Post Edited (Tom) : 5/29/2009 3:37:15 PM (GMT-5)

Jesus' Own Testimony

But let's draw the message to a close by looking at a word from the Savior himself concerning our deadness in sin. Was this just Paul's idea or did he learn it from Jesus?

Leave the Dead to Bury Their Own Dead

In Matthew 8:21 a disciple approached Jesus and said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead." So Paul didn't originate the idea that there are people who are alive and yet dead—spiritually dead. Leave the dead to bury their own dead.

Inexcusable Deadness

But what did Jesus think of this deadness? Was it excusable? In Matthew 23:27-28 he said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."

So here is an example of the "righteous" dead man. A man clean and religious on the outside—like a whitewashed casket in the county morgue—and inside rotten bones and filthiness and death. No, our deadness is not excusable in God's sight. It is abominable. Our inability to submit to God and please God does not excuse us. The reason we can't submit without a Savior is because we don't want to. The power of our CANNOT is the depth of our WILL NOT.

Post Edited (Tom) : 5/29/2009 3:23:46 PM (GMT-5)

• Sickness, in need of a physician - Matt. 9:12
• In a “spiritual uterus”, needing to be born - John 3
• Someone who is lost - Luke 19:10; Matt. 18:10-14 (“little ones”, lost like sheep); Luke 15
• Blindness - Matt. 15:14; John 9:39-41

D: Why did God have to assume a human will for our salvation, again?

Tom: Don’t let this fact lead you to assume total depravity, which is what you’re doing I think. Basically, since we need a savior, and since salvation is won for us by Christ assuming the humanity that needs to be redeemed (ala Greg of Nazianzus: “what isn’t assumed isn’t redeemed”), and since the ‘will’ is constitutive of human nature, it follows that the human will (along with everything else about us that’s broken) is in need of redemption. So if Christ doesn’t assume it, it doesn’t get redeemed. OK so far...

But then you reason that this whole arrangement (our need to have Christ assume a human 'will') proves a depravity of that 'will' so severe that it requires to be determined by God. It is absolutely incapable of saying 'yes' to God's proferred grace in the gospel. God must say this 'yes' for us.

How is your tulip garden coming along?

D, Christ’s necessary assumption of a human will doesn’t have to entail the total depravity of the will such that it’s SO broken and impotent, so dysfunctional, that unless God determines it in its exercise, it simply would never say yes to God. That’s just wrongheaded. To begin with, it doesn’t follow that if we NEED to be saved we need to be DETERMINED. The ‘will’ can require a grace without which it cannot be redeemed and still retain that measure of functionality without which the salvation in question could not transpire.

The point is that our utter dependency upon grace doesn’t start to characterize human existence after it becomes corrupted. We were created needing grace. There never was a time when the human will was capable of choosing God apart from the sustaining and empowering presence and grace of God. But if this is true, then we can’t call this dependency of the ‘will’ upon God a ‘bondage’ of the will. And God’s purposes for us and our perfection always included the Son’s assuming human nature. This has nothing to do with sin’s corruption. You get this right? We would need faith and grace and would be directing that faith to God’s incarnate love EVEN IF sin never stained the picture.

Given this, we have to be very careful about what we say are the effects of sin’s corruption upon human nature based on the fact that Christ assumes that nature and that our faith in Christ heals that corruption. See? This is why I’m suspicious of how “what’s not assumed isn’t healed” is used. Yes, whatever’s not assumed isn’t redeemed. In other words, there simply IS NO redemption for human beings that is not mediated through the incarnate Son. Nor COULD there have been. But this doesn’t entail a total depravity which in turn precludes our being libertarianly free to choose. It just doesn’t. Take sin’s corruption out of the picture. It would STILL be the case that whatever’s not assumed is not perfected. It just happens now that our perfection includes our redemption. But we were always meant to find and fulfill our telos by grace through faith in the incarnate Word. Sin and redemption don't introduce THAT.

So we can’t say that the will is in Luther's "bondage" just because it’s assumed by Christ. Sin complicates things, yes. The incarnate one now suffers for us, yes. And we are slaves (dead in trespasses and sins, and other metaphors that describe us). But none of these metaphors and nothing about our fallen state requires a TOTAL depravity of the will.

Lastly, this is not to say that we are able, unaided by grace, to ‘will’ ourselves redeemed and set free. That’s nonsense. But it’s equally nonsense to suppose that since we need the grace of God’s presence and kind invitation that we must therefore be unable to offer a libertarian ‘yes’ to that invitation once God’s grace extends it. We need God to love and convict and invite us. We don’t require that he determine our response to that invitation.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 6/1/2009 7:40:26 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 6/1/2009 8:17:48 AM (GMT-5)

D: Ok. I've been doing a lot of thinking about this. I tried to ask Greg this question yesterday, but I think he sidestepped it. He talked Sunday about no one could even come to Jesus or know him as Lord without the action of the Holy Spirit.

Tom: Of course no one can will herself into an experience with God without the “action of the Holy Spiirt.” The question is, must the Spirit's action determin human choice?

You’re tell me that’s the only way it can be?

D: So, I brought the following scenario…

Tom: Got the scenario. OK.

D:  Ok. Let's grant prevenient grace, meaning that it is only God's previous working that enables any possible believer to get to a "neutral" level where they can freely choose God OR freely choose something else other than God.

Tom: I’ve never heard prevenient grace described like that. It’s just God’s previous working?

I’m thinking more a present, abiding activity, the ever-PRESENT sustaining power of the Spirit a) holding all things in existence, b) defining each thing’s telos at THAT present moment, and then c) creating that space which is the creator-creature distinction that constitutes the range of possible choices and the gift of freedom whereby agents determine themselves.

But anyhow.

Let’s not forget, NOBODY is moving into a reconciled relationship with God solely on the basis of prevenient grace. I’ve not said that. There also has to be the communication of something more specific, i.e., the Spirit’s convicting presence INFORMING that ‘space’ (an ‘invitation’ to be exact) and thus defining to the conscious mind what those choices are.

D: WHO is the FINAL CAUSALITY responsible for the 2nd criminal's faith in Christ?

Tom: That’s not the question. The question is, who determines that criminal’s CHOICE. I’m not saying there’s no faith involved. But using “faith” muddies the waters. We’re talking about CHOICE.

The criminal is the final arbiter in that choice.

D: Was it the criminal himself or was it God? It seems like you (Tom) have to say that the criminal himself is the final cause of belief in Jesus. Yes, God's Grace was a necessary factor, but the factor of sufficiency ended up being the criminal's implicit (subconscious, even??) consent to the Spirit's working, right?

Tom: I’ll go with this, fine. Yes, creatures have a role to play that God won’t play for them.

I’m really freaking out here D? When did you abandon libertarian freedom and become a determinist again?

D: So, is the criminal the ultimate final cause and factor of sufficiency of his own salvation, particularly of God's Grace is an immutable constant for all creation? 

Tom: What do you mean by “ultimate”? I can’t guess what you mean.

Are we going to return to debate compatiblism? Dang.

D: I think that I'm willing to say is that there is a bi-polar asymmetrical relational unity between God's Grace and human faith such that one CANNOT assign final causality to either "pole" of the relational unity, through we can assign PRIMACY of activity in an asymmetrical, though reciprocal, way.

Tom: Primary? D, I think you’re misunderstanding the libertarian notion of “finality” as it’s used to describe arbitration and determination of choice. Libertarian freedom doesn’t require that “final” preclude connectivity to prevenient grace, the place of other necessary causes in choice, and all the irreducibly relational character or shape of libertarian choice. It’s still the case that salvation is a work of ‘synergy’. That means neither God nor I can provide a full account of the saving relationship. I’ve said that. God shares in defining the libertarian choice for God, and in an asymmetrical way too, because GRACE must take the initiative in creating the possibility and space wherein we do our part. But being irreducibly relational and dependent upon the initiative of grace doesn’t mean we aren’t final arbiters. It means we’re not SOLE arbiters. The “finality” that your want to dismiss isn’t the finality that libertarians affirm.

And none of this justifies your earlier comments in support of Luther’s “bondage of the will” and your dismissal of libertarian choice.

D: 2) My point with the Jesus' human will thing is to say that Jesus ALONE set our human dispositional tendencies "back to factory specs" as far as how his human spirit always followed the Holy Spirit without ceasing.

Tom: But that doesn’t do away with the necessary libertarian role to be played by us if we hope to enter into Christ and be transformed. In any case, I wouldn’t say that sin’s corruption completely erased our factory specs. I’m no proponent of total depravity.

D: Before that, all human beings could do was sin. (You don't want to say that there was another sinless human, do you?)

Tom: D, you’re arguing straight up total depravity. That’s not my view. Sinning is not “all” human beings “could” do before Christ. Human beings have always been able to say ‘yes’ to whatever invitation God may decide to extend. That doesn’t mean there has to be another sinless human being out there. It just means that being a fallen and sinful human being doesn’t extinguish the capacity to choose. Sin’s corruption has not totally privated human capacity for choice. If it has, then irresistible grace and determinism are the only explanation for how anyone is reconciled to God.

I can’t believe I’m hearing this, but hey, the world’s a strange place.

Mad love,

Tom

Until Jesus came and "gave us the Spirit", we were screwed.  For real.

Post Edited (One Love) : 6/1/2009 4:12:31 PM (GMT-5)

D: Can a human being who is not born again by the Spirit and is "dead in their sins" freely choose to love God centrally and unconditionally...and from that love of God, love of all other humans as themselves, meaning unconditionally?

Tom: Bro, c-o-m-e  o-n. Where are you taking this? It’s like you’re not even reading what I say. Of course no human being can freely love God and others SO LONG AS she’s not born again and dead in sin. That’s NOT what I’m saying. And it’s NOT our debate at all.

D: If not, then sin/despair HAS privated all human capacity for choice where it matters most (Great Commandments, 1 Cor 13)...and left things implicitly in the hands of Satan. And NO POSSIBLE DECISION that we make within that the framework of the despairing mind is "hitting the mark"...which is the whole point.

Tom: Of course if we’re not ACTUALLY loving as 1Cor says then we’re nothing. That’s what we want to become. It’s what we’re saved to grow into in ever-increasing glory. Sure, as our ‘telos’ that is the point of our whole existence. But D, come on. It’s NOT the point of this debate. You’re changing up the whole subject here and avoiding the question: Do the unregenerate have the capacity to say ‘yes’ to God’s gracious invitation to start that journey? To start their journey on the road to learning to love the 1Cor way? When the grace of God's invitation quickens the human heart and says, "Come to me all you who are heavy laden...," can we say 'yes' without that 'yes' being DETERMINED by God. You know what I mean.

I say sinners can and do say 'yes' to God. That's why rejecting the convicting presence of the Spirit is blameworthy.

So are you a determinist now (when when it comes to regeneration/new birth)?

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 6/1/2009 4:33:39 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 6/3/2009 8:29:21 AM (GMT-5)

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From "Bondage of the Will", the conclusion...

Hence:—If we believe that Satan is the prince of this world, ever ensnaring and fighting against the kingdom of Christ with all his powers; and that he does not let go his captives without being forced by the Divine Power of the Spirit; it is manifest, that there can be no such thing as—"Free-will!"

Again:—If we believe that original sin has so destroyed us, that even in the godly who are led by the Spirit, it causes the utmost molestation by striving against that which is good; it is manifest, that there can be nothing left in a man devoid of the Spirit, which can turn itself towards good, but which must turn towards evil! 

Post Edited (One Love) : 6/3/2009 8:28:21 AM (GMT-5)

D: If God doesn't reveal himself via his Spirit, he don't get found. Humanity cannot save itself.

T: Right on.

D: But all this, as you've shown, Tom, is in synergism...as long as LOTS of assymetricity is assumed…

T: I don’t know what a ‘lot’ of asymmetry would look like. God has to do what only God can do: create, sustain, reveal, draw and convict—I guess we could go on. There are no counterparts to these that have their source in us and call God to respond. But if there is a creator-creature distinction, and the created is endowed with the capacity to determine itself, then (a) that capacity is a ‘grace-gift’ of nature and not a depravity of nature, and (b) it simply cannot be privated away into non-existence.

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T: Do the unregenerate have the capacity to say ‘yes’ to God’s gracious invitation to start that journey? To start their journey on the road to learning to love the 1Cor way? When the grace of God's invitation quickens the human heart and says, "Come to me all you who are heavy laden...," can we say 'yes' without that 'yes' being DETERMINED by God.

D: Yes…

T: Luther will be disappointed to hear that.

D: …because the graced sinner/convicted can always make the choice to accept and acknowledge the truth of his/her own state of death and nothingness, revealed to them by the Holy Spirit/Convictor.  Basically, they can have their TRUE states revealed to them by the Spirit in conviction, and they have the choice whether or not to deny and/or repress the truth.

T: I agree—as far as you go. But can I qualify you, D? It’s important. You hinted at this “death” aspect above too, and I think it’s part of what I think is a tendency in your theology to avoid saying anything good about human beings. That’ll probably come across wrong, but I’m just trying to locate what it is I’m uncomfortable about in your ‘painting’. It’s not propositional anymore. It’s aesthetic. We’re in an art gallery, not a library, right now.

My point is just that our ‘yes’ can’t be only a ‘yes’ about ourselves considered separate from God (i.e., about our nothingness). That’s there (has to be), yeah. But that’s not the WHOLE truth about us. If ALL we came to believe in conviction was that we’re lost and corrupt and nothing and scum—that wouldn’t be enough to win us ‘TO’ anything. You have to take God out of the picture to say that’s what a human being is, and in a sense that’s what sin’s privation is (viz., what you’re left with when God is removed from the picture). But saying ‘yes’ to God has to be a response to God’s ‘yes’ to us as well, to the value that God’s grace creates in us, and that mean perceiving and saying yes to something positive, to life, not just agreeing that we’re scum. We turn ‘from’ nothing ‘to’ everything. There’s a ‘no’ side to our ‘yes’ to God (a ‘no’ to nothingness, which is itself an acknowledgment of our predicament, yes; I grant your point. I just don’t want to dignify nothingness with a ‘yes’—remember, all the promises of God in Christ are “yes” [2Cor 1.20]. It’s ‘yes’ to God and ‘no’ to no-thingness).

If I’m nit-picking, forgive me. But I have little antennas and sensors that light up only when you talk.

D: So...I'm a synergist that doesn’t mandate exhaustive definite predetermination. There. We're all happy now, right?

T: Until the next time you decide to scare us, yeah, we’re OK for now.

I wanna comment on Fowler and Luther too, in a sec.

T

I don’t wanna condemn Erasmus without knowing more about him, but as you describe him, I’d agree. I’m totally down with this by Fowler:

Man’s freedom of choice does allow man to be self-determinative, but not in the humanistic sense of being able to self-generate and self-actuate the character of his behavior. The free choices of the human creature are response-choices, rather than generation-choices. Human beings have a responsibility, a response-ability, to freely choose, decide, and determine to be receptive to and derive from a spiritual source.

I don’t think I like his choice of words though. He distinguishes between “freedom of choice” and “free-will.” I agree of course that God alone can “self-generatively will into action whatever he pleases.” I hope I’m guessing that what he means by “self-generatively” is that the objects of choice are, in God’s case, always grounded in God and not GIVEN to God from without. I suppose that’s important to note. I’d just explain the difference though and not attempt to make “freedom of will” mean something different than “free will.” His way is confusing.

The second thing I want to say is in response to your:

“Protestantism, in general, does not seem to have understood what Luther was objecting to, and has generally followed the humanist thinking of Erasmus rather than the Christian perspective of Luther.”

How about we don’t follow either? Can’t Luther be right in condemning what was wrong with Erasmus  but then wrong in his own way in saying what free will was? I think so. I think when Luther says “If we believe that Satan is the prince of this world, ever ensnaring and fighting against the kingdom of Christ with all his powers; and that he does not let go his captives without being forced by the Divine Power of the Spirit; it is manifest, that there can be no such thing as—‘Free-will’” he’s not just wanting to say human beings don’t “self-generatively” ground their own choice options like God. He’s being a monergist as well. In addition, when he says “If we believe that original sin has so destroyed us, that…” and follow through to the end of his quote “…there can be nothing left in a man devoid of the Spirit, which can turn itself towards good, but which must turn towards evil,” there’s something to disagree with here because Luther is essentially limiting (maybe not intentionally) 'being unable without the Spirit to will what is right' to 'being sinful'. My point is that this dependency is a grace-gift of human nature. I agree of course that “devoid of the Spirit” we’d only turn towards evil. But (a) I wouldn't call this a depravity of nature or limit it to fallen human nature, and (b) I would disagree with Luther’s solution, which is that unless God determines the will—monergistically—no creature would say ‘yes’ to God.

So I hope there are Christian perspectives other than Luther’s for me to turn to.

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 6/3/2009 10:29:58 AM (GMT-5)