I have claimed (because the Bible uses the term ... often) that Natural Man is unable to respond to God. Jesus uses the phrase "No one can ..." in reference to both coming to Him and believing in Him. Paul says that Natural Man does not respond to the things of God because he cannot. Jesus told the Pharisees that the reason they didn't believe was that they were not His sheep (suggesting that "not His sheep" = "cannot believe"). Over and over there is a "cannot" in Scripture when it comes to Man's ability to come in faith to Christ or even to do good.
The objection to this, of course, would be human responsibility. "If you're saying ..." (No, I'm saying that the Bible is saying it) "... that Man is incapable of responding rightly to God on his own, then in what possible sense could God hold Man responsible for not doing what he was incapable of doing?" Reasonable objection. Let's take a look.
First, I start with a premise that I often start with. It is entirely possible that something is true that I don't get. That is, if God says it's true, I don't have the luxury of saying, "No, it's not" just because I don't get it. With that premise, I start out with the fact that the Bible holds both that Natural Man is intrinsically incapable and that Natural Man is responsible for his failure to do what is required. Technically, I could stop right here. The Bible says it; I'll go with that. Done, thank you very much. But, of course, I don't like to stop there if I can find some more satisfying explanation, so I'll see how much further I can go. But I do start there and would challenge those who deny it not to. It's in there. Denying it simply because you don't understand it will not make it so.
So how is it possible that Man could lack the ability to obey and still be responsible for not obeying? The question is "What kind of inability are we talking about?" In Jonathan Edwards's terms, there is natural inability and moral inability. Natural inability is the pure incapacity to do something. You want to do it, but you can't. This inability would be due to external circumstances. A man with no legs cannot run not because he will not, but because he cannot. You could command him, "Run!", and he would have to ignore you and would not be responsible for failing to obey because he lacked the physical ability. Moral inability is something different. In this version it is not that you are prevented, but that you don't want to obey. A kid in bed early on a cold morning may not obey when you tell him, "Time to get up." It's not because he lacks the physical ability to get out of the bed. It's because he is so enamored with sleep and warmth that his desire for these outweighs his desire to obey. Moral inability occurs at that point -- when one desire prevents another possible desire from being acted upon. You may have heard it in the positive sense. "I could have ignored her pleas for help, but I just couldn't. I had to do something." The language is (rightly) that of coercion, but it is not an external coercion. The desire to help overrode the desire to do something else, and he found himself incapable of failing to help.
This type of inability does not excuse. Failing to obey because my personal desires didn't incline me to obey is not excuse, even if there is certainly a sense of "inability". That is, if I don't want to do something, it would not be "free will" to choose to do it. For me to freely choose to do something, it has to rise to the level of "want to" -- and that over the level of "don't want to" -- before I can do it. And the claim that Natural Man "cannot" do all those things that the Bible does is a claim to moral inability, a lack of inclination, not natural ability -- something preventing the action. Thus, the inability based on disinclination is not an excuse, and humans are still responsible for failing to obey. At least, it makes sense to me.
9 comments:
I'd certainly be interested, based on your recent posts, to see what you had to say to Vincent Cheung's article "The Author of Sin."
http://www.vincentcheung.com/library/
Ryan
Sure, some concise statements ...
... It's 118 pages long!
Okay, logically (that is, in terms of logic), if God is Sovereign and ordains all that comes to pass, then God ordains sin. From another direction, if God is omniscient and if God knew before He created the world that Adam would sin, and then God did it anyway, then it must be said in some sense that God is the "originator" of sin in that He originally thought of it and decided that He could use it in His creation.
But it gets really sticky here. If by "ordains" someone understands it to mean "forces" or "directly causes", that's a problem. If by "author" one intends, as one dictionary puts it, "to assume responsibility for the content of", that's a problem.
Still, since the Bible is quite clear that God ordained from the beginning of time that His Son would be put to death (that's the worst documented sin of all time), and that He ordained that it would be done with Judas's treachery and the leadership of the time following God's plan, then there is an unavoidable sense in which God is the author of sin. Not caused. Not responsible for. Not culpable for. But it was His plan.
Or, to put it another way, David said, "In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them" (Psa 139:16). Thus, David's sin was written before it was committed. The writer was God. "Author"?
Thanks for clarifying. Sorry...I didn't mean for you to read the entire thing (and I doubt you did). I was just looking for a reaction to the overall concept, and that is what you did. Thanks, again!
Hey Stan,
Very well said. However, I've alwasy been confused by the claim that since man is unable "on his own" to believe in Christ, therefore this means that God must give him faith. Why must mans inability on his own = mans inability to do anything at all?
Also, I'm not sure I buy your analogy that moral unwillingness = moral inability. I get the distiction, but the boy isn't really unable to get out of bed, he just doesn't want to. People use these phrases all the time, "I can't" or "I had to do something", but what they're really describing is their desire to do or not to do.
In the case of the boy, his desire to stay in his warm bed outweighing his desire to obey is not inability, it's desire. Saying that moral inability really means one desire outweighs another seems like a bait and switch to me. You seem to be describing desire yet wanting to call it inability.
I don't think I tried to comment about Man's ability to do anything at all. If I did, it was a mistake. The "inability" in view here is spiritual inability. Being "dead in sin", Man lacks the ability to come to Christ on his own, to muster up his own faith, to repent. That stuff.
I understand the problem with "desire" versus "inability". I also understand the problem with the term "inability" on its own (which is why I wrote the post). The point is that there is a difference between the inability of natural ability and the inability of one's nature or, in this case, one's desires. It is, in this case, a problem of desire.
Look at it this way. "Free will" can be described as the ability to choose according to my desires. Now, if I have no desire for something -- zero ... or perhaps negative desire -- is it "free will" to choose to do that something? No. That would be coercion (by definition).
The problem is exactly one of desire. Humans always choose according to their strongest desire. Even when we choose the "lesser" of something it is because we have a stronger desire motivating that choice. (A husband, for instance, who chooses to go shopping with his wife rather than stay and watch his favorite football game does so not out of a desire to go shopping, but a desire to please his wife. That desire is stronger than his desire to watch that game.) Since the Bible describes us as "inclined only to evil" and "hostile to God" and the like, it tells us that the reason Jesus says, "No one can believe in Me unless the Father grants it" is not that Man lacks the necessary organs of belief (or whatever), but that it violates his ... desires.
Stan
I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. I read your most recent post and then realized I had never checked back!
I agree with you when you say,
"The problem is exactly one of desire. Humans always choose according to their strongest desire."
I'm not sure if humans "always" act in this fashion but the vast majority of the time I agree with you. And I certainly agree that the crux of what we're talking about has to do with desire.
However, what I mean is this: When you talk about moral desire being the barrier to coming to Christ and then say something like, "it tells us that the reason Jesus says, "No one can believe in Me unless the Father grants it" is not that Man lacks the necessary organs of belief (or whatever), but that it violates his ... desires", I feel like I'm being hoodwinked, like you are talking out of both sides of your mouth. I know this isn't purposeful and so I want to understand. Let me explain:
Desire and ability are not the same thing. Like the boy in your example, if I don't want to do something (like get out of bed) and I don't, I can say all I want that I didn't get out of bed because I "cannot", but that is untrue. I didn't get out of bed because I didn't want to. Similarly, when you say that men don't desire to come to Christ therefore Jesus says they "cannot", this is untrue. The do not because they don't want to, not because they cannot.
It seems you are trying to say, "Men do not want to, therefore they cannot". That seems like a contradiction in terms...a non-sequitor.
Yes, I'm saying that Natural Man does not want to believe, therefore he cannot. If someone doesn't want to do something, the only way to get that something done is to violate their free will. It requires coercion -- external force. And in that sense, "I can't."
It's the same thing with the "Humans always choose according to their strongest desire." You question "always", but if it is not always, then it is not free will.
"Yes, I'm saying that Natural Man does not want to believe, therefore he cannot."
This seems to violate the Law of Identity. You're saying that lack of desire = inability. I'm having a hard time with that one.
"If someone doesn't want to do something, the only way to get that something done is to violate their free will. It requires coercion -- external force. And in that sense, "I can't."
Are you saying that God coerces?
And that still doesn't make sense, coercion doesn't require inability. In fact, if a man doesn't have any legs (the inability to walk) it doesn't matter how much I coerce, he still won't be able to walk.
I know it seems confusing, and I think this is the big problem with the "cannot" claim. (The "cannot" claim, by the way, is a biblical claim, not simply my notion.)
Here's the question. Can you do what you are unwilling to do? I'm asking about unwilling, not simply "somewhat disinclined" or "perhaps distasteful, but possible". If you are unwilling, by what process can you will to do? If your will says, "No", how can you do it?
Does God coerce? He can, but He uses something different. Funny thing. I just read this yesterday. "And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God" (Haggai 1:14). God wanted His temple built. The people weren't building it. Haggai says that they started work on it. Why? Because the LORD stirred them up. That is, He worked on their "want to". We find the same thing in Philippians 2, where Paul writes "It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil 2:12). In Acts 16 we read of Lydia, the seller of purple. Why did she listen to Paul? "The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul" (Acts 16:14). Thus, God's "coercion" isn't to force a choice, but to enable it. Even the Old Testament contains promises that God will give His people a "new heart". That's the idea. Not a coerced choice, but a new will that can make its own choice.
Post a Comment