"Orthodox" has objected to my previous post (here) as follows:
You're totally ignoring the issue.
Adam had a non-corrupt nature. But he defied that nature and sinned.
People today have a corrupt nature. But they can defy that nature and repent.
If you deny the latter, then you cannot wave away the theological problem of Adam and say he was "tempted". If a person with a good nature can be tempted to sin, then a person with a corrupt nature can be tempted to repent.
You were pushing the line with that video that we are total slaves to cause and effect and our nature. But if that was the whole story, Adam with his good nature would not have sinned.
There are several answers that need to be given:
1) As to "totally ignoring the issue," that hardly seems reasonable. In any event, since the objections are now being answered, even if they were ignored before, that particular criticism is moot.
2) Orthodox's claim "Adam had a non-corrupt nature. But he defied that nature and sinned" doesn't represent the matter well.
Adam had a nature that was not corrupt, yes. Nevertheless, as repeatedly pointed out and apparently overlooked by "Orthodox," Adam had a fallible nature. Adam was acting within that nature (not in defiance of it) when he sinned and fell.
4) Orthodox's argument from analogy ("People today have a corrupt nature. But they can defy that nature and repent."), therefore, collapses. Furthermore, we have direct Scriptural evidence that Orthodox's conclusion is incorrect.
Jeremiah 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
Luke 6:43 For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
5) Orthodox continued with the argument that, "If you deny the latter, then you cannot wave away the theological problem of Adam and say he was "tempted"." Orthodox's justification for this claim was that, "If a person with a good nature can be tempted to sin, then a person with a corrupt nature can be tempted to repent." The "wave away" comment is just rhetoric. Adam in fact was tempted by the tempter, Satan, through the voice of the deceived Eve.
Orthodox's justification is wrong for similar reasons to those already discussed above. Orthodox appears to have wrongly imagined a symmetry between Adam's not corrupted nature and our corrupted nature.
If human nature had not been corrupted by the influence of the fall, the symmetry between temptation to sin and "temptation" to repentance might be fair. The problem is that human nature was corrupted. As a result, there is a lack of symmetry.
Adam was not constrained by his nature either to do good or ill. His nature permitted him to sin.
Our natures (prior to regeneration) are corrupt and constrain us (internally) to sin. In fact, our wills delight to sin, and sin (not righteousness) is appealing to us. Our natures do not permit us to do righteousness, because it is antithetical to us. We are not born neutral to God, but as His enemies.
This is not symmetrical to Adam's condition. Adam was not created with a nature that was only capable of loving God. Instead, he was created with a nature that was capable of falling - of loving the creation above the Creator.
6) Orthodox's final argument is this: "You were pushing the line with that video that we are total slaves to cause and effect and our nature. But if that was the whole story, Adam with his good nature would not have sinned." "Slaves" again is rather rhetorical than substantive. Since all that is not God is subject to cause and effect, "slaves" is an inappropriately pejorative term. To say that the only choices are to be gods or to be slaves is rather akin to Satan's delusion than to the reality of the matter.
Furthermore, Orthodox's argument relies on the already-debunked theory that Adam's nature was symmetrical to our fallen nature. It is not. However, rather than just repeat that an umpteenth time, perhaps it is easier to draw the lines of symmetry:
State 1 - Adam before the Fall
Posse Peccare - Able to Sin. Adam had a fallen nature that was capable of sinning.
State 2 - All men in Adam before Regeneration
Non Posse Non Peccare - Not Able Not to Sin. To phrase it more positively: unable to avoid sinning. As a result of Adam's fall, all mankind descending from him naturally have a corrupt nature that hates God and loves sin. As a result of his nature, fallen man is unable to love what is good.
State 3 - Regenerate Men before Death
Posse Non Peccare - Able Not to Sin. As a result of regeneration, men are enabled to what is good in God's sight, though men still have a war in their members. Thus, regenerate men still sin, but are able to do such things as repent and believe.
State 4 - The Elect in Glory
Non Posse Peccare - Not Able to Sin. As a result of glorification, the souls of believers (and later their bodies, if they die) are made perfect, so that they become naturally (i.e. as to their nature) unable to sin.
States 1 and 3 are roughly symmetrical and States 2 and 4 are roughly symmetrical.
Thanks be to God, who saves us by grace alone from the condemnation that we deserve,
-TurretinFan
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
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7 comments:
Excellent post, but I quibble with your formulation at the end:
State 1 - Adam before the Fall should be:
Posse Peccare, Posse Non Peccare - Able to Sin, Able to Not Sin.
State 2 - All men in Adam before Regeneration should be:
Posse Peccare, Non Posse Non Peccare - Able to Sin, Not Able Not to Sin.
State 3 - Regenerate Men before Death should be:
Posse Peccare, Posse Non Peccare - Able to Sin, Able to Not Sin.
State 4 - The Elect in Glory
Non Posse Peccare, Posse Non Peccare - Not Able to Sin, Able to Not Sin.
As a result, States 1 and 3 are roughly identical (vs symmetrical)... though States 2 and 4 are indeed symmetrical (like you said).
The only practical difference between pre-fall Adam, and post-fall post-regeneration pre-glorification Man (i.e., a believer)-- though this difference is incredibly significant-- is that Adam was completely on his own when it came to decisions, whereas the believer is indwellt and under the control of the Holy Spirit.
Followup:
Orthodox may complain and note that if the situation is as I presented it above, that I would be saying that Adam's nature was not "good" (for, we believers are not "good"... so if we are in an identical state to Adam, then Adam was not "good" either).
It is true that we are not "good" and that Adam was created "good" -- but this does not a reference to our natures, but to our being stained (or not) by sin.
Adam was created sin-free (no sin was on his record). We, however, have sin on our record. So, though in NATURE we (regenerate believers) are identical to prefall Adam, in HISTORY we have sinned and our person cannot be called "good".
Thanks for your quibbles, dear TJ.
I have a quibble of my own. You wrote: "Adam was completely on his own when it came to decisions"
That clearly wasn't the case: he had Eve - which was part of the problem (at least in hindsight)!
-TurretinFan
I also have a minor quibble with your followup - our state after regeneration is a bit different, because we are still in the process of dying to sin - there is a war going on inside of us - a war that was not present in Adam, for the historical reasons you noted.
... of course, Eve could provide only external influence to Adam. (Though this does seem to refute the notion that two heads are better than one, at least in some cases).
Regarding the war, would it be fair to say that the presense of the Holy Spirit -- while not negating the war, and this according to His good purposes -- nevertheless counteracts and even overcomes the opposing "army"?
Yes ... the presence of the Spirit is the cause for progressive sanctification in believers.
-Turretinfan
I recently went over this in a combox at Tblog. I really don't see the value of this objection as leveled by advocates of Libertarian Free Will, of which Orthodox is one.
Here's the real objection behind the objection that the Libertarians are alleging:
Calvinism asserts that men act according to their natures. Sin is an action predicated upon a "sinful nature." Since Adam had no such nature, how could he have sinned? The implication is that this overcomes determinism (with regrad to agent causation).
But this isn't a problem for Calvinism. It's a problem for Libertarianism. We might ask, "Why, given the constraints of LFW, did Adam fall?" A Libertarian cannot answer this at all.
We chalk this up to simply not having enough information. What we do know is that the Bible says this: Each man is tempted, when he is led astray by his own lust (sinful desires). When lust concieves, it gives birth to sin and sin, when accomplished, results in death.
So, on the Bible's own action theory, we sin because, somehow, lust becomes sin and sin death. "Lust" isn't necessarily an instrinisicly evil thing if we define it as a desire. The desire to be like God is not, in itself sinful. The desire to love your wife is not, in itself sinful. The desire to be like God apart from His instructed means is what makes it sinful. The desire to love your wife and ignore God's commands is what is sinful. So, it's likely that Adam's sin had a root in a good desire, like being like God or loving one's wife. It's also true that Adam used his reasoning faculties and concluded to act the way he did.
At some point, unless Orthodox wishes to admit that there was no suffcient desire that lay behind Adam's sin, he will have to admit that Adam did what he desired to do, and sufficiently so. Our inability to answer exactly how and why this happened is no barrier to this fact, since that's the way the Bible lays the blame for our sins upon us - upon our desires as sufficient causes laying behind our decisions.
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