Natural Man before the Fall: Ability and Grace

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Originally posted by Saiph
Robin and Chris,
Then what does Paul mean when he says "natural man" ?

It's best to use Paul's term "sarks" or "flesh." To be in the "flesh" is to not be regenerate, first and foremost. Romans 6 refers to the only two types of people on earth: those "in Adam" or those "in Christ." To be "in the Spirit" is to be in Christ. Yes....even while the Christian struggles horribly (failing?) with habitual sin, Romans 8 describes that even then, we are IN Christ --- because the Gospel is outside of us. The Gospel depends on what Christ DID!

Now THAT is Good News! :up:

Robin

PS. Always keep the reading of Romans in sequential order (chpt 1 --- 16.) To interrupt the sequence is to thwart a beautiful and awesome symphony of Truth, Paul is unfolding.

[Edited on 10-26-2005 by Robin]
 
Yes, but the natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit.
I believe it does damage to total depravity to say human nature is good, and by definition should be in reference to Christ.

When any man does what is "natural", it is sin. In Christ we are a new creation. He was the second Adam. We are heirs of the first, until regeneration. I understand what Calvin was trying to say, but he should have used better terms. Natural does not mean unaltered, or pure, or upright in the biblical sense. It means correspondence with the ordinary course of nature. Nature is fallen. The secular naturalist would prefer the former definition.

Is death unnatural ?

Or

Is the resurrection unnatural ?



[Edited on 10-26-2005 by Saiph]
 
Originally posted by Saiph
Yes, but the natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit.
I believe it does damage to total depravity to say human nature is good, and by definition should be in reference to Christ.

When any man does what is "natural", it is sin. In Christ we are a new creation. He was the second Adam. We are heirs of the first, until regeneration. I understand what Calvin was trying to say, but he should have used better terms. Natural does not mean unaltered, or pure, or upright in the biblical sense. It means correspondence with the ordinary course of nature. Nature is fallen. The secular naturalist would prefer the former definition.

Is death unnatural ?

Or

Is the resurrection unnatural ?



[Edited on 10-26-2005 by Saiph]

Maybe we should move the thread?

So much can be said, Mark. It sounds like we need to unpack what pre-Fall, post-Fall human nature is like.

Btw, death is NOT natural. (!)

(whistling....) O, Dr. Clark.....care to make a much more insightful response to Mark's points, than I ever could? :sing:

Robin
 
I would be willing to accept your view if you define "natural".
We could then reduce the argument to a matter of vantage point or perspective.

My definition is: that which follows the ordinary course of nature.

Hence:

Eph. 2:3
Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

And by contrast:

II Pe 1:4
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
 
Originally posted by Saiph
.
I believe it does damage to total depravity to say human nature is good, and by definition should be in reference to Christ.

..... The secular naturalist would prefer the former definition.

Mark, obviously I agree with your important reminder that a clear reference to Christ (hypostatic union/Trinity) remains intact when discussing the condition and essense of humanity.

However, I'd beg to disagree....the secular naturalist prefers to justify, even validate his sin by claiming "it's only natural."

:)

r.
 
However, I'd beg to disagree....the secular naturalist prefers to justify, even validate his sin by claiming "it's only natural."

That is exactly my point. Sin is natural. We are born hating God. (And to the naturalist, that means unaltered or pure, ie. my 1st definition.)

[Edited on 10-26-2005 by Saiph]
 
But there is a difference in what you're saying above, and the claim that human nature is inherently evil. We know that every human nature, apart from Christ, IS evil, but its not to say that human nature (per se) IS evil, because then to do so would say that Jesus Christ has a "sinful" human nature, since human nature is always evil.

I think its a valid distinction to not always lump "human nature" and "sin" together, and to call the distinction into view is a great way to bring up the subject of Christ's perfection and His work on our account, especially in this day and age where His LIFE is ignored as being meritorious, and only His DEATH is talked about.

Also, when we get to Heaven and are glorified, will we not have a human nature? And Adam was created with a human nature, and it wasn't an evil nature that was given to him.
 
Originally posted by alwaysreforming
But there is a difference in what you're saying above, and the claim that human nature is inherently evil. We know that every human nature, apart from Christ, IS evil, but its not to say that human nature (per se) IS evil, because then to do so would say that Jesus Christ has a "sinful" human nature, since human nature is always evil.

Hebrews 2:16
For verily he took not on [him the nature of] angels; but he took on [him] the seed of Abraham.

I think its a valid distinction to not always lump "human nature" and "sin" together, and to call the distinction into view is a great way to bring up the subject of Christ's perfection and His work on our account, especially in this day and age where His LIFE is ignored as being meritorious, and only His DEATH is talked about.

Also, when we get to Heaven and are glorified, will we not have a human nature? And Adam was created with a human nature, and it wasn't an evil nature that was given to him.

I think this is why I asked Robin to define "Nature", and I qualified my statements with my definition.

Nature and natural are two different things
 
That sagacious Dominican friar of the 13th century solves this for us:

Man's nature may be looked at in two ways: first, in its integrity, as it was in our first parent before sin; secondly, as it is corrupted in us after the sin of our first parent. Now in both states human nature needs the help of God as First Mover, to do or wish any good whatsoever, as stated above (Article [1]). But in the state of integrity, as regards the sufficiency of the operative power, man by his natural endowments could wish and do the good proportionate to his nature, such as the good of acquired virtue; but not surpassing good, as the good of infused virtue. But in the state of corrupt nature, man falls short of what he could do by his nature, so that he is unable to fulfil it by his own natural powers. Yet because human nature is not altogether corrupted by sin, so as to be shorn of every natural good, even in the state of corrupted nature it can, by virtue of its natural endowments, work some particular good, as to build dwellings, plant vineyards, and the like; yet it cannot do all the good natural to it, so as to fall short in nothing; just as a sick man can of himself make some movements, yet he cannot be perfectly moved with the movements of one in health, unless by the help of medicine he be cured.


And thus in the state of perfect nature man needs a gratuitous strength superadded to natural strength for one reason, viz. in order to do and wish supernatural good; but for two reasons, in the state of corrupt nature, viz. in order to be healed, and furthermore in order to carry out works of supernatural virtue, which are meritorious. Beyond this, in both states man needs the Divine help, that he may be moved to act well.


Aquinas - Summa Theologica (Treatise On Grace) Question 109 Article 2

[Edited on 10-27-2005 by Saiph]
 
Originally posted by Saiph
That sagacious Dominican friar of the 13th century solves this for us:
......Now in both states human nature needs the help of God as First Mover, to do or wish any good whatsoever, as stated above But in the state of integrity, as regards the sufficiency of the operative power, man by his natural endowments could wish and do the good proportionate to his nature, such as the good of acquired virtue; but not surpassing good, as the good of infused virtue.

........

And thus in the state of perfect nature man needs a gratuitous strength superadded to natural strength for one reason, viz. in order to do and wish supernatural good; but for two reasons, in the state of corrupt nature, viz. in order to be healed, and furthermore in order to carry out works of supernatural virtue, which are meritorious. Beyond this, in both states man needs the Divine help, that he may be moved to act well.


Aquinas - Summa Theologica (Treatise On Grace) Question 109 Article 2

So is Aquinas saying that Adam before the Fall could not keep the law decree God made ("do not eat..") without God's help?

Just wondering, am I reading him right?

Robin

:detective:
 
Yes, Robin. But Adam could not breathe or think without God's help in that most generic sense as well. So it does not remove Adam's freedom.
 
Originally posted by Saiph
Yes, Robin. But Adam could not breathe or think without God's help in that most generic sense as well. So it does not remove Adam's freedom.

Wow --- this is quite different than what the confessions state (3 F's.) I mean.....what's the deal if God creates Adam to NOT be able to obey the edict "do not eat"....? Where in Scripture does it teach God created Adam unable to obey Him (before the Fall?)

r.

:detective:
 
I did not say God created Adam with the inability of obedience.

Adam was able to sin.
Since the fall we are not able, to not sin.
In Christ we are able to not sin.
In eternity we will not be able to sin.
 
Originally posted by Saiph
I did not say God created Adam with the inability of obedience.

Adam was able to sin.
Since the fall we are not able, to not sin.
In Christ we are able to not sin.
In eternity we will not be able to sin.

Most importantly, was Adam able to NOT sin (before the Fall?)

r.
 
I bet that's what he meant to type, Robin, and that it was a typo to omit the word "not" in that first line.

(Sorry to speak for ya, Mark!)
 
Originally posted by alwaysreforming
I bet that's what he meant to type, Robin, and that it was a typo to omit the word "not" in that first line.

(Sorry to speak for ya, Mark!)

Yes.

Augustine:

Pre Fall Man: able to sin, able not to sin (posse peccare, posse non peccare);
Post Fall Man: not able not to sin (non posse non peccare);
Regenerate Man: able not to sin (posse non peccare);
Glorified Man: unable to sin (non posse peccare).
 
But in the state of integrity, as regards the sufficiency of the operative power, man by his natural endowments could wish and do the good proportionate to his nature, such as the good of acquired virtue; but not surpassing good, as the good of infused virtue.

... And thus in the state of perfect nature man needs a gratuitous strength superadded to natural strength for one reason, viz. in order to do and wish supernatural good.... Aquinas - Summa Theologica (Treatise On Grace) Question 109 Article 2

Robin has put her finger on a very important problem. Thomas' doctrine of the donum super additum (super added grace), i.e., preserving grace before the fall was rooted in a non-Christian anthropology and a non-Christian ontology.

The background to this move was Augustine's turn to neo-Platonism (Plotinus) as way of explaining evil as a matter of being (good) and non-being (evil).

From my 2001 essay on Concupiscence in Modern Reformation:

St. Augustine (354-430) expressed his mature views in the treatise, On Marriage and Concupiscence (419) written against the Pelagians. Under the influence of neo-Platonism Augustine interpreted Paul's teaching on the "Spirit" and "flesh" in terms of being rather than as ethical and eschatological categories. Though he denied any "carnal concupiscence" before the fall and he considered it the "law of sin" (Romans 7.23), he also associated it very closely with sexual desire. Baptism, "the laver of regeneration" (Titus 3.5), washes away original sin and the guilt of concupiscence, but in this fallen world, the act of concupiscence remains, even among the regenerate. The "evil of concupiscence" may be tamed for procreation, but even in marriage it brings shame when its passions run hot.

According to Thomas Aquinas (c.1224-1274) humans were created good, with all the virtues, but because we are creatures and material we necessarily have "lower powers" or "appetites." Even before the fall, these powers were only subject to the soul, even before the fall, only by a "super added gift" (donum super additum) of grace. He says, "even before sin " man "required grace to obtain eternal life"¦." From the beginning, before the fall, Adam had within his soul, certain lower powers, one of which (concupiscence) was "the craving for pleasurable good" and this desire itself arises from natural, lower appetites. Thomas reasoned this way because he presupposed a sort of continuum of being between God and man, with God having complete being and man have relatively less. In short, for Thomas, concupiscence is the result of being human and was the precondition for sin even before the fall.

The Reformation not only reformed the doctrine of justification, but also moral theology. Against the prevailing medieval and Roman view, the Protestants denied that we fell because we were human. Rather, as the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) taught in Q. 6, we were created "in righteousness and true holiness, that we might rightly know God our creator, heartily love him and live with him in eternal blessedness." Thus the First Adam needed no grace before the fall. Grace is for sinners, not for the sinless. The Protestant theologians consistently defined concupiscence as a post-fall phenomenon. Among the children of the first Adam, concupiscence is both an actual sin and the pre-condition or proclivity to sin.

Unlike Aquinas, who restricted concupiscence to the "sensual appetite," Calvin argued that it affects the whole of fallen man.

"¦that everything which is in man, from the intellect to the will, from the soul even to the flesh, is defiled and pervaded with this concupiscence; or, to express it more briefly, that the whole man is in himself nothing else than concupiscence (Institutes 2.1.8).

Thinking about the deadly mixture of God's Law and our sin, Calvin rejected any idea of sinless perfection in this life.

"¦if we go back to the remotest period, we shall not find a single saint who, clothed with a mortal body, ever attained to such perfection as to love the Lord with all his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength; and, on the other hand, not one who has not felt the power of concupiscence (Institutes, 2.7.5).

Unlike Augustine, Calvin did not necessarily associate concupiscence with sexual desire. For Calvin, concupiscence is nothing more than a comprehensive synonym for sin.

With Scripture, the Reformed theologians said that we were created "good," "righteous" and "holy." Sin, they said, is "accidental" to our nature as created. There was a radical Lutheran who taught in the 16th c that sin is "essential" to our nature as created, but his view was rejected universally. We all agree that, post-fall, we are inherently, "naturally" and radically sinful.

The Reformed expressed this affirmation of the goodness of Adam (before the fall) as created (contra Thomas and Augustine) by teaching the covenant of works in which Adam was said to have been, before the fall, able to keep the law and to earn (yes, I said "earn") a state of consummate blessedness. Now, that "earning" was within a covenant freely made by God by, as the WCF says, "voluntary condescension," so it was by God's "ordained power" rather than relative to God's "absolute power."

This is the background for our view of Jesus' sinlessness (impeccability) and active obedience for us and imputed to us. Our standards and theologians all have it that Jesus "earned" or "obtained" our justification and eventual consummate blessedness.

As to the free offer, when we speak of a sincere offer we're speaking of the administration of the covenant of grace. God has willed that the covenant of grace should be administered through the "serious" and "indiscriminate" (the language of the Synod of Dort) offer of the gospel. It is more than a demand, as some would have us think.

Again, this view relies on distinctions that some have either lost or forgotten, namely the distinction between God's knowledge (said to be "archetypal" i.e., original, absolute, omniscient, immense etc) and ours (said to be "ectypal," i.e., imperfect, derived etc).

God, of course, has decreed from all eternity who will and will not come to faith. We, otoh, are ignorant of the details of this decree. We are shut up to the revealed will of God (which Luther called the theology of the cross). The revealed will of God, as the Reformed have mostly understood it, is that the gospel should be preached to sinners the way God has preached it to us, as it were, through the prophets: "Do I take pleasure in the death of the wicked says the Lord...?" "God is not willing that any should be perish..."

What sort of "willing" does Scripture have in view in such places? Given the clear teaching of Scripture that there is a decree, then such willing must be on a different order. It was to account for that "revealed" willing that we formulated the doctrine of the free, well-meant, sincere, offer.

rsc
 
RSC,

So you would say human nature is good ?

Very good reformed defense.

Adam traded the daily meal with God in the garden for a meal that would seperate him from God. The fruit was the devil's sacrament. So why talk of human nature as good ? We are born guilty in Adam, until born again in Christ.
If Limited Atonement is true, any offer to the reprobate is insincere. But, we offer it to all because we do not know who is reprobate.
 
Originally posted by Saiph
RSC,

So you would say human nature is good ?

Very good reformed defense.

Adam traded the daily meal with God in the garden for a meal that would seperate him from God. The fruit was the devil's sacrament. So why talk of human nature as good ? We are born guilty in Adam, until born again in Christ.
If Limited Atonement is true, any offer to the reprobate is insincere. But, we offer it to all because we do not know who is reprobate.

Yes, I agree that Adam traded God's sacrament (see Witsius on the Economy of the Covenants vol 1) for the Devil's (Olevianus called Adam's rebellion a false covenant).

The Reformed point has been that human nature is good per se i.e., as created. We were not created corrupt (Augustine and Thomas) or fallen. We didn't have moral greeblies running around within that required the quenching powers of prelapsarian grace.

After the fall, the good creation, namely human nature, was radically and profoundly corrupted. Grace, as we mostly use it, is reserved to describe God's favor toward sinners not the sinless and not Adam ante lapsum.

It does not follow to say that because the atonement is personal or definite (using Roger Nicole's categories) that the WMO is insincere. The question of the WMO is not God decree but our stance. What attitude are we to adopt toward those who are obviously outside the Christ confessing covenant community? We are to take the stance that God has revealed himself as taking.

Further, God can be said to love his good creation. He loves his creatures. Love is one of the communicable (by analogy not by participation) attributes. As a divine attribute it is essential to God's nature. It is who he is. Peter van Mastricht, for example, was very clear about God's love for all, even the reprobate.

We cannot peer into the divine decree or into the eternal knowledge of God. We shouldn't try. Given that (Creator/creature) distinction, how should we speak to those outside the covenant community who may or may not be elect (or to those within, for that matter)?

"Come to me all who weary laden, and I will give you rest"

"For God so loved the world"

That's the gospel call.

rsc
 
Thinking through the Aquinas proposition again, I suppose I was equating contingent with some type of moral corruption. Even in our glorified state we will be contingent though.
 
Originally posted by R. Scott Clark
Originally posted by Saiph
RSC,

So you would say human nature is good ?

Very good reformed defense.

Adam traded the daily meal with God in the garden for a meal that would seperate him from God. The fruit was the devil's sacrament. So why talk of human nature as good ? We are born guilty in Adam, until born again in Christ.
If Limited Atonement is true, any offer to the reprobate is insincere. But, we offer it to all because we do not know who is reprobate.

Yes, I agree that Adam traded God's sacrament (see Witsius on the Economy of the Covenants vol 1) for the Devil's (Olevianus called Adam's rebellion a false covenant).

The Reformed point has been that human nature is good per se i.e., as created. We were not created corrupt (Augustine and Thomas) or fallen. We didn't have moral greeblies running around within that required the quenching powers of prelapsarian grace.

After the fall, the good creation, namely human nature, was radically and profoundly corrupted. Grace, as we mostly use it, is reserved to describe God's favor toward sinners not the sinless and not Adam ante lapsum.

It does not follow to say that because the atonement is personal or definite (using Roger Nicole's categories) that the WMO is insincere. The question of the WMO is not God decree but our stance. What attitude are we to adopt toward those who are obviously outside the Christ confessing covenant community? We are to take the stance that God has revealed himself as taking.

Further, God can be said to love his good creation. He loves his creatures. Love is one of the communicable (by analogy not by participation) attributes. As a divine attribute it is essential to God's nature. It is who he is. Peter van Mastricht, for example, was very clear about God's love for all, even the reprobate.

We cannot peer into the divine decree or into the eternal knowledge of God. We shouldn't try. Given that (Creator/creature) distinction, how should we speak to those outside the covenant community who may or may not be elect (or to those within, for that matter)?

"Come to me all who weary laden, and I will give you rest"

"For God so loved the world"

That's the gospel call.

rsc

But yet through the necessity of dependence on God rather than an independent work system wasnt there a revelation hid in God as well as the limits of the good material that made up man a cause to see grace necessary?
 
But yet through the necessity of dependence on God rather than an independent work system wasnt there a revelation hid in God as well as the limits of the good material that made up man a cause to see grace necessary?

That is why the Westminster Confession 7:1 says:

The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.

As has been noted, the Divines could have spoken of grace here, but did not. That such a diverse group of folk agreed to this language, omitting grace, says something.

They turned not to grace to explain God's free act in covenanting with Adam, instead they turned to the divine free will. Hence "voluntary condescension." All of God's revelation is a voluntary condescension, but they chose to highlight that fact in the making of the covenant of works.

The Creator/creature relations are such that man did not have any claim on God without God having freely willed to enter into a legal relation.

That done, it was a legal, and not a gracious relation. Adam was to earn his entry into glory. The first Adam having failed to do, the Second Adam did exactly that. Praise God for the strict, meritorious, legal, obedience of the Second Adam in place of his people.

rsc
 
Dr. Clark, you said:

Robin has put her finger on a very important problem. Thomas' doctrine of the donum super additum (super added grace), i.e., preserving grace before the fall was rooted in a non-Christian anthropology and a non-Christian ontology.

Would you mind explaining this. I have been trying to figure out what you meant by going back and re-reading Thomas, and Augustine on "soul".
Outline their non Chirstian anthropology and ontology for me.

Have you read Bahnsen's paper on substantive monism ? Seems to me that the classic hylomorphic view is not wrong after all. Surely you do not accept Descartes non-spacial susbtance idea ?
 
Originally posted by Saiph
Dr. Clark, you said:

Robin has put her finger on a very important problem. Thomas' doctrine of the donum super additum (super added grace), i.e., preserving grace before the fall was rooted in a non-Christian anthropology and a non-Christian ontology.

Would you mind explaining this. I have been trying to figure out what you meant by going back and re-reading Thomas, and Augustine on "soul".
Outline their non Chirstian anthropology and ontology for me.

Have you read Bahnsen's paper on substantive monism ? Seems to me that the classic hylomorphic view is not wrong after all. Surely you do not accept Descartes non-spacial susbtance idea ?

No, I've not read Bahnsen on substantive monism. I have read Thomas and a fair bit of medieval theology.

Did you look up the "donum super additum"?

The covenant of works is an alternative to the DSA. There is talk among some Protestants about prelapsarian grace (e.g., in Ursinus and in others) but it is not on the same order nor did it function the same way as the DSA. There is some language in the Belgic about Adam not understanding his prelapsarian state, but I don't think this is a DSA.

One of the great differences between the medievals and Reformation theology was the rejection by the Reformation of a widely assumed Plotinian-Dionysian scale of being in favor of a Creator/creature distinction.

No, I'm not advocating Aristotle's ontology or psychology. I am, however, influenced by Brian Davies' astute interpretation of Thomas which I is supported by Roman scholars of Thomas with whom I've talked.

The problem isn't exactly or only body/soul relations but Thomas' ontological assumptions which the Reformation rejected and that, given the rejection, fed or supported their view of the prelapsarian state.

Augustine and Thomas' were influenced by Plato (or Plotinus) in their anthropology but particularly in their assumption about divine-human relations. The Reformation finally destroyed the continuum between God and Man. Evangelicals have spent most of the last two hundred years re-building that continuum in the form of a ladder (via mysticism) to the beatific vision. I understand, the theology of the cross is not for everyone, but neither is Christianity.

The Protestant view of concupiscence over against the medieval (and frequently patristic) is a good case. See my essay some time back in Mod. Ref. on this.

Cheers,

rsc
 
Originally posted by R. Scott Clark
But yet through the necessity of dependence on God rather than an independent work system wasnt there a revelation hid in God as well as the limits of the good material that made up man a cause to see grace necessary?

That is why the Westminster Confession 7:1 says:

The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.

As has been noted, the Divines could have spoken of grace here, but did not. That such a diverse group of folk agreed to this language, omitting grace, says something.

They turned not to grace to explain God's free act in covenanting with Adam, instead they turned to the divine free will. Hence "voluntary condescension." All of God's revelation is a voluntary condescension, but they chose to highlight that fact in the making of the covenant of works.

The Creator/creature relations are such that man did not have any claim on God without God having freely willed to enter into a legal relation.

That done, it was a legal, and not a gracious relation. Adam was to earn his entry into glory. The first Adam having failed to do, the Second Adam did exactly that. Praise God for the strict, meritorious, legal, obedience of the Second Adam in place of his people.

rsc

I guess i am having a hard time with the word covenant being used in scripture in the sense it is used by most reformers in a works paridigm.
I also have questions about whether that focus of obedience -disobedience was the major test in that covenant. Obviously the struggle between good and evil existed before the fall in other persons. Its obvious that satan was allowed by God to tempt man. Now these angelic powers and Gods power exceded mans limits just as they do post fall. I would question whether man in himself had the power in himself to thwart satans tatics without God intervening in it in some way by grace or in not allowing that temptation to effect that fall unless God limited Satan in some way.
 
What did Adam enjoy before the fall ? The idea that we cannot speak of grace where sin is absent does not seem biblical to me. Grace according to some in this thread seems to always be God's favor despite our sin.

I believe that is a new meaning for grace? Grace and favor are used interchangeably in the NT. The term "favor" does not change or modify your definition of "grace" in my opinion. The donum super additum seems to come from Augustine.

The crux of this argument is perhaps this: If man cannot earn merit before God by his own natural ability, then this was just as true before the Fall as it is after it.

In both cases, Man requires supernatural power to remain in fellowship with God. If you believe that Adam and Eve were in a righteous state and relationship before God without supernatural grace/favor before the Fall, then you are accepting a form of prelapsarian pelagianism.

Dr. Clark, could you outline for me the Biblical mind-body connection, and the difference between our ontological reality and God's ?

Now before someone accuses me of doing away with the covenant of works (which incidentally, I accept in principle, but do not see explicitly outlined in scripture) let me outline Augustine's idea of ability again.


Augustine:

Pre Fall Man: able to sin, able not to sin (posse peccare, posse non peccare);

Post Fall Man: not able not to sin (non posse non peccare);

Regenerate Man: able not to sin (posse non peccare);

Glorified Man: unable to sin (non posse peccare).


In the pre-fall state, man's ability to keep the law of not eating the fruit was by supernatural grace. Just as it is in regenerate man. Adam, and Eve, were not walking with God when the serpent was giving his lecture. Why not ? Adam was silent during the whole ordeal. Why did he not protect Eve ?

[Edited on 12-23-2005 by Saiph]
 
I guess i am having a hard time with the word covenant being used in scripture in the sense it is used by most reformers in a works paridigm [sic].

The classical Reformed tradition didn't have this problem, but lots of folk have, including the Socinians, the Arminians, the Lutherans (although Luther taught a sort of covenant of works in his lectures on Genesis in the 1540's). Be careful about rejecting the covenant of works since you may find yourself in unhappy company. The answer, "but I'm just following the Bible" won't help since that is exactly what the Socinians said as they rejected the deity of Christ, the Trinity, justification sola gratia etc.

Think of it this way, was Jesus in a covenant of works or not? Was Jesus born under the law or not? Of course the answer is yes.

If Jesus as the second Adam was in such a covenant/relation to divine justice, then there can be no theoretical objection to such a relation having existed before.

The Reformed argued also from the language of Gen 2-3 (as I've done here before on other threads) and from the prima facie evidence of Hosea 6:7 and from the legal aspect of the Israelite national covenant.

Have you read Witsius? Get the new Horton book on covenant theology from Baker -- I really ought to get a percentage for all the shilling I do for him! ;)

I also have questions about whether that focus of obedience -disobedience was the major test in that covenant.

This objection is most puzzling. What is complicated about "the day you eat thereof you shall surely die"? Seems like a test of obedience to me and it has seemed so to catholic (including the Protestants) Christianity since the Fathers. The idea of the covenant of works is not a novelty.

Listen, if grace swallows up everything, as pious as that sounds, grace comes to mean nothing as it does in Barth where the decree and grace obliviate law and reprobation. Then, however, Barth proceeds to re-arrange law and gospel (since it's all of grace) and voilà we have moralism, i.e., justification by grace and cooperation with grace. Murray denied or weakened the covenant of works, with no intent to damage Reformed theology and within 25 years Norm Shepherd was adopting Pelagianizing views. I don't know of an instance in the history of Reformed theology where the covenant of works has been denied without unhappy consequences (e.g., Baxter).

....I would question whether man in himself had the power in himself to thwart satans [sic] tatics [sic] without God intervening in it in some way by grace or in not allowing that temptation to effect that fall unless God limited Satan in some way.

This is prejudicing the question, however. It isn't a matter of man's intrinsic powers per se. It is a matter of the nature of the covenant of works/nature/life.

Is God able to establish such a covenant? To say no is to invoke a series of theological problems. The focus should not be on what I think is hypothetically possible, however, but on what God actually did. The text does reveal a test - eat and die; don't eat and live.

Where is grace in the narrative? God made Adam "good." There is no defect. This is why the Reformed confessions speak with one voice about Adam's prelapsarian state. HC 6

...God created man good and after His own image, that is, in righteousness and true holiness; that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love Him, and live with Him in eternal blessedness, to praise and glorify Him

Adam was in a probationary state. He was made to enter into a probationary state.

Consider HC 9

Does not God, then, do injustice to man by requiring of him in His law that which he cannot perform?

No, for God so made man that he could perform it; but man, through the instigation of the devil, by wilful disobedience deprived himself and all his descendants of this power.

How does the HC (and WCF 7) understand Adam's potential and ability prelapsarian state? Is Adam weakened in any way? No. Does Adam have concupiscence? No. Is Adam lacking anything to fulfill the demands of the law? No.

We have trouble imagining a purely righteous man because our imaginations are warped by sin. We make it normative and we read it back into the prelapsarian state, but Scripture doesn't have this problem. It doesn't read grace or favor back into the prelapsarian state because it understands and implies what the HC says.

The fault of sin is Adam's, not God's. Adam did not fall from grace. That is the ROMAN view not the Protestant view. Adam broke the law. This fact is the basis for John's definition of sin as "lawlessness" not "gracelessness."

The notion that the fall was a fall from grace stems, as I've said before, from an unbiblical and pagan view of divine-human relations. We do not exist on one end of a continuum with God. We are and only shall be analogues to God. Full stop.

To say that grace was necessary before the fall is to say that, in effect, divinity is a pre-requisite for obedience, that humanity as such is incapable of obedience. That scheme almost always (and certainly did in Thomas and certainly does in contemporary evangelicalism) lead to a doctrine of theosis -- divinization as salvation. See M. Karkainen's (Fuller Sem) new book where teaches this explicitly.

This, of course, destroys not only the Creator/creature relations by turning the creature into the Creator it also makes our problem ontological rather than moral. Scripture never does this. The Protestants didn't do this. Augustine and Thomas did. Augustine and Thomas were wrong! Luther, Calvin and our theologians and symbols were more biblical.

This approach also destroys the incarnation. We have a God-Man Savior. His humanity is not deified and his deity is not confused with his humanity. We have a Savior with two distinct natures united in one person.

Why did God the Son have to become, having willed to be our Mediator and representative, a true man? Why not just come without the incarnation? To fulfill the covenant of works broken by Adam. If the "fall" was a "fall from grace" then why all the fuss about the law? About Jesus "righteousness" and "obedience"? Why the brutal 40 day temptation in the wilderness? Why not just "poof" and make it all go away? Why sweat, as it were, great drops of blood? Why "learn obedience" by the things he suffered? Why die outside the camp? Why be circumcised for us on the cross? Because, he was the Second Adam? He had to go back into the garden and do battle with the evil one, as a true man, and he did that his whole life. That is why he said "It is finished!"

None of that makes any sense on an alternate scheme. The truth is that western theology was schizoid for most of 1000 years and God bless that fat little Saxon monk for finalizing the divorce from Plotinus and Dionysius and the rest of the theologians of glory!

rsc
 
What did Adam enjoy before the fall ? The idea that we cannot speak of grace where sin is absent does not seem biblical to me.

He enjoyed righteousness. I think I addressed this in the reply made immediately above.

Grace according to some in this thread seems to always be God's favor despite our sin.

Well, there is a considerable amount of biblical support for this definition! Where sin abounded, grace abounded more (Rom 5:20)

This is also the confessional definition of sin and grace.

I believe that is a new meaning for grace? Grace and favor are used interchangeably in the NT. The term "favor" does not change or modify your definition of "grace" in my opinion.

I don't understand. Grace and favor are synonyms. They both properly denote demerited favor to sinners.

Can they be used in other ways? Perhaps, as in "common grace" but improper or broader usage does tend to create theological confusion.

The donum super additum seems to come from Augustine.

As a historian, that's interesting. As regards the theological truth of the prelapsarian state, I don't care. Augustine is a hero but he was wrong about many things, which fact he realized himself, since he wrote (quite wonderfully) a book chronicling his own errors. The Reformed have never regarded Augustine as an infallible oracle.

The crux of this argument is perhaps this: If man cannot earn merit before God by his own natural ability, then this was just as true before the Fall as it is after it.

You're close to the nub of the issue, but your reasoning seems flawed. I think I detect a hidden premise in the implied syllogism.

It is Pelagian to equivocate about human nature. Humanity (as Augustine taught us and as Boston repeated) has existed in four states. The prelapsarian state and the post-lapsarian states are distinct. Hence Paul called the natural state post lapsum "œdead." (Eph 2;1-4). Prior to the fall we were "œalive." Our abilities, then, suffered a mortal blow, literally, after the fall.

Thus whatever we cannot do (anything meritorious) after the fall is no indicator of human ability before the fall. The fundamental problem in the debate with the FV is their refusal to make this distinction. Failure to make this distinction what made Pelagius err. As I recall, Augustine had quite a bit to say to Pelagius about just that.

In both cases, Man requires supernatural power to remain in fellowship with God. If you believe that Adam and Eve were in a righteous state and relationship before God without supernatural grace/favor before the Fall, then you are accepting a form of prelapsarian pelagianism.

In a word: nonsense. See above. Without equivocating re "œnature" we´re fine.

Dr. Clark, could you outline for me the Biblical mind-body connection, and the difference between our ontological reality and God's ?

No. Read the Heidelberg Catechism, the Westminster Confession etc. I don´t think it´s that complicated. We are body and soul. We´re complex entities. We´re creatures. We´re analogues. God is none of those. What else do you want me to say?

In the pre-fall state, man's ability to keep the law of not eating the fruit was by supernatural grace.

Where is the biblical proof for this?

rsc
 
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