39 Sermon Illustrations on Free Will

Book review. Book is on addiction and relates it to free choice and responsibility. Addiction gives us the opportunity to appreciate God's grace. He focuses on the spiritual dimension.

A definition of addiction by psychiatrist Gerald May:

"Addiction is giving ourselves over to things that, in our deepest

honesty, we really do not want. It is a process of attachment which

'nails' our desire to specific objects, with the result that our will

and desire become enslaved. Addiction breeds willfulness within us,

yet paradoxically it erodes our free will and eats away at our

dignity."

A humanistic perspective on free will vs. determinism:

When we make a choice, such as whom we will marry, are we exercising free will? For most people with a philosophical inclination, the possible answers to the problem of free will are limited. If one has decided that there are supernatural powers, free will is generally regarded as having been granted by a supreme being and the question is settled. If one decides that there are no supernatural powers, one must look to naturalistic solutions to the question of free will.

Science is based on cause and effect, and if one is logically rigorous, one must come to the logical conclusion that there is no such thing as human free will, since all events are determined. Traditionally, there is no satisfactory way out of this dilemma.

(Authors' solution is to see human mind using fuzzy logic, where we distill past experiences and produce preferences. Some flow charts are given for illustration.) The definition of "LOVE" and other human emotions is given this way:

"Love is a human attribute. It arises out of a specific arrangement of

matter and energy. The fact that the universe is deterministic in no way

nullifies that fact that complex attributes can arise out of complex

physical systems, and humans give those attributes word labels, such as

love, hate, fear, anxiety, aggression and free will.")

Free will is the human capability of implementing a preference which is the result of the conscious brain's interpretation of a chaotic environment (in the scientific sense) using decision processes described by fuzzy logic (in the mathematical sense). The fact that the universe is deterministic or strictly dictated by cause and effect does not negate the fact that humans cut their way through the fuzzy, chaotic world to make their power and preferences known, both to themselves and others.

A forum on free-will theism, a new paradigm for understanding God.

What is happening to evangelical theology? According to Clark Pinnock and his co-authors in a controversial new book entitled "The Openness of God" (InterVarsity, 1994), it is going through a paradigm shift that begins with the doctrine of God and will have sweeping effects on every other area of evangelical thought and life.

The heart of the change is this: God is no longer to be understood as an immutable monarch controlling human history and individual lives, but rather is to be seen as a self-limiting, loving, and suffering father who allows himself to be affected by his creatures. But two caveats are essential: this is not just a lively new version of liberal process theology, nor is it merely a lively new version of evangelical Arminian theology. These authors set forth for the first time a sustained, biblically based, rational argument that the God of the Bible is with us in time and does not know the future in absolute detail.

The new paradigm is variously called "the open view of God," "creative-love theism," and "free-will theism." It is radical Arminianism -- and more -- but it stops short of process theology or Boston personalism (belief in a finite God). The authors claim that their model of God is not an accommodation to modern thought or sensibilities but is thoroughly grounded in the synoptic vision of the God who reveals himself in the Bible. It is a Hebrew-Christian model of God stripped of the deleterious effects of Neo-Platonism and other Hellenistic philosophies.

According to free-will theism, "history is the combined result of what God and his creatures decide to do," and its God is "always walking beside us, experiencing what we are experiencing when we are experiencing it, always willing to help to the extent consistent with our status as responsible creations of his."

How does this differ from process theology's "fellow sufferer who understands"? The authors of "The Openness of God" go to great lengths to show that it differs profoundly. Unlike the God of Alfred North Whitehead and other process thinkers, free-will theism's God is omnipotent in the classical sense: able to do anything that is consistent with his own nature and logic. In other words, the God of creative-love theism is the absolute ground and source of all creation (creatio ex nihilo) and could control his creatures if he wished to do so, but he chooses not to control by coercion or force, instead influencing by persuasion.

DE-HELLENIZING GOD

The overall argument of "The Openness of God" is that Christian theology has been falsely polarized. For centuries, the doctrine of God (which the authors consider foundational) has been held captive to classical theism, which overemphasizes God's transcendence and neglects God's Trinitarian personhood. The effect has been a theology of meticulous providence in which God is supposed to control all events -- including the original Fall and its consequent sin and evil. The authors argue that this is simply inconsistent with the overall picture of God given in revelation: a God who repents, grieves, and suffers.

On the other hand, too many theologians have thought that the only alternative to the God of classical theism is a finite God such as process theology promotes. The authors argue that process theology's God is also inconsistent with the overall picture of God given in revelation. That God intervenes powerfully and will bring history to a conclusion in his kingdom -- with or without human help.

Pinnock, professor of theology at McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and his co-authors make a powerful case for their model of God. In the first chapter, "Biblical Support for a New Perspective," Richard Rice, professor of theology at LaSierra University, Riverside, California, demonstrates convincingly that it is not possible simply to dismiss all biblical references to God's "repentance" as anthropomorphisms. Under the rubric of "Historical Considerations," John Sanders, instructor in theology and philosophy at Oak Hills Bible College, Bemidji, Minnesota, argues persuasively that classical theism includes unbiblical and possibly unorthodox concessions to pagan philosophy. The real heart of the book is Pinnock's chapter on systematic theology, which powerfully portrays the personal God of the Bible as self-limiting for our sakes. The chapter entitled "A Philosophical Perspective," by William Hasker, professor of philosophy at Huntington College, Huntington, Indiana, will be the most challenging for many readers; but for those who persevere, it makes a strong case for the rational superiority of the theology of divine openness over competing ways of understanding God and his works. In the concluding chapter, David Basinger, professor of theology at Roberts Wesleyan College, Rochester, New York, shows the practical appeal of free-will theism for ordinary Christian spirituality.

The authors do not hide their philosophical presuppositions. Readers who cannot agree with these foundational assumptions will have trouble accepting free-will theism. Two basic ones are that logical contradictions -- including so-called paradoxes or antinomies -- are illegitimate in theology as elsewhere and that freedom means being able to do otherwise. While the authors are not rationalists in the strict sense of that word, they clearly place high value on coherence. That is, truth claims about God that involve logical contradictions are literally nonsense and should not be accepted in theology any more than in any area of intellectual endeavor. Therefore, one cannot say both that God knows the whole future in absolute detail with absolute certainty and that part of it is still open and undetermined (such as individuals' decisions regarding salvation).

The second presupposition of free-will theism is that true freedom means being able to choose between options without any predetermination. This is called a noncompatibilist idea of freedom. It is not compatible with determinism or predestination. It assumes and requires a certain limited independence of the creature from God. Many evangelicals -- especially Calvinists -- prefer a compatibilist idea of freedom. For them, true freedom is being able to do what God knows and decides is right. Independence from God in any degree is lack of freedom. Of course, proponents of the free-will theism paradigm will object that this is an odd, even unique, use of freedom, quite unlike that word's meaning in ordinary speech, and that it ultimately lands one in incoherence unless one is willing to say God is the author of sin and evil.

A TEST FOR HOW WE DISAGREE

"The Openness of God" is a powerful and persuasive book. It is creative, bold, and Bible-based. In spite of its strengths, however, a few serious problems remain that will hinder even some sympathetic readers from wholeheartedly embracing the model argued for. The authors deal inadequately with two major issues. They assert that part and parcel of the open view of God is belief that God does not know future free decisions and actions of his creatures. They struggle mightily, and with some success, to show that this in no way impairs belief in God's ultimate sovereignty and power over the outcome of human history. But a shadow of doubt lingers.

Can a risk-taking, self-limiting God who rarely, if ever, intervenes in the free choices and actions of human agents know that history will end the way he envisions and predicts without having to rob free creatures of their freedom? It would seem that for history to end in the kingdom of God, as these authors insist it will, God will have to exercise more than loving, influencing, persuasive power. While it is consistent with their theology to believe God will do that in order to establish his kingdom, the question arises, Why believe he never or hardly ever does that on the way to the kingdom?

A closely related question concerns God's beliefs and predictions about the future. The authors do not deal adequately with the question of whether God can hold false beliefs about the future. At the very least, they must hold that God predicts the outcome of historical processes involving free agents. Could God's predictions turn out to be wrong? When Jesus told Peter that he would deny him, is it even theoretically possible that Peter might not have denied him? Either way the authors (and other advocates of limited divine foreknowledge) answer this question presents them with some problems.

I am not arguing that these are insuperable difficulties; the authors may have satisfactory solutions. For many readers warmly attracted to their model of God, however, these doubts will preclude their wholehearted acceptance.

Indeed, the open view of God raises many questions, and these will no doubt be extensively explored and debated in reviews, panel discussions, and even book-length responses. One question it raises that should underlie everything else is this: How do American evangelical Christians handle theological diversity? Have we come of age enough to avoid heresy charges and breast-beating jeremiads in response to a new doctrinal proposal that is so conscientiously based on biblical reflection rather than on rebellious accommodation to modern thought? This may be the test.

********************

Roger Olson is professor of theology at Bethel College, Saint Paul, Minnesota, and editor of The Christian Scholar's Review.

AFRAID OF INFINITUDE

By Douglas F. Kelly

One of the best things about this most provocative book is its subject: it is actually about God, rather than being another evangelical "how to" or self-help manual. Clark Pinnock is certainly right about one thing: "The concept of God is the most important topic in theology." To their credit, the five authors have done something far from universal among theologians and philosophers; they have written in clear, straightforward English prose. It seems to me that they have been honest and aboveboard in plainly expressing what they think. Even those who strongly disagree with their conclusions will have to respect them for their transparent clarity.

Moreover, one must commend their desire to make their theological discourse practical so that it addresses living issues such as the reality of intercessory prayer, and how to interpret evil and fight it in today's world.

Several of these authors properly point out that the classical tradition has not always done full exegetical, theological justice to the matter of God's impassability. I was genuinely disappointed that, because of crucial, exegetical and central theological weaknesses, these brethren were unable to improve this situation. Indeed, what they have to say on this point and many others constitutes one of the saddest intellectual and spiritual retrogressions I have ever seen outside openly heterodox thinking.

The really crucial weakness that devastates the promise of this volume to present a fresh, more biblical view of God is this: The authors feel that God cannot be infinite and personal at the same time. To deal with us personally, rather than harshly and mechanically (which is how they see "sovereignty"), God either must be finite or, at least, refrain from employing such infinitude. Some of the authors hold that God really is not infinite (e.g., God literally does not know what is future); some of them suggest that he must voluntarily refuse to use his infinite abilities as the price of humankind's being guaranteed personal significance.

As a result of a selective biblical exegesis (that looks only at the human limitations implied in a word -- such as repent -- and strangely fails to consider the word in the light of the infinite subject to whom it refers) and a failure actually to read the Fathers of the Christian church, these writers attempt to get rid of God's infinity by ascribing it to classical theology's being the illegitimate offspring of the cohabitation of biblical concepts with pagan Hellenistic philosophy.

In reality, a careful reading of the Fathers (such as Athanasius, for instance) would indicate the profound Christianization of Hellenistic terms and concepts. Though they began as Greek terms conveying pagan content, such concepts as creation, being, logos, providence, and person were thoroughly transformed during the first four or five centuries of the Christian era in the light of Old Testament prophecy and the apostolic testimony to Christ.

Perhaps lack of familiarity with this field of study explains why the authors dismiss so easily the entire classical tradition as being no less Neo-Platonic than Pseudo-Dionysius, who in truly unbiblical fashion describes God as "beyond being." But they fail to point out the very significant fact that when Athanasius (long before the time of Pseudo-Dionysius) quotes this passage from Plato's Republic, he changes it to state that God is "beyond all created being" -- a profoundly biblical concept (Athanasius, Contra Gentes, 2.2;40.2). This leads us to the heart of their problem.

It seems to me that these "openness" writers have failed to think through the profound implications of the difference between created (finite) being and uncreated (infinite) being. This failure to think clearly is manifestly demonstrated in their impoverished grasp of the relationship of language to being (i.e., epistemology). They seem to work on the assumption of the univocal validity of language for both God and man. That is, a word must mean for God the exact same thing it does for a human. For instance, "before and after" impose on God's experience the same limitations they do on that of humankind.

But one wonders how they could have neglected the church's pivotal teaching on the analogical usage of language (i.e., that there are both similarities and differences when the same word is applied to created and uncreated being). A brief reading of a few sections of Saint Thomas Aquinas's "Summa Theologiae" or perhaps chapter five of E. L. Mascall's "Existence and Analogy" might have transformed this book. And long before Aquinas or Mascall, Saint Hilary of Poitiers (fourth century) wisely remarked (in De Trinitate 4:14) that human words are subject to God, rather than God being subject to human words (in the sense of comprehensively defined and thus limited by them). The human mind "must not measure the divine nature by the limitations of [its] own, but must gauge God's assertions concerning himself by the scale of his own glorious self-revelation.... Since we are to discourse of the things of God, let us assume that God has full knowledge of himself, and bow with humble reverence to his words" (1:17).

In other words, the reason the five authors of "The Openness of God" deny the infinitude of nearly all the attributes of God is their failure to have heard what Hilary (and the whole orthodox Christian tradition) could have said to them. That is, we must not attempt to project our creaturely limitations onto the God who made us (as though we had made him). That would be a violation of the second commandment. Rather, with Saint Paul, let us understand that the analogy (and glorious reality) of God as our Father makes sense because fatherhood is from God (Eph. 3:14-15), as the incarnate Christ and outpoured Spirit have shown us. Hence, as Athanasius says, "God does not make man his pattern, but rather, since God alone is properly and truly Father, we men are called fathers of our own children, for of him every fatherhood in heaven and earth is named" (Contra Arianos 1:23).

Human reason, therefore, must adjust itself to God's being and not the reverse. Repeatedly in this volume, the authors univocally limit the infinite God by what they are able to understand (see, for example, the definition of divine omniscience on p. 136). This short-sighted procedure causes them throughout the book to deny one side of clear biblical teaching (such as God's sovereignty) in order to affirm the other side (such as human responsibility). Sadly, all too little that they write in this volume can be taken seriously either by scholars or by ordinary Christian layfolk until its authors rethink their basic approach. May they be blessed in doing so!

********************

Douglas F. Kelly is John R. Richardson Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, North Carolina.

A TRANSCENDENCE-STARVED DEITY

By Timothy George

For a generation and more, evangelicals have debated, defined, and defended the teaching of the Bible, assuming all along that the doctrine of God, as received in the historic Christian tradition, was an evangelical essential on which all faithful believers could agree. If that were ever true, the present volume indicates that it is no longer so. The revisionist view of God set forth here is neither new nor all that radical compared to other models one can encounter at, say, nearly any session of the American Academy of Religion. What is significant is that this book claims to be a "biblical challenge" to the traditional understanding of God by a team of scholars well known for their contributions to evangelical journals and learned societies.

These essays are really a form of protest literature. The authors claim to have found the classical doctrine of God, which presumably each of them once affirmed, to be apologetically inhibiting, religiously stultifying, and just plain old-fashioned. But their analysis is based on three false dichotomies.

First, they pit the dynamic, interactive God of the Hebrew Scriptures over against the static, transcendent God of the Greek philosophers. This contrast was given definitive form by Adolf von Harnack, who saw the Trinitarian and Christological consensus of the early church as the ultimate corruption by the alien spirit of Hellenism of the primitive truth of the gospel. To this G. L. Prestige responded wisely, "The Christian doctrine of God is a legitimate rational construction founded on the facts of Christian experience." To be sure, the church Fathers did use contemporary thought forms and even new words such as Trinitas and homoousios, but they did so precisely in order to be faithful to the living God of the Bible.

Theologians should indeed beware of the seduction of philosophy. Augustine could not remain a pure Neo-Platonist once he became a Christian. Luther, among others, protested against Aristotle's undue influence. But the so-called open God is himself shaped by philosophical bias, namely, a process view of reality that has far less biblical warrant than the classical metaphysical tradition.

Second, they posit the God of love over against the God of power. Yet the same New Testament book that declares "God is love" also proclaims "God is light" (1 John 4:16; 1:5), a reference both to God's holiness and his eternal effulgence. It is not necessary to trivialize the noetic and ontic effects of sin, nor to minimize the penal and substitutionary sufferings of Christ in order to magnify the gracious, all-loving character of God. Nor should God's immutability be interpreted as his immobility.

The orthodox doctrine of God affirms both his infinite power and his sovereign love. No less a defender of traditional theism than Charles Hodge wrote: "Love of necessity involves feeling, and if there be no feeling in God, there can be no love." The God of the Bible is both personal and all-powerful, a God of covenant relations with his people, and yet utterly fulfilled within his own dynamic, Trinitarian life. How could Luther, Calvin, even Arminius, accept the former but fail to "see the conflict" with the latter? Perhaps it was because they served a greater, richer, more complex and less threatened God than one devised for modern sensibilities.

Third, they deny that God's knowledge of future contingents can be squared with freely chosen acts. But divine foreknowledge need not negate human responsibility; indeed, as Karl Barth noted, divine foreknowledge is the "presupposition of its possibility," denoting as it does the absolute priority and superiority of God himself to every possible existence distinct from his own.

On the view presented here, God cannot really know anything at all that will come to pass in the future; his knowledge is limited to the present and the past. This reduces biblical prophecy to wishful thinking, albeit divine wishful thinking. It also forces the authors to opt for the "oops theory" of salvation history. If Plan A fails, go to Plan B. And it leaves them little to say about eschatology, except for the vague hope that somehow good will triumph over evil. But the "open God" cannot guarantee that it will. He can only struggle with us against the chaos and keep on trying harder. One might feel sorry for such a God, even sympathize with him in his cosmic battle against the power of darkness. But one would hardly be moved to fall down and worship such an attenuated, transcendence-starved deity. The "open God" is a long way from the awesome, holy, unsurprisable (yet ever-surprising) God of the Bible, the God who "is a consuming fire."

The authors of this book are my brothers in Christ. They have presented their views with earnestness and sincerity, even humility, rightly recognizing that God is far greater than our best efforts to describe him. I applaud their desire to submit every doctrine, including the most cherished and time-worn ones, to the searching light of God's written Word. But in their desire to defend "God's reputation," and to construct "plausible models" and "convincing conceptions" that would make it easier "to invite people to find fulfillment," they have devised a user-friendly God who bears an uncanny resemblance to a late-twentieth-century seeker. They need not be so concerned about "God's reputation." They only need to let God be God.

________

Timothy George is dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama.

MYTH OF FREE WILL

Most people say that they believe in "free will." Do you have any idea what that means? I believe that you will find a great deal of superstition on this subject. The will is saluted as the grand power of the human soul which is completely free to direct our lives. But from what is it free? And what is its power?

THE MYTH OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL FREEDOM

No one denies that man has a will -- that is, a faculty of choosing what he wishes to say, do, and think. But have you ever reflected on the pitiful weakness of your will? Though you have the ability to make a decision, you do not have the power to carry out your purpose. Will may devise a course of action, but will has no power to execute its intention.

Joseph's brothers hated him. They sold him to be a slave. But God used their actions to make him a ruler over themselves. They chose their course of action to harm Joseph. But God in His power directed events for Joseph's good. He said, "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good" (Gen 50:20).

And how many of your decisions are miserably thwarted? You may choose to be a millionaire, but God's providence is likely to prevent it. You may decide to be a scholar, but bad health, an unstable home, or lack of finances may frustrate your will. You choose to go on vacation, but an automobile accident may send you to the hospital instead.

By saying that your will is free, we certainly do not mean that it determines the course of your life. You did not choose the sickness, sorrow, war, and poverty that have spoiled your happiness. You did not choose to have enemies. If man's will is so potent, why not choose to live on and on? But you must die. The major factors which shape your life cannot thank your will. You did not select your social status, color, intelligence, etc.

Any sober reflection on your experience will produce the conclusion, "A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps" (Prov 16:9). Rather than extolling the human will, we ought to humbly praise the Lord whose purposes shape our lives. As Jeremiah confessed, "O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps" (Jer 10:23).

Yes, you may choose what you want, and you may plan what you will do; but your will is not free to accomplish anything contrary to the purposes of God. Neither have you any power to reach your goals but that which God allows you. The next time you are so enamored with your own will, remember Jesus' parable about the rich man. The wealthy man said, "This I will do: I will pull down all my barns, and build greater; and there I will bestow all my fruits and my goods...But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee" (Luke 12:18-21). He was free to plan but not free to accomplish; so it is with you.

THE MYTH OF ETHICAL FREEDOM

But freedom of the will is cited as an important factor in making MORAL decisions. Man's will is said to be free to choose between good and evil. But again we must ask, from what is it free? And what is man's will free to choose?

The will of man is his power to choose between alternatives. Your will does decide your actions from a number of options. You have the faculty to direct your own thoughts, words, and deeds. Your decisions are not formed by an outside force, but from within yourself. No man is compelled to act contrary to his will, nor forced to say what he does not wish. Your will guides your actions.

Yet this does not mean that the power to decide is free from all influence. You make choices based on your understanding, your feelings, your likes and dislikes, and your appetites. In other words, your will is not free from yourself! Your choices are determined by your own basic character. The will is not independent of your nature, but the slave of it. Your choices do not shape your character, but your character guides your choices. The will is quite partial to what you know, feel, love, and desire. You always choose on the basis of your disposition, according to the condition of your heart.

It is just for this reason that your will is NOT free to do good. Your will is the servant of your heart, and your heart is evil. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that EVERY imagination of the thoughts of his heart was ONLY evil CONTINUALLY" (Gen 6:5). "There is NONE that doeth good, no, not one" (Rom 3:12). No power forces man to sin contrary to his will, but the descendents of Adam are so evil that they always choose the evil.

Your decisions are molded by your understanding, and the Bible says of all men, "And their foolish heart was darkened" (Rom 1:21). Man can only be righteous when he desires to have fellowship with God, but, "There is NONE that seeketh after God" (Rom 3:11). Your appetites crave sin, and thus you cannot choose God. To choose good is contrary to human nature. If you chose to obey God, it would be the result of external compulsion. But you are free to choose, and hence your choice is enslaved to your own evil nature.

If fresh meat and tossed salad were placed before a hungry lion, he would choose the flesh. This is because his nature dictates the selection. It is just so with man. The will of man is free from outside force, but not from the bias of human nature. That bias is against God. Man's powers of decision are free to choose whatever the human heart dictates; therefore there is no possibility of a man choosing to please God without a prior work of divine grace.

What most people mean by free will is the idea that man is by nature neutral and therefore able to choose either good or evil. This simply is not true. The human will and the whole of human nature is bent to ONLY evil CONTINUALLY. Jeremiah asked, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil" (Jer 13:23). It is impossible. It is contrary to nature. Thus do men desperately need the supernatural transformation of their natures, else their wills are enslaved to choosing evil.

In spite of the great praise that is given to "free will," we have seen that man's will is not free to choose a course contrary to God's purposes nor free to act contrary to his own moral nature. Your will does not determine the events of your life nor the circumstances of it. Ethical choices are not formed by a neutral mind but always dictated by your personality makeup.

THE MYTH OF SPIRITUAL FREEDOM

Nevertheless many assert that human will makes the ultimate choice of spiritual life or spiritual death. They say that here the will is altogether free to choose eternal life offered in Jesus Christ or to reject it. It is said that God will give a new heart to all who choose by the power of their own free will to receive Jesus Christ.

There can be no question that receiving Jesus Christ is an act of the human will. It is often called "faith." But how do men come to willingly receive the Lord? It is usually answered, "Out of the power of their own free will." But how can that be? Jesus is a PROPHET. To receive Him means to believe all that He says. In John 8:41-45 Jesus made it clear that you were born of Satan. This evil father hates the truth and imparted the same bias into your heart by nature. Hence said Jesus, "Because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not." How does the human will jump out of man to choose to believe what the human mind hates and denies?

Further, to receive Jesus means to embrace him as a PRIEST -- that is, to employ and depend on him to sue out peace with God by sacrifice and intercession. Paul tells us that the mind with which we were born is hostile to God (Rom 8:7). How can the will escape the influence of human nature which was born with a violent enmity to God? It would be insane for the will to choose peace when every bone and drop of blood cries out for rebellion.

Then too, receiving Jesus means to welcome Him as KING. It means choosing to obey His every command, to confess His right of rule, and to worship before His throne. But the human mind, emotions, and desires all cry out, "We will not have this man to reign over us" (Luke 19:14). If my whole being hates His truth, hates His rule, and hates peace with God, how can my will be responsible for receiving Jesus? How can such a sinner have faith?

It is not man's will but God's GRACE that must be thanked for giving a sinner a new heart. Unless God changes the heart, creates a new spirit of peace, truthfulness, and submission, man will not choose to receive Jesus Christ and eternal life in Him. A new heart must be given before a man can believe, or else the human will is hopelessly enslaved to evil human nature -- even in the matter of conversion. Jesus said, "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye MUST be born again" (John 3:7). Unless you are, you will never see His kingdom.

Read John 1:12 & 13. It says that those who believe on Jesus have been "born, not of the will of man, but of God." As your wil is not responsible for your coming into this world, it is not responsible for the new birth. It is your Creator who must be thanked for your life, and if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). Who ever chose to be created? When Lazarus rose from the dead, he then could choose to answer the call of Christ, but he could not choose to come to life. So Paul said in Ephesians 2:5, "Even when we were dead in sins, [God] hath quickened us (made us alive} together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)." Faith is the first act of a will made new by the Holy Spirit. Receiving Christ is an act of man just as breathing is, but God must first give life.

No wonder Martin Luther wrote a book entitled The Bondage of the Will which he considered one of his most important treatises. The will is in the chains of an evil human nature. You who extol the free will as a great force are clinging to a root of pride. Man, as fallen in sin, is utterly helpless and hopeless. The will of man offers no hope. It was the will choosing the forbidden fruit that brought us into misery. The powerful grace of God alone offers deliverance. Cast yourself upon God's mercy for salvation. Ask for the Spirit of Grace that He may create a new spirit within you.

Reprinted from:

CHAPEL LIBRARY

2603 W. WRIGHT ST

PENSACOLA FL 32505

904/438-6666

A Ministry of

Mount Zion Bible Church

Rap star Christopher Rios, better known by his stage name, Heavy Punisher, died at the age of 28. While the exact cause of death has yet to be determined, it is widely assumed that his death was connected to his weight. You see, the reason Rios was called Heavy Punisher was that he weighed nearly 700 pounds.

Now before you say anything about Rios' apparent lack of willpower, you should know that some scientists believe that there is no such thing as willpower -- a view produced by the naturalistic worldview that today dominates science.

In a recent New York Times article, Michael R. Lowe, a clinical psychologist, spoke for many of his colleagues when he called willpower "an explanatory fiction." That is, we believe in willpower because we don't understand how the mind works and what really causes us to act the way we do.

According to Lowe and his colleagues, the truth is that our ability to control our impulses and resist temptation has nothing to do with morality. Instead, temptations are merely the product of chemical reactions in our brains. It's our ability to regulate properly the flow of neurotransmitters, such as Dopamine and Serotonin, that keeps us from eating the entire cheesecake.

Neuro-pharmacologist Christine Duvauchelle recently told Forbes magazine, "we're trying to get away from value judgments about people and pointing to chemical changes in the brain that are almost impossible to resist."

And, in their view, challenging the biological truth about willpower only encourages discrimination against the "Dopamine-impaired."

Well, it's obvious that the obese aren't the only ones who benefit from the deconstruction of willpower. This worldview enables those who continue to smoke -- years after they know the dangers and after they've seen others quit -- to sue tobacco companies. The problem, the say, is Dopamine-impairment. Well, on that basis we can excuse any sin -- "Dopamine deficiency made me do it."

Now, I won't deny that brain chemistry influences the way we behave. But the argument being advanced by Lowe and others ultimately says that not only is willpower a myth, so is free will.

According to their naturalistic view, human beings are reduced from "a little less than angels," as the Psalmist put it, to little more than a collection of mindless chemicals. This is a position you can only hold if you believe that human beings are nothing but a collection of molecules and cells that somehow came together by accident.

Secular humanists embrace naturalism because of their belief that it frees humans from the oppression imposed by religious belief. But they've got it backwards. It is naturalism that debases us. Naturalism inevitably leads to the conclusion that there is nothing special about being human. Naturalism enslaves us by making us the prisoners of our biochemistry. Where's the dignity in that?

In contrast, the biblical view frees us from the limitations of biochemistry. Human beings may have inclinations towards certain kinds of behavior, but they don't have to obey those inclinations.

While it may be tempting for scientists to embrace the notion that willpower is a myth, it's ultimately a ticket to slavery. Only the biblical worldview sets us free to choose what's truly best for us, whether its closing the refrigerator door or taking responsibility for, dare I say it, human sin.

___________________

Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

The issue of free-will and predestination is one that has raised its head in every generation of Christians. Do we exercise choice, or has everything already been decided? The resultant mental gymnastics leave many feeling confused, and others feeling disappointed. Did you choose to read this article, or has God already determined that you will... or won’t? Maybe if you get halfway through, put down the article, and then pick it up again, you might think that you have double-bluffed God. Yet we know that nothing takes Him by surprise. On the other hand, Christians throughout the ages reject the kind of fatalism that is seen in some parts of the world.

The problem with the question as it is presented is that it is not nearly difficult enough. In order to truly appreciate the magnitude of what we are discussing, we must first deal with an even greater question. And it is this: Imagine if I were able to stop time right now. What would you be thinking? What would you be feeling? The answer is NOTHING.

In the absence of time, we cannot think or feel or do. Everything is frozen. People sometimes complain that I speak too quickly -- the problem being that there is not sufficient time for them to think about what has been said. I always try to cheer myself by saying that at least something has been said for them to think about! But it is a fair criticism because in the absence of sufficient time we cannot think things through. In the absence of time altogether, however, we cannot even begin to think, as there is literally no time to think IN.

We live and have our existence in a space-time continuum. We “belong to eternity stranded in time,” observes Michael Card.(1) This also means that before God created there was no time. Time is not co-eternal with God. But we also know that God was a thinking, feeling, doing Being even before He created. Can you imagine a Being who is able to think in the absence of time? Of course not, but the God we worship not only exists outside of time, He can think and act in the absence of time.

Just reading about this is enough to make us feel overwhelmed. And so it should. WHENEVER WE THINK ABOUT THE PERSON OF GOD, WE SHOULD RIGHTLY FEEL THAT WE HAVE COME ACROSS SOMETHING TRULY AWESOME. And maybe this is part of the problem. We are not faced with a logical contradiction here. Rather, we are faced with the reality of what it means for God to exist, for God to be GOD. You and I are only able to think in time, and thus, God confronts us with choice: “Choose this day whom you will serve,” “choose life” and so on (Joshua 24:15; Deuteronomy 30:19). But God, outside of time, sees all of history stretched out before Him. The problem comes, therefore, when we confine the God we worship within time. But this needn’t be the case. A proper understanding of the tension drives us back both to God’s divine nature and to our knees, acknowledging how wonderful He is.

This understanding also helps us with the issue of eternal life. Many people find the idea of eternity frightening. What will we be doing for all of that time? Once again, our dilemma arises because we are captive both to the passage of time and too small a view of who God actually is. People also then ask: if God truly knows all things, then why did He create knowing that we would experience pain in a fallen world? But we know that God did not create the world and then think of a plan to rescue it. In the book of Revelation, we are told that the Lamb was slain before the foundations of the world were laid. This does not mean that the crucifixion took place in our space-time history before creation (there was no space-history for it to take place in). What it does mean is that even before God created, God also knew the price it would cost Him -- the suffering of his own Son -- to redeem his creation and save us. God didn’t count that cost too great -- and hence we sing of God’s amazing grace.

Let me conclude with the following. People who assert that everything comes down to choice and that the future is full of possibilities believe that they have a basis for hope, but acknowledge that the future is unknown. The French existentialists were famous for this, and miserable because of it. For all their desire for hope, when their open future was realized, it always disappointed. In this sense, hope becomes wishful thinking when it has no secure future. On the other hand, fatalists believe they have a future, but no hope. Nothing is or can be done, for all has been determined.

But on the contrary, God is big enough to be able to say, “I know the plans I have for you... plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11). There is no hope without a secure future, and the future is frightening in the absence of hope. Only God is big enough to bring these two things together -- hope and a future -- and this is what He has done for us.

________

1. Lyrics from “Joy in the Journey” by Michael Card, 1986.

________

Copyright © 2007 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #5116]

My Source:

WORDS OF LIFE

Volume 5, #20, May 23, 1999

Waynesboro, TN

Author: Wade Webster

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED?

by Wade Webster

MAN SAYS--Can't stray from the faith..................GOD SAYS--Can stray from the faith (1 Timothy 1:5-6; 1 Timothy 4:1; 1 Timothy 6:21).

MAN SAYS--Can't deny the faith........................GOD SAYS--Can deny the faith (1 Timothy 5:8).

MAN SAYS--Can't cast off faith........................GOD SAYS--Can cast off faith (1 Timothy 5:12).

MAN SAYS--Can't fail to be saved......................GOD SAYS--Can fail to be saved (Luke 22:32; Hebrews 12:15).

MAN SAYS--Can't depart................................GOD SAYS--Can be moved away (Colossians 1:23).

MAN SAYS--Can't fall from grace.......................GOD SAYS--Can fall from grace (Galatians 5:4).

MAN SAYS--Can't be in Satan's hands again.............GOD SAYS--Can be in Satan's hands again (1 Timothy 1:19-20).

MAN SAYS--Can't be overthrown.........................GOD SAYS--Can be overthrown (2 Timothy 2:17-18; 1 Corinthians 10:5).

MAN SAYS--Can't lose salvation........................GOD SAYS--Can lose salvation (Jude 1:5).

MAN SAYS--Can't be destroyed..........................GOD SAYS--Can draw back to destruction (Hebrews 10:38-39).

MAN SAYS--Can't make obedience in vain................GOD SAYS--Can make obedience in vain (Philippians 2:16; Galatians 4:9-11).

MAN SAYS--Can't fall away.............................GOD SAYS--Can fall away (Luke 8:13).

MAN SAYS--Can't lose eternal life.....................GOD SAYS--Can lose crown of life (Colossians 2:8,Colossians 2:18; Revelation 3:11).

MAN SAYS--Can't perish................................GOD SAYS--Can perish (Acts 8:20; 1 Corinthians 8:11).

MAN SAYS--Can't lose sacrifice of Christ..............GOD SAYS--Can lose sacrifice of Christ (Hebrews 10:26-31).

MAN SAYS--Can't suffer the second death...............GOD SAYS--Can suffer second death (James 5:19-20).

MAN SAYS--Can't be blotted out of the book of life....GOD SAYS--Can be blotted out of the book of life (Exodus 32:32-33; Psalms 69:27-28; Revelation 3:5; Revelation 22:19).

MAN SAYS--Can't be overcome by Satan..................GOD SAYS--Can be devoured by Satan (1 Peter 5:8).

MAN SAYS--Can't cause a brother to fall...............GOD SAYS--Can cause a brother to fall (Romans 14:13).

MAN SAYS--Can't be cut off............................GOD SAYS--Can be cut off (Romans 11:22).

MAN SAYS--Can't go from righteous to unrighteous......GOD SAYS--Can go from righteous to unrighteous (Ezekiel 18:26).

MAN SAYS--Can't be condemned..........................GOD SAYS--Can fall into condemnation of the devil (1 Timothy 3:7).

MAN SAYS--Can't be in bondage to sin any longer.......GOD SAYS--Can be in the bond of iniquity again (Acts 8:21-23; Galatians 5:1; 2 Peter 2:20-22).

MAN SAYS--Can't lose election.........................GOD SAYS--Can lose election (2 Peter 1:10).

MAN SAYS--Can't be denied by the Lord.................GOD SAYS--Can be denied by the Lord (Matthew 10:33).

MAN SAYS--Can't leave the realm of God's love.........GOD SAYS--Can leave the realm of God's love (Jude 1:21; Matthew 24:11-13; John 15:9-10).

MAN SAYS--Can't believe in vain.......................GOD SAYS--Can believe in vain (1 Corinthians 15:1-2).

MAN SAYS--Can't be separated from God.................GOD SAYS--Can be separated from God (Isaiah 59:1-2; Hebrews 3:12).

MAN SAYS--Can't be forsaken...........................GOD SAYS--Can be forsaken (1 Chronicles 28:9; 2 Chronicles 15:2).

MAN SAYS--Can't become a castaway.....................GOD SAYS--Can become a castaway (1 Corinthians 9:27).

WHO ARE you GOING TO BELIEVE?

I recall attending a heavily advertised lecture by Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University. A topic of enormous implications lay before us: Is man determined or free? The best of minds have tackled this question, and the stranglehold of determinism seems to get tighter for a life lived without God.

When Stephen Hawking speaks, everyone listens. Severely impaired by Lou Gehrig’s disease, Hawking spoke through a speech synthesizer. Developing his carefully measured argument, he finally yielded to science as the consummate discipline, and concluded: "Is man determined? Yes! But since we do not know what is determined, he may as well not be."

There was pin-drop silence. The audience clearly felt let down, for no one was left any wiser than before Hawking had spoken. Then he added this troubling postscript: Hawking feared that since the evolutionary process had worked through the dialectic of determinism and aggression, the long-term survival of our species was in question. "However," he added, "if we can keep from destroying each other for the next one hundred years, sufficient technology will have been developed to distribute humanity to various planets, and then no one tragedy will eradicate us all at the same time."

Hawking was unavoidably caught on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, if there is no God he could feel the hold of determinism from which evolutionary theory could not escape - out of flux, nothing but flux. What followed from that deduction was even more troubling. For on the other hand, if evolution held true, he could not further ignore the aggression and violence through which man has evolved. Therefore, Hawking offered mankind’s only hope - that the savior of technology would come riding on the wings of science to rescue us from the clasping teeth of determinism.

Is technology the answer to the human struggle? In the twenty-first century, will it prove to be our savior? I am afraid not, my friend. Our problems run much deeper than to be solved by microchips and movable parts. The problem is that of the heart and until that heart gets right with God, we will only have improved means for deteriorated ends. That is why Jesus Christ calls for your heart - that spiritual center of you that submits to the grace of God and seeks to live for the things that are eternal, not temporal. We are free to choose and only when we are determined to live by God’s will can the will be harnessed for eternity’s purpose.

_________________________

Copyright © 2002 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

*

By giving humans freedom of will, the Creator has chosen to limit His own power. He risked the daring experiment of giving us the freedom to make good or bad decisions, to live decent or evil lives, because God does not want the forced obedience of slaves. Instead, He covets the voluntary love and obedience of sons who love Him for Himself.

________

Catherine Marshall, Beyond Our Selves

Answering Some of Greg Boyd’s Key Texts Used in Support of His "Open" View of Foreknowledge:

1. HEZEKIAH’S REPENTANCE AND 15 ADDED YEARS

Isaiah 38:1-5

In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the

prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, "Thus

says the LORD, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and

not live.’" 2 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and

prayed to the LORD, 3 and said, "Remember now, O LORD, I

beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a

whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight." And

Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 Then the word of the LORD came to

Isaiah, saying, 5 "Go and say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the

LORD, the God of your father David, I have heard your prayer,

I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to

your life.’"

Observations:

1. All agree that God did not express an exception when he said, "You shall die and not live" (v. 1).

2. All agree that there was an implicit exception, perhaps: "You shall die, unless you repent and pray."

3. Boyd denies that God knew whether Hezekiah would fulfill the implicit exception.

4. Historic Christian exegesis affirms that God knew that Hezekiah would fulfill the implicit exception.

5. Boyd says that it would have been disingenuous of God to say that Hezekiah was going to die if he knew that he would not die, but live 15 more years.

6. But Boyd’s own view also seems to make God disingenuous. Is God telling the truth when he says, "You shall die, and not live," when he really means, "You might die, but only if you don’t repent." Boyd’s criticism of historic Christian exegesis applies to himself at this point.

7. But it is not true that one must always express explicitly the exceptions to the threats one gives or the predictions one makes in order to be honest. One reason for this is that there can be a general understanding in a family or group of people that certain kinds of threats or warnings always imply that genuine repentance will be met with mercy.

For example, in 1 John 4:8 "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." And 1 John 3:14 says, "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death." These could be taken in isolation to mean there is no exception or escape for any failure to love. But we don’t take the implicit threat that way, because a general understanding exists in John’s community that this refers to unconfessed and persistent refusal to love. 1 John 1:8-9 makes this clear: "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Therefore, we do not need to jump to the conclusion that every exception to every warning needs to be expressed, especially where there is an understanding that genuine repentance and confession will be met with mercy. Hezekiah’s earnest prayer for mercy seems to indicate that he did not assume there was no escape clause, even though none was expressed. He seemed to assume that mercy might well be given if he repented.

8. What about the sincerity of God in making warnings when he knows that the warning will be heeded and the threatened punishment averted? We deal with that in the case of Jonah and the Ninevites.

* * *

2. JONAH AND THE REPENTANT NINEVITES

Jonah 3:4

Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he

cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be

overthrown."

Jonah 3:10

When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked

way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had

declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.

Observations:

1. Both Boyd and historic Christian exegesis assume that there is an implicit condition, and that if the Ninevites meet it, they will be spared,

2. Boyd believes that, if God knew with certainty that Nineveh would repent, the prophecy of impending destruction was insincere.

3. But the accusation of insincerity is warranted only if the threat or the condition of repentance was not true. That is, if God would NOT have overthrown Nineveh had they not repented, or if he WOULD have overthrown Nineveh even if they did repent, then his threat would have been insincere. He would have been lying. But the threat and the condition were true. God would have indeed destroyed them had they not repented, and he did not destroy them when they did repent.

Boyd seems to rule out the possibility that a God who knows all that will come to pass can sincerely warn against consequences that he knows will not come about (e.g., "Nineveh will be overthrown if you don’t repent"). But in fact in God’s mind, the warning may be one of the crucial means he is using to see to it that his foreknown future will come about, namely, that Nineveh will repent. God is not insincere in giving this warning. Had they not repented they would have perished.

* * *

3. WHEN GOD CHANGES HIS PLAN

Jeremiah 18:7-8

At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning

a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; 8 if that

nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will

relent [= repent] concerning the calamity I planned to bring

on it.

Observations:

1. It is entirely possible to see the "plan" of God here to be the thought or intention of his mind that went something like this: "I will bring calamity against a people which is this evil and unrepentant." This is true and sincere. In other words God’s "plan" or "intention" or "thought" or "mind" may simply be such a fixed resolve in his mind. His resolve to punish correlates with the evil presently in the people when he expresses the resolve. If the people repent, God’s resolve or "plan" or intention toward that people changes; that is what is meant by his "relenting" or "repenting." This does not necessarily mean he has not foreknown this change in his "plan." In fact, the expression of his resolve to punish the kind of people he sees may be the means he uses to bring about the change in them that he foreknows, so that his own change of resolve will accord with their new condition.

2. Boyd says that people have tried to evade the meaning of these texts by saying that God is speaking "anthropomorphically." Moreover, the only reason one would argue this way he says is that one brings to the text a philosophical presupposition that God cannot literally change his mind.

3. But we do not argue this way. We say that there is a real change in God’s mind, but that this does not imply a lack of foreknowledge. God can express an intention or a resolve toward a people that accords with what is true now, all the while knowing that this condition will not be true in the future, and that his resolve will also be different when their condition is different. That a future-knowing God speaks this way is owing to the fact that he really means for his word to be the means of bringing about changes in people to which he himself responds in a way that he knows he will.

4. The kind of change of mind Boyd wants to see, namely, a change owing to unforeseen future developments, is resisted not out of philosophical presuppositions but out of exegetical insights from other relevant texts which make us hesitant to affirm that God changes his mind without qualification. See below on 1 Samuel 15 and the issue of God’s repenting that he made Saul king.

* * *

4. GOD’S REPENTING THAT HE MADE SAUL KING AND GOD’S

REPENTING THAT HE CREATED MAN

1 Samuel 15:11

God says, "I repent that I have made Saul king; for he has

turned back from following me, and has not performed my

commandments."

1 Samuel 15:28-29

"And Samuel said to [Saul], "The LORD has torn the kingdom of

Israel from you this day, and has given it to a neighbor of

yours, who is better than you. 29 And also the Glory of Israel

will not lie or repent; for he is not a man, that he should

repent."

Observations:

1. A natural reading of 1 Samuel 15 would seem to imply that there is a way that God does "repent" and a way that he does not. That is what we are arguing in the texts that Boyd puts forward. He insists that God repents in a way that implies lack of foreknowledge of what is coming. We think this is the kind of "repentance" that would fall under Samuel’s criticism: "God is not a man that he should repent."

2. In other words, God does not have the human limitations of knowledge that would involve him in repenting THAT WAY. Rather, his repentance is an expression of a resolve or an attitude that is fitting in view of new circumstances. That God is ignorant of what will call for that new resolve or attitude is not necessarily implied in the change.

3. So the repentance over Saul means NOT that he did not know what Saul would be like, but that he disapproves of what Saul has become, and that he feels sorrow at this evil in his anointed king, and that he looks back on his making him king with the same sorrow that he experienced at that moment when he made him king, foreknowing all the sorrow that would come.

For God to say, "I feel sorrow that I made Saul king," is not the same as saying, "I would not make him king if I had it to do over, knowing what I know now." God is able to feel sorrow for an act that he does in view of foreknown evil and pain, and yet go ahead and will to do it for wise reasons. And so later when he looks back on the act he can feel the sorrow for the act that was leading to the sad conditions, such as Saul’s disobedience.

Genesis 6:5-6

Then the lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the

earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was

only evil continually. 6 The lord was sorry that He had made

man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

Observations:

1. In view of the warning in 1 Samuel 15:29 that, "The Glory of Israel will not lie or repent; he is not a man, that he should repent," we are slow to attribute human-like repentance to God.

2. Rather, it is plausible to find a "strange" repentance that is unlike anything we experience, namely, that God regrets what he foreknew - that the human race would fall into sin and be in need of a Savior.

3. We are led to believe that God did foreknow this, because in 2 Timothy 1:9 Paul says, "God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity." If the grace we needed in Christ was foreknown (even planned) from eternity, then the fall and the misery of man was known too.

4. In 1 Chronicles 29:18, David prays for the people, after they have so willingly given to build the temple: "O lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, preserve this forever in the intentions of the heart of Thy people, and direct their heart to Thee." This phrase ("intentions of the heart") is the same as the one in Genesis 6:5, but here it seems as if David assumes that God can govern what "intents of the heart" we have. If so, we should not assume too quickly that God can’t know what they are in the future.

5. We propose that God created the world already feeling both the joy of this final salvation and the grief of the intervening fall and misery. When the Fall and misery reach a height in Genesis 6:6, it is not unfitting for God to express this sorrow the way he does.

* * *

5. WHEN GOD SAYS, "PERHAPS"

Jeremiah 26:1-3

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah,

king of Judah, this word came from the lord, saying, 2 "Thus

says the lord, ‘Stand in the court of the lord’s house, and

speak to all the cities of Judah who have come to worship in

the lord’s house all the words that I have commanded you to

speak to them. Do not omit a word! 3 Perhaps they will listen

and everyone will turn from his evil way, that I may repent of

the calamity which I am planning to do to them because of the

evil of their deeds.’"

Observations:

1. The word "perhaps" may be spoken here by God not to express that he is unsure what they will do, but to express that FROM A HUMAN VANTAGE POINT the people may or may not listen to him. But if they do, he will have mercy and not bring calamity.

2. Are there any clues in Jeremiah that we should be hesitant to say God does not know what will come to pass in the future? Jeremiah 10:23 causes us to be hesitant: "I know, O LORD, that a man’s way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps." On the face of it this text seems to say that ultimately man is not the one who governs his steps. If so, then man does not have the kind of self-determining power that Boyd attributes to man. This means that man is not in a position to "create" out of nothing choices that surprise God. Rather man’s steps are finally governed by something outside him, and God would be able to know what these influences are and thus know the future.

3. Therefore, we should be slow to jump to the conclusion that when God says "perhaps" something will come to pass, he is expressing his own uncertainty rather than the perspective of man who cannot know ahead of time.

* * *

6. DOES GOD MAKE WRONG PREDICTIONS AND GET SURPRISED?

Jeremiah 3:6-7

Then the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, "Have

you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high

hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. 7

I thought [literally: I said], "After she has done all these

things she will return to Me"; but she did not return, and her

treacherous sister Judah saw it.

Observations:

1. Boyd says that God really thought that the people would turn to him. But I do not see how he can evade the problem that this involves God in a mistake. God thought a something would be true that turned out not to be true.

2. He says that God had a "perfectly accurate assessment of all probabilities" and, given that assessment, he thought that the people would repent. But, he says that "self-determining creatures opted for the more improbable course of action."

3. This implies two important things: one is that the only way that God cannot be mistaken here is if his statement (they will turn) included the implicit qualification: "given the ordinary expectations under these conditions." This is what I think God meant. The difference between us and Boyd is that we believe God knew what the people would really do, when he implied that ordinary human probabilities would seem to lead to repentance. But Boyd believes that God did not know what they would do.

4. The other implication is that this text shows how vulnerable God would be if Boyd’s view is right. God would do his very best in predicting on the basis of infinite knowledge of the present, and would miscalculate, because of human self-determination. The implications of this are huge. It means that all talk of God’s managing the world on the basis of known human influences is not very encouraging, because it is the essence of human self-determination that the most utterly unexpected choices can arise from the human will and surprise God.

* * *

7. THE TESTING OF ABRAHAM’S FEAR OF GOD

Genesis 22:9-12

Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and

Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound

his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.

10 Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay

his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called to him from

heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."

12 He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and

do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you

have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."

Observations:

1. Boyd says that God did not know if Abraham would remain faithful and that the words "now I know" are disingenuous if this were not so. The test would be a charade if God already knew the outcome.

2. There is another way to think about God’s knowing here. If God knows what will come to pass, does that mean that all testings in history are pointless? we don’t think so. God has not created the world simply so that it might have been foreknown. He created the world to be actualized in history. That is, he wills not just to foreknow, but also to know by observation and experience. That is the point of creating a real world, rather than just knowing one that might be. Therefore, may not God truly know what Abraham is going to do, and yet also want to externalize that reality in a test that enables him to know it by observation, not just prognostication? "Now I know," thus may mean, "Now I see . . . now I experience by observation of your real action."

3. A problem with Boyd’s view is that God cannot really be sure it is true when he says, "Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son." The knife had not been put into the boy’s chest and this is the moment when the will may well rebel and say No. We have seen from Jeremiah 3:7 that, from Boyd’s way of seeing things, God’s predictions can be "mistaken." God cannot be sure that Abraham would have killed his son, because the volition had not yet been created for God to know. But perhaps this is not significant, since, even if Abraham had killed his son, God could still not be sure Abraham would not in the next moment rebel against God because he had forced him into such a test. In Boyd’s view of the human will, no text can assure God that we will fear him five minutes after the test.

* * *

8. WHICH SIGNS OF MOSES DOES GOD EXPECT TO BE BELIEVED?

Exodus 4:7-9

Then He said, "Put your hand into your bosom again." So he put

his hand into his bosom again, and when he took it out of his

bosom, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. 8

"If they will not believe you or heed the witness of the first

sign, they may believe the witness of the last sign. 9 "But if

they will not believe even these two signs or heed what you

say, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it

on the dry ground; and the water which you take from the Nile

will become blood on the dry ground."

Observations:

1. Can a God who knows what will come to pass with certainty say meaningfully, "Such and such may come to pass. If it doesn’t, then do this." Yes. Because he may merely be saying that he chooses not to reveal what will, in fact, come to pass. He will only reveal possibilities and how to respond to them. He is not saying that he only knows possibilities. God may have his reasons for sometimes wanting to communicate to us possibilities about the future, and other times certainties.

2. Boyd would say that it is disingenuous of God to say they may believe on the basis of the first or second miracle when he knows exactly how many it will take to persuade them. But there is at least one clue that God intended for Moses to do all the signs, namely, Exodus 4:17 where God says to Moses, "You shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs." God seems to know that more than one will be needed.

3. There are passages in the Pentateuch that show that there is a disconnect between the way that God talks about knowing, and the way he actually knows. For example, in Genesis 18:21 God says, "I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know." This text portrays God as if he were too far away in heaven to know for sure what is happening in Sodom. Neither Boyd nor historic exegesis thinks God’s distance from an event hinders his knowledge. Rather there are reasons for this way of speaking. For example, it stresses God’s condescension to be involved with his creatures and his intimate dealing with them and his knowledge of them. Similarly, we assume God has his reasons for speaking in Exodus 4:8 as if he did not know whether the elders would believe.

*

With the Super Bowl next week, another year of end zone theology comes to an end - another season of praying or gesturing to heaven after scoring a big touchdown.

Each year, there seems to be more of it. It has the look of a bidding war - a competition between players over who gets most-favored status in the eyes of the Lord.

A particularly hapless example came early in the season on TV.

A college quarterback completed a long pass to pull his team ahead late in the game. He pointed to heaven and folded his hands in prayer. The Almighty had surely arranged victory just for him. Five minutes later, the cosmos shifted. The opposing team scored - and won the game. Adding to his mockery, the QB’s team was hugely defeated a few weeks later, and he lost his starting position.

The luckless quarterback’s prayer looked harmless enough. It happens all the time - we petition God to bless our side, not their side. But there’s something thoughtless about it. People think nothing of asking God to hold off the storm clouds for their picnic, though this might mean farmers suffer for lack of rain.

Such are the small ways that believers skirmish with the big question of religion: Where is God in daily life?

A debate is sizzling among theologians on the subject right now. It centers on "open theism," the view that God doesn’t have complete foreknowledge of the future because he depends on the free will actions of human beings to play a role in shaping the future.

Open theism suggests God can’t be blamed for tragedies because God can’t stop them from happening.

Open theism’s supporters say their view is biblically sound, spiritually coherent for real-life experience and a corrective to the glib assumptions of those who think they know the mind of God.

The debate is flaring within the Evangelical Theological Society, a guild of scholars who teach in theologically conservative seminaries and schools.

"God does not control everything that happens," theologian John Sanders, author of THE GOD WHO RISKS: A THEOLOGY OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, says on a Web site at www.opentheism.org.

"Rather, he is open to receiving input from his creatures. In loving dialogue, God invites us to participate with him to bring the future into being. ... Sometimes God alone decides how to accomplish these goals. On other occasions, God works with human decisions, adapting his own plans to fit the changing situation."

Critics are alarmed. They say open theism departs from the classical view of a biblical God in charge of all of creation, and they worry that open theism will be popular because it serves an unthreatening deity to a culture obsessed with self-esteem.

"What is ultimately at stake is the glory of God," says Bruce Ware, a Southern Baptist professor and author of GOD’S LESSER GLORY: THE DIMINISHED GOD OF OPEN THEISM.

"This is a complete redefinition of God as the church has understood him throughout its history."

It’s rare for such a debate to go public. Baptist Press, the news arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, is one of the few religion news agencies to follow it.

The debate broke out among Texas Baptists last year and will likely surface at the scholar society’s next meeting.

If so its critics call it part of a larger social trend of assault against biblical values: "... Scripture rings clear in affirming the classical view of God," Ware assured Baptist Press.

It’s hard to know whether the Super Bowling Ravens and Giants might be sympathetic to open theism or not. If it comes down to a Hail Mary pass at the end, then pigskins and theology both will be up for grabs.

*

Does God unconditionally choose every person who will ever be saved or does He look deep into the future and choose those whom He foresees will trust in Him? Two Southern Baptist theologians grappled with the controversial doctrine of election at a seminary conference.

Greg Welty, associate professor of philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, unpacked the Calvinist view of unconditional election -- the belief that God has chosen before the creation of the world every individual who will ever be saved apart from foreseen faith or good works.

Ken Keathley, senior associate dean and professor of theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, proposed a solution to the Calvinistic (unconditional election) and Arminian (God chooses those whom He foreknows will trust in Him) disagreement on election through a theological system known as “Molinism.”

Welty argued in favor of unconditional election, pointing to a number of biblical texts that seem to support the Calvinistic doctrine, including Ephesians 1:3-11. This passage, he said, demonstrates that election is God’s choosing of individual persons; election is eternal, having taken place before the foundation of the world; and election is grounded in the will of God and not the will of man.

“God’s will is to love us and show us mercy,” Welty said. “This text tells us that He predestined us in love. It is not a cold and analytical doctrine. The will of man is not mentioned here as the basis of God’s choice. It is clear to [the Apostle] Paul that election is grounded in the will of God. It is not conditioned on something in the creature.”

Elsewhere, in Romans 9, Paul clearly asserts God’s choosing of a people irrespective of foreseen faith or works, Welty noted. In the latter portion of the chapter, Welty pointed out that Paul even anticipated human objections to the doctrine of unconditional election and answered them. While humans charge God with injustice for choosing some and not others for salvation, Paul does not flinch in asserting the justice of a sovereign God in freely carrying out His holy will.

“If election were conditional,” Welty said, “Paul would have every reason to say, ‘Wait, you misunderstood my teaching; God’s choice of man ultimately hinges on man’s choice of God, so it is all fair in the end. God’s choice of Jacob was really based on Jacob’s future choice of God, so there is no injustice here.’ That might be appealing to us on some level, but that is not where Paul goes. Paul traces this back to the eternal purpose of God in our lives.”

Welty also dealt with a number of objections to unconditional election such as the Arminian assertion that election is based on God’s foreknowledge of all who will believe in Him. Interpreting texts such as Romans 8:29 and 1 Peter 1:1-2 to uphold this view is neither necessary nor plausible, he said. “Foreknowledge” in these two texts does not mean that God merely foresees the actions of individuals, but shows that He has foreknown them relationally, Welty said. Neither text speaks of foreseen faith, he added.

“God foreloves individuals and marks them out,” Welty said. “That is what foreknowledge in these texts means.... God is a God who chooses throughout the Bible. Most Christians will not deny that. God chose Israel in the Old Testament, for example. Paul’s doctrine of election reflects on how God has chosen in the past.”

Because of the logical problems inherent in both Calvinism and Arminianism, Keathley said he views Molinism as “a more biblical and logically coherent” alternative.

Molinism is named after 16th-century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina and attempts to reconcile the sovereignty of God with human free will by looking at God’s work of redemption through His foreknowledge.

Foundational to Molinism is the belief that God knows everything, including all the possible actions of human beings given every possible circumstance. Contemporary adherents to Molinism include apologist William Lane Craig and philosopher Alvin Plantinga.

Keathley proposed Molinism as a solution to the divide between Calvinism and Arminianism, arguing that Molinism, like Calvinism, affirms the absolute sovereignty of God, while also affirming God’s permissive will, which establishes the free choices of men.

A key to Molinism’s ability to better explain God’s choosing some men for salvation without violating their free will is its doctrine of “middle knowledge,” Keathley said. Middle knowledge postulates that God knows all possible worlds He could have created in addition to the one He chose to make. Thus, God created that particular world in which all of His elect people would experience circumstances appropriate to cause them to freely trust in Christ.

The primary weakness of both supralapsarian Calvinism (God decreed to save some men before the fall) and infralapsarian Calvinism (God decreed to save some men after the fall) lies in their inability to explain sin and evil without stipulating God as the cause of them, Keathley said. Molinism better reconciles God and the so-called “problem of evil,” he said, and eliminates the charge of God having caused evil.

“God controls all things but He does not cause all things,” Keathley said. “We must embrace God’s permission to avoid having God causing evil.”

Both Welty and Keathley agreed that both Calvinists and non-Calvinists must be charitable in expressing their differences on the doctrine of election.

“To my non-Calvinist brethren I respectfully ask them to consider the arguments and the Scriptures that I have given,” Welty said.

“To my Calvinist brothers, I want to say it is important to distinguish between doctrines that are essential to the Gospel and those that are essential to the flourishing of the Gospel.... Let us avoid using language such as ‘Calvinism is the Gospel.’ I find that unhelpful because it usually generates more heat than light. We don’t want to give someone the impression that he has to believe all the traditional points of Calvinism if he is going to believe the Gospel.”

________

Jeff Robinson, director of news and information at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was among the writers covering the “Building Bridges: Southern Baptists and Calvinism” conference at LifeWay Ridgecrest Conference Center.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #5521]

A Guide to Same-Sex Marriage from the Manufacturer’s Instruction Manual.

_____________

The debate about legal recognition of same-sex marriage is ultimately grounded in our understanding of human nature, values, and the role of human relationships in creating and defining the type of society we desire. For the vast majority of Americans, these issues are understood in the context of the Bible and religious traditions, the “Instruction Manual” provided by our “manufacturer.”1

This critical debate is not truly between homosexuals and heterosexuals; it is between two opposing worldviews, one secular and the other religious.2 Approximately 80% of Americans hold a religious worldview,3 but the secular left has done an excellent, yet nefarious, job of dividing those with a religious worldview through false stereotyping. Their manipulative “divide & conquer” strategy has led many religious people to erroneously fear other religious people more than they fear the secular fundamentalists set on destroying religion and Judeo-Christian values. Thus, many Americans are understandably confused about the same-sex marriage issue and its ultimate driving force, secular fundamentalism.

Everyone does not fit neatly into the purely religious or purely secular worldviews, but “sitting this one out” is not a viable alternative. The stakes for our families and free society are too great. We have to join one team or the other, so we must each choose which team is closer to our own personal values, or which team is further from our values. To avoid a choice is still a choice -- one for the other team.

THE RELIGIOUS POSITION

Everyone knows the secular and radical “gay rights” side of the argument; the public schools, universities, and mass media faithfully present it to us. Fewer understand the religious side of the argument, which is falsely portrayed as ignorant, bigoted, hateful, intolerant, and homophobic. A proper understanding of the religious position is necessary if a real debate is to take place prior to the destruction of a 5,000-year-old institution by a minority of citizens, against the will of the majority.

To discuss the religious view of human nature is not to ignore science, which also informs the opinions of Americans. Many people may not be aware that modern science is belatedly learning that the Biblical view of human nature is more accurate than the views that have been the foundation for most of secular liberalism. In his courageous new book, The Blank Slate, The Modern Denial of Human Nature, MIT professor Steven Pinker, himself a secular liberal, concludes “...the theory of human nature coming out of the cognitive revolution has more in common with the Judeo-Christian theory of human nature ...than with behaviorism, social constructionism, and other versions of the Blank Slate.” Those that think religion is just ancient superstition should take a second, or in many cases, a first look.

To discuss the religious view in dealing with matters of public policy is also not to ignore the “Separation of Church and State,” a 19th century metaphor mistakenly assumed to be in the U.S. Constitution. Unlike humans, who are born morally “tabula rasa” with a blank slate, the United States was not created morally “tabula rasa” as a secular nation. The unifying moral principle of this country’s founding was a religious faith in a divine Creator and the freedom of each individual to practice his or her religion (or no religion) without interference from the government.

The Founders believed that religious faith, particularly the Judeo-Christian tradition, provided the objective ethical basis needed for a free society to properly function. To this very day, the majority of Americans share this belief, so to ban religion from the “public square” is to radically redefine America into a secular nation in opposition to both the principles upon which it was created and the wishes of the majority of its citizens.

The government, as defined in the First Amendment and explained by its author James Madison, must remain neutral between various sects of religion, but is not required to remain neutral between religion and irreligion.4 In the wise words of Thomas Jefferson, so frequently and erroneously presented as an atheist, “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God?”

A review of traditional Judaism’s opposition to homosexuality, and most importantly its public sanction with the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, will highlight the fallacies many well-meaning people, Jew and non-Jew, have apparently accepted.5 (Judaism will guide this discussion, although the general ideas should be in agreement with traditional Christianity.)

To have compassion and tolerance for all of God’s children is admirable and a mitzvah (commandment) under Jewish law, but there is no way Jewish law and tradition can be perverted to endorse and publicly sanction same-sex marriage.

The “Instruction Manual” is clear and unequivocal. “You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a woman, it is an abomination.”6 The ultimate punishment for homosexuality along with the other sexual sins listed in this section, such as bestiality and incest, is kares; God “cutting off” their souls (spiritually) from the midst of their people. Kares is generally understood to be exacted after death, and is considered one of the most severe punishments for a sin. In Judaism, the harshness of the punishment assigned to a sin, whether or not meant to be carried out by humans, helps us understand the relative seriousness of the sin.

Obviously, sexual immorality is a very serious matter for Jews, but Judaism also teaches that sexual immorality, including homosexuality, is universally prohibited to all humans as one of the seven Noahide Laws, God’s “natural law” for all mankind.7

The very first commandment in the Bible comes immediately following God’s creation of human beings, male and female together and equally in His image. God commands us to “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.”8 The great 19th century sage, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, describes this fourfold mission as a guide to the “whole free-willed moral development of the human race:” Fruitful is marriage, multiply is the family, fill the earth is society, and subdue it is property, i.e. the “mastering, appropriating and transforming the earth and its products for human purposes.”9

Rabbi Hirsch further points out the critical nature of heterosexual relationships, based on the Commandment for “man to leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they will be one flesh.”10 “Man is not unique among living beings in having a sexual life. But other creatures require mating only for the purpose of breeding; because male and female were created simultaneously, they can function independent of one another. Man is different: woman was created from man to show that only in a partnership do the two of them form a complete human being.”11

While a small percentage of humans may subconsciously desire a same-sex relationship because it is less complex and challenging, God warns us to consciously overcome that desire and understand that He created the female to be “a helper corresponding” to the male. As the sages explain, “A wife is neither man’s shadow nor his servant, but his other self, a ‘helper’ in a dimension beyond the capability of any other creature.”12 Interestingly, the Hebrew word, kinegdo, here translated as “corresponding to him,” may also be translated as “against him” or “opposite him;” reflecting the built-in complexity and difficulty of the complementary relationship between man and woman.

So humans, originally created as male and female, then separated, must rejoin not just physically, but spiritually to create a civil and prosperous society. Our Creator did not design us to achieve this necessary spiritual unity with same-sex relationships.

But humans do not like rules defining and inhibiting our behavior, so we use our God-given ability to rationalize almost anything and accept erroneous ideas in order to ignore those rules.

FALLACY #1: NATURAL INCLINATION EQUALS ACCEPTABLE PUBLIC BEHAVIOR

Whether a homosexual inclination is caused by genetics, hormonal changes in the womb, psychological development, or mere whim is completely irrelevant. The Creator of human nature would not have prohibited homosexual activity if He did not design this inclination to be controllable by human free will. He gave us free will to control the multitude of inclinations that we all possess to varying degrees. Some are extremely difficult to control, but we are discussing human behavior, not a passive trait such as skin color.

God also gave us mortal and physical humans commandments to guide us in the choices we make, in order to elevate ourselves spiritually -- not to live as instinctual animals, but as rational human beings created in His image. And our volitional efforts are necessary so the spirituality we attain will have a distinct human involvement.

As Maimonides (1135-1204), one of Judaism’s greatest philosophers and legal codifiers, taught:

It is “possible for a person to be born with a tendency to one of

the virtues or one of the shortcomings – i.e., conduct

[representative of this trait] will come easier to him than other

types of conduct. He should not say that these shortcomings are

already ingrained in his character and cannot be removed. For in

every situation a person has the choice of changing from good to

bad, and from bad to good. The choice is in his hands.”13

Without free will, there is no basis for morality or for that matter Judaism or Christianity; so to argue that homosexuality or any prohibited behavior is OK because it is a “natural” inclination is an oxymoron.14 After all, some scientists believe that people are born with inclinations to be violent or criminal or even pedophiles. Do we then condone and sanction these anti-social actions because they were born that way?

Those who believe modern science has proven homosexual activity is impossible to control, resist, or even change; and believe that people who disagree are ignorant and “homophobic,” should be more open-minded and check their premises.15 Regardless of propaganda in the mass media, there is no scientific evidence demonstrating that homosexuality is either innate or immutable.16

FALLACY #2: OPPOSITION TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE IS HATEFUL HOMOPHOBIA

Many view the legalization of same-sex marriage as eliminating “discrimination” in a desire not to make anyone “feel” uncomfortable, as if there is a Constitutional right not to “feel” uncomfortable. They even tie-in discussions of same-sex marriage with “hate crimes” legislation. Therefore, it is important to distinguish between “hating the sin” and “hating the sinner.”

The idea that opposition to homosexual activity and its public sanction is equivalent to or leads to hatred of individual homosexuals is a “big lie” created to demonize, intimidate, and silence opponents of the “gay rights” agenda. And the data confirms the “big lie.” Every crime of violence against another human being is reprehensible, but according to the latest FBI Hate Crimes statistics, it is estimated that less than 0.0001 of homosexuals were victims of violent assaults; not exactly an epidemic of homophobic rage spreading across America.17

In one of the founding documents of the “gay liberation” movement, published in the mid-1980’s, the National Gay Task Force laid out their plan to create this “big lie.”18

• The first order of business is the desensitization of the American people concerning gays and gay rights.

• Almost any behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to it enough.

• The main thing is to talk about gayness until the issue becomes thoroughly tiresome.

• Where we talk is important. The visual media, film and television, are plainly the most powerful image-makers in Western civilization. The average American household watches over seven hours of television daily. Those hours open a gate: the private world of straights, through which a Trojan horse might be passed. As far as desensitization is concerned, the medium is the message of normalcy.

• Portray gays as victims. In any campaign to win over the public we must be cast as victims in need of protection, so that straights will be inclined by reflex to assume the role of the protector.

• We can undercut the moral authority of homophobic churches by portraying them as antiquated backwaters badly out of step with the times.

• At a later stage of the media campaign for gay rights, it will be time to get tough with remaining opponents. To be blunt, they must be vilified...The public must be shown images of ranting homophobes whose secondary traits and beliefs disgust Middle America. These images might include: the Ku Klux Klan demanding that gays be burnt alive or castrated; bigoted southern ministers drooling with hysterical hatred to a degree that looks both comical and deranged. These images should be combined by a method propagandists call the bracket technique.

The propagandists have been extremely successful! We let their Trojan horse enter our homes unabated, and we let them infect the minds of our children. But it is still a lie, built on anti-religious bigotry.

Judaism and Christianity both abhor the sin of homosexual behavior, but only teach love, respect, and toleration for individual fellow humans -- all created in the image of God. Religious people who believe homosexual behavior is a sin and oppose same-sex marriage can sincerely say, “Some of my best friends are gay!”

The fact is that a person practicing homosexuality has committed a religious sin, a very serious one in God’s eyes, but so has a Jew who doesn’t keep Kosher, observe the Sabbath, or violates any of the Commandments. They are no less Jewish, and society lives and deals with these “sinners” in a variety of amicable, tolerant, and neighborly ways without creating special legal “rights.” This same tolerance applies to homosexuals.19

Truly religious people are tolerant of others with whom they disagree and can live peaceably and neighborly with them in a free society.20 This is especially true in America where the political environment has always been one based on respect for and protection of individual rights. But the “gay rights” movement does not want tolerance; they want nothing less than forced acceptance of their lifestyle as normal, healthy, and moral; a position most religious people must reject for themselves and their children. And this is where the problems arise.

This undemocratic use of government force by a minority of citizens is at its most despicable when public schools are used to impose these ideas on children of religious families.21 And as if this use of public schools for ideological indoctrination were not enough, they then use judicial activism to control private organizations, such as the Boy Scouts, which are only remotely connected to the government.

Are there intolerant religious people? Of course, but they represent only a small minority not fully observing a basic tenet of both Judaism and Christianity, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”22 Their religious practice, however flawed, at least constrains their behavior, and in the long run it is an effective tool for improving their humanity.

On the other side, without religion as the basis for the public moral culture, what will constrain behavior and lead to an improvement of humanity? What will restrain secular intolerance from infecting not a small minority, but a large majority? History’s grand experiment with a secular society, Communism, was an evil and dismal failure that killed over 100 million innocent people in the 20th Century.23 Add to that the Holocaust perpetrated by the socialist, neo-pagan Nazis. All of the (Judeo-Christian) religious wars in the history of the world pale by comparison.24

Could a secular society result in a nation as great as the United States? Anything is possible in a perfect world, but in our imperfect world, no such society has yet approached the freedom and the spiritual and material prosperity of the United States.

Those who wish to ban religion from the “public square” and impose secularism on the majority of Americans would do well to rethink their position – the grass is not always greener on the other side. As Benjamin Franklin wrote to Thomas Paine in an attempt to persuade Paine to abandon his anti-religion essays: “If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it.”25

FALLACY #3: SAME-SEX MARRIAGE IS A PRIVATE ACT BETWEEN CONSENTING ADULTS

The hidden [sins] are for Hashem, our God, but the revealed

[sins] are for us and our children forever, to carry out all the

words of this Torah.

-- Deuteronomy 29:28

The sages explain that Moses is teaching, “hidden sins are the province of God alone, and He holds no one responsible but the sinners themselves. But everyone is obligated to safeguard...against openly committed sins.”26 Thus, homosexual activity between consenting adults practiced in privacy is primarily a sin against God, and He will deal with it. It is not a matter for government regulation. The same cannot be said about same-sex marriage.

Most people may be surprised to know that the debate over same-sex marriage is not new. As the wise King Solomon taught us, “There is nothing new under the sun.” The Bible teaches that God brought on the Flood in Noah’s time because, “all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth.”27 A fascinating Midrash (ancient rabbinic commentary on the Bible) teaches: “the generation of the Flood was only blotted out from the world because they wrote marriage contracts for males and for females.”28

Later, the Talmud teaches that Noahides (monotheistic non-Jews) who did not observe all of the Noahide laws at least did “not write a marriage contract for males...”29 In explaining this discussion, Rashi, the great 11th century commentator on the Bible and Talmud, points out the vital distinction between private actions and public policy:

Even though they are suspected of homosexuality and sequester

themselves with males for intercourse, nevertheless, they are not

so irresponsible about this commandment that they would write a

marriage contract for them.

There are serious consequences to a society that officially sanctions activities the vast majority of its citizens accept as immoral. We ignore, at our own peril, the infinite difference between acceptable private and public behavior, especially for families raising children with a focus on future generations, a challenge very few homosexuals share.

To publicly sanction same-sex marriage is to implicitly sanction the short-term outlook on life inherent to homosexuality. A perfect example of the disastrous public policy effects of this sort-sighted viewpoint was the “father” of FDR’s New Deal, economist John Maynard Keynes. A major flaw in Keynes’ thinking was his concentration on the short-term. He thought that focus on the long run was utterly futile and one of the great mistakes in economics. He abhorred “savings,” thought the “abstinence” of people impedes the growth of wealth, and believed savings are always a potential threat to economic progress.

One of the leading economists of the 20th Century, Joseph Schumpeter, noted the connection between Keynes’ flawed ideas and his “childless and essentially short run philosophy of life” when he said, “for a person committed to homosexuality, who is without descendants, there is little for them to focus the future on.”30 It is not a coincidence that the Hebrew word in the Bible for “children” is linguistically the same as “builders.”

As economist and political philosopher Thomas Sowell explains,31

Marriage is not an individual right. Otherwise, why limit

marriage to unions of two people instead of three of four or

five? Why limit it to adult humans, if some want to be united

with others of various ages, sexes, and species. Marriage is a

social contract because the issues involved go beyond the

particular individuals. Unions of a man and woman produce the

future generations on whom the fate of the whole society depends.

Society has something to say about that.

If society elects not to say anything about it and abandons the primacy of the traditional family, with its focus on children and future generations, we also abandon our connections to past generations, traditions, and history. All we will be left with is a “present” filled with hedonistic irresponsibility. And we don’t have to wait too long -- just look around! This current attempt at a perpetual age of adolescence, if not halted soon, will lead at an increasingly rapid rate to the uncontrollable destruction of civil society.

The Emperor Nero reportedly “went so far as to write a marriage contract for one of his favorite male lovers.”32 Do we really want to follow the Roman Empire into decline and ruin? It is critical to recognize the essential difference between a society where homosexuality is practiced privately and one that actually gives it official sanction and recognition.

FALLACY #4: ECONOMIC BENEFITS FOR HOMOSEXUALS CAN ONLY BE OBTAINED BY GOVERNMENT FORCE

Proponents of same-sex marriage claim all they really want are equal “rights” for homosexuals who live together as couples. This is very appealing to Americans who historically have been tolerant and fair; but it is a false argument.

Before new “rights” are created, it is only logical to ask what is their source. The “revolutionary” achievement of the Founders of the United States was their recognition that neither they nor any government could create rights. This was in complete contrast to the historic Divine Rights of Kings or the modern systems of man-made collective rights, such as in the former Soviet Union.

The individual rights of man were from God, as the Declaration of Independence clearly states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...” President John F. Kennedy confirmed the divine source of these rights in his Inaugural Address, “...the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe -- the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.”

Same-sex marriage, by any stretch of the imagination, is in complete contradiction to God’s “Instruction Manual,” so if the rights of man come “from the hand of God,” it is inconceivable that God would view same-sex marriage as a “right.”

If proponents of same-sex marriage truly want just the economic benefits (not “rights”) that heterosexual sexual couples have, those benefits can easily be provided in the free market on a voluntary basis, without the use of government force. Many corporations such as Disney, General Electric, and Wal-Mart accommodate their employee benefit programs for homosexuals and many already include insurance coverage for “domestic partners.” Just as voluntary sexual activity should be a private matter, economic benefits for private sexual relationships should be voluntary. This may entail modifications in some State laws concerning contracts and benefits, but it does not require laws destroying the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman that has been the cornerstone of civilization for over 5,000 years.

A FINAL FALLACY: SAME-SEX MARRIAGE HURTS NO ONE

In America, we believe in “Live and Let Live,” so who is hurt if two boys or two girls want to marry each other?

“Live & Let Live” is a great hallmark of American political life, but it is only effective in matters between fully developed adults. The introduction of children and a concern for future generations change the equation.

This is especially true when it comes to public sanctions and forced indoctrination of children in the public school system. Parents should not be forced to teach their children that a fundamental religious and moral prohibition, one that has been a standard of Judeo-Christian morality for thousands of years, is not only condoned, but is publicly sanctioned by their government.

Many homosexuals, such as those with a religious worldview and especially those with children or strong family ties, understand and accept the position that same-sex marriage will be harmful to society; yet it is understandable that many other homosexuals might not see the harm in same-sex marriage.

But, why do so many heterosexuals support same-sex marriage? It seems apparent that most are misled with the nice sounding but intentionally false idea that government force is necessary to eliminate hatred, uncomfortable feelings, and differences in economic benefits. What about those leading this battle and intentionally misleading the public? Why are they so vociferously demanding the right to impose this potentially disastrous policy on the majority of Americans?

The answer lies in the fundamental difference between the secular and the religious worldviews; therefore, it is not unimportant that the vast majority of Americans hold a religious outlook on life. The third chapter of the Talmud, Pirkei Avos, (Chapters of the Fathers), asks three of the most critical questions humans grapple with.33 As Rabbi Daniel Lapin explains, each of these transcendental questions can be answered in two primary ways, defining the difference between the two worldviews.34

1. How did human beings come to be on this planet?

Religious: God created us in His image and placed us here.

Secular: By a lengthy, random process of unaided materialistic evolution, primitive protoplasm became Bach and Beethoven.

2. Where is the human race headed?

Religious: To an ultimate day of God’s choosing when a grand Messianic redemption will take place resulting in the whole world recognizing God and His truth.

Secular: To an ultimate day of destruction and oblivion that will wipe us out through overcrowding, poverty, global warming, acid rain, nuclear explosion, off-course meteorites or any combination of the above.

3: What are we supposed to be doing here?

Religious: We are supposed to be developing our relationship with God and becoming closer to Him through studying and following His Torah and obeying His mitzvoth. In other words, we have a set of objective ethics to live by.

Secular: There are no objective ethics, so everything is subjective and relative. “Anything goes” is good enough as far as our personal lives go! Our primary focus on the future is to head off the threats to humanity in the Secular answer to question #2. If they are too formidable for us to solve alone, we should urge our government to solve them. If they are too much for one government to solve, we should urge governments to cooperate through the United Nations in order to solve them.

Monotheists, such as Jews and Christians, would be in basic agreement with the religious answers, albeit with variations in the details.

Secularists eschew objective values and ethics,36 and look at the future as extremely tenuous and limited to only “this world.” The ultimate day of destruction and oblivion are rapidly approaching, and there is nothing after that! Thus both homosexual and heterosexual secularists, based on their secular worldview, can very easily fall into the trap of supporting same-sex marriage. To do so, they intentionally ignore the serious problems they are imposing on parents with a religious worldview -- parents trying to teach their children Judeo-Christian values.

Secularists truly believe religious people are ignorant, intolerant, homophobic, racist, and generally dangerous; so they believe it is only “social justice” to destroy any public acceptance of the religious worldview, even by undemocratic means. The leaders of the secular movement are strident atheists who cannot tolerate religious people; a constant reminder of everything they reject. Instead of being religious fundamentalists, they became secular fundamentalists. Through propaganda and ridicule, these fundamentalists have also convinced a minority of Americans, who believe in God, to fear religion more than secularism, in complete disregard to the barbaric reality of the 20th century.

After the fall of Nazism and Communism, the secular fundamentalists focused primarily on post-Christian Europe and American academia, turning both into hotbeds of anti-religious bigotry and virulent anti-Semitism. These self-proclaimed “progressives” espouse diversity, but are in fact very close-minded and hostile to all political, cultural, and especially religious opinions with which they disagree.

Over a century ago, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch anticipated modern secular fundamentalism with prophetic precision.37

It is now no longer enough for the apostate to be able to live

undisturbed according to his convictions, as he calls them; to

him there is no well-being and no peace as long as his

convictions have not become the only ones recognized as right and

valid.

He sees in the Law an intellectual slavery from which it is the

Godly task of a second Moses to redeem his unfortunate brothers.

In Torah-loyalty, he sees superstition, backwardness, and at the

same time a calamity which is to blame for all the miseries of

the past.

He sees in “liberation” from the yoke of the Law a goal so high

and so humanitarian that every means which seems capable of

bringing about progress toward this great goal must be employed.

He has reached the stage of waging fanatical campaigns of

persecution against those loyal to the Law.

Extremists on either side can be dangerous if initiation of force is not limited by a strong Constitutional defense of individual rights and religious freedom.38 The secular side, however, offers the greatest risk to society. It contains no internalized mechanism for an objective moral code of human cooperation and must rely solely on the collectivized, legalistic force of government for citizens to defend themselves. It also contains no effective, common moral foundation for raising children, especially in a vacuum without an existent moral culture passed down from previous generations of religious tradition

THE ULTIMATE VICTIMS

Who are the ultimate victims? On a micro level, our children are the victims, but on a macro level, our free society will be the victim. As President John Adams said in 1798,

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with

human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our

Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is

wholly inadequate to the government of any other.39

George Washington expressed this same idea in his 1796 Farewell Address to the Nation:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political

prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In

vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should

labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness - these

firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.40

In other words, our secular form of government was designed only for a non-secular people.

150 years later, President Harry Truman confirmed that a “moral and religious people” were still necessary for maintenance of our free society.41

The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on

the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes

from the teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from

Isaiah and St. Paul.

If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will

finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not

believe in rights for anybody except the State.

Adams, Washington, the other Founders, and Presidents through George W. Bush have understood that a limited Constitutional government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” could work only if the society is primarily self-policed, based on a common moral code that served as an invisible net of social stability. In America this has always been the Judeo-Christian values derived from the Bible, most recently expressed in the phrase “one nation under God.”

Some argue that to officially state the United States is “one nation under God” or to publicly recognize Judeo-Christian thought as the source of our legal and political systems violates the rights of atheists and non-monotheists. The very concept of “rights” in the United States presupposes belief in the God of the Bible, not by every citizen, but at least by the majority. Like homosexuals, atheists want to invent a right to force their neighbors to lock their religious beliefs in the closet, so no one ever feels uncomfortable.

To accept the assertion that public sanction of religion violates the rights of atheists and non-monotheists, one must completely ignore the Declaration of Independence, the history and writings of the Founders, and our nation’s history until the last 50 years. If ignored, then this discussion is not about the United States, but a completely new country. How can the greatest nation in the history of the world allow judges and special interest groups to completely redefine the nature and character of this great country without ascertaining the will of the majority through a democratic process?42

Do we really believe that the Founders, who created this revolutionary concept of rights and created the greatest Constitutional system as yet devised by mankind, did not understand what they were doing? Contrary to a historical myth perpetrated by the secularists, America at the time of the founding included atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, etc.,43 and the Founders knew that it was only this unique form of government, based on individual rights from God, that would protect people of all beliefs.

As historian David Barton explains, the Founders were all religious Christians, but they did not oppose pluralism, “as long as the beliefs of other religions did not threaten the stability of civil society.44 In fact, the Founders believed that pluralism survived only within the concept of religious liberty espoused by American Christianity,”45 uniquely different from European Christianity and based on what we now term the Judeo-Christian Ethic.46

The opposite is not necessarily true. As Rabbi Hirsch taught us about the secular fundamentalist, there will be “no well-being and no peace as long as his convictions have not become the only ones recognized as right and valid.” He cannot tolerate a religious worldview outside the confines of the church or synagogue. Sadly, the history of 20th century Europe and the secular liberalism of 21st century American academia confirm both his prediction and the understanding of the Founders that pluralism of belief will not survive in a secular society.

People yearn for predictability in their lives and communities, and this invisible net provides that predictability in their everyday lives. If predictability is lost to chaos, they often turn to dictators or other forms of totalitarian government to restore predictability.

Without a moral public culture shared by the majority of citizens to provide the invisible net of social stability, government could not be limited and would have to encroach into every citizen’s life and freedom. Instead of a free society of cooperation between individuals, more and more human interaction would have to be decided by the legal system and bureaucrats. Morality would be replaced by legality, which helps explain why the judicial system is taking control of our government and our lives. Without a commonly accepted morality, there is no basis for human cooperation, other than force. Freedom would rapidly morph into tyranny.

As Rabbi Lapin has explained:47

One unintended side effect of the secular fundamentalism sweeping

America is how it erodes the rules that hold together the

invisible net of social stability. By encouraging unfettered

personal license, secular fundamentalism helps collapse civilized

norms. Then, when people dress with deliberately provocative

vulgarity and they express themselves loudly and obscenely in

public, hardworking, family-minded citizens are left with a

growing feeling of unease. When young people no longer see their

maturation leading naturally toward marriage and when marriage

itself becomes threatened by cultural ridicule and purported

alternatives, parents feel unmoored. When public institutions

depict religion as only for the emotionally needy and the

intelligence impaired many Americans feel resentment and

alienation.

This is obviously not to suggest that the hobby of shattering

traditional rules that seems to delight so many journalists,

academics, and intellectuals is going to endow America with a

future dictatorial tyrant. It can eventually, however, infect

ordinary Americans with docility about further Federal control

beyond that necessary to protect us from our enemies. In a

desperate attempt to recover some sense of normality and

predictability in our lives, we might be tempted to embrace

expanded government influence over how we live, earn, and

worship. We would yearn for the predictability and normality

that used to be supplied by those traditional rules that many

Jewish and Christian Americans of faith remember increasingly

nostalgically. Biblically-based faith helps to maintain freedom

by holding together the invisible framework of social stability.

The Founders understood this lesson well, but we have strayed from that lesson.

Our free society, as the Founders dreamed it and we once knew it, will be lost forever unless Americans make a political stand to preserve this endangered “invisible framework of social stability.” That stand must begin with protecting children from the Trojan horse of secular fundamentalism expressed in such formerly unthinkable legalisms as same-sex marriage.

The secular fundamentalists leading this assault on Judeo-Christian values understand very well that the children are their point of attack. If you doubt that children are the intended victims, read the words of an openly homosexual woman who was formerly an insider in the leadership of the feminist and radical “gay rights” movements, until she realized these movements were no longer based on the ideal of civil-rights, but on “socialism, the foundational model of the Far Left.”48 These are a few of her comments about their efforts “to end anti-gay bias in K-12 schools.”49

For people whose entire identity and reason to live is based in

their sexuality, what do they need to do in order to fit

comfortably into our society? They must work to sexualize every

part of society – and, as every good marketer knows, that effort

must begin with children.

The efforts of gay establishment organizations, if the future is

really their concern, should be focused on persuading the horde

of bacchanalian boys to change their lifestyle. Instead, they

are demanding that we accept their degeneracy, and the

destruction of our future in the process. We dare not judge

them. We dare not question their actions. And we are to hand

the nation’s children over to them.

This is why a free society such as the United States, where the vast majority of the people believe in Judeo-Christian values, can tolerate unrestricted private sexual activity between consenting adults, but cannot allow public sanction and endorsement of homosexuality as a cultural norm.

WILL GOD CONTINUE TO BLESS AMERICA?

Until the past few years, almost all Americans, and especially Presidents and candidates for President, firmly believed that America had earned God’s blessings. Now, secularists and even some Presidential candidates question this bedrock belief of religious Americans. The naysayers may unwittingly prove to be correct if they are successful in imposing their secular agenda on the majority of Americans.

From the religious point of view, same-sex marriage and its public sanction of homosexuality will desecrate God’s name. On a much larger scale it will also risk the loss of His blessings on the United States, so eloquently requested by President George Washington in his first Inaugural address (1789):

... it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first

official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who

rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations,

and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that

his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of

the People of the United States, a Government instituted by

themselves for these essential purposes.

Samuel Silver is Chairman of Toward Tradition, a national movement of Jewish and Christian cooperation, fighting anti-religious bigotry and secular fundamentalism.

________

ENDNOTES

1. As Rabbi Daniel Lapin explains, just as automobile manufacturers provide an “Instruction Manual” with every car produced, God gave human beings an “Instruction Manual” upon our creation. Rabbi Lapin calls this “Instruction Manual,” “God’s biblical blueprint”, and it is revealed in the Torah – the Jewish bible that serves as the foundation for both Judaism and Christianity. It is further revealed in the oral law given by God to Moses and further explained by the sages over thousands of years.

2. For a larger understanding of the secular war against religion and Judeo-Christian values in the U.S., see Daniel Lapin, America’s Real War, Multomah, 1999. Another excellent resource is Rabbi Lapin’s audio presentation, “Is America Airborne? Or have we run out of fuel?” available from Toward Tradition at http://www.towardtradition.org/.

3. In the United States, 75% of citizens identify themselves as having a “religious outlook,” compared to 10% with a “secular outlook,” 6% with a “somewhat secular outlook,” and 9% who either do not know or refused this question. It is assumed that some of these 9% also hold a religious outlook, thus the approximation of 80% of Americans holding a religious worldview. Only 1% of Americans identify themselves at atheist or agnostic. Source: “2001 American Religious Identification Survey,” The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Available online at: http://www.gc.cuny.edu/studies/key_findings.htm

4. For a detailed analysis of the Founders’ intent in writing the 1st Amendment, see the dissent that Justice William Rehnquist wrote in the 1985 Supreme Court case (Wallace v, Jaffree). Available online at: http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Wallace/Rehnquist.html.

5. It is bewildering that organizations describing themselves as Jewish could applaud and advocate the Judicial tyranny leading to a “right” for homosexuals to marry. These groups include ADL, AJC, Hadassah, and the Religious Action Center of the Reform movement.

6. Leviticus 18:22

7. The Seven Noahide Laws, derived from the Five Books of Moses and delineated in the Talmud, are considered by Jewish scholars to be Natural Law for non-Jews. The first six are prohibitions against murder, theft, sexual immorality, idol worship, blaspheming God, and eating a limb torn from a living animal (animal cruelty). The 7th law is a positive requirement to institute a system of law and courts to implement the first six. Online information available at: http://www.rb.org.il/noahide/noahinstitute.htm.

8. Genesis 1:28

9. Samson Raphael Hirsch, Commentary on the Torah (Unabridged Edition), Genesis 1:28.

10. Ibid. Commentary on Genesis 2:24.

11. Genesis Volume 1(a), Artscroll Tanach Series (Mesorah Publications). Summary of Hirsch commentary on Genesis 2:24

12. Ibid. Commentary on Genesis 2:18.

13. Maimonides’ Introduction to the Tractate of Avot (Shemoneh Perakim), Chapter Eight, “The Composition of Human Nature.”

14. For those that erroneously believe science has ruled out the existence of free will, refer to Jeffrey Satinover, The Quantum Brain – The Search for Freedom and the Next Generation of Man, John Wiley & Sons, 2001.

15. For example, refer to Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth by Jeffrey Satinover, M.D. Baker Books, 1996. The most current research in this field is available online at http://www.narth.com/. There is also a “Jewish” organization, JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality) which offers information on their website, http://www.jonahweb.org/.

16. See “The Innate-Immutable Argument Finds No Basis in Science,” available online at http://www.narth.com/docs/innate.html.

17. See “Hate Crime Statistics, 2002” at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hatecrime2002.pdf. An assumption was made that 3% of the U.S. population above age 14 was homosexual or approximately 6.6 million. The total violent “hate crimes” due to “sexual orientation” was 633. If it is assumed that homosexuals represent a higher proportion of Americans, such as the estimated upper limit of 5%, the ratio of “hate crimes” is even far less significant.

18. Marshall Kirk & Erastes Pill (aka Hunter Madsen),”Waging Peace,” as quoted in The American Enterprise magazine, June 2001.

19. For a detailed discussion on how the word “tolerance” has become corrupted by secular fundamentalists to really become “intolerance,” see the Toward Tradition pamphlet, “Terrorized by Tolerance,” available online at http://www.towardtradition.org/pamphlet.htm.

20. For this discussion, religion refers to the twin civilizations of the Bible, Judaism and Christianity, as practiced within the United States. Traditional Islam might also fall into this category, but a full discussion of Islam and other religious traditions is beyond he scope of this paper.

21. It is ironic that if the secular fundamentalists are successful in legalizing same-sex marriage and achieving their other goals such as removing any public mention or display of God, it will be the kiss of death for the public school system that they have used to indoctrinate America’s children. Parents will eventually revolt and take back control of their children’s education through a voucher system.

22. Leviticus 19:18

23. Courtois, et al, The Black Book of Communism, Harvard University Press, 1999.

24. Many in the Jewish community hold Christianity responsible for the Nazi Holocaust. There is no doubt that European Christian anti-Semitism historically created a terrible and horrendous mindset against Jews in Europe, and played an indirect role in the Holocaust. However, the ultimate expression of this anti-Semitism was carried out, not by Christians, but by the National Socialists (Nazis) who were neo-pagans and also hated Christians. See “The Church’s Responsibility,” in The Rav, The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, volume II, KTAV Publishing, 1999.

25. A letter to Thomas Paine (Dissuading him from publishing a Work of an irreligious Tendency.) The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks, Editor. As quoted in David Barton, Original Intent, Wallbuilder Press, 2002.

26. Commentary on Deuteronomy 29:28 based on Rashi and Ramban, as quoted in The Chumash, Stone Edition. Mesorah Publications.

27. Genesis 6:12

28. Midrash Rabbah, Vayikra 23.9

29. Tractate of Chullin (92 a & b)

30. See Samuel Silver, “In the long run, we are all dead - NOT!” Jewish World Review, Dec. 21, 2000, available online at: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/sam/silver122100.asp.

31. Thomas Sowell, “Gay Marriage Confusion,” Jewish World Review (3/9/2004), available online at: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell030904.asp

32. David Novak, The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism. An Historical and Constructive Study of the Noahide Laws. The Edwin Mellen Press, 1983.

33. The three questions are literally: “Know whence you came, whither you go, and before Whom you will give justification and reckoning.”

34. For a more complete discussion of these three essential questions, see Daniel Lapin, America’s Real War, Multomah, 1999. Also see Rabbi Lapin’s article, “Ethnicity versus Belief in Jewish Marriage” available online at: http://www.towardtradition.org/article_Ethnicity_vs_belief.htm

35. The logical conclusion of the secular answer to this first question of “How did human beings come to be on this planet?” is socialism and/or its collectivist first cousin fascism, but that discussion is beyond the scope of this paper.

36. There are rare exceptions such as the Objectivism of Ayn Rand.

37. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, “The Seven Stages of Apostasy” in Collected Writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Volume I. Feldheim Publishers, 1997 Edition.

38. As Nobel laureate, Milton Friedman has pointed out on numerous occasions, only a “classical liberal” approach to limited government and free-markets (libertarian, with a small L, in 20th Century terms) will effectively protect individuals and especially minorities, whether racial or religious. For example, see Capitalism and Freedom, U. of Chicago Press, 1963, and “Capitalism and the Jews,” Presidential Address to the Mont Pelerin Society (1972), available online at http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1967.

Another Nobel laureate, economist and philosopher, F.A. Hayek, himself a religious agnostic, believed that societies and even religions could come into being by his concept of “spontaneous order,” but that only certain monotheistic ones have proven successful in transmitting the necessary “beneficial traditions.” As he stated, “Among the founders of religions over the last two thousand years, many opposed property and the family. But the only religions that have survived are those which support property and the family.” F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit, U. of Chicago Press, 1988, Volume 1, Chapter 9. Hayek and Friedman would both agree that socialism and all forms of collectivism are dangerous for Jews, Christians, and all other human beings.

39. John Adams. 1798 Address to the Military. Quoted in William J. Federer, America’s God and Country - Encyclopedia of Quotations. Amerisearch, 2000.

40. George Washington, Farewell Address, Philadelphia, September 17, 1796. Available online at: http://odur.let.rug.nl/%7Eusa/P/gw1/speeches/gwfar.htm

41. President Harry Truman, Address to the Attorney General’s Conference, 1950. Quoted in William J. Federer, America’s God and Country - Encyclopedia of Quotations. Amerisearch, 2000.

42. George Washington warned of an undemocratic usurpation of power by one branch of government in his 1796 Farewell address: “It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to confirm themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates, but let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.” George Washington, Farewell Address, Philadelphia, September 17, 1796. Available online at: http://odur.let.rug.nl/%7Eusa/P/gw1/speeches/gwfar.htm

43. For a discussion of religious pluralism at the time of the Founders, see David Barton, Original Intent, Wallbuilder Press, 2002. Page 31. Although atheists existed in colonial times, they were not numerous or at least not publicly visible. Even today, only approximately 1% of Americans claim to be atheists or agnostics. See “2001 American Religious Identification Survey,” The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Available online at: http://www.gc.cuny.edu/studies/key_findings.htm. Another 13% specify “no religion,” but that is not the same as atheism.

In a pamphlet written for Europeans considering relocation to America, Benjamin Franklin offered this outlook on atheism in America. “Atheism is unknown there; Infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or an Infidel.” Information to Those Who Would Remove to America, quoted in William J. Federer, America’s God and Country - Encyclopedia of Quotations. Amerisearch, 2000. Page 247.

44. Thomas Jefferson, a committed Unitarian Christian, also understood well the importance of religious pluralism as long as the religions did not “threaten the stability of civil society.” In 1822 he wrote to a fellow Unitarian, “I write with freedom because, while I claim a right to believe in one God, if so my reason tells me, I yield as freely to others that of believing in three. Both religions I find make honest men, and that is the only point society has any authority to look to.” Quoted in Eugene Sheridan, Jefferson and Religion, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1998, Page 68.

45. David Barton, Original Intent, Wallbuilder Press, 2002. Page 33.

46. To understand the unique combination of Christian and Jewish thought that was the hallmark of the Founders, see “Jewish Metaphysics at the Founding” in Michael Novak’s On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding, Encounter Books, 2002. Some of Novak’s discussion is available online at: http://www.politicsandvirtue.com/novak1.htm.

47. Daniel Lapin, “And it came to pass in the days of Saddam.” Available online at: http://www.towardtradition.org/article_Saddam.htm

48. Tammy Bruce, The New Thought Police, Inside the Left’s Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds, Random House, 2001, P.4. Ms. Bruce was formerly President of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW).

49. Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values, Prima Publishing/Random House, 2003, pp 103-104. This discussion is about GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate in KeruxID 25837-26027]

Election is the act of God whereby in eternity past He chose those who will be saved. Election is UNCONDITIONAL, because it does not depend on anything outside of God, such as good works or foreseen faith (Romans 9:16). This doctrine is repeatedly taught in the Bible, and is also demanded by our knowledge of God. To begin with, let's look at the biblical evidence.

The Bible says prior to salvation, all people are dead in sin -- SPIRITUALLY DEAD (Ephesians 2:1-3). In this state of death, the sinner is utterly unable to respond to any spiritual stimulus and therefore unable to love God, obey Him, or please Him in any way. Scripture says the mind of every unbeliever “is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for IT IS NOT EVEN ABLE TO DO SO; AND THOSE WHO ARE IN THE FLESH CANNOT PLEASE GOD” (Romans 8:7-8, emphasis added). That describes a state of total hopelessness: spiritual death.

The effect of all this is that no sinner can ever make the first move in the salvation process. This is what Jesus meant in John 6:44, when He said, “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him.”

This is also why the Bible repeatedly stresses that salvation is WHOLLY GOD'S WORK. In Acts 13:48 we read, “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”

Acts 16 tells us that Lydia was saved when, “...the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.”

Romans 8:29-30 states, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

Ephesians 1:4-5,11 reads, “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will ... also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.”

Ephesians 2:8 suggests that even our faith is a gift from God.

In 2 Thessalonians 2:13, the apostle Paul tells his readers, “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation.”

Second Timothy 1:9 informs us that God “has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.”

Occasionally someone will suggest that God's election is based on His foreknowledge of certain events. This argument suggests that God simply looks into the future to see who will believe, and He chooses those whom He sees choosing Him. Notice that 1 Peter 1:2 says the elect are chosen “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,” and Romans 8:29 says, “whom He foreknew, He also predestined.” And if divine foreknowledge simply means God's knowledge of what will happen in advance, then these arguments may appear to have some weight behind them.

But that is not the biblical meaning of “foreknowledge.” When the Bible speaks of God's foreknowledge, it refers to God's establishment of a love relationship with that person. The word “know,” in both the Old and New Testament, refers to much more than mere cognitive knowledge of a person. Such passages as Hosea 13:4-5; Amos 3:2 (KJV); and Romans 11:2 clearly indicate this. For example, 1 Peter 1:20 says Christ was “foreknown before the foundation of the world.” Surely this means more than that God the Father looked into the future to behold Christ! It means He had an eternal, loving relationship with Him. The same is true of the elect, whom we are told God “foreknew” (Romans 8:29). That means He knew them -- he LOVED them -- before the foundation of the world.

If God's choice of the elect is unconditional, does this rule out human responsibility? Paul asks and answers that very question in Romans 9:19-20. He says God's choice of the elect is an act of mercy. Left to themselves, even the elect would persist in sin and be lost, because they are taken from the same fallen lump of clay as the rest of humanity. God alone is responsible for their salvation, but that does not eradicate the responsibility of those who persist in sin and are lost -- because they do it willfully, and not under compulsion. They are responsible for their sin, not God.

The Bible affirms human responsibility right alongside the doctrine of divine sovereignty. Moreover, the offer of mercy in the gospel is extended to all alike. Isaiah 55:1 and Revelation 22:17 call “whosoever will” to be saved. Isaiah 45:22 and Acts 17:30 command all men to turn to God, repent and be saved. First Timothy 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9 tell us that God is not willing that any should perish, but desires that all should be saved. Finally, the Lord Jesus said that, “the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37).

In summary, we can say that God has had a special love relationship with the elect from all eternity, and on the basis of that love relationship chosen them for salvation. The ultimate question of why God chose some for salvation and left others in their sinful state is one that we, with our finite knowledge, cannot answer. We do know that God's attributes always are in perfect harmony with each other, so that God's sovereignty will always operate in perfect harmony with His goodness, love, wisdom, and justice.

From WWW.GTY.ORG (Grace to You, the teaching ministry of John MacArthur)

*

While most pastors would recognize and understand theological terms used in articles discussing Calvinism, readers who have not had formal theological training might not be familiar with such terms and phrases as these:

CALVINISM -- A theological tradition named after sixteenth-century French reformer John Calvin that emphasizes the sovereignty of God in all things, man's inability to do spiritual good before God, and the glory of God as the highest end of all that occurs.

DOCTRINES OF GRACE -- Another term for the theological tradition commonly referred to as Calvinism.

ARMINIANISM -- A theological tradition named after seventeenth-century theologian Jacob Arminius that seeks to preserve the free choices of human beings and denies God's providential control over the details of all events.

SUPRALAPSARIANISM -- The belief held by some Calvinists that God decided first that He would save some people then decided to allow sin to enter the world so He could save them from it.

DOUBLE PREDESTINATION -- The belief that God predestines some to salvation and others to damnation.

ATONEMENT -- The work Christ did in His life and death to earn our salvation.

PROVIDENCE -- The doctrine that God is continually involved with all created things so that He maintains their existence, guides their actions, and directs them to fulfill His purposes.

PRE-TRIBULATIONAL/PRE-MILLENNIAL -- The view that God will rapture believers into heaven secretly during Christ's first return prior to the great tribulation.

AMILLENNIAL -- The view that there will be no literal thousand-year bodily reign of Christ on earth prior to the final judgment and the eternal state.

PELAGIANS -- Those holding the theological beliefs of the fifth-century monk Pelagius, who believed that man has the ability to obey God's commands and take the first steps to salvation without God's assistance.

OPEN THEISTS -- Those who believe that God does not know with certainty all future events.

*

It is no novelty, then, that I am preaching; no new doctrine. I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines that are called by nickname Calvinism, but which are truly and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus. By this truth I make my pilgrimage into the past, and as I go, I see father after father, confessor after confessor, martyr after martyr, standing up to shake hands with me.... Taking these things to be the standard of my faith, I see the land of the ancients peopled with my brethren; I behold multitudes who confess the same as I do, and acknowledge that this is the religion of God’s own church. (Spurgeon’s Sovereign Grace Sermons, Still Waters Revival Books, p. 170).

I have my own opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel if we do not preach justification by faith without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing unchangeable eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross. (Charles Spurgeon, The New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. 1, 1856).

... and I will go as far as Martin Luther, in that strong assertion of his, where he says, ‘If any man doth ascribe of salvation, even the very least, to the free will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus Christ aright.’ It may seem a harsh sentiment; but he who in his soul believes that man does of his own free will turn to God, cannot have been taught of God, for that is one of the first principles taught us when God begins with us, that we have neither will nor power, but that He gives both; that he is ‘Alpha and Omega’ in the salvation of men. (C.H. Spurgeon from the sermon “Free Will A Slave”, 1855).

You must first deny the authenticity and full inspiration of the Holy Scripture before you can legitimately and truly deny election. (Charles Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 3, p. 130).

When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this. I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths in my own soul - when they were as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron; and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown all of a sudden from a babe into a man - that I had made progress in scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God ... I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, I ascribe my change wholly to God. (Charles Spurgeon, Autobiography: 1, The Early Years, Banner of Truth, pp. 164-165).

George Whitefield said, “We are all born Arminians.” It is grace that turns us into Calvinists. (Charles Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 2, p. 124).

Calvinism did not spring from Calvin. We believe that it sprang from the great Founder of all truth. (Charles Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 7, p. 298).

We declare on scriptural authority that the human will is so desperately set on mischief, so depraved, so inclined to everything that is evil, and so disinclined to everything that is good, that without the powerful, supernatural, irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, no human will ever be constrained toward Christ. (Charles Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 4, p.139).

I do not come into this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will of his own free will return to Christ. My hope lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, “You are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for myself.” My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will. I believe that Christ came into the world not to put men into a salvable state, but into a saved state. Not to put them where they could save themselves, but to do the work in them and for them, from first to last. If I did not believe that there was might going forth with the word of Jesus which makes men willing, and which turns them from the error of their ways by the mighty, overwhelming, constraining force of divine influence, I should cease to glory in the cross of Christ. (C.H. Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 3, p. 34).

A man is not saved against his will, but he is made willing by the operation of the Holy Ghost. A mighty grace which he does not wish to resist enters into the man, disarms him, makes a new creature of him, and he is saved. (C.H. Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 10, p. 309).

I question whether we have preached the whole counsel of God, unless predestination with all its solemnity and sureness be continually declared. (Charles Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 6, p. 26).

CHARLES SPURGEON QUOTES ON LIMITED ATONEMENT

If Christ on His cross intended to save every man, then He intended to save those who were lost before He died. If the doctrine be true, that He died for all men, then He died for some who were in Hell before He came into this world, for doubtless there were even then myriads there who had been cast away because of their sins ... That seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those consequences which are said to be associated with the Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption. To think that my Savior died for men who were or are in Hell, seems a supposition too horrible for me to entertain. (Charles Spurgeon, Autobiography: 1, The Early Years, p. 172)

We are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ, because we say that Christ has not made satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved. Now, our reply to this is that, on the other hand, our opponents limit it, we do not. The Arminians say, Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all men? They say, “No, certainly not.” We ask them the next question – Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They say, “No.” They are obliged to admit this if they are consistent. They say, “No; Christ has died so that any man may be saved if” – and then follow certain conditions of salvation. We say then, we will just go back to the old statement – Christ did not die so as beyond a doubt to secure the salvation of anybody, did He? You must say “No;” you are obliged to say so, for you believe that even after a man has been pardoned, he may yet fall from grace and perish. Now, who is it that limits the death of Christ? Why you... We say Christ so died that He infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ’s death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. You are welcome to your atonement; you may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it. (Charles Spurgeon, Sermon 181, New Park Street Pulpit, IV, p. 135)

I would rather believe a limited atonement that is efficacious for all men for whom it was intended, than a universal atonement that is not efficacious for anybody, except the will of men be added to it. (Charles Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 4, p. 70)

A redemption which pays a price, but does not ensure that which is purchased – a redemption which calls Christ a substitute for the sinner, but yet which allows the person to suffer – is altogether unworthy of our apprehensions of Almighty God. It offers no homage to his wisdom, and does despite to his covenant faithfulness. We could not and would not receive such a travesty of divine truth as that would be. There is no ground for any comfort whatever in it. (Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 49, p. 39)

The subversion of moral responsibility is one of the most significant developments of recent decades. Though this subversion was originally philosophical, more recent efforts have been based in biology and psychology. Various theorists have argued that our decisions and actions are determined by genetics, environmental factors, or other forces. Now, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN is out with a report on a study linking determinism and moral responsibility.

The diverse theories of determinism propose that our choices and decisions are not an exercise of the will, but simply the inevitable outcome of factors outside our control. As SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN explains, determinists argue that “everything that happens is determined by what happened before -- our actions are inevitable consequences of the events leading up to the action.”

In other words, free will doesn’t exist. Used in this sense, free will means the exercise of authentic moral choice and agency. We CHOOSE to take one action rather than the other, and must then take responsibility for that choice.

This link between moral choice and moral responsibility is virtually instinctive to humans. As a matter of fact, it is basic to our understanding of what it means to be human. We hold each other responsible for actions and choices. But if all of our choices are illusory -- and everything is merely the “inevitable consequence” of something beyond our control, moral responsibility is an exercise in delusion.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN reports on a study performed by psychologists Kathleen Vohs and Jonathan Schooler. The psychologists found that individuals who were told that their moral choices were determined, rather than free, were also more likely to cheat on an experimental examination.

As Shaun Nichols reports:

The Western conception idea of free will seems bound up with our

sense of moral responsibility, guilt for misdeads and pride in

accomplishment. We hold ourselves responsible precisely when we

think that our actions come from free will. In this light, it’s

not surprising that people behave less morally as they become

skeptical of free will. Further, the Vohs and Schooler result

fits with the idea that people will behave less responsibly if

they regard their actions as beyond their control. If I think

that there’s no point in trying to be good, then I’m less likely

to try.

Even if giving up on free will does have these deleterious

effects, one might wonder how far they go. One question is

whether the effects extend across the moral domain. Cheating in

a psychology experiment doesn’t seem too terrible. Presumably

the experiment didn’t also lead to a rash of criminal activity

among those who read the anti-free will passage. Our moral

revulsion at killing and hurting others is likely too strong to

be dismantled by reflections about determinism. It might well

turn out that other kinds of immoral behavior, like cheating in

school, would be affected by the rejection of free will, however.

There are limitations to this kind of research, of course, but the report is both revealing and unsurprising. If we are not responsible for our actions, they why would people do the right thing? The most immediate result of such thinking is the subversion of moral accountability.

Of course, this pattern of thought also renders human existence irrational. How can we understand ourselves, our children, our spouses, our friends, or our neighbors if moral responsibility is undermined by determinism. Our legal system would completely collapse, as would the entire experience of relating to other human beings.

Shaun Nichols explains that “the Western conception of free will seems bound up with our sense of moral responsibility.” That “Western conception” is a product of the Christian inheritance and the biblical worldview. The Bible clearly presents human beings as morally responsible. Christians of virtually all theological traditions -- including Reformed theology, Arminianism, and Catholicism -- affirm moral and spiritual responsibility and the authenticity of the experience of choice.

As a matter of fact, this capacity and accountability is rooted in the biblical concept of the IMAGO DEI -- the image of God. Our Creator made us as moral creatures and planted within us the capacity of conscience. All this refutes the concept of moral determinism.

In its most modern forms, determinism is a product of naturalism -- the belief that everything must be explained in purely natural terms. Naturalism explains the human mind (including the experience of moral choice) as a matter of chemical reactions in the brain, and nothing more.

Determinism is implied by naturalism and relieves human beings of moral responsibility. There is no moral revolt against the Creator, no Fall, and no need for the Gospel. This subversion of moral responsibility is both a delusion and a trap. And, as the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN report indicates, even those who say they believe in moral determinism are unable to live consistently with this assumption. We KNOW we are responsible.

We begin our study of God’s sovereign grace in salvation with the biblical teaching regarding the effect of the fall upon man and the doctrine of original sin. This teaching is crucial for understanding the doctrine of salvation because one’s understanding of the effects of the fall upon mankind will largely determine one’s view of salvation. In other words, a person’s view of man’s state resulting from Adam’s sin is foundational to that person’s concept of how man appropriates salvation. Obviously, a person who views man as spiritually dead and unable to do anything that meets with God’s approval will view salvation differently than a person who believes that man is sick and weakened but is still able to cooperate with God in the salvation process.

What Happened When Adam Sinned?

The Bible teaches that Adam was created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26) with true knowledge, righteousness and holiness (Gen. 1:31; Ecc. 7:29; Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24). Adam’s nature was intrinsically good and he had the spiritual and ethical ability to perfectly obey anything that God required of him. After God created Adam He made a covenant or verbal agreement with him. God promised Adam that if he rendered a perfect and personal obedience to God he would never die. (This promise is clearly implied by Gen. 2:17; Gal. 3:10; Rom. 5:12-20; 10:5.) If Adam at any time violated God’s law by eating the fruit from the forbidden tree he would certainly die (Gen. 2:17). Genesis chapter 3 records Adam’s failure to obey God. Adam sinned in eating the forbidden fruit (Rom. 5:12ff); fell from his original righteousness; lost his communion with God; was cast out of paradise; and “became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body” (Westminster Confession of Faith, 6:2; see Gen. 6:5; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 3:10ff; Tit. 1:15; etc).

The Bible teaches that Adam’s sin not only had very negative spiritual consequences for himself, but also for the whole human race (i.e., everyone descending from Adam by ordinary generation). The teaching that mankind is guilty of sin in Adam and corrupted in nature because of Adam’s sin is commonly referred to as original sin. This teaching is part of the faith of every branch of Christendom. The disagreements on this teaching are over the nature and extent of man’s corruption (this will be considered below).

God’s Word says that the guilt of Adam’s sin is imputed to all men. (To impute Adam’s sin means that God reckons it to, or lays it to one’s account.) The teaching that “in Adam’s fall we sinned all” is explicitly taught by Paul in Romans 5:12, 15-19: “Through one man [Adam] sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned [in Adam’s transgression] ... by the one man’s offense many died ... judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation ... by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one ... through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation ... by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.” There was a kind solidarity between Adam and the human race because God determined that Adam (the first created man) was the federal head of all mankind. “It is no less a doctrine of Scripture than a fact of experience that mankind are a fallen race.”[1] Tragically, as a result of Adam’s sin all men also inherited Adam’s moral corruption. The pollution or inner corruption of sin passes from Adam to his posterity by ordinary generation. “That our first parents are now not only really guilty before God but also morally corrupt throughout their entire being is also immediately evident in the fact that their first transgression is immediately followed by a series of transgressions. It is now their nature to act in accordance with their new sinful condition. We see Adam and then Eve refusing to acknowledge openly their willful act of disobedience and to take the blame for it. Adam blames his wife and, indirectly, God himself for his situation. Eve then blames the serpent.”[2]

“The consequences of Adam’s sin are all comprehended under the term death in its widest sense.”[3] Because of Adam’s sin spiritual and physical death passed to all men. All men naturally born of Adam’s seed come into this world spiritually dead, with an innate hatred and hostility toward God, with a depraved soul that loves sin and cannot cease from it, with ethical pollution that extends to every aspect of his nature. “The imagination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21). Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps. 51:5). “The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born speaking lies” (Ps. 58:3). “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin” (Eccl. 7:20). “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6). “We were by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3; see 1 Kg. 8:46; Isa. 53:6; 64:6; Ps. 130:3; 143:2; Rom. 3:19, 22, 23; Gal. 3:22; Jam. 3:2; 1 John 1:8, 10; 5:19, etc). According to Scripture Adam’s sin and its consequences (real guilt, liability of punishment, spiritual death and man’s inherited moral corruption) have rendered man unable to respond to the gospel and even unable to cooperate by his own self-determining power or “free will” with the first motions of grace. Our state after the fall is spiritual death, not a mere sickness. Therefore we must acknowledge the greatness of our sin, slavery and misery and earnestly acknowledge that salvation is absolutely and solely a work of God’s grace.

The Debate over “Free Will”

Before we proceed with Scriptural proofs for the teaching of total depravity and total inability we would do well to spend some time examining the controversy over human ability in church history. The importance of the doctrine of the fall and its consequences as it affects the doctrine of salvation cannot be overestimated. Throughout history one’s concept of original sin has had a profound effect on many other doctrines such as regeneration, effectual calling, conversion, the nature and extent of the atonement, justification and perseverance. As we study the controversy over free will, some questions that we need to continually ask ourselves are: Which person’s theology is rooted in the exegesis of Scripture? What theologians are attempting to impose a human philosophy upon the text of Scripture? What doctrine ascribes all the glory for salvation to God? What teaching appeals to our fallen human nature? What doctrine of original sin supports rather than contradicts the other great doctrines of the Bible?

Pelagianism

The first great controversy over the doctrine of original sin and its relationship to how God’s grace operates was the Pelagian controversy. The Pelagian movement was named after Pelagius (A.D. 360-420) a British layman who advocated asceticism. Pelagius had become a teacher of asceticism in Rome (c. 400) and believed that the church’s view of original sin, which at that time was dominated by Augustine, denied human responsibility and thus discouraged holiness. Pelagius was the first theologian to set forth the principle “that man must have plenary ability to do and to be whatever can be righteously required of him ... The intimate conviction that man can be responsible for nothing which is not in their power, led, in the first place, to the Pelagian doctrine of the freedom of the will.”[4] The philosophical presupposition set forth by Pelagius regarding freedom of the will and human responsibility completely and consistently dominated his whole theological system.

In the attempt to preserve his concept of human responsibility Pelagius and his followers taught the following: (1) Adam’s sin only brought injury to himself and no one else. (2) There is no such thing as original sin, or inherent hereditary moral corruption. (3) Everyone born after Adam is the same as Adam was before the fall. (4) Adam’s sin was only a bad example to his posterity and nothing more. (5) Since all men are born without the contamination of original sin and moral depravity, everyone has the full ability to do everything that God requires and many men have lived without sin. Pelagius and his followers taught that men could be saved without the gospel by keeping the law. “The only difference is that under the light of the Gospel, the perfect obedience is rendered more easy.”[5] (6) Adam in a state of innocence was mortal and would have died whether he sinned or not. Therefore, the fact that all men grow old, and die, has nothing to do with the fall. (7) The grace of God refers not to unmerited favor to undeserving sinners but simply to the natural endowments of men which are gifts from God. “[G]race merely enables us to do more easily what we could still do without it, albeit with greater difficulty.”[6]

The teachings of Pelagius and his followers were condemned at the council of Carthage (A.D. 418) and again at the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431). While Pelagianism was a dangerous heresy because it denied the grace of God and the gospel, it nevertheless was used by God to greatly sharpen the early church’s understanding of original sin and the nature of saving grace. The controversy raised the question that is still with us today. Are sinners saved because of their own will, strength or exertion or are they saved solely by God’s grace, solely by what God does? Although the modern evangelical will recognize the obvious, gross deficiencies of the Pelagian system, nevertheless the central presupposition underlying Pelagianism lives on. That is the philosophical idea that responsibility presupposes human ability.

Semi-Pelagianism

After Pelagianism was defeated with the help of great theologians such as Augustine (A.D. 354-430), bishop of Hippo,[7] it went underground and reemerged in a milder, more palatable form. Although the original semi-Pelagians differed in many areas, the general teachings of Semi-Pelagians are as follows. Contrary to Pelagius, the sin and corruption of Adam did pass on to his posterity causing disease, suffering, mortality and a propensity toward evil. Therefore, man needs divine assistance if he is to do anything spiritually good. But contrary to the pure grace system of Augustine they held: “(1) That the beginning of salvation is with man. Man begins to seek God, and then God aids him. (2) That this incipient turning of the soul towards God is something good, and in one sense meritorious. (3) That the soul, in virtue of its liberty of will or ability for good, cooperates with the grace of God in regeneration....”[8]

Although there are differences between Semi-Pelagianism and classical Arminianism, the similarities between Semi-Pelagianism and what is taught in many modern evangelical churches is striking. Most modern evangelicals do not believe that man is really spiritually dead and totally depraved as a result of the fall but merely that man is spiritually sick. In other words man still has spiritually ability and thus can make a move toward Jesus and even choose Him if the right techniques are employed. Further, the common doctrine among evangelicals and fundamentalists called “decisional regeneration” is very similar to semi-Pelagianism. In many evangelical churches people are told to come to the front of the church (“the altar call”), choose Christ, or pray a prayer and the result will be that God will respond to man’s act or choice and then man will be born again. In other words, man cooperates with God and allows God to save him. This teaching is very different from the biblical view that men are dead in trespasses and sin and the Holy Spirit raises the dead heart to life, regenerates it and causes it to savingly embrace Christ.

Although Semi-Pelagianism was condemned by the church at the Second Council of Orange in A. D. 529, the church accepted a modified version of Semi-Pelagianism (a semi-Semi-Pelagianism) and thus eliminated the contradiction between Augustine’s soteriology and ecclesiology. The Roman Catholic Church accepted a synergistic doctrine of salvation which better suited their man-controlled channels of grace concept of the sacraments. Thus, tragically in the sphere of salvation most of modern evangelicalism has unknowingly sided itself with Romanism and not the Protestant Reformation.

Arminianism

Arminianism is named after a Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609). As a professor in Leiden, Arminius began to challenge the doctrines of grace as then taught in the Dutch Reformed churches. His views were developed and systematized by his followers in the five theses of the Remonstrant Articles (1610); now commonly known as the five points of Arminianism. Regarding original sin and man’s state after the fall the first point of Arminianism reads:

Free Will or Human Ability. Although human nature was seriously affected by the Fall, man has not been left in a state of total spiritual helplessness. God graciously enables every sinner to repent and believe, but He does so in such a manner as not to interfere with man’s freedom. Each sinner possesses a free will, and his eternal destiny depends on how he uses it. Man’s freedom consists of his ability to choose good over evil in spiritual matters; his will is not enslaved to his sinful nature. The sinner has the power either to cooperate with God’s Spirit and be regenerated or to resist God’s grace and perish. The lost sinner needs the Spirit’s assistance, but he does not have to be regenerated by the Spirit before he can believe, for faith is man’s act and precedes the new birth. Faith is the sinner’s gift to God; it is man’s contribution to salvation.[9]

Like Semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism teaches that human nature is injured by the fall but man still has the ability to do that which is spiritually good and turn to God.

Although Arminianism as a system is more developed and sophisticated than Semi-Pelagianism, it still adheres to the central core of Semi-Pelagianian teaching. That is, that man is only partially depraved and thus, his will though damaged still has the ability to see spiritual good and generate faith toward Christ. Sinners just need a little help. Man needs “the preventing, exciting and assisting grace of God in order to their conversion....”[10] Further, “This divine grace is afforded to all men in sufficient measure to enable them to repent, believe, and keep all the commandments of God.”[11] Thus, man and not God is sovereign over his own salvation. Man according to Arminian doctrine does not need a spiritual resurrection from the dead in order to believe, but merely some first aid. According to Arminianism, salvation is a cooperative effort between God and man in which man plays the most important role. This teaching is synergistic in that man contributes something to his own salvation. Indeed, man allows God to regenerate and save him. “The Arminian order of salvation, while ostensibly ascribing the work of salvation to God, really makes it contingent on the attitude and the work of man. God opens the possibility of salvation for man, but it is up to man to improve the opportunity.”[12]

John Wesley (1703-1791) and his followers made some changes in classical Arminianism by teaching that as a result of the fall man’s depravity was total; that the natural man does not have any intrinsic power to cooperate with the grace of God. But, he argued, that since Christ died for all men without exception and they are justified in Him, this guilt and total depravity is immediately removed at birth. Thus, all men come into the world with an ability (bestowed by Jesus) to cooperate with God in salvation. The Wesleyans called this new system Evangelical Arminianism. Wesley believed this clever method of arriving at a universal unencumbered will, while maintaining the orthodox doctrine of original sin eliminated the charge that he was teaching a form of Semi-Pelagianism. Although we must give credit to Wesley for attempting to avoid Semi-Pelagianism his free-willism through the back door of the atonement has no basis in Scripture at all. It suffers from a number of exegetical and theological difficulties (e.g., How is the removal of the guilt and pollution of sin attained without regeneration and faith? Why would Jesus’ death only restore human ability and yet not forgive all sins, past, present and future? If the merits of Christ’s death are applied at birth then why is faith, conversion and repentance needed later on? If Jesus’ death is universally applied, then why is there not a universal salvation? Wesley has placed free will in a citadel of iron at the expense of the atonement. His system is arbitrary; has no biblical proof and is irrational.)

Although Arminianism was condemned by the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619) and was soundly and thoroughly refuted by Scripture, it spread throughout the whole world; permeated every branch of Protestantism; and came to thoroughly dominate modern evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Because of Arminianism’s affinity with Semi-Pelagianism, Romanism and humanism, the sharp antithesis that once existed between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism has in recent years been greatly obscured (e.g., in 2005, when the Pope died several “evangelical” leaders spoke of his greatness, piety and orthodoxy.).

The Biblical Evidence for the Bondage of the Will

The one thing that Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism and Roman Catholicism have in common is the idea that after the fall man still has the ability to think, do or will spiritual good; that man still has a “free will.” “This is the Helen whom they so ardently love and for whom they do not hesitate to fight as for their altars and firesides.”[13] Such a view shades their whole doctrine of salvation. Therefore, it is extremely important that we carefully establish the biblical teaching that man’s heart is spiritually dead because of the fall and so thoroughly corrupt spiritually that the unsaved sinner is dead, blind and deaf to the things of God.

In order to deal with the question of “free will” we need to carefully define two terms. First, what do we mean when we speak of the human will? Second, how do we define the freedom that is attributed to this will? These questions are important because: (a) Many people assume that the will is some entity that is independent of the human heart; (b) The Augustinian or Calvinistic position is almost always misrepresented by Arminians as holding that men are mere robots. We will see that the Bible upholds the validity and freedom of man’s decisions as secondary agents; yet, also teaches that every person’s choices are determined by the heart.

Although there are many different definitions of the term will, this term in the context of the debate over free choice or determination refers to volition or a choice of the mind. When people discuss the soul or heart of man they often will speak of different aspects of the soul such as the intellect, the emotions and the will. Indeed, it is proper to think of the will as a function or part of the human mind. Therefore, as we consider the subject of “free will” we must not separate the will from the intellect or mind as if it has some independent power. The debate over “free will” cannot be settled unless we understand that the will always decides in accordance with the mind or, as Scripture puts it, the inclinations of the heart (Prov. 4:23; Luke 6:45; Matt. 7:17, 21). “[T]he decision of the intellect is terminated in the will, so the liberty of the will has its roots in the intellect.”[14]

For example, when a man decides to go to the refrigerator to get a piece of pizza he exercises his will. This act of the will, however, did not occur spontaneously or in a vacuum. Before the act of the will the mind received hunger pangs from the stomach; the mind thought about the food options available; the mind decided what food it preferred (this choice was based in part on culture, habit, availability and ease of preparation) and this choice terminated with an act of the will. The will had a prior reason, argument and motivation to get the pizza. If that person’s mind did not like onions but did like pepperoni, then that person would never choose onion pizza but rather would always choose pepperoni pizza in such an incident. The man’s will was free to choose onions; but his will was subservient to this mind which did not like onions. The mind chose something else instead. Similarly, a lion in Africa is free to eat grass when it is hungry. But it never does so, because lions by nature are carnivorous. Their minds crave meat. A water buffalo is also free to eat whatever it desires. But it only chooses grass because it is in the buffalo’s nature to do so.

Now that we have an understanding of the will (that the human will is not an independent force but rather always follows the mind) we can begin to understand human freedom. On the one hand we can in accordance with Scripture and experience affirm that man is truly a free agent. As beings which are created in the image of God with rationality and intelligence men are valid secondary agents that are free to make choices. Men are not puppets, robots or impersonal machines. Men have the ability to observe, evaluate, deliberate in the mind and then choose between a, b, c, or D. Men are not coerced by anything outside of themselves to choose something they do not want to choose. If this is a person’s definition of “free will,” then we can agree and say that people have a free will. Unfortunately, this definition is not what the proponents of “free will” have in mind.

While in one sense we can say that man has a free will (i.e., men are free to choose and are not coerced by outside forces), in another sense we can say that man’s will is not free. Men are free to choose whatever they want; but, because of the fall, man’s heart or soul is thoroughly corrupt. If, as we have previously demonstrated, the will always follows the mind or heart, then a corrupt heart will not and cannot choose spiritually good things. The will of man always acts in accordance with his sinful nature. This is not simply the opinion of someone like Augustine, Luther or Calvin but is the explicit teaching of Scripture. Jesus says, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). A man’s outward life is a reflection of what is in his heart. Men speak and do evil deeds because they are by nature evil. Thus, Solomon warns believers, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23). “For from within, out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders...” (Mark 7:21).

Christ says that the source of sinful thoughts and acts is the heart, not the will. The will carries out the desires, inclinations, habits, etc of the heart. Thus, in the Sermon on the Mount our Lord teaches that “a bad tree bears bad fruit” (Matt. 7:7). “Heart” in the Bible refers to the innermost core of man’s being. It includes the whole human nature (i.e. the mind, will, intellect, emotions, etc). So, although man is at liberty to choose whatever he desires, since his heart is evil, he will only choose between greater and lesser evil. Those outwardly good deeds that he does do are not prompted by love for God and thus are not spiritually good. “Why does the sinner choose a life of sinful indulgence? Because he prefers it, all arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, though of course he does not prefer the effects of such a course. And why does he prefer it? Because his heart is sinful.”[15] Boettner writes: “Man is a free agent but he cannot originate the love of God in his heart. His will is free in the sense that it is not controlled by any force outside of himself. As the bird with a broken wing is ‘free’ to fly but not able, so the natural man is free to come to God but not able. How can he repent of his sin when he loves it? How can he come to God when he hates Him? This is the inability of the will under which man labors.”[16]

Total Depravity

Because the Bible describes fallen man’s heart as thoroughly wicked and corrupt theologians refer to man as totally depraved. This doctrine does not mean that man is as wicked as he could be. Obviously, there are some men that are more wicked than others. The pagan man who works hard to support his family, who is faithful to his wife, who obeys the civil laws is much better than a hardened criminal or serial murderer. Further, this teaching does not mean that an unsaved man cannot do good deeds. Jesus Himself acknowledged that evil men could give good gifts to their children (Matt. 7:11). Also, contrary to certain false misrepresentations, this doctrine does not mean that the image of God in man in the broader sense is destroyed. Man still has reasoning capacities and a conscience that discriminates between good and evil. Man has an active spirit that creates beautiful works of art, music, architecture, engineering and makes great strides in science and technology.

What total depravity does mean is that man’s inherent corruption extends to every part of man’s nature. Because of the fall man’s whole being or heart is in rebellion against God. “Everything that unregenerate man does or thinks is undergirded by rebellious inclinations against God or motivations that are sinful.”[17] Since the fall man’s whole nature has been polluted by sin. As a result man has an innate hostility toward God and spiritual truth. Paul tells us that all men (apart from a prior work of special grace) suppress the truth about God in creation and replace God with idols (Rom. 1:21-25). Man’s mind or will is not neutral or a blank state at birth but is evil. “The imagination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21). “The wicked ... go astray as soon as they are born speaking lies” (Ps. 58:3). “We were by nature the children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). “The heart is deceitful above all things, who can know it” (Jer. 17:9)? Consequently, men are actuated by wrong principles. The natural man’s thoughts, words and deeds are corrupt, because they all flow from a corrupt source. Thus, unregenerate man cannot choose or do spiritual good. He cannot generate the love of God or Christ in his heart and he cannot do anything meriting salvation. It is for this reason that Paul writing under divine inspiration can say that not even one man in the whole world “seeks God” (Rom. 3:11).

The fact that men can do outward good deeds or what theologians refer to as “civic goodness” does not in any way contradict the doctrine of total depravity. The Bible teaches that if a man’s thoughts or deeds are to be truly good in the spiritual sense, they must flow from a true love of God and His glory. They must originate from a heart that has been spiritually reborn by the power of the Holy Spirit. An unbeliever may work at a soup kitchen or donate to charity to feel good about himself or impress his friends. But, he never does these things in Christ’s name to glorify God. The unbeliever (whether he is aware or it or not) does “good deeds” with selfish, humanistic, evil motives. To the unregenerate man, even religion is something for man’s glory (anthropocentric), to make himself feel good; or to receive glory from other men.

The fact that man is inherently corrupt or totally depraved explains why the Bible teaches that spiritual goodness can only be founded upon faith in the triune God of Scripture. The author of Hebrews says that “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (11:6). Paul says, “Whatever is not from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). Unbelievers cannot anything that is well pleasing to God simply because they do not have faith in God or His Word. They continually suppress the truth about God in order to serve their own sinful lusts (Rom. 1:18-32). Because everything the unbeliever does is rooted in their wicked heart and actuated by corrupt principles Solomon can say that even “the plowing of the wicked [is] sin” (Prov. 21:4).

True faith in Christ, which issues forth from a regenerate heart, is the foundation of genuine virtue. An act which is outwardly good, but done in the service of self and Satan cannot please God. “The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7-8).

Man’s Spiritual Inability

The doctrine of total depravity is intimately connected to the biblical teaching regarding man’s total inability. Since the corruption of sin extends to every part of man’s nature and men have hearts that are hostile to God and spiritual truth, men do not have the spiritual power or discernment to savingly embrace Christ or believe the gospel. Berkhof writes: “When we speak of man’s corruption as total inability, we mean two things: (1) that the unrenewed sinner cannot do any act, however insignificant, which fundamentally meets with God’s approval and answers to the demands of God’s holy law; and (2) that he cannot change his fundamental preference for sin and self to love for God, nor even make an approach to such a change. In a word, he is unable to do any spiritual good.”[18] The Westminster Confession of Faith describes total inability as follows: “Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto” (9:3).Gordon Clark writes: “... Adam’s ability to will what is good was lost by the fall. From that time on man could not choose to will ‘any spiritual good accompanying salvation.’ True, a man might will to be honest, to support his family, to discharge most of his obligations as a citizen. In colloquial language these things are called good. But they are not spiritual goods, and they have nothing to do with salvation. Furthermore, a man cannot will to be saved. He cannot convert himself, nor even make preparation for conversion. The simple reason is that he is dead in sin.”[19]

The doctrines of total depravity and spiritual inability are foundational to one’s understanding of the nature of Christ’s redemptive work. If men are dead in sin, helpless, spiritually blind and cannot believe in Christ; then the salvation of sinners of necessity involves much more than Christ dying for all men and then waiting passively to see who will accept His gift. If unsaved men are unable to choose or to will any spiritual good, then apart from a spiritual rebirth, no man would choose Christ. If the doctrine of total inability is true, then Christ’s death not only removed the guilt of sin and God’s curse against sinners, but also must be the foundation and guarantee of the application of His work to specific individuals. Thus, salvation must be a supernatural work of God from beginning to the end. All synergistic views (semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism, Romanism) must be rejected in favor of a monergistic view of salvation (Augustinianism, Calvinism).

The common evangelical view is that Christ, by His death, made salvation possible for all men; that forgiveness is there waiting for men to receive; that the Holy Spirit may gently urge men to change, but cannot interfere with man’s free will. In other words, the sovereign almighty Spirit of God can only do what the sinful, corrupt, depraved will of man allows Him to do. Man is in charge of the application of redemption, not God. But, we ask, can the Arminian position be true biblically or even logically if men are spiritually dead and don’t simply need a gentle push or a little medicine? What if men need a spiritual heart transplant, a spiritual resurrection, a quickening? The diagnosis determines the nature of the remedy.

A biblical understanding of man’s state after the fall ought to cure us of the sinful and somewhat blasphemous notion that a thrice holy God has associated Himself with sinful depraved man as only a minor partial cause of a sinner’s salvation. The fact that the natural man is a spiritual corpse without any ability to seek God or take even one step toward Jesus means: that regeneration must precede and not follow saving faith; that God works directly upon the human soul in salvation; that Christ is not passively waiting, but is actively saving His people. An understanding of the fall leads to the doctrine of salvation by the grace of God alone. Salvation is totally a work of God. Man does not have the ability to contribute anything to his own salvation; even faith and repentance are gifts from above (Eph. 2:8; Phil. 2:13; Acts 5:31, 11:18). Therefore, let us bow the knee to Christ and give our precious Redeemer all the glory for our salvation.

Since the doctrines of total depravity and inability are so important as they relate to our understanding of salvation, let us carefully consider the biblical evidence for these teachings. We will see that the biblical evidence for these doctrines is overwhelming. What follows is a summary of the biblical teaching regarding the state of fallen unregenerate man.

1. The Unregenerate are Spiritually Dead

In Genesis 2 God told Adam that if he ate the forbidden fruit, that very day he would most certainly die (vs. 16-17). In this passage Jehovah was speaking of spiritual death which refers to the dissolution of man’s union with God and its consequences. In Romans 5:12 and following Paul says that because of Adam’s sin spiritual death spread to the whole human race. In Ephesians the apostle says that everyone (except Christians who have been born again or made [spiritually] alive by God) is dead. “And you He made alive, who were once dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we [Christians] all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (2:1-5, cf. Col. 2:13).

In this passage Paul makes it clear that everyone who is spiritually dead is a slave of sin, the flesh or the corrupt human nature. All persons who are spiritually dead are in a state of subjection to Satan and live in a continual state of condemnation. Not only their specific sins, but their very nature makes them “children of wrath.” The apostle also teaches that spiritual death is the universal state of all men apart from Christ. According to God’s infallible Word the state of spiritual death can only be remedied by a direct act of God upon the human heart, a spiritual quickening. This fact is totally at odds with the common modern evangelical notion that unregenerate man has the ability to choose Christ. According to Paul regeneration must precede saving faith.

Paul, under divine inspiration, used the word “dead” for a reason. There is no middle ground between being alive and being dead. Unregenerate men are not just sick, handicapped or impaired but dead. Clark writes “A certain Bible professor, whom I knew only too well, explained to his classes that man was spiritually sick, that Christ had provided the remedy in the corner store, and that we must drag ourselves there, take the medicine and so regain our health. This is utterly unscriptural and anti-Christian. The Bible in many places tells sinners that they are dead and must be resurrected. No medicine in a drug store ever brought a dead man back to life.”[20] Obviously, a man who is spiritually dead can no more see spiritual truth or choose Christ than a rotting corpse can play tennis or debate philosophy. A Christian can quote Scripture and speak the gospel to an unsaved person from morning until late in the evening. But if the gospel message is not accompanied by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit that person will not believe. “You may use all human persuasion possible, but you cannot give spiritual life where death reigns. God alone, by a creative act, can bring life out of death. Spiritual arguments to an unregenerate man are only warm clothes to a corpse.”[21] “If a man is dead spiritually, therefore, it is surely equally as evident that he is unable to perform any spiritual actions, and thus the doctrine of man’s moral [or spiritual] inability rests upon strong Scriptural evidence.”[22]

2. The Unregenerate Cannot Understand or Receive Spiritual Truth

The Lord Jesus Christ taught that the human nature is so thoroughly ruined and corrupted by the fall that the Holy Spirit must first radically change it before a person can understand and embrace spiritual truths. “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see [comprehend, perceive] the kingdom of God’” (John 3:3). As the man who is born blind has no power to see, the unregenerate man whose mind is spiritually darkened (Eph. 4:18; 5:8), whose heart is made of stone and devoid of spiritual sense (Ezek. 36:26), cannot know spiritual truth or do anything spiritually good.

Therefore, Paul could declare, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). The apostle tells us plainly that the natural man (that is the unregenerate person who is devoid of the Spirit of God) does not receive any spiritual truths from God at all because he regards such things as foolish, stupid, absurd or ridiculous. Such a person may take a Bible class and give accurate answers on a test regarding the crucifixion, the resurrection and even the doctrine of salvation. However, he does not regard any of these doctrines as true; and, he will not embrace these teachings but rather ridicule them. Why? Because, as Paul says, such things are “spiritually discerned.” That is, they can only be discerned or truly understood and lovingly embraced by a person in whom the Spirit of God dwells.

When our Lord confronted the unbelieving self-righteous Jews He said, “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My Word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do” (John 8:43-44). In this passage Jesus explains why the unbelieving Jews repeatedly misunderstood His language. The reason is that these Jews did not have the spiritual or moral ability to hear His word, message or doctrine. The word “hear” (KJV) is a Hebrew idiom which means to receive, believe or obey. These wicked men repeatedly twisted the meaning of the Savior’s speech and refused to believe and submit to His doctrine because they were unable to do so. Why? Christ tells us that they did so because they were of the devil. They had a devilish nature. “Identity of inner passions and desires established spiritual descent: they are constantly desiring (present continuous tense) to carry out the wishes (desires, yearnings) of the devil; so he must be their father.”[23] Like their father whose desires can only be for evil and against all spiritual goodness, the unregenerate Jews hated the Messiah and His message. Obviously, then, if a man is to embrace Jesus, God must first change his nature. Regeneration must precede faith. Now we can understand Paul when he says, “The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile. Therefore let no one boast in man” (1 Cor. 3:20-21).

3. The Unregenerate Cannot Please God

If a person defines “free will” as an unsaved man’s autonomous ability to choose Christ, then we must ask a few simple questions. Is choosing the Savior a good thing or a bad thing? Obviously, it is a good thing. Does choosing Jesus please the Father? Of course it does. If the unregenerate human will is capable of choosing God’s Son and this choosing pleases God, then how are we to interpret Paul’s explicit statement that unbelievers cannot do anything that pleases God? “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:5-8).

Paul teaches that people who are unregenerate live according to the flesh (that is, their sinful depraved human nature). Further, their minds by nature are focused on the things of the flesh. Why is this so? Because, by nature, the carnal or unregenerate mind hates God and always takes a position of hostility toward Him, His Son and His Word. Luther writes: “Let the guardian of ‘free will’ answer the following question: How can endeavors towards good be made by that which is death, and displeases God, and is enmity against God, and disobeys God, and cannot obey him?”[24] Murray writes: “Here we have nothing less than the doctrine of the total inability to be well-pleasing to God or to do what is well-pleasing in his sight. In the whole passage we have the biblical basis for the doctrine of total depravity and total inability. It should be recognized, therefore, that resistance to these doctrines must come to terms not simply with the present day proponents of these doctrines but with the apostle himself. ‘Enmity against God’ is nothing other than total depravity and ‘cannot please God’ nothing less than ‘total inability.’”[25]

4. The Unregenerate Cannot Come to Christ

Two passages that speak very clearly on the issue of human inability come directly from the lips of Jesus Christ in the gospel of John. The Savior said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (6:44). “I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father” (6:65). There are a number of things that both these passages have in common. First, they both begin with a universal negative (“no one”). This means that what our Lord says applies to every human being. Not one sinner is excluded.

Second, the word “can” refers specifically to human ability. In Greek the passage literally reads: “No one is able to come to Me.” Jesus assures us that not even one person has the moral or spiritual power, strength, wisdom or ability to come to Christ. Why is this true? Because when man fell every part of his being was corrupted by sin. Man’s heart is darkened. His will is enslaved to sin. His carnal mind is at enmity with God. Man cannot embrace that which he hates. Man can no more come to Christ than can water flow uphill. Thus the world cannot receive the Spirit of truth (John 14:17). “[M]an likes to think that his salvation is in his own power. Such notions are flatly contradictory to the text before us. The words of our Lord here are clear and unmistakable, and cannot be explained away.”[26] To predicate the freedom of the will is to deny that man is totally depraved. To say that man has the power within himself to either reject or accept Christ, is to repudiate the fact that he is the captive of the Devil.”[27] It is to totally contradict Paul when he says there is not one good thing in the flesh (Rom. 7:18); there is not one who does good (Rom. 3:12); there is none who seeks God (Rom. 3:11). Further, it explicitly contradicts this teaching of the Son of the God.

Third, the word “unless” signifies that before any person can come to Jesus something must occur first that will make that coming possible. There are no exceptions. Because man does not have the power or ability in and of himself to come to the Savior, God must do something so that certain people will come. In this passage Christ explicitly contradicts the Arminian notion that sinful man and not God is the ultimate decider of who will or will not be saved. God is sovereign over salvation. “Man never of himself begins with God. God must first begin with man.”[28] “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy” (Rom. 9:16). When Jesus said, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), He really meant nothing. Luther writes: “It is totally unheard of grammar and logic to say that nothing is the same as something; to logicians, the thing is an impossibility, for the two are contradictory!”[29] Turretin concurs. He writes: “He does not say, without me ye can do little or can do something with difficulty, but without me ye can do nothing. He does not say, without me ye do nothing or will do nothing, but ye can do nothing (which excludes not only the act, but the power itself) ... Now why should the Holy Spirit so often [e.g., 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 3:5; Rom. 8:7; Matt. 7:18; John 6:44; etc.] insist upon that impotence except to take away from man all power to good and ascribe to grace alone the entire work of regeneration and salvation?”[30]

Fourth, God is the only one who can give sinful depraved men the ability to come to Christ. One passage (John 6:65) says that in order for a man to come to Jesus, it must first be granted to him by God. This means that the ability to come to Christ is a gift from God. If man already had this ability, or if man had a free will spiritually, then our Lord could not make such a statement. Therefore, the common evangelical notion that salvation is like a cup of medicine that is of no use whatsoever until a person accepts the cup and drinks it is unscriptural. The Bible teaches that the work of Christ is a gift and the ability to understand and savingly embrace the Savior and His redemption is also a gift. This means that God “in his saving operations, deals not generally with mankind at large, but particularly with the individuals who are actually saved.”[31] This teaching explains why the Bible calls both faith (Eph. 2:8; Phil. 1:29; 2 Pet. 1:2-3; John 6:44, 45, 65) and repentance (Acts 11:18; 16:14; 2 Tim. 2:25) gifts from God. If man could generate his own faith or if man only needed a little assistance form God then the ability to come would not be a gift.

The Lord’s statement in John 6:44 helps us to understand why the ability to come to Christ is a gift. Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” God actively does something to a sinner before he will come to the Savior. This activity is described by the word “draw.” What exactly does this word “draw” mean?

Before we go to Scripture to give the biblical definition of this word let us consider some common misconceptions regarding its meaning. A very common understanding of “draw” in John 6 is that it refers to a gentle wooing of the sinner on the part of God. The Father is attempting to entice men to come to Jesus but they can resist this divine activity. This is essentially the view of John Wesley. He writes; “No man can believe in Christ, unless God gives him power. He draws us first by good desires, not by compulsion, not by laying the will under any necessity; but by the strong and sweet, yet still resistible motions of his heavenly grace.”[32] In other words, God’s power or grace is applied to sinners but the human will is really the ultimate deciding factor in salvation. This is the typical Arminian interpretation. God’s grace is necessary for a man to come; but, it is not sufficient to guarantee a man’s coming. This interpretation not only explicitly contradicts the biblical definition of the word “draw” (as we shall see in a moment), but also completely contradicts the immediate context. Note the promise our Lord attaches to His statement about God’s drawing power. Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:44, italics added). According to the sinless Son of God the drawing activity of the Father always results in a resurrection unto life.

Further, earlier in the same discourse Christ said that a person cannot come to Him unless he is given to Him by the Father; and, the all who are given will certainly come. “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37). This whole statement presupposes that God’s granting and drawing power are irresistible. If the Arminian interpretation was true then our Lord could not make such promises. If Wesley’s interpretation was true the passage would read, “All that the Father gives Me who of their own free will cooperate with God’s grace and do not resist and reject it will come to Me.” Unfortunately Wesley and his Arminian followers have a bad habit or following their own humanistic presuppositions instead of the clear teaching of God’s infallible Word.

Another interpretation ascribes the drawing power of the Father to the Word of God itself. The idea is that the Holy Spirit operates upon the heart of man through the Word and entices the sinner to embrace the Savior. While there is no question that the Holy Spirit can accompany and apply God’s Word to convict men of sin, to convert hearts (cf. 1 Pet. 1:23; Jam. 1:18), and sanctify believers (cf. John 17:17; Ps. 119), one cannot ascribe the conversion of one person over another to the influence of the Word alone. For, if the Spirit operated through the Word alone and all were equally drawn by the use of the Word, then it ought to have the same effect upon all. Yet many men reject the Word and others heartily embrace it. The difference lies in those who hear the word and are regenerated and effectually drawn to Christ by the Holy Spirit. (With the unregenerate the Holy Spirit must work immediately upon the human soul before He works mediately through the preached word. As noted above, Christ says this drawing power is irresistible. It always results in a resurrection unto life. This means that the Holy Spirit operates on some men and passes others by. While man is the architect of his own damnation, (contrary to Arminianism) he is not the architect of his own conversion. How could he be? He is dead in trespasses (Eph. 2:1-5), helpless (Ezek.16:4-6), spiritually blind (1 Cor. 2:14) and cannot repent (Jer. 13:23). Further, Paul says that the Word apart from the converting-drawing power of the Holy Spirit brings death (Rom. 7:10). It only brings greater judgment, not life (2 Cor. 2:14-16).

All Arminian and semi-Pelagian concepts of grace are utterly destroyed by the biblical meaning of the word draw. “The Greek word used here is elko. Kittle’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament defines it to mean to compel by irresistible superiority. Linguistically and lexicographically, the word means to ‘compel.’”[33] This word means much more than a mere moral influence of the Word, or a gentle wooing by the Father. God does not merely woo, beg, beckon, or attempt to influence, He compels with divine power. Hendriksen writes: “The same verb (elko, elkuo) occurs also in 12:32, where the drawing activity is ascribed to the Son; and further, in 18:10; 21:6, 11; Acts 16:19; 21:30; and Jas. 2:6. The drawing of which these passages speak indicates a very powerful — we may even say, an irresistible — activity. To be sure, man resists, but this resistance is ineffective. It is in that sense that we speak of God’s grace as being irresistible. The net full of big fishes is actually drawn or dragged ashore (21:6, 11). Paul and Silas are dragged into the forum (Acts 16:19). Paul is dragged out of the temple (Acts 21:30). The rich drag the poor before the judgment-seats (Jas. 2:6) ... Jesus will draw all men to himself (12:32) and Simon drew his sword...”[34] The Greek word elko means what it means. All attempts to deny the meaning of this term are not based on Scripture but on humanistic concepts of fairness that are imposed on the text.

Arminians reject the plain meaning of the text because they believe that it would violate the idea that man has a free will. But this objection fails to consider three important things. First, as we have previously demonstrated the will of man is not free in the sense that the will always follows the depraved heart which cannot do anything which pleases God. Second, the state of unregenerate man’s heart (spiritually dead, dark, blind, depraved, etc.) necessitates a drawing power that powerfully effects in us to will and to do. A gentle persuasion or a wooing is ineffectual on a spiritual corpse. Thus, the Bible describes this drawing in terms of a creation, a spiritual resurrection, a quickening, a regeneration. The removal of heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh (i.e., a heart with a new spiritual nature) is obviously much more radical than a gentle urging. Third, the drawing power of God should never be falsely characterized as some form of mindless coercion. God in the new birth implants a new spiritual life in the heart of a sinner which powerfully influences every aspect of that person’s being in such a manner that: (a) his will or personal responsibility is not violated; and (b) he now has an understanding and love of Christ so that he voluntarily embraces the Savior. As a flower is drawn to the rays of the sun in spring, the new heart of the regenerate person looks to Jesus with a living faith.

The biblical meaning of the word “draw” is supported by Paul in 1 Corinthians. He writes: “For who makes you to differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (4:7)? Paul teaches that God is the one who makes the difference between those with and without Christ. The apostle explicitly rejects the whole Arminian paradigm. “And yet if after the fall the free will has still some strength by which it can dispose itself to good and admit the offered grace, man will make himself to differ from another and will have what he had not received and of which he may boast because the admission of grace (and his own act) distinguishes him from another who rejects it ... Could he not glory against the unbeliever because he cooperated with the grace of God which he [the unbeliever] despised.”[35] The consistent Arminian allows exactly what Paul prohibits. Therefore, we must reject the synergistic notion of wooing in favor of the monergistic concept of drawing. “Salvation is of the Lord” (Jon. 2:9).

5. The Unregenerate Cannot Repent

Because men are depraved by nature and spiritually dead, they in and of themselves do not have the power to repent. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may you do good who are accustomed to evil” (Jer. 13:23). “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one” (Job 14:4). “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit” (Matt. 7:18). “They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions ... having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin.... It has happened to them according to the true proverb: ‘A dog returns to his own vomit,’ and, ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire’” (2 Pet. 2:13-14, 22). “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6). “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7-8).

Biblical repentance involves a change of mind regarding sin, Christ and the gospel. It involves a turning from a sinful, selfish lifestyle to the true and living God. The Arminian view is that men need some assistance from God to repent. With careful persuasion and a gentle urging by the Holy Spirit men can repent and turn over a new leaf. This view, however, explicitly contradicts Scripture. Because man is so thoroughly corrupt only the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit applied to man’s heart can enable a man to repent and believe. Therefore, repentance is something that must be granted to a sinner by God. “They glorified God, saying, ‘Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life’” (Acts 11:18). God circumcised their hearts (Deut. 30:6) and replaced their stony hearts with hearts of flesh (Ezek. 11:19). Because men are spiritually dead and hostile to God by nature, only the Holy Spirit by the miracle of the new birth can make men new creatures. This is the clear teaching of Scripture. “For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). “Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). “In humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25). The whole New Testament teaches that conversion is in the hand of God, that He has the power to grant repentance unto unsaved sinners so that they become new creatures.

6. The Unregenerate are Under the Power of Satan

Mankind apart from Christ is enslaved to the god of darkness and lives, breathes and thinks in terms of the great satanic lie that sin and idolatry are true freedom. “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (2 Cor. 4:3-4). “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do ... When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe Me” (John 8:44, 45). “I [Jesus Christ] will deliver you [the Apostle Paul] from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:17-18).

If man is bound by his sinful flesh to the prince of darkness and is blinded by Satan, then obviously his will is not free. Men who have “been taken captive by him [Satan] to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:26) can only be set free by someone stronger than Satan — Jesus Christ and His Spirit (Matt. 12:29). Because “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19) and all unbelievers are children of the devil who do not practice righteousness (1 John 3:10) and everyone walks “according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2) we can only be liberated by the almighty power of the Holy Spirit sent by the victorious Mediator at the right hand of power. Thus of Jesus we read: “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:14).

7. The Unregenerate Dwell in Darkness

As a result of the fall men live in spiritual, ethical and epistemological darkness. “In Him [Jesus Christ] was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4-5). “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (John 3:19-20). “The words ‘every one that doeth evil,’ mean every unconverted person, every one whose heart is not right and honest in God’s sight, and whose actions are consequently evil and ungodly. Every such person ‘hateth the light, neither cometh to the light.’ He cannot really love Christ and the Gospel, and will not honestly, and with his whole heart, seek Christ by faith and embrace His Gospel, until he is renewed.”[36] Unbelievers prefer the moral and spiritual darkness of sin not because they are simply ignorant or partially corrupt, but because they are totally depraved: every aspect of their nature hates the light. Such people cannot cooperate with grace or the Holy Spirit because their darkened natures have an innate antipathy toward the light. “People of this type resemble loathsome insects that hide themselves beneath logs and stones, always preferring the darkness....”[37]

When Paul sets out to demonstrate the ethical darkness, guilt and helplessness of the whole fallen human race he writes: “They became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened ... God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting” (Rom. 1:21, 28). Pure darkness is the absence of all light. Those who are not born again dwell in spiritual darkness. How can those who are in total darkness, who hate the light, choose or cooperate with light? The unregenerate will not choose the light because he cannot choose the light. It is impossible with man. “Non-existent spiritual life cannot give being to itself. Light is not brought out of darkness, neither does love come from hate. Every seed bears its own kind. ‘That which is of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit’ (John 3:6). A new creature, therefore, cannot be the product of natural power.”[38]

[continued at HolwickID #63509]

The recent blitzkrieg of atheist propaganda has come mostly from Britain. Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are English, embracing the empirical atheism of Hobbes and Hume, of Darwin and Huxley. English empirical atheism is based on technicalities. There can be no God because God would not have allowed for pain, or God would not have designed the universe in such a careless way, or God would not have revealed Himself in a book with inaccuracies. Darwin famously wrote “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the (wasp) with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.”

European atheism accepts these empirical arguments as givens, but dismisses them as ineffectual in the war to rid the world of belief. Nietzsche’s anti-theist polemics aimed to discredit Christianity not so much by science or biblical criticism, but by showing it as morally reprehensible, resulting in a “slave morality” that leaves great men pathetic and turns humanity into spiritual thumb suckers. We don’t squirm In church pews because of the discrepancy between Matthew and Luke’s account of Jesus’ genealogy. We squirm because of the moral demands Jesus puts on us.

Michel Onfray’s ATHEIST MANIFESTO is from this European tradition. This is a new challenge to most Christians this side of the Atlantic. Are we prepared to make a defense to European atheists to account for the hope that is within us?

________

Michel Onfray’s ATHEIST MANIFESTO is the best-selling atheist book in Europe. It defends an atheism very different from that of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Dawkins and Hitchens are English, and their atheism is of the British variety. Harris seems to have adopted this Anglo-Saxon atheism as his own. It is scientific atheism, based on the idea that science in general and Darwin in particular have made God irrelevant. What religion previously explained, science now explains better. Using this proven scientific technique, we find no empirical evidence for God, heaven or immortal souls.

Onfray hates religion and specifically Christianity with the same venom as Dawkins and company. He too appeals to the Enlightenment. But Onfray is rooted on the French and German Enlightenment. His is the atheism of the Baron d’Holbach and especially of Friedrich Nietzsche. It is Nietzsche’s radical ideas, Onfray writes, that “make it possible to envisage an exit from Christianity.”

Onfray begins by disagreeing with Nietzsche’s famous proposition that God is dead. “Clearly the announcement of God’s death was as world-shaking as it was false,” Onfray writes. “Our era staggers under the weight of revelations solemnly hailed as the authorized utterances of new oracles.” In other words, religion is booming worldwide. God seems very much alive, while Nietzsche is dead.

Even in Europe, Onfray sees troubling signs. He notes “the waning of religious practice, the apparent autonomy of ethics in relation to religion, the perceived public indifference at the prospect of a papal visit, churches empty on Sundays.” Still, he warns, “Let us remain on our guard. Never before, perhaps, has this apparent eclipse so effectively hidden the strong, powerful, and decisive presence of Judeo-Christianity.” Judaism and Christianity continue to govern a “conceptual and mental empire pervading every component of civilization and culture.”

This is straight out of Nietzsche. The great German philosopher wrote that even if the West gets rid of the Christian God, that is only the beginning. The reason, he said, is that Christian assumptions continue to pervade Western society. Even values held by secular people are the product of Christianity. If Christianity goes, Nietzsche predicted, these values must also erode. It is foolish to cling to the values while removing their foundation.

Onfray gives two examples. Christianity introduced a new value that wasn’t present in ancient Greece and Rome: the respect for every human life. That’s why abortion and infanticide remain controversial in the West, while they are routinely practiced in other cultures without a hint of moral qualm. Onfray recognizes that an atheist West must abandon its reverence for human life, and he for one is ready to do it.

A second example Onfray gives is the Christian idea of free will. Onfray writes that because of the story of the Garden of Eden, Western man presumes that humans have the ability to choose between good and evil. Even secular courts that have taken down their religious symbols “operate in accordance with this biblical metaphysics.” For example, Onfray writes, “The child rapist is free...In his soul and conscience, endowed with a free will permitting him to prefer one option over another, he chooses violence — when he could have decided otherwise.”

For Onfray, this is ridiculous. “Who would even countenance a hospital locking up a man or a woman diagnosed with a brain tumor — no more of a free choice than a pedophilic fixation.” Onfray seems to believe that child rapists and serial killers are all sick and unable to control their impulses. By getting rid of the Christian idea of free will, he believes the law can stop punishing such people and give them the treatment they clearly need.

It is easy to dispute Onfray’s social judgments about this and other matters. But there’s something deeper going on here. Like Nietzsche, Onfray doesn’t disbelieve in God so much as he doesn’t want God to exist. If God exists, then we get the Ten Commandments and other examples of God-given morality. That morality places constraints on us.

British atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens are eager to assure us that while they reject the Judeo-Christian God, they do not reject the values of compassion, human dignity, and equality that were introduced by Christianity and are widely shared in Western society. Dawkins and Hitchens insist that we can be moral without God. But Onfray, like Nietzsche, insists that this is an illusion.

Onfray describes the Dawkins-Hitchens position as “atheist Christianity,” which he describes as an attempt to preserve Christian values while eliminating the Christian God. Onfray wants to move beyond this to what he calls “atheistic atheism,” which requires the wholesale invention of new values that have never existed before.

What these values will look like, Onfray does not specify. He merely says that utilitarianism and hedonism should be our guides. His startling conclusion is that “atheism is not an end in itself.” Rather, atheism exists in order to get rid of Judeo-Christian values that constrict our lifestyle. This is an atheism more honest, more darkly appealing, and ultimately more destructive than that of Dawkins and Hitchens.

[see also HolwickID #24851]

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #5609]