What Does It Mean to Be Totally Depraved?

The one point that Calvinism and Arminianism agree upon is that humankind is totally depraved. It sounds like an incredibly harsh judgment against the creature, one that is not apparent, particularly, when looking at individual cases. This description, however, is not meant to suggest that everyone is as "bad" as they could possibly be, but to describe their spiritual condition in relation to God. In a nutshell, this characterization refers to the disabling brokenness that sin and death has caused to human nature since Adam's fall.

When Adam forsook God and was justifiably cursed by him, his innate connection to God was broken and his physical being was stricken with death. Adam was cast from the presence of God (the place where God walked) and frustrated in his relationship to the biosphere and with others of his kind (Eve to start). The individual became an island unto himself (so necessarily sinful) with no ability to get back to God, nor to truly understand and relate to him nor, for that matter, to do so with his fellow human (as seen from Jesus' high-priestly prayer). Locked in a self-absorbed prison of death and decay separated from God, debauchery ensued. If God did not initiate contact with humans, no contact, no interest, no desire would be forthcoming from Adam's kind.

Hopefully, it is evident that humankind's depravity should not be seen as something that renders humankind incapable, even in their depraved state, of responding to the interjection of God. God showing up in a way that can be responded to is sufficient in itself to break any barrier that would have kept fallen, natural man in the dark concerning God. Such is demonstrated over and over again throughout biblical history (e.g. Noah, Abram, Moses, etc.). To posit a theory in which God has to fix the depraved human being (i.e. regeneration) before that one can respond to him is unnecessary and not validated by scripture.

The truth is that what makes humans depraved in the first place is a lack of God in their lives. People are depraved in that they are like God (i.e. in his image) but are apart from and without God who's presence is what makes that image work properly. In their depravity, they have no desire to have God (as he truly is) in their lives. What they need they neither discern nor want. When God comes near in the mysterious ways that the Holy Spirit can, that lack is addressed at least to the level that the fallen human is able to see, hear, and respond to what wasn't there before. None of this requires any change in their nature and none is ever mentioned throughout the biblical record.

Human beings always had and have always maintained since the Fall the spiritual capacity to recognize God. That capacity was not such that it could independently discover God or engage him on the basis of executing that capacity in and of itself. God's direct intervention is necessary for each and every human being to come to know and understand him and his ways, but upon that divine intervention, awareness of what we otherwise would not have been aware becomes possible. However, if Adam in all of his pristine purity and perfection could ignore and forsake divine connectedness, than so can all his depraved sons and daughters.

Even the best amongst humankind is totally depraved, broken beyond their ability to help themselves--and yet even the most depraved among us can respond to the gracious visitation of the Holy Spirit. Depravity will continue to be an issue for us until Christ returns and our old dead, depraved natures are done away with once and for all, and new nature completely like unto Christ's is put in their place. That, of course, is predicated upon turning to Christ now. So let me ask you, have you responded to the Holy Spirit drawing you to Christ yet?

The Faith Moment: Salvation

How does faith congeal in the soul to become substance? 

I do not believe that God secretly presses a button he's concealed within us, which when pressed, makes us people of persevering faith. As I understand it, that is precisely what Calvinism proposes. The problem with that is that if God did do that kind of thing for any person, he'd do it for all people. Scriptures are clear that is not the way things turn out, so Calvinism's view of efficacious grace cannot be consistent with the self-revelation of God in them. 

God has made mankind with the capacity for faith, of that there can be little doubt, for people everywhere trust in things they cannot see. I think this general capacity is what separates mankind from angels, particularly in regard to redeemability. Mankind was made in innocence, really ignorance, and therefore was made for faith. Faith exists in that gap produced by unseens and unknowns, but Angels were made for knowledge and sight. 

When angels rebelled they did so in knowledge and sight and are irredeemable as a result (see Hebrews 6:4a for the concept as it applies to mankind). If Romans 12:3 applies broadly to all humanity (as I've always taken it to mean) rather than just the church (as Calvinists in particular take it), then God has in fact dealt each person at least some measure of faith. Of course, true faith, faith that actually has an effect, requires that it be placed in the right object, namely, God and God alone. That means that God has to "show up" for that faith to spark into existence.

God "showing up" is that enablement without which no one could truly believe. But God, regardless of what help he gives us, isn't going to believe for us (which is what irresistible grace is tantamount to in my mind). All of his commands to us to believe would be nonsensical in that case. No, it is we who must trust in God, that is our God-enabled responsibility.  

We are called to faith, it is the very currency of heaven. On their own, humans can only answer that call with something less than true faith in the actual God. However, when the Holy Spirit brings our focus on the person and authority of Christ into clarity, the moment is ripe for salvivic faith to be born. It is not guaranteed, as is attested to by Israel's example and the fact that not everyone comes to faith since Jesus was lifted up on the cross, but is only possible then and impossible otherwise.

Nonetheless, thank God that the Holy Spirit is sent to bring us to that moment--the faith moment, when everything comes together and Jesus is seen as Savior and Lord.

Is Socialism Biblical?

Under the current administration, the government and economy of the United States has taken a decidedly left turn. Many believers think that such concerns really do not matter, have nothing at all to do with the Gospel, and therefore should not be a concern to a strongly evangelical Christian. Whereas I agree with such sentiments on their face, that doesn't mean one form of government or economy is as good as any other, or more to the point, more biblical than another. Let's explore (superficially, I admit) the "biblicalness" of socialism.

The the notion of private property is firmly ensconced in the Bible: not just personal property but real property as well. Socialism, in its severest form, does not allow for private property and has a limited view of such in its more pragmatic forms. If God's design for the society of his people as espoused in the Old Testament gives us any clue, means of production are intended by God to be held by individuals as a basis of self-reliance and freedom for those individuals and their children after them. Political authority exercised over the individual's talents and the individual's use of his property was considered by God a detriment, not a noble goal.

Furthermore, trying to obliterate class distinctions in society is a fool's errand. Jesus said the poor will always be with us. In the kingdom, even in the eternal age, there will be distinctions in rewards. The petty jealousy of the natural human heart which can't stand seeing someone else have something that it does not should not be the driver of public policy. However, the economically powerful should not be allowed to benefit themselves while squeezing those that make their wealth accumulation possible. An equitable share of profits going to workers is good policy, whereas equality in earnings is a hopelessly misguided fantasy.

Personal initiative and responsibility is the foundation of personal righteousness. Taking care of the helpless, the resourceless, and the weak (the poor, widows, and orphans) is a biblical construct, but transferring personal responsibility to society is not. Whereas "helping the working man" fits within a biblical framework, welfare for the able but idle does not. In taking that concept to the nth degree, we hear the convoluted logic today that considers universal healthcare (or really, anything else that must be earned by the able) an inalienable right.

People, all of them, are sinful by nature: if there is a way to get without giving in return a sizable proportion of them will opt for that choice--some more, some less. This is just the reality of human nature. To assume that big government is capable of equitably administering the crash between demand and supply which will result from a policy of open access for all seems to me the most hubristic conception to come down the pike in the modern age. Supply will become inadequate and prices will rise despite the best intentioned interventions of socialistic public policy.

Sometimes socialism is said to be a biblical idea due to the experiment of the early church in Jerusalem. I would note that the model was not repeated anywhere else the church was planted; that Jerusalem was a pilgrim city where many would have been in town on a temporary basis without visible means of longer term support; and that the area was poor and subject to drought and shortage. People liquidating personal property to help out brothers and sisters in distress was never meant to model communal living, the weight of NT scripture makes that more than clear. So much, then, for "biblical socialism."

Concentrated human authority (e.g., a king) is not God's desired option for the government of his people. By extension, any authority (king or not) that can confiscate property, conscript sons and daughters, tax parasitically--in other words, endanger personal freedom--is not what's best for God's sons and daughters. Human beings are sinful: put power in their hands over others and they'll use it sinfully. Socialism, even if democratic, ignores this reality and puts sinners in stifling control over other humans.

Can such a thing ever be expected to produce anything other than bondage?

Should Christian voters support overreaching governmental control in America, or curse our descendants with the burden of a relatively large, permanently underemployed, feckless welfare class akin to what exists throughout socialist Europe? American believers are free to join unbelievers in constructing a Tower of Babel against acts of God (that is what socialism seems to be an attempt at to me), but it won't be the Bible that influences such a choice. The Bible, as I see it, is relatively clear in its support for personal property, personal responsibility, economic freedom and trusting in God. Socialism, on the other hand, can only produce the tyranny of the sinner.

Indestructible Souls and Irresistible Grace

"Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."     Genesis 2:7 (NASB)

The breath of God is a precious thing.

God's breath imparts that something that makes a human soul, that makes one a person. Not that every person animated by that breath is the person of God, but it is God's breath that infuses all of the capacities of soul that personhood builds on and without which there would be no person. It communicates those characteristics of personhood that are analogous to God's personhood. That breath is spirit, and more than anything else in all creation represents something directly emanated from God's being. 

Think about that: something within humans that makes them persons represents a direct input from the person of God. Some repercussions of that astounding fact are easily enough perceived--humans exercise choice (freewill), are creative (even to the extant of bringing something out of nothing), love, and... wait for it... humans are eternal. Once God invested his own breath in humanity, the persons that result have an essence that will never pass away. What an astonishing thought!

God's breath may exist eternally, but that does not translate into those infused by that breath living eternally. Breath that is separated from God does not respire, it does not go out and come in (as it were). God's breath must be actively with God, in tune with God, in contact with and in the presence of God to live. Cut off from God, separated, it merely exists. It projects some measure of its capacity for personhood, but it is dark, really, lifeless.

In order for one in whom God has breathed the breath of life to live, he or she must walk in agreement with God; however, even God cannot make creatures who possess his image but who do not exercise creaturely freedom thereby. His image makes such freedom necessary and irresistible grace impossible. Creatures made in God's image, by the capacity of choice in that nature, must freely choose agreement with God. That is an action of faith (i.e. trustful reliance) without which it is impossible to please God--faith is what it takes for free creatures to live in agreement with God.

Whereas it is very true that God loves everyone he's made, those made in his image with the capacity of choice have no future without faith. The Gordian knot is that no one born since the Fall of Man can make that choice of faith unless the Spirit has enabled him or her. However, if the enablement was such that one was rewired to make that choice without the possibility of not making it, that one would cease being in the image of God. The breath that confers such is indestructible, so it is impossible for the grace that underlies enablement to be irresistible and enablement to be a guarantee.

Enabled to Respond

There is no one who does good.
God has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men
To see if there is anyone who understands,
Who seeks after God.
Every one of them has turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
There is no one who does good, not even one.                                  Psalm 53:1b-3 NASB

Such is a biblical description of the depravity of mankind. How can a being so described ever be reconciled to God? Obviously, some kind of gracious intervention by God would be required, but what kind and to what degree?

Suffice it to say, the depraved person is enabled to respond to God with faith as God speaks to him or her. A rewiring of the person is not required at that point, just an interaction with God. When the Spirit of God interacts with a depraved person, that person is, in effect, freed from their natural state of depravity (i.e., their inability to know good and to know God) and given a window of opportunity to respond to God with faith.

This is the most natural reading of the biblical testimony of how mankind has been since the Fall. Whether we look at Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, or the Apostles, the pattern is the same--God spoke to them and they were able to respond. None of them is reported to have been regenerated in order for this to happen, no great re-fabrication of their humanity was ever mentioned; therefore, the implication is that it was not necessary. Only the logical necessity within an extra-biblical theological system (Calvinism) even remotely suggests such a thing, not the text of scripture.

What the scriptures do teach indirectly by example, and directly through the words of Christ is that depraved human beings have no way or means (or desire) to find God by their own self-initiated effort. Even if they could make such efforts unassisted, those efforts could never be effective, for God is not obligated to appear at the summons of a sinner. God is not like a set of misplaced car keys which are found if searched for thoroughly "whether they want to be or not." If he did not make himself findable, available, we would never encounter him.

The truth is, if he didn't draw and woo us by his Spirit, we would never look. And yet, our depravity is not of such a nature that it cannot be overcome by God showing up. His tap on our shoulder is sufficient to give us the power and reason to turn to him, without the necessity of reworking our inner being just in order to do so. The scriptures do not relate the latter occurring anecdotally nor describe such theologically. Embracing such a thought can only muddy the waters and make confusing what isn't.

The Two Witnesses of the Apocalypse

"Who are those guys?" students of prophecy wonder in regard to the two witnesses of the 11th chapter of the Revelation. We are given only a few details concerning these cryptic figures: they prophesy for three and a half years at the end of time; they fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah; they are powerfully anointed as attested by signs and wonders; their ministry and death will occur in Jerusalem; they are hated and feared by the world; and they are raptured by God, publicly, after being dead for three and a half days. There have been interesting guesses about who they might be offered through the ages, but I know who they are with certainty!

How? You might ask. Well, I Corinthians 15 gives us all the information we need to figure it out! We are told there that Christ is the first one who defeated death and received an imperishable body. Furthermore, we are told that no one can go into eternity in perishable flesh and blood inherited from Adam. All born of Adam must die and/or be transformed into a new body following after the model of Christ in order to enter eternity with God. The old cannot inherit the new.

That produces a problem with the biblical record when one remembers the stories of Enoch and Elijah. They were taken by God to be with him while they were still alive in Adamic flesh, before Christ arose. Therefore, according to I Corinthians 15, they are not prepared for, nor can they enter into eternity until they put off their old bodies and rise in new ones untainted by Adam's fall. Somehow, either by an transformation akin to the Rapture of the Church (which not revealed in the Word), or by returning to earth and going through "normal" processes, Enoch and Elijah have got to be transformed. 

We have known that Elijah is in the mix forever, but the identity of the other witness has caused incredible speculation in the church. It really did not need to, for the Apostle Paul told us what we needed to know in order to identify both of them conclusively. Enoch and Elijah may have been enjoying the last few thousand years in the presence of God well enough, but they can't go into eternity the way they are. For their own good, and for the good of the Jews alive during Daniel's 70th week, those guys need to come back to earth, and then, they need to die!

The Image of God in Mankind

I have established, minimally, that the image of God in mankind is reflected in mankind's freewill. Furthermore, I implied that since God is more than his will, his image in mankind must include more than freewill. Love, creativity, reasoning, communicability, and dominion are part of the picture as well. To take it a step further, I think a very good case can be made that it was through the instrumentality of God's breath that the image of God was communicated to man (i.e. Spirit became spirit). He is spirit and so is man (in some respect) which is why man can be like him.

Of all the creatures God made in the physical world, mankind alone was said to be made in his image and given dominion. Angels are not mentioned at all in the creation account, but appear suddenly, without explanation or specifications, at the Fall of Man. Only much later in the record of revelation are we told they were made to be ministering (sacredly serving) spirits by God. Yet, even though salvation and redemption hold a fascination for them, they have no ability to be redeemed through faith.

Though they are spiritual beings, as is God, many of them fell into rebellion with Satan. Those, at least, had to have had some kind of freewill capacity (see this as to why), although we can only guess as to its nature. We don't know why unfallen angels did not fall, nor indeed, if they even had the capacity to do so in the first place. Regardless, we can be thankful they, at least, are faithful to God and serve the heirs of salvation amongst mankind to this day.

Mankind is a strange word to generically refer to all human beings with, but it is a biblical way of looking at things. Today's feminists may be bothered by designations that seem better suited to males than females, but believers in the Bible recognize that there is nothing inherently wrong with such. Men are made in the image of God and are tasked with dominion--some are male, some are female. There is absolutely no distinction in the image of God that either gender bears nor in the mandate of dominion they were given.

Only sin, followed by the curse and death has affected the relative status of both types of men. Enmity between the sexes exists, because under the curse, females were placed beneath males in the dominion mandate. In the perfection of God's created order before the Fall, male and female had no more significance than reproductive utility. In Christ, post-redemption, after the curse is no more, there is neither male nor female to any spiritual consequence, which will be particularly evident after the Resurrection.

The Problem of Physical Evil

Why does an omnibenevolent, omnipotent God allow evil such latitude in our age? That God will judge such in a time to come, and cause it to cease thereafter forever is an answer, but it seems a marginal one at best to those living through this age. And to be honest, eternal judgment in the Lake of Fire for the evil done temporally seems only to exacerbate the problem, fighting evil with evil for all intents and purposes. Natural evil--catastrophes, pestilence, genetic abnormalities--seems capricious and only adds to the miserable mystery.

Physical evil certainly is a vexing problem. It rains (too much or too little) on the just and the unjust, earthquakes do not shake merely the morally shaky, tornadoes have been known to sweep through Bible-believing churches while the congregation was in the midst of worship and prayer, and pestilence, mutations and snakes strike apart from any discernment protocol. God may have pulled the plug on this creation because of sin, and let it slowly spiral down the drain, but on the surface, for those twisting in the vortex, it doesn't seem very just or loving. Who can make sense of it?

What needs to remembered in such considerations is that, according to God's standard, it's not the other guy who is evil, it's us--all of us, every single one that has ever come into existence. By God's reckoning, any opposition to his will is evil, even merely eating a piece of fruit he did not want us to. We think we are innocent (so long as we have not overtly harmed another creature), but that is just not the way God sees it. The truth is that humans do as they please, they do without regard to God, they do in opposition to God, and thus they demonstrate that they are, in fact, evil.

That humans have what opportunity they do have to live in a dying world is an accommodation of the magnanimous grace of God. "Wait just a minute," you might be thinking, "we didn't ask to be born at all, let alone the way we are where we are." How is allowing some of us to be particularly evil, while letting all of us live in an environment consistently evil, grace? Well, I think that it demonstrates that God has not written off the human race.

Everything could have ended with the failure of the prototype (Adam and Eve). God could have wiped out everything at The Fall, and been justifiably done with it. Starting over again would not have been an option, because in granting a creature freewill, the same evil to which the prototype succumbed would have been in play for any built like them (in the image of God, that is). The truth is, only God can handle being like God: those that are merely like God, but not God, must live submitted to God in love and faith.

So, though God cannot allow evil to stand and so pulled the plug on this universe, in his love for what was made good, he patiently continues what seems to us the slow, inexorable unfolding of judgment, which is physical evil, because there is a possibility of redemption. Evil creatures, which rebelled in the darkness of ignorance, can be illumined and change their mind and heart about going their own way. If they can truly take to heart the necessity of submission to and agreement with God, he can recast and reset them in a new universe untainted by the fall of the originals.

So there really isn't a problem with physical evil, but there's still a bit more I'd like to talk about...

Evil and Freewill, Concurrence & Moral Sufficiency

There could be no evil whatsoever apart from the capacity of something in creation to oppose God. That opposition would have to be something initiated independently of God; that is, it could not be decreed or impelled by God. Something nominally opposed to God but actually decreed by him could only have the appearance of evil--in actuality, it would be the very will of God. There can be no evil, therefore, apart from freewill, and since there is evil in this world, this world is one which free will exists.

Yet, even though freewill is expressed in a way that is not determined by God (or it wouldn't be free), it is allowed by him and it's exercise sustained by him. It reflects his will for the way things should be, and without such concurrence, it wouldn't be. If that is so, how can the same difficulties which determinism suffers from in regard to the problem of evil not ultimately be true for freewill as well? If God, the omniscient and omnipotent, proceeds despite evil he could foresee or does not stop what is proceeding against his will, there would seem to be a problem with evil after all.

I don't think that is so two reasons. First, God is good, and making something in his image just could not be evil by any stretch of the imagination. Even among human beings, we consider it good to have a son or daughter, even though we know they will do things that are bad. The beauty of being made in God's image is an amazing thing, human beings are amazing creatures. That God would want to make us in his image, able to will as he does and love as he does, is a remarkable demonstration of benevolent grace and something that properly could only be said to be very good.

Second, evil isn't being allowed. It's only the perspective of the current regimen of time that makes it seems so. Death and entropy themselves are arguments against evil being allowed, revealing that God has pulled the plug on this fallen realm of fallen beings. Within our bubble of time we may think evil is allowed and that it's been going on forever, but from God's timeless perspective evil is being dealt with virtually immediately. In this realm's wake, after it's been flash-burned in a cosmic reboot, evil will be something not likely to be even vaguely remembered.

So evil exists because God made creatures in his image which had the power to will, freely, as he does. That was not an evil thing to do, only good, because God is only good, and so too would be those creatures made like him at the time of their creation. Only creatures made with this god-like capacity would be able to experience the full spectrum of God's goodness relationally. God is inherently good, and inherently relational (e.g. the Trinity), and so creating creatures who will as God wills, and love as God loves could be nothing but good.

Since evil can be so evil, however, one has to wonder if doing the good of creating such creatures was a sufficient moral cause for the omniscient God to create them. I think that it was, but that it will not demonstrate itself to be so in time, where those creatures continue in evil even as God does the good he can in regard to them. Only in eternity when freewill creatures have embraced that they have been made in his image, have submitted themselves to be in that image, and choose to abide in it in agreement with God, will those creatures be like Christ and live eternally free but in perfect harmony with God. That situation will be as good as good can possibly get!

That will result in unspeakable joy for God and those creatures so abiding in it, and I think it is more than a sufficient moral cause for allowing the potential of evil in making those creatures in the first place. Does that provide a sufficient moral cause for allowing evil in the meantime, or for having to contain it endlessly, idly, incapably in the age to come? Since God is good and omnipotent, could he not have accomplished his aims some other way without allowing evil? Probably not, but since God is good, I think we have to give him the benefit of the doubt regardless.

Of course that won't stop me from saying a bit more on the subject...

The Nature of Freedom and Depravity

Human beings are free to do as they wish. God made them that way. Adam and Eve were free to do as they wished. They could eat anything that grew in the Garden, save that from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam could name the animals whatever he wished. He could have named them this, he could have named them that. They could have eaten this, they could have eaten that.

God made humans that way in making them in his image. God does as he wishes--it is his most fundamental quality apart from self-existence. No being is freer of necessity than God, for who or what is there that could impose necessity upon him? He could have created the universe, or he could have not. He could have made beings like us in his image, or he could have not. But God did make us in this image of freedom, excepting of course, that he could not make himself, so the image is not as powerful, nor as free, nor as able as the original.

Nonetheless, that created in the image has to be free in a way analogous to God or it would not be in his image. If God determines our desires or decrees our choices we are no more free than a robot, and nor more in his image than a robot can be in ours. If our choice is circumscribed by desire, the result is not freedom but mere instinct. The Bible generally (there are specific exceptions) shows humans in a light in which the kind of choice described thus far would have to be presupposed in order for the accounts to make sense.

Mankind, since the Fall of Adam and Eve, are not as free as they were nor as free as a being made in God's image could be. Humans, on their own, could never replicate or reflect the choices that God would make (and they've been on their own since the Fall). Dead in spirit and separated from God, they have no means of discerning the way or the will of God. This lack of ability to discover anything or to do anything truly godly translates into mankind having neither the inclination nor the power to choose as God would have them choose. Even with God's word giving mankind more information than they could have ever gotten on their own, without spiritual renewal (regeneration) mankind remains depraved.

Fallen humanity does has the power of choice--the freedom to do as they wish. Their wishes, however, can never rise to nor align with the choice of God. Apart from the Spirit of God communicating the word of God into the soul of a man and thereby enabling faith, that man is not free to do as God wills or, indeed, to know what that is. With the action of God's Spirit bringing to bear God's word on the human heart and giving faith the opportunity to arise, something other than the general depravity of mankind is possible.

Living Is a Gift from God

Since none of us has called ourselves or the space we live in into existence, our very existence, and any and every moment of our existence, is something that we receive from God. Life comes from his hands. If our lives at their most basic levels are what amounts to gifts from God, then everything that we hope will come our way in those lives gifted to us is a gift as well. The most fundamental description of our relationship to God, then, is that we are receivers of his gifts.

It is true that the nature of our present existence, even as given by God, makes some effort on our parts necessary in order to attain some level of and quality in life. We do eat by the "sweat of our brows" after all. But it seems to me that the necessity of earning at that level tends to makes us self-centered--we tend to think of living in terms of my effort, my reward, my ambitions, my desires. In the unending swirl of all that self-centeredness, one can forget (or even never awaken to) the fact that our very life, our very breath, is a gift from God.

According to the record of scripture, we only need to work so in order to get because of a curse imposed because of sin. Sin is in the world, sin is in us. If it was not for sin, however, we would not have death over our heads and we would not have to sweat to get our bread. Take sin out of the equation and we would have freely what God freely, liberally, gives us and it would be crystal clear that all was a gift from God.

This can be difficult for us to embrace. It is almost as if our sweating for our bread, the toil of scratching out a living separated from God all the while dying, plays a trick on us. Even if we happen to be aware of God's part in the big picture, we tend to project the concept of earning upon any blessing we could get from God. We think we have to earn whatever blessing we may be seeking from God, even as we have to earn to eat.

Even if we ask God for blessing we do so as earners, not as gift recipients. We seek his favor by making promises to him or by citing our rewardable behaviors. We try to find some valid reason for us to receive the reward we seek. Even if we haven't earned such a blessing in the past, we assure God we will do so in the future should he make that blessing ours.

All such boasting is antithetical to the purposes of God, and let's be clear, what that is, is boasting. Even more than that, it is living by the principles of the present darkness, it is living by sight. Sight, in effect,  says "give me what I deserve", but faith says "give me what you're willing to". Perhaps the greatest threshold faith must cross is getting over the boastful notions of humankind, borne of the reality of this present existence, that can only see life through the prism of getting what you've worked to gain.

Thankfully, God is willing to give us a lot without earning a bit. Most importantly, he is willing to give you what you could never earn by your efforts--everlasting life and standing in his eternal kingdom. All this is predicated upon us embracing, as a matter of faith, a new perspective which puts us in the mindset of receiving everything we receive from God as an undeserved gift. Living starts, really, when we see it as a gift from God.

What God Knew Before We Knew

God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and knows exactly what is right.

In this "isness," God knew he wanted to make people like him-- spiritual, creative, willful, and relational-- to share his everlasting life with.

By his understanding he knew that such people could not be him, but could share being with him if they lived in trust of him. By his insight, he knew that they would not trust him before they would come to trust him by means of his help. He also knew that not trusting him would cause them to strike out on their own with the most disastrous results. In his righteousness he knew they could not share his everlasting being in a condition of faithless independence.

Nonetheless, he wanted to make people like him.

By his understanding he knew that fallen people could never be fully trusting without the undergirding of knowing that their former rebellion was thoroughly purged and forgotten. By his foresight he knew that would mean coming to their world as one of them and laying himself completely on the line for them, removing for them any semblance of barrier or fear of punishment. He also knew that given his help there would be some who would respond to his effort with faith and some who would not. In his wisdom, he knew that those not willing to live trusting in him would have to be restrained eternally, kept from formulating oppositional intents and acting in faithless independence.

Nonetheless, he wanted to make people like him.

In his "isness," God knew he was spending eternity with people like him-- spiritual, trusting, creative, willful, and relational-- sharing with them his everlasting being.

So God went ahead and made people like him.

Entropy, Sin and Renewal

Having said that entropy is a death principle, I must also say that death is an entropic principle. That characterization, naturally, would also extend to sin, since it was sin that gave rise to death. Therefore, sin is an entropic principle too. Sin requires the exertion of some soulish "energetic principle" which cannot be fully recaptured, or restored, or reused once is has been expended. Sinning empties the tank of something that made sinning possible.

Sin is soulish spilled milk. Once accomplished, even at some minimalistic level, sin marks the sinner for the rest of his or her life. He or she cannot go back to the spiritual quality he or she had before. Something is used up which cannot be unused or self-restored. Sin is the indelible stain of the soul.

To deal adequately with sin, the sinner must look beyond his or herself, and beyond anything else that suffers from entropy--something which cannot only jam the dhinni back in the bottle, but can also erase the record of the failure in time. Anything less would not be true restoration. There is nothing that fits that bill except for almighty God, for he alone is not entropic and also supertemporal.

God is willing to both erase the spiritual decay of sin and it's record. He is willing to reset the clocks, as it were, and start again. There is a time he's appointed to do that, and in the meantime, he has graced us with a taste of what is to come. What is necessary to overcome sin and death has been provided by the only source possible and it has been made widely available to all who wish it.

For all who've faced the undeniable conclusion that they are not what they should be, and that they can't do anything about it, there is great news in Christ. He's demonstrated his ability to take away our sin and overcome death. He promises to make anyone who trusts in him to do so new on the last day and take them into eternity without decay. Life without entropy awaits us, what are you waiting for?

Minding Our T's and Clues

The description of the natural man in the Bible is that man is dead because of Adam's transgression. It's not that we are all being held responsible for Adam's sin (i.e. punished), but that his sin happened before we came along and so it's effects (death) were handed down to us. Just as I am American because my distant progenitors decided to leave Ireland and Germany and settle in America and raise a family, so I am a sinner because Adam and Eve sinned and then had children.

The dead beget the dead. It's not like each of us would not have done as Adam did given the chance (he was the prototypical human). We were in his loins, we are as he was. That point is moot, however, because Adam did sin and did so before he had progeny. As a result, all that he could pass on was what he had--death, separation from God, and curse.

It should be noted that after the Fall, Adam's will was still intact and functioning. He was making choices, plotting direction, demonstrating creativity. If anything, those aspects of his personhood may actually have been accentuated. He even had conversations with God. Apparently, the Fall did not turn him into a zombie automaton serving only Satan and sin. I don't see any of the individuals highlighted in the OT demonstrating such a characteristic. Sinners, yes: satanic automatons incapable of hearing and responding to God when he spoke, NO!

Despite that, the Calvinistic concept of depravity (the condition of natural man) is vigorous and all too thorough. According to that reckoning, mankind has been so affected by Adam's sin as to be entirely corrupt and absolutely incapable of any good in regard to God. Man is incapable of searching for God, finding God, responding to God, trusting God, or walking according to his precepts. Man is dead in sin with no residual ability or capacity for anything spiritual.

Under such a reckoning, a divine imposition of grace is necessary for man to even so much as respond to God with faith. Regeneration, for all intents and purposes, must precede faith, and once initiated is irresistible and infallible. It seems to me that this approach has one being saved to believe rather than being saved because one believes.

In Arminianism, the concept of depravity is vigorous and thorough as well. By its reckoning, mankind has been so affected by Adam's sin as to be thoroughly corrupt and absolutely incapable of any untainted good. Man is incapable of searching for God, finding God, or walking according to his precepts. Man is dead in sin, separated from God, corrupt, and therefore incapable of truly having faith in God.

But under such a reckoning, a divine interjection of grace is all that is necessary for mankind is to respond to God with faith. Arminians, generally, see the word of God as containing such an affect. Upon hearing the word of God, the natural man is enabled to respond to God. A response is not infallibly certain, but it is absolutely impossible apart from the grace that enables it.

The chief difference in those two views of man's utter depravity comes into focus when considering the solution either envisions for the problem. Calvinism posits an imposed grace and regeneration (rebirth) as the solution: the sinner is made a saint by divine fiat. Arminianism posits an enabling grace which allows the sinner to respond to God with faith, which in turn is followed by God making the former sinner a new creature (rebirth). In either case, the solution for man's incapacity is divine.

A Summary of Theological Positions Regarding the Spiritual State of Natural Man

Calvinism: God imposes saving faith upon the depraved he chooses to save

Arminianism: God enables the depraved who hear the Gospel to respond with saving faith

Semipelagianism: God savingly helps those who use their ability turn to him in faith

Pelagianism: Man can turn to Christ on his own and appropriate salvation

The Pelagian (semi included) approaches to man's status and ability fly in the face of Jesus words: "no one can come to me unless the Fathers draws them." In maintaining mankind's freewill, they deny the innate inability of natural mankind to initiate a relationship with God through faith (depravity). This, despite the Word clearly teaching that faith comes by hearing the word of God. One does not have to posit intact spiritual abilities in natural man (i.e. little or no affect from the Fall) against what the Word says in order to sustain natural man's freewill.

Where the Calvinistic conception of depravity fails is that the record of scripture shows, readily and repeatedly, that natural man can respond to God when he or his word comes upon them. Sinners are not so "dead" as to be beyond hearing God if he actively approaches near enough, and they are not so quickened in doing so as to be above rejecting him.

Overcoming Depravity

Depravity robs the human being of any capacity for any impetus toward God, but does not incapacitate the human being from any response to God. A thoroughly depraved person can respond to the touch of God, the appearance of God, or the unseen spiritual influence of God without having to be re-plumbed or regenerated in order to do so. All that is required is for God to express himself sufficiently to that depraved person so as to stir that person's empty spirit.

Because of the autonomy of humans (an aspect of the image of God, marred though it is in them), whatever interaction the Spirit may bring to him or her is not guaranteed to overcome that human's depravity. If Adam and Eve could go their own way in Eden, then a depraved person under the influence of the Holy Spirit can do so as well (in fact, they're much more likely to). There is nothing irresistible about grace, anymore than there is anything not resistible about any instance of sin. That freedom of will is intended by God is readily evident in mankind being made in his image.

Ultimately, life as God would have it lived will require a complete rebuild. The combination of soul, spirit and body we have been born with since Adam and Eve is not capable of experiencing life as God would have it. Meanwhile, in the here and now, sufficient grace can be brought to bear upon our condition to at least enable reconciliation to and relationship with God. As any of us are naturally, we can be encountered by God and respond to him with faith; we can then even be regenerated and reborn in spirit despite our dying bodies; and therein do we overcome our natural depravity.

Death and Depravity

Depravity and death are cut from the same cloth. When Adam and Eve sinned, the sentence pronounced upon them was death at the time of consummation. The flavor of God's proscription on the act was clearly that the death sentence would be carried out virtually immediately. However, Adam and Eve went on to live long natural lives before that ultimate reality finally caught up with them--or did they?

When we contract an illness, say rabies or bubonic plague, we do not die at the moment of infection. We go on for some time, not even necessarily feeling ill, before the disease runs its course and we stop running ours. Yet, we were diseased from the moment we were infected, and the writing was on the wall. For the human race, death did strike at the moment our primogenitors bit the apple, but it's first evidence was not cessation of natural life, but the emptiness of depravity.

Adam and Eve's physical life and physical capacities continued when they were struck spiritually dead, howbeit diminished and diminishing. Even their soulish capacities continued, though darkly, without the breath of God enlightening them. Death, in its immediacy, was in terms of separation rather than respiration. That is still the most fundamental quality of human depravity for all who were born of Adam and Eve into their condition--body alive but dying, spirit empty and uninspired.

One cannot take a bath if the tub is unplugged, and the soul has no good nor desire for it when God's Spirit is sucked out. Take God out of the image of God and the result won't look like God. This is what depravity is--God missing from the human soul. Will is still there, desire is still there, creativity too, but everything is twisted, off target because God is gone.

Left to our own devices, humans cannot and do not produce godliness. We have soulish capacities one would think capable of producing such, but apart from God our souls are unable. Ultimately, humans need to be rebuilt and re-inspired if they are to live as God intends. That doesn't mean, however, that we are incapable of being influenced by God as we are should he desire to come near. 

Miracles Among Masses: Authority

Among the charismatic, over the last 100 years, a phenomenon known as the healing evangelist or miracle crusade has become common place. More or less, such ministry is an attempt to replicate the ministry of Christ (primarily) and (to a degree) the Apostles. Imo, the result has been less than stellar, many (most) of the miracles less than miraculous, and the practitioners a lot more than shoddy. The concept of replicating the works of Christ, is a noble endeavor: the practice, the miracle crusade, doesn't seem very noble at all to me.

Since I'm not ready or willing to saddle the practitioners with the accusation of outright fraud, what do I think is the problem with their doctrine and practice? First, I think there is a misapplication of the concept of authority in their sense of mission; and second, I think there is an ignorance of what inspiration entails in their practice. Let me develop these thoughts, with this presuppostion: Neither Christ nor the Apostles (in Acts) ever commanded things that did not happen. Therefore, a command or declaration that something is so that doesn't become so in short order is not in the pattern of Christ or the Apostles.

Authority can only go so far. Jesus had as much authority as any human will ever possess. He stilled the wind and waves, cursed the fig, forgave sins, and raised the dead. And yet for all his authority, he was stopped cold in Nazareth. Why? Was he not as in touch with Spirit as he ever was in Nazareth? Was he not as perfectly obedient to his heavenly Father there? Did he not have as much authority as he had anywhere else he went?

Jesus was stymied in Nazareth, not because of any issue of authority, but because of unbelief in the potential receivers of God's miraculous blessing. God is certainly under no obligation to put on a demonstrative show for the entertainment of those who would persist in unbelief anyhow. Besides, even Adam in sinless innocence was not forced by God to believe in God or his word--something tells me it wouldn't be belief if it was imposed. So, though unbelief in people doesn't diminish God's authority in the least, it does prevent them from receiving his gracious ministrations or knowing him intimately.

We have the authority we need, and all the authority we're going to get in our Great Commission. Authority in itself, however, will never be the issue that determines our success, it is merely the invitation for us to proceed. We have no power over the belief or unbelief of people, and in that regard, we'll see what Jesus saw: some believe, some will believe, and some won't believe no matter what we do or don't do. All we can do is not give them a reason for unbelief, and in dependence, follow the lead of the Holy Spirit.

I'll complete my thoughts in my next post.

What Happens After We Die: Inclusivism II

We continue our talk on what happens after we die by delving further into the subject of inclusivism, which posits that people who do not know Christ directly or perfectly will be included in the salvation he has wrought.

Even the case of the immature and the infirm being included in salvation is anything but airtight. At best a hopeful biblical principle, rather than an explicit statement, can be derived for their salvation. As I see it, three possible grounds exist for inclusivism concerning the immature and infirm: (1) infants have nothing to repent of and so would be included in Christ's resurrection; (2) the immature and infirm are not able to apprehend creation's witness of God, are not truly able to meet the condition of salvation (faith in Christ), and so would be included in the provision of atonement which was made for everyone; and (3) the children of a believer are included in the the body of Christ unless they decide not to believe.

I do not see how infants could have anything of which to repent. Even though they are born into sin and death, separated from God, they have not sinned personally. They have not even had the opportunity to ignore God's witness in creation, so including them in judgment would seem a travesty of justice. It is a God-given principle that children are not made to pay for the sins of their fathers, so it would appear they must be safe.

We do have some disturbing precedents in scripture, however. I wonder, how many infants died in the Flood, or why infants and children were killed by the invading Israelites under the command of God? It seems evident to me that there are mysteries in understanding how God views the situation of children. I search in vain for that one clear, unequivocal passage of scripture that answers these questions.

To me, inclusivist doctrines purporting to understand what God will do in these instances reflect more what the author would like God to do than they report what God said he would actually do. Given Christ's universal atonement, I see the logic in formulating an exclusion to the condition of faith in Christ for those incapable to express such faith through disability. What I do not see is that clearly demonstrated by scripture.  

Some Thoughts on the Redeemability of God's Image

...the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.      Revelation 13:8

There are some things God cannot do. One of which is to make a duplicate of himself. To do so would not only violate his oneness, but it would make him a creature. How would the original and the duplicate be told apart? Therefore, even if God desired to make a creature with personal and relatable qualities commensurate with himself, that creature would not be him, could not be as his is, or do as he would do.

The repercussion, it seems to me, in making another being with God-like capacities of will, is that it would be inevitable, at some point, that the creature would chose a course of action not only independent of God, but also at cross purposes. In other words, the creation of the image of God necessitated the failure of the image according to the standard that is God himself. This failure, being one of inevitability, would not require a specific decree in order for it to occur. It would have been a foregone conclusion given the decision to create.

I find it interesting, perhaps telling, that the first test of conscience adherence to the standard was sufficient to prove the point. I have to wonder if God would not have foreseen the dilemma (he would have undoubtedly), and allowed the efforts of Satan in the Garden to expedite things. I do not think there is any necessity for an omniscient, omnipotent being to wait around for an inevitable occurrence. Certainly, no aspect of the Fall would have caught God by surprise!

If that failure had been made open-eyed, rapprochement would be impossible because there was no possibility to learn from error. What would fuel the reconciliation? If seeing God for who he actually is did not arrest the will to "do" other than God, what could stop a recurrence? At best, a reconciliation could only last until the next time wills diverged. This is similar to the situation with angels and it is unsustainable if God is to be God.

If that failure is made in ignorance, rapprochement would be possible because one could realize his error and agree that God's way is the only way. This is the situation with man. Mankind is redeemable because it is possible for him to awaken from his ignorance (with gracious assistance of course) and realize that harmony with God is the greatest and only good.

How Old Is Stuff?

How old is stuff? I don't know, but I don't think it's necessary that it's billions upon billions of years--not even million upon millions. It's not that I do not understand radiometric dating, the geologic record, or the concept of a light year. I think there is ample evidence to posit that the universe is something over 13 billion years, and that our solar system is well over 4. Folks who can do that kind of thing say the math works out--I don't doubt that it does.

The fact is, however, I have a credible witness who says the biblical account of creation is true, and that would make stuff orders of magnitude younger. He spoke of Adam and Eve as real people at the beginning, and spoke of Noah and the great flood as real history rather than a metaphor. Perhaps he should be written off as just a crazy rube, an ignorant man of his times, but he proved his trustworthiness by doing that which no one has ever done. Without a PhD, calculus, or a computer he, Antonio Cromartie like, announced his intents, and then went ahead and backed up his words up by dying and rising from the dead (and without any assistance!).

No cosmologist, paleogeologist, evolutionary biologist or any other scientist has ever willingly offered themselves to death so they could prove their mastery by raising themselves back to life on the third day. When they do, maybe I'll listen to them instead of Jesus when they talk about our genesis. It is not that they are dumb, or even mistaken about their evidence, its their forensics I take issue with. Like folk trying to definitively settle the Ripper case, the best they can do is spin a tale that fits the facts, but they'll never decisively prove their case after the fact.

So why is there so much heavy duty evidence for billions upon billions of years? I would think it would be a given that creation would reflect the properties of its Creator. God is infinite and timeless: he is from everlasting to everlasting and is everywhere. What would one expect a universe created by such a being to look like? It seems evident to me, it should look really, really big and appear really, really old. Otherwise, it would give a false representation of its maker.

Some old-earthers say that amounts to deception, but I honestly don't know how it would. It's perfectly reflective of God's attributes and it speaks parabolically to the pride of man. There has always been an issue with humankind as to whether we will depend upon God's word or our own reasoning. As it was for Adam and Eve in the Garden, so it is with us generation after generation. God says one thing, our reasoning says another--faith goes with God, pride goes with us, and soon thereafter comes the splat.

It's not that there are not reasonable clues out there that stuff hasn't been around all that long. We could see it if we were willing, some do, most do not. When we look at stuff, it should reveal the majesty of our infinite, eternal maker, without necessarily providing any clues as to how we've gotten here (that is what Genesis is for after all). I don't have any problem saying that stuff does so without the necessity of billion upon billion years of age, nor for that matter, that unbiblical formation concept called evolution.