts for God’s grace by groveling. (pg. 361)

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful, especially on the diversity of views on Original Sin, which is less a doctrine than a complex of doctrines.

[Joelendil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last year I reviewed another book from this Foundations of Evangelical Theology series: Light in a Dark Place: The Doctrine of Scripture. That book was by John S. Feinberg, the general editor of the series, and I found it helpful and academically rigorous. I was a bit less impressed with this offering by Thomas H. McCall.

McCall deals with the doctrine of sin; not a pleasant topic, but crucial to a proper understanding of the Christian faith. He approaches the topic with an Arminian point of view, which sets him apart from many of the other authors in the series as they tend to be more Reformed. Though I lean in a more Reformed direction myself, that wasn’t what irked me about this book (though he may have spent more of his page count than was strictly necessary on “Arminian vs. Reformed” related concerns).

The book covers pretty much all the facets of the doctrine that you would expect, but there was relatively little direct exegetical interaction with Scripture compared to other broadly Evangelical systematic theology books I have read. McCall spends much of his page count surveying what different councils and theologians have said about the topic down through history. While I appreciate the use of historical theology (something Evangelical theologians aren’t always very good at), I do not appreciate how it dominates the book. After the second chapter which surveys what the entire Bible says about sin, there is little directly digging into the grammar, examining possible cross-references, or other biblical theology concerns. Instead we get to hear what the Council of Carthage, Augustine, John of Damascus, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Karl Barth, etc. thought about the matter.

This focus on historical theology means that most of the time the book is dealing with Scripture at (at least) one remove, occasionally going into Scripturally iffy territory (e.g. death existing before the fall). I did find some of the discussions profitable (e.g. the section on original sin helpfully explored many possible understandings of the difficult concept), but overall I was disappointed by the relative scarcity of detailed exegesis or direct appeal to Scripture.

[Matthew McConnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

McCall does an excellent job at surveying the doctrine of sin in this book. He does a good job of weaving biblical exegesis, theological reflection, and insights from the Christian tradition in order to argue for proper articulation of various aspects of the doctrine of sin, including but not limited to the origin of sin, original sin, what sin fundamentally “is,” what the results of sin are, and the relationship between sin and grace.

What I appreciate most about this book, however, is that all throughout, McCall never loses sight of grace. To be sure, McCall certainly emphasizes the utter (total, even) depravity that sin brings. Sin enslaves. Sin ensnares. Sin brings guilt and shame. Sin brings death. Sin blinds and sin darkens. Sin is horrific and terrifying. Sin absolutely mars all that it touches. Sin is lawlessness, adultery, rejection, disobedience and hatred. Sin perverts and corrupts. Sin brings inexpressible pain, grief, and sorrow. Sin is fundamentally against God, against nature, and against reason. “But” (and this may be one of the most important “buts” ever written) “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). Just when our situation seems hopeless, McCall reminds us of the beauty of the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

That, then, is why we study sin. Despite the fact that sin is devastating, wreaks utter havoc upon us, and we are absolutely no match for sin, we can say with Paul: “[t]hanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:57). Why? Because sin is no match for grace. Hallelujah. Amen.

[Jeremiah · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, I am a fan of this series Foundation of Evangelical Theology in general, this is the third book I have read (topics: Angels and Demons, and the Church). I picked up this book because from what I have seen in some Christian circles is we don’t spend the requisite (appropriate) amount of time talking about sin and if you don’t have a right understanding of sin you may not have a full and right understanding of grace.

It was a very good book, but it is very much jumping in the deep end of the pool. It is a heavy book and most of the time I read a half a chapter or so and had to put the book down and ponder what I read for a day or two before picking the book back up.

The author covers all sides of the issue (sin), including the heretical teachings through the centuries and the teaching that we as different denominations have been jousting back and fourth about throughout the ages (are we guilty because of Adam’s sin or just our own sin?)

Bottom line, when the Spirit tugs at you to understand sin on a more advanced level (it really isn’t something to be ignored, but on the flip side, not something to over read or over teach about) this book is a good place to start.

[Glenn Wishnew III · Rating 4 out of 5]

I skimmed this book for research. However, I can tell you that this is biblical, comprehensive, and precise.

Disclaimer: I am a HUGE fan of Thom McCall as a human being so I could be projecting that onto his works. Nevertheless, this is a valuable survey beneficial to students, lay-persons and professors alike.

[Shane Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the most comprehensive book on hamartiology on the shelf. A must read for serious theologians. Well-balanced and honest. The only problematic piece is the appendix on The Original Sinners which seems to lack the author's usual rigor of research and development and does not offer any excellent conclusion.

[Dr. Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

Covers some good ground, but overall not the strongest in this series by virtue of organization, clarity, or conclusions. Some reference value, but would use a different textbook.

[Jonathan Rutledge · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book engages in a sweeping and impressive overview of the doctrine of sin in scripture and the development of doctrine with perceptive philosophical and theological engagement with its various debates (Augustine vs the pelagians; the later and poorly names semi-pelagians; the Fall; fallen vs unfallen human natures; the seven deadly sins; the Flacian Controversy over sin as a substance or an accident; and even an appendix on contemporary science and questions concerning the historical Adam).

One of the many excellent features of this volume is McCall’s awareness of, and helpful guidance to, the relevant literature for anyone desiring to delve further into some of the topics covered in his book. He offers references to top-flight philosophy, moral psychology, biblical and systematic theology, scientists, and much more. Indeed, that an author would be able to reference so many of these, much less have tremendous facility with their contents, is a phenomenal feature of the text, and it’s crucial as well since the text is in many ways intentionally introductory. It’s a textbook of sorts, really, but the scholarship and writing is so good that it doesn’t read as one. We should all be grateful to have such a fine work focused on the contemporary discussion in hamartiology.

[Grace]

Memorable for introducing me to Hud Hudson and the idea of hypertime.

[Em (Makenna) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an arc of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I picked this up not knowing what to expect, and I was surprised that it was 400+ pages. This is more of a scholarly book in my example, so if you don't have a lot of time or you don't enjoy more 'scholarly'' type books, you should probably pass on this one.