Brief Thought upon General Revelation

I wrote this a few years ago in response to a gentleman who created a false dichotomy between our educational structure and simply following the Holy Spirit as he reveals himself through the biblical text.

This evening as I looked up at all of the stars in the sky I got the feeling of both the immensity of creation and the awesome display of God’s power. As I took in the majesty of it all I was reminded of a passage in Romans: 

“Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20).

Logos is the Greek that underlies the English rendering Word. Such as when we read: 

“In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:1-3). 

“And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth…” (John 1:14). 

The word Logos, from which is derived the concept of logic, reason, word, utterance, is used here to describe the Son of God. I like what one commentator said concerning the background for the term that John uses: 

“Ancient Greek philosophers associated the Logos with the order and design of the universe or with the intelligible expression of the mind of God as he sustains and governs it.” 

“…for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible… all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16a, c, 17).

God spoke the Word (Logos) and the universe was created ex nihilo (out of nothing) and it is sustained by divine activity, a moment by moment conservation, by which creation is kept from slipping back into the nothingness from which it came. This Logos emanates truth, beauty, cradling existence within his very being, permeating every facet of creation and human existence. In the sixth century B.C. a Greek poet Epimenides wrote these famous words that were later quoted by Paul to those at Athens: 

“…for in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Before the time of Moses or Abraham, before any writings of the Old Testament were ever penned, the universe was the inspired text through which God’s Word came to man.

This is the concept of general revelation which is still relevant to us today, and it is this concept that leads us to listen to creation and to ponder the image of God within us. Everything reflects God in its own way. The material world as we experience it once existed as a mere concept in the Divine mind from eternity past. His very self has been imprinted upon it, the very thoughts of his mind coming to actualization, granted being as a representation of what was conceived. 

We live within this Logos as it has given shape to our existence. It is for this reason, that this Logos became what we are, taking on the nature of created matter. It is this Christ that is the radiance of his glory, the exact representation of his being, the image of the invisible God, the fullness of deity in bodily form. 

It is not the inspired Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek text that is the sole voice of God and source of our theology. In fact the written text is just an inscripturated part of the spoke words, interpretations of the Old Testament, reflections upon the creation, and insights into the human experience. It is everything which God has granted unto us that shows forth his word which dwells richly within us.

The creation shows forth his power, his care, and governance. God is the Governor of his creation and he has endowed us with this political image by which the societal and social structures are a reflection of his own governance of the universe. It is by this governance that God gives us a framework for education, discipline, and accountability. It is within this God-ordained structure that our rational faculties are shaped and enlightened by his grace as we yield ourselves to the sources of theology, that is to engage in those words from God, words about God, and words to God. 

The Spirit of Christ works in and through these endeavors as he works in and through creation. All of these sources of theology are taken together to form a holistic approach to God’s revelation. For it would be a mistake to assume that the inspired Scriptures comprise the Word of God in its entirety, as opposed to simply containing aspects of the Word of God. Properly speaking, the Word of God, is not a book, it is a person that holds the universe in existence and invites us to learn all that we can. 

In this educational process we reason more clearly and more accurately reflect the mind of God. In humility we consecrate ourselves to the processes by which God shapes and molds us, and he has granted unto us the creativity to fashion those structures which facilitate the formation of each and everyone of us to be prepared for anything that God has in store for us.

Thesis Statement: Dante’s Divine Comedy Project

Posted in partial fulfillment for PHS 783: Dante’s Divine Comedy: Thomistic Philosophy in Narrative taught by Dr. Sebastian Mahfood at Holy Apostles College & Seminary for the Masters in Theology degree.

Thesis Statement: What humans perceive or apprehend as good in terms of sexual purity is shown in the Commedia to often be at variance with the truth of their design in the image and likeness of God.

Alighieri, Dante. Ciardi, John, trans. The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso. New York, NY: New American Library, 2003. Required text and main source used. The notes are written to highlight background information and significant elements.

Mahfood, Sebastian. Lectures on Dante. Cromwell, CT: Holy Apostles College & Seminary, recorded 11 January 2010 – 13 February. A canto by canto commentary upon the Commedia by Professor Mahfood.

Aleksander, Jason. "Dante’s Understanding of the Two Ends of Human Desire and the Relationship between Philosophy and Theology." Journal of Religion 91, No. 2 (April 2011): 158-187. An essay which discusses philosophical anthropology while focusing on human desire.

Montemaggi, Vittorio. “Contemplation, Charity, and Creation ex nihilo in Dante’s Commedia.” Modern Theology 29, No. 2 (April 2013): 62-82. Explores the relationship existing between creation 'ex nihilo', contemplation and charity in Dante’s Commedia. May prove useful.

Fradd, Matt. “Healing from Pornography with the Divine Comedy.” Dated: Jan 12, 2016 Accessed: Feb 16, 2016. http://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/healing-from-pornography-with-the-divine-comedy An article based upon Fradd’s project on Dante which explores elements in the Commedia that directly relate to the modern problem with pornography.

Aleksander, Jason. “Teaching the Divine Comedy’s Understanding of Philosophy.” Pedagogy 13, No. 1 (Winter 2013): 67-76. An essay that reflection upon the use of philosophy in the Commedia and the relationship between virtue reason.

Stump, Eleonore. "Aquinas's account of freedom: Intellect and will." Monist. Vol. 80 Issue 4 (Oct 1997): 576. A reflection upon the Thomistic understanding of the predominance of the intellect in its relation to the will of man
 

The Ontological Argument for God

The Ontological Argument for the existence of God is often described as an argument that attempts to bridge the gap between the existence of an idea in the mind to the existence of a being outside of the mind. In other words, it is generally seen as a movement from an epistemological claim to an ontological reality. The weakness of the ontological argument in general is that we have innumerable examples of concepts that exist only in the mind, as many as our imagination can conceive. Even Thomas Aquinas speaks to the weaknesses in the argument but for some reason the idea continues to influence me in profound ways.

The argument against the ontological argument is as simple as an appeal to a celestial teapot that obits the sun between Earth and Mars. It is microscopic and can not be perceived by any means which we possess. Someone might argue 'Since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it.' A mere assertion is an assertion still, if it has not been formed into an argument. In this case the absence of evidence can be evidence of absence. We certainly have no evidence of any kind that there is a celestial teapot and prudence tells us that we should not think it exists unless evidence can be offered demonstrating the existence of the teapot.  Therefore it is not the responsibility of the opposition to disprove the assertion, the burden of proof belongs to the one adhering to the assertion.

While it is impractical to negate every conception which can arise in the imagination there remains a concept which is categorized along with all other concepts simply because it is an idea in the mind except that it also exists in a category of its own and must be treated as such. We are addressing the highest conception of the human intellect, particularly because of its unique and ubiquitous explanatory power. Is this special pleading? If the highest conception is nothing more than an infinite number of any other concepts then it would be an unequivocal case of special pleading. However, that the highest conception correlates to the most simplistic solution to all the issues of the universe demands our respectful attention. And it is the greatest idea that we can conceive in the mind, and it is certainly greater to exist than not to exist. Granted that some may not think the idea of God solves all issues and perhaps even creates other difficulties. But from many years of studying these questions there exists reasonable explanations which can lead us beyond rejecting the entire concept of God. Many problems arise from erroneous notions of God which are understandably in sharp conflict with human experience.

Ocham's Razor, the idea that all things being considered equal the simplest solution is preferred cutting off a multiplicity of superfluous causal factors. Of what other conceptions of the human mind can such a correlation be drawn to such a unique and ubiquitous explanatory power?  What is the probability that such a correlation even exists?

Unlike other theistic ideas Christianity is based upon historical evidences attested in the same manner as any event in history or any ancient literary work. Could the same be said of other religions or theistic positions? The plausibility of Christianity is born out of collaborative coincidences from entirely different fields of science.

It is significant that there exists such an idea that integrates an incredible number of factors, a view that offers explanations for what we encounter in the history of Christianity, the personal experiences of countless individuals through out the ages, the highest conception of the human intellect, and its astounding ability to address the deepest of human concerns in such a unique and ubiquitous manner.

When described and explained in this manner, I can not help but see the impact that the ontological argument has had upon me. As a corollary this also has significance by way of negation, meaning what would be lost if this highest conception had no basis in reality. Perhaps unlike some my whole being, feelings, and thoughts, are bent toward those most significant questions which could be posed by the human mind. Who am I? What am I? Why am I here? These questions of ultimacy weigh on me to a greater degree than some others. Some of the deepest desires and longings of the human heart are stripped away if this highest conception had no basis in reality. Throughout history we have observed some depraved individuals live long, prosperous lives while good natured people must endure incredible suffering and atrocities. Without this highest conception, the desire for greater meaning, purpose, justice, become mere fabrications, mere fiction that seizes to exist as soon as we no longer have a mind to conceive them.

Why am I a Christian? There does not exist any other conception of the mind which has such a unique and ubiquitous explanatory power. The ontological argument is an example of abductive reasoning, where we can see the effects and reason back to the most reasonable cause. Its influence lies within its ability to not only integrate a few ideas to imagine a being such as a unicorn, nor only integrate a few ideas to imagine an invisible pink elephant, nor only integrate a few ideas to imagine a god or many gods with limitations not unlike our own, but a unique, comprehensive, ubiquitous idea that integrates the most profound ideals of human thought in a manner that quantitatively and qualitatively surpasses any other human conception. If there is any fault in the ontological argument is that it does not bring us to a state of absolute certainty, although we can be reasonably certain that such a conception can exist in our mind only because there is a reality that correlates to it outside of the mind.

It is not just the fact of such a notion that is important but also how that concept is formed in the mind. For we are reasonably certain that nothing exists in the mind that did not first exist in the senses. We have an ability to draw data into the mind through which we might construct such a notion.

By way of negation we assert that this conception is unlike anything else we have observed, something that is not conformable to the physical realm but completely transcends it. We can observe that we are temporal, contingent, and complex, and by extension we can conceive of a being who is eternal, necessary, and simple.

By way of perfection we assert that this conception is the highest of all the noblest virtues of existence, such as beauty, love, and righteousness. We can observe our limited ability to know, act, and be present, and by extension we can conceive of a being who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

By way of analogy we assert that this conception can be understood to some extent by what we observe, in that the entire physical realm reflects the creativity of the divine mind. We can observe an ancient and massive cosmos which can be viewed as a microcosm of the eternality and infinity of God. It is as if by viewing the cosmos we are seated upon the lap of God, viewing his reflection in water. An image that fails in comparison to the real thing but captures enough of its glory to lead us beyond the reflection to the reality. It is that moment when transcendent reality becomes so immanent that it takes residence in our very thoughts. And in this moment of divine contemplation we experience union with the holy and magnificent creator and lover of our souls. All other conceptions of the human mind fail to inspire this same level of awe.

Any one aspect of this conception could be dismantled and the underlying principle misapplied, but the accumulated effect of such a beautiful conglomeration of ideas synthesized into one profound and highest conception of the human mind is what I believe makes the ontological argument influential. God is a unique, comprehensive, ubiquitous idea that integrates the most profound ideals of human thought in a manner that quantitatively and qualitatively surpasses any other human conception. Something so profound, interesting, and clever, that it must be grounded in reality.

Book Review: Saving Darwin by Karl W. Giberson

This is a very brief review of . The author does great work in laying out the history of the trials concerning teaching evolution in schools and attempts by Creation Science advocates to gain equal time. I agree that Creation Science should remain outside of the classroom in as much as science has conclusively proven that the universe is billions of years old as opposed to six thousand years old, and that the formation of the earth and everything in it took millions of years instead of 6 days. Attempting to interpret the Genesis account in a strict, historical, literalistic manner and then exposing these ideas to children is misguided. That the six day theory advanced by Creation Science is the Christian view, or the only interpretation of Genesis is equally erroneous. 

The author maintains Darwinism at all costs. So much so that he is willing to even accept a strong sense of the often philosophical concomitant of naturalism. The author claims to be a Christian yet thinks that revelation has been misread in that he rejects any involvement by God in the development of existence, that Adam and Eve were not historical people, nor that they were originally endowed with preternatural gifts, such as freedom from suffering and physical death. He also rejects the notion that death, suffering, and the like, only came through sin. I am certain that Adam and Eve were historical people since it is necessary for the theology of Paul, not only in understanding the effects of original sin, but also for understanding Christ as the “second Adam”. That death existed prior to Adam and Eve there can be no doubt since the dinosaurs certainly went extinct 65 million years ago in the K-T extinction at the end of the Cretaceous era. One of the things that we can know for sure from the Genesis account is that we are more than mere dust of the Earth, but that God breathed life into us. That the first couple was endowed with preternatural gifts seems to be a core concept in the Christian understanding of this primeval setting, that they were free from physical death. Despite what one may think of this idea, we certainly have no empirical evidence for this since even Adam and Eve experienced physical death and that the earth was just as yielding to man as it is now. I am personally open to examining the possibilities in this regard.

Despite his misguided attempt to reshape Christian theology to fit the Darwinian paradigm, the idea that death and suffering did not exist until the sin of Adam is not a Christian doctrine. However, it is imperative that Adam and Eve remain as historical figures, as well as that “ancient serpent” which is Satan. Christianity maintains that at some point in the natural development of man the first pair was endowed with preternatural gifts. This is certainly important to understand how sin affected human nature. Giberson, however, speaks of sin as nothing more than that selfishness that drives survival, a product of evolutionary development. And perhaps for him the goal of Christianity is to recognize how the natural processes that formed us over time have shaped our desire to survive, pass on our genes, and to be first in a competitive environment, must now be overcome. There is very little Christian thought left in Giberson's worldview which is dominated by a strict Darwinian paradigm. With that said, it is rather interesting to think about and I am certainly indebted to him for pushing my thinking in this regard. For instance, if there was a selfish evolutionary drive as is understood by Darwinist, and if God's endowment of preternatural gifts lifted man's reason above his biological proclivities in order to live above this process, the effect of original sin could be seen as the removal of these preternatural gifts which subjects man to that natural process once again. And so perhaps Giberson is correct in correlating this biological proclivity with what Catholic theology refers to as concupiscence.

He criticizes Intelligent Design by arguing that historically any time people have provided supernatural explanations in the gaps of scientific certainty we eventually found naturalistic explanations. For example, angels are not the cause of planetary movement. He concludes from these historical examples that there are no gaps to place God in terms of a cause in a set of naturalistic causes. Giberson is correct to recognize that God is certainly not just one among many causes within the natural realm. However, it would be incorrect to assume that God never effects anything beyond perhaps fine-tuning the Big Bang event. God holds existence itself in being and preserves its continuance. Certainly God is much more than a mere naturalistic cause. Along these lines Giberson does not spend much time attempting to convince his readers of evolution as much as he attempts to lead his readers away from Intelligent Design. Other than his idea that there is no God of the gaps, he rejects Intelligent Design because of what appears to him as bad design, or design of an insidious nature. He gives examples such as the human knee, that our spines are mechanically configured to walk on all fours, that choking is the result of our air pathway protected by a mere flap, and that our vision is based on upside down images. Likewise, he gives examples of insidious design where predators are finely tuned killers, of how cats play with mice before they eat them, or how a particular wasp lays its eggs inside a caterpillar and as the eggs hatch the baby wasps begin to consume the internal organs of the caterpillar in an order that keeps it alive for as long as possible. He thinks that he is doing God a great service by not contributing these types of “designs” to Him, as if God had designed them precisely through special creation as Giberson now observes them. Whatever we may think concerning “poor design” or “design of an insidious nature”, it is rather difficult to judge because what occurs in nature is not really a moral element, it is non-moral, or amoral, so it can't be judged purely from some moral construct which we apply to our own will.

Perhaps Giberson's largest complaint is against the idea that the sudden appearance of a species is the sole result of direct divine involvement. From his perspective, to apply a supernatural explanation in this regard is contrary to what science attempts to do, which is to discover naturalistic explanations. While I agree with Giberson that we should not apply assumed supernatural causes to areas of scientific uncertainly, nor will I apply naturalistic assumes to gaps in our understanding of how God may or may not be interacting with the world.

Consider the Cambrian Explosion, the so called biological Big Bang, where we see sudden appearance of species, of various body types, in the fossil record which are not found in pre-Cambrian layers of the geologic column. Consider also the fact that the assumed mass of transitional intermediaries is incredibly missing. Consider also that the norm in the fossil record is stasis, meaning that there is little to no change within a species for millions of years. I certainly can not simply assume a Darwinian perspective is an adequate explanation to the fossil record and then read into these gaps Darwinian rationalizations, any more than Giberson thinks that we ought never to read a supposed supernatural cause into areas of scientific uncertainty. The point is we all read into gaps by attempting to provide the best explanation possible. Giberson does not spend any time on explaining his adherence to a strict Darwinian perspective viewing the development of life gradually through thousands upon thousands of transitional intermediaries, descent with modifications. If Darwin's view of natural and sexual selection was the primary means of biological development then we really don't find in the fossil record what we would expect to see there. 

Giberson does attempt to address myths about who Darwin was by showing Darwin as a man born in an age of “Intelligent Design”, then called natural philosophy, and that he set out understanding the world in this manner but then was disturbed by his findings, and that at some level he regretted the loss of his faith. Views like this are propagated by proponents of the “warfare myth”, the idea that faith and reason are at war with each other and that science drives us away from superstitious belief in God leading to a crisis in faith. This view is problematic because it can be shown that Darwin himself set out to prove evolution through natural means alone and that his grandfather was famous for his view of evolution and wrote a book on the subject which Darwin read. Darwin himself saw the difficulty that the fossil record proved for his theory. Besides, Darwin was not the first one to propose the idea. Concepts of evolution existed since Greek philosophy, particularly the ancient writings of Lucretius, whose writings were rediscovered in the early Renaissance.

Giberson's Saving Darwin is a decent read for the history of trials and of Creation Science, but a filter is strongly advised throughout the rest, if not omitted altogether.

The Nature of Original Sin

The Catholic Perspective

From the Catholic perspective[1] this loss of original holiness is the loss of sanctifying grace and the preternatural gifts. The wounding of our nature was caused by the loss of the preternatural gifts of impossibility, immortality, and freedom from concupiscence, which led to suffering, death, and concupiscence. We are in a state of nature which is not graced in this manner. Ludwig Ott, in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, explains this beautifully:“The condition of original sin signifies the want of a supernatural advantage to which the creature has no claim. God is not obliged to create the soul with the adornment of sanctifying grace.”[2]

In fact, if the language of guilt was not used at all, it would not be unjust for God to withhold a privilege which he originally gave to humanity purely from his gratuitous nature. We simply suffer the loss of a potential privilege which was squandered by Adam, the representative of the human race.

In addition to the wounding of the body, Aquinas enumerates four wounds of the soul due to this loss[3]:

1)       ignorance, that is, difficulty of knowing the truth

2)       malice, that is the weakening of the power of the will

3)       weakness, that is, the recoiling before difficulties in the struggle for the good

4)       desire (concupiscentia) in the narrower sense, that is, the desire for satisfaction of the sense against the judgment of reason.

As a result of our condition we tend to turn away from God and turn towards the creature.  Because of this we are perceiving lesser goods to be greater than they actually are and so move further and further from the supreme good, God, whom is our proper end. The greater discrepancy between what we perceive as the good and what actually is good, the greater we become depraved. In this our passions become directed towards less godly ends, and our affections grow towards those things which are more perverse.

In the Thomistic view a man with original holiness is to a man without it is as a man who is fully clothed to the man who is naked. This is to be “preferred, as the single act of Adam, which occurred once only, could, neither in his own nature nor in the nature of his posterity, effect an evil habit and with it, a weakening of the natural powers.”[4]

It is important to note that the Decree on Justification from the Council of Trent states: “...though free will, weakened as it was in its powers and downward bent, was by no means extinguished in them.”[5] Likewise, the Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of this deprivation of original holiness but qualifies that “...human nature has not been totally corrupted.”[6] The language of deprivation is not used to indicate that we are less than human, nor that we are as depraved as we possibly can be, but that we are in a state of nature, consisting only of those things which are proper to it without the adornment of sanctifying grace. However, we are never in a mere state of nature since even though we are not adorned with sanctifying grace we nevertheless experience the prevenient grace of God leading us towards Himself. The Decree on Justification from the Council of Trent states that “...the beginning of that justification must proceed from the predisposing grace of God through Jesus Christ... without any merits on their part... [and] ...be disposed through His quickening and helping grace...”[7]

The Wesleyan Perspective

In his sermon Working out our own Salvation Wesley states the same perspective concerning prevenient grace: “For allowing that all the souls of men are dead in sin by nature, this excuses none, seeing there is no man that is in a state of mere nature; there is no man, unless he has quenched the Spirit, that is wholly void of the grace of God”[8]

It is difficult to speak of the nature of original sin without the mention of prevenient grace particularly because Wesley basically brings us to the same image of man just described in the Catholic position by appealing to prevenient grace. When Wesley speaks of the natural man who is totally depraved, he is speaking of a mere logical abstraction. He first tells us what we are apart from prevenient grace and then proceeds to tell us that no man is in this state of mere nature and therefore we are in a different state as the result of grace, a universal effect of the atonement of Christ. 

In order to show Wesley’s insistence upon the doctrine of total depravity, I endeavor to show that his starting position concerning natural free will was in agreement with Calvinism. Generally the Thirty-Nine Articles were understood as having been highly influenced by Calvinism but Wesley often interpreted them in an Arminan manner such as the case with  Article XVII on Predestination and Election. It would be fair to expect that Wesley would adopt the Arminian position which follows the Catholic emphasis upon deprivation concerning original sin, rather he upheld the Reformed position concerning depravity. The Thirty-Nine Articles Religion states that “...man is very far gone from original righteousness”, which Wesley retained in the Twenty-Five Articles of Methodism.[9]

In the Methodist Conference in 1745 Wesley stated that he and his preachers had come “to the very edge of Calvinism” in certain respects. That is “in denying all natural free-will, and all power antecedent to grace.”[10] Likewise, in his What is an Arminian? Answered by a Lover of Free Grace Wesley claims that his view of original sin is in conformity with Calvinism: “…In this respect, there is not a hair’s breadth difference between Mr. Wesley and Mr. Whitefield.”[11]

Although Wesley maintained that by nature all men are totally depraved and incapable of any motion towards God, by grace, the free will of man in some measure is supernaturally restored. In his Predestination Calmly Considered Wesley states: “But I do not carry free-will so far: (I mean, not in moral things:) Natural free-will, in the present state of mankind, I do not understand: I only assert, that there is a measure of free-will supernaturally restored to every man, together with the supernatural light which 'enlightens every man that comes into the world'.”[12] In his Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Review Wesley asserts that “every man has a measure of free-will restored to him by grace.”[13]

Since Wesley's view of prevenient grace brings us to the very edge of what we saw in the Catholic perspective I do not find it necessary to elucidate precisely what he meant by total depravity. Suffice it to state that of the natural, political, and moral image of man, Wesley notes in his sermon The New Birth that the imago dei is “...chiefly in his moral image; which, according to the Apostle, is 'righteousness and true holiness.”[14] And that while he maintained that the moral image was totally lost, he only maintained that the natural and political image were lost only in part.[15] So even while speaking of the logical abstraction he did not conceive of total depravity to mean that we are as depraved as we possibly can be, but that the effect of sin extends to every aspect of human life.

In all reality he could have simply avoided the entire logical abstraction and simply adopted the Catholic view.

---

[1]    It should be noted that I explicitly identify that what follows is understood from a Catholic perspective since Wesley's view of the consequences of original sin differ from that of Catholicism.

[2]    Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 112.

[3]    Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 113.

[4]    Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 113.

[5]    Schroeder, The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, 30.

[6]    Catechism of the Catholic Church, 405

[7]    Schroeder, The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, 31. [bracket mine]

[8]    Jackson, Wesley's Works 6:512

[9]  Leith, Creeds of the Churches, 269

[10]  Jackson, Wesley's Works 8:285

[11]  Jackson, Wesley's Works 10:359

[12]  Jackson, Wesley's Works 10:229-30

[13]  Jackson, Wesley's Works 10:392

[14]  Jackson, Wesley's Works 6:66

[15]  This is agreeable to human experience otherwise we ought to expect reality to look more like Dante's journey through the Inferno in his Divine Comedy with total isolation and anarchy.

The Inherited Guilt of Original Sin

The purpose of this post is to offer a comparative analysis between the Roman Catholic Church and John Wesley as it pertains to the meaning of inherited guilt. Our goal is to understand the precise meaning of the phrase: The inherited guilt of Adam.

It is clear that neither the Roman Catholic Church nor Wesley maintained that we are held culpable for the sin of another person. In the third part of his The Doctrine of Original Sin, according to Scripture, Reason, and Experience, Wesley states that “...God assures us children 'shall not die for the iniquity of their fathers.' No, not eternally. I believe none ever did, or ever will, die eternally, merely for the sin of our first father.”[1] In his Predestination Calmly Considered Wesley asks if one would be condemned for original sin, meaning “the sin which Adam committed in paradise”, to which he responds, “...that any will be damned for this alone, I allow not...”[2] In his sermon God's Love to Fallen Man, Wesley responds to the idea that men are sent to Hell because of the sin of Adam: “Seeing, on this supposition, all those millions of unhappy spirits would be plunged into hell by Adam’s sin, without any possible advantage from it. But, blessed be God, this is not the case.”[3] Likewise, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “...original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants.”[4] Pope Pius IX made this very clear in his Quanto conficiamur moerore: "God...by no means allows anyone to be punished with eternal punishments who does not have the guilt of voluntary fault.”

Nevertheless both the Roman Catholic Church and Wesley maintain that we inherit guilt from Adam's sin.  In his The Doctrine of Original Sin Wesley states that “...God does not look upon infants as innocent, but as involved in the guilt of Adam's sin otherwise death, the punishment denounced against that sin, could not be inflicted upon them.”[5][6] Likewise, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “All men are implicated[7] in Adam's sin...” “...he [Adam] has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the 'death of the soul'.”[8] Similarly the The Decree on Original Sin from the Council of Trent states: “If anyone asserts that the transgression of Adam... having been defiled by the sin of disobedience has transfused only death 'and the punishments of the body into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul,' let him be anathema...” “If anyone denies that by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt[9] of original sin is remitted...let him be anathema.”[10]

In his The Doctrine of Original Sin Wesley attempts to explain this guilt in a bit more detail quoting from the extract The Ruin and Recovery of Human Nature by Rev. Mr. Samuel Hebden:

God imputes Adam’s first sin to all mankind. I do not mean that the actual commission of it was imputed to any beside himself; (it was impossible it should;) nor is the guilt of it imputed to any of his descendants, in the full latitude of it, or in regard to its attendant circumstances. It constitutes none of them equally guilty with him. Yet both that sin itself, and a degree of guilt on account of it, are imputed to all his posterity; the sin itself is imputed to them, as included in their head. And on this account, they are reputed guilty, are ‘children of wrath,’ liable to the threatened punishment.[11]

It is clear that a distinction is being made between culpa, as it relates to personal culpability, and reatus[12] which refers to a liability to suffer for sin, such as was the case in the quotation from Trent above where reatum is translated as guilt. This latter meaning can best be understood when a person squanders an inheritance and as a result neither he nor his descendants are privileged to enjoy it. Likewise, as members of the human race through propagation, we are implicated in this sin because Adam was our head, a representative of humanity. In other words, on our behalf, he squandered the privilege of original holiness and as a result we do not enjoy this privilege.

In his The Doctrine of Original Sin Wesley explains: “So we do in fact suffer for Adam's sin, and that too by the sentence inflicted on our first parents. We suffer death in consequence of their transgression. Therefore we are, in some sense, guilty of their sin. I would ask, What is guilt, but an obligation to suffer punishment for sin? Now since we suffer the same penal evil which God threatened to, and inflicted on, Adam for his sin... Therefore we are all in some way guilty of Adam's sin.”[13]

This was not merely a personal belief held by John Wesley, this language of 'original guilt' was retained from the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion in the Twenty-Five Articles of Methodism. In the second article of both confessions it states that Christ's sacrifice was “not only for original guilt, but also for the actual sins of men”.[14]

St. Thomas extricates the problem with the law of solidarity:

An individual can be considered either as an individual or as part of a whole, a member of a society . . . Considered in the second way an act can be his although he has not done it himself, nor has it been done by his free will but by the rest of the society or by its head, the nation being considered as doing what the prince does. For a society is considered as a single man of whom the individuals are the different members (St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 12). Thus the multitude of men who receive their human nature from Adam is to be considered as a single community or rather as a single body . . . . If the man, whose privation of original justice is due to Adam, is considered as a private person, this privation is not his 'fault', for a fault is essentially voluntary. If, however, we consider him as a member of the family of Adam, as if all men were only one man, then his privation partakes of the nature of sin on account of its voluntary origin, which is the actual sin of Adam" (De Malo, iv, 1).[15]

There are four ways in which Wesley diverges from the Thomistic position which is normally held within the Catholic Church in relation to original sin: 1) the nature of our fallen condition, 2) baptism as it relates to the cleansing of inherited guilt, 3) the origin of the soul, and 4) the nature of concupiscence. Each of these will be addressed in subsequent blog posts.

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[1]    Jackson, Wesley's Works, 9:315

[2]    Jackson, Wesley's Works, 10:223

[3]    Jackson, Wesley's Works, 6:240

[4]    Catechism of the Catholic Church, 405

[5]    In fact, if the language of guilt was not used at all, it would not be unjust for God to withhold a privilege which he originally gave to humanity purely from his gratuitous nature. We only need to consider the doctrinal expressions of the Eastern Catholic Churches, which omits the language of guilt altogether.

[6]    Jackson, Wesley's Works, 9:316

[7]    Although the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not use the term 'guilt' the idea is still retained.

[8]    Catechism of the Catholic Church, 402-3

[9]    The original Latin of the Council reads “reatum originalis peccati remitti.” which is often translated into English as “the guilt of original sin is remitted,”.

[10]    Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma. Trent: Decree of Original Sin, 246

[11]  Jackson, Wesley's Works, 9:409

[12]    Ott explicitly uses reatus in this regard: “The doctrine of St. Thomas... explains that the state of guilt (reatus) is removed by Baptism, while the concupiscence persists for a moral test (ad agonem) but not as a sin.” Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 111.

[13]    Jackson, Wesley's Works 9:242-43, The Doctrine of Original Sin, part 2, sec. 1.5

[14]    Leith, Creeds of the Churches, 354.

[15]    Source found in the Catholic Encyclopedia on Original Sin

A Word to the Addict

“We admitted that we were powerless over our addictions – that our lives had become unmanageable.”

Anyone who has walked through the doors into an anonymous group has heard these or similar words. It is the first step of any traditional recovery program. Having had a Wesleyan theological background the language of powerlessness was rather strange and seemed to conflict with the doctrine of prevenient grace. In fact, people have probably felt that to admit powerlessness over anything was to simply abandon ourselves to the addiction with the continual justification that they cannot do otherwise, or worse that there is no hope of change. If by powerlessness one meant that self-reliance was not sufficient and that we needed the assistance of God and others in order to help pull us out of our destructive habits then it was certainly well received. After all the entire point of prevenient grace is to enable us to do that which could not be accomplished without the grace of God. In this sense as long as we abandoned Pelagianism then we were in conformity with the first step.

The actual meaning is that we do not have power over our addictions like we might think; meaning that we have lost control and can no longer manage ourselves in a reasonable manner. Promises that we can stop whenever we wanted kept us in delusion which could only be dispelled by honesty and vulnerability. To admit that we have lost control is a humbling experience. Essentially we have slipped into a habitual state whereby our reason is subjected to our passions and despite what we told ourselves we actually maintained that acting out was the greater good. Ask anyone who has ever experienced an addiction and they will tell you that they felt like they were on strings controlled by obsessions and compulsions. Yet at the same time we did exactly what we determined to do. In fact the preoccupations were so overwhelming that it was often difficult to perform simple tasks. The compulsiveness seemed irresistible, persistent, and insatiable. We were incapable of stopping no matter how badly it seemed that we desired for those experiences to end. Our desire to act out was stronger than any of our other desires, sometimes over basic needs such as food and sleep. Our willpower seemed completely insufficient. In fact our will was so bent towards acting out that we did not want to refrain as badly as we wanted to plunge into the abyss. While the Sirens were calling us to our doom our only hope was to be tied to the mast of the ship by others who had stabbed their ears with knives. The prospect of death by the Sirens was far less desirable than the actions they took to preserve their lives. Something must occur in our lives that lead us to take such drastic measures.

I find that this entire experience of addiction can be best explained through a Thomistic perspective. In my blog post on the nature of original sin I mention the following: 

As a result of our condition we tend to turn away from God and turn towards the creature.  Because of this we are perceiving lesser goods to be greater than they actually are and so move further and further from the supreme good, God, whom is our proper end. The greater discrepancy between what we perceive as the good and what actually is good, the greater we become depraved. In this our passions become directed towards less godly ends, and our affections grow towards those things which are more perverse.

The importance here lies in the fact that when we obtain that vision of God, which is properly called the Beatific Vision, then no other desire will be able to compete with it. I had often wondered why we would not choose to turn from God once we enter into his presence and see Him face to face in heaven. It is not as if we lose the capacity to choose or become less than human without the faculty of freewill. Rather in the Beatific Vision we will behold the supreme good and we will choose Him above all things simply because it is the greatest good.

What presents itself to our intellect is perceived as something more or less desirable and our will chooses that which is perceived as the greatest good, or apprehends as the greatest good prior to perception. When we were driven by compulsions we were perceiving the sin as a greater good. But yet we resisted to some extent because we also perceived sobriety as a good. In this experience these two perceptions came into conflict. What we choose is that which we perceived to be the greater good and became frustrated when the other desire was not also achieved. In other words, if we choose to act out then we felt that we violated the desire for sobriety and sanity. If we choose to refrain then we often experienced the sense of missing out on an opportunity. Whether we acted out or not we were never fully satisfied. But whether we acted out or not we did so because we choose one desire over the other. If we choose to act out, then this was perceived as the greater good between the two and so the desire for it was stronger.

The question then is how to lead the intellect to perceive acting out for what it actually is. First, the intellect must be presented with the good of sobriety in such a way that it appears more attractive than the sin. One of the best ways to do this is to make a list of all the positive aspects for why it is more desirable. Perhaps having a strong sense of self-mastery is important to us. Maybe we want to grow closer to God but are incapable of doing so as a result of the destructive habit. Or perhaps we will feel more confident and productive in our accomplishments. Whatever this list may contain you must continue to read and reinforce why life is worth fighting for. Second, the intellect must be presented with the true nature of the object of our desire. The best way to do this is to write a good-bye letter to your addiction. Write out all the negative effects that has resulted from the addiction. In this exercise you are dragging the empty fantasy into the light of reality and taking a good hard look at it. You must eliminate the potential for minimizing the seriousness of the problem. You must undercut every possible excuse.

Whatever it will take to get that object of our misguided affections to take a different shape within the mind will alter your perception of it. The less you perceive the good, the less desire you will have for it. While we may not be able to immediately alter our habits, we can begin the new journey from the Dark Wood of Error[1]. While we are sane we are very capable of orchestrating new experiences and educating ourselves concerning our condition. Over time we will find the result we are looking for. It will not come precisely as we first envisioned it. If what we did and thought as a matter of course was adequate then there would be no need for another method. Personal experience continues to testify to the fact that what we have been doing is not working and that while we are fearful for what will be required to change, the pain of remaining in the addiction cycle has come to a point that it is no longer as tolerable as it once was. We no longer wanted to survive day to day; we wanted to live out our potential to the fullest. The pain of our addiction, what it is doing to us and to others, is not worth holding onto whatever pain we are attempting to medicate. And this too requires a process in terms of our perception of that which is the greater good.

[1] A reference to Canto I of Dante’s Inferno in his The Divine Comedy.

The Wesleyan Notion of Prevenient Grace

Wesley speaks so wonderfully about this gift of prevenient grace that I could not refrain from quoting him at length in order to begin this blog post:

Salvation begins with what is usually termed (and very properly) preventing grace; including the first wish to please God, the first dawn of light concerning his will, and the first slight transient conviction of having sinned against him. All these imply some tendency toward life; some degree of salvation; the beginning of a deliverance from a blind, unfeeling heart, quite insensible of God and the things of God."Sermon: On Working out our own Salvation

...‘preventing grace’; --all the drawings of the Father; the desires after God, which, if we yield to them, increase more and more; --all that light wherewith the Son of God ‘enlightens every one that comes into the world’; showing every man ‘to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God’; --all the convictions which His Spirit, from time to time, works in every child of man--although it is true, the generality of men stifle them as soon as possible, and after a while forget, or at least deny, that they ever had them at all. Sermon: The Scripture Way of Salvation

... preventing grace. Every man has a greater or less measure of this, which waits not for the call of man. Every one has, sooner or later, good desires; although the generality of men stifle them before they can strike deep root, or produce any considerable fruit. Everyone has some measure of that light, some faint glimmering ray, which, sooner or later, more or less, enlightens every man that cometh into the world. And every one, unless he be one of the small number whose conscience is seared as with a hot iron, feels more or less uneasy when he acts contrary to the light of his own conscience. So that no man sins because he has not grace, but because he does not use the grace which he has. Sermon: On Working out our Own Salvation

In order to facilitate this topic further I juxtapose Wesley’s notion of prevenient grace and what he considered “the natural man”.

In the Methodist Conference in 1745 Wesley stated that he and his preachers had come “to the very edge of Calvinism” in certain respects. That is “in denying all natural free-will, and all power antecedent to grace.”[1] Likewise, in his What is an Arminian? Answered by a Lover of Free Grace Wesley claims that his view of original sin is in conformity with Calvinism: “…In this respect, there is not a hair’s breadth difference between Mr. Wesley and Mr. Whitefield.”[2]

Although Wesley maintained that by nature all men are totally depraved and incapable of any motion towards God, by grace, the free will of man in some measure is supernaturally restored. In his Predestination Calmly Considered Wesley states: “But I do not carry free-will so far: (I mean, not in moral things:) Natural free-will, in the present state of mankind, I do not understand: I only assert, that there is a measure of free-will supernaturally restored to every man, together with the supernatural light which 'enlightens every man that comes into the world'.”[3] In his Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Review Wesley asserts that “every man has a measure of free-will restored to him by grace.”[4]

Even though Wesley’s notion of total depravity, “the natural man”, is more of a logical abstraction, he nevertheless maintains that every man who is born into the human condition can not have any thoughts of God, or any conviction of sin, apart from grace. We can see this expressed in his sermon Working out our own Salvation where he states that “For allowing that all the souls of men are dead in sin by nature, this excuses none, seeing there is no man that is in a state of mere nature; there is no man, unless he has quenched the Spirit, that is wholly void of the grace of God”.[5]

This measure of restoration from being in a mere natural state, apart from prevenient grace, is an unconditional benefit of the universal atonement at work in all men. Several Wesleyan scholars clearly recognize this initial working of prevenient grace. In his John Wesley’s Theology Today Collin Williams states that “It is through Prevenient grace that he is given the power to respond or resist. Prevenient grace creates within us the power to accept faith or to refuse it.”[6] In his Christian Theology H. Orton Wiley explains that “…Arminianism maintains that through the prevenient grace of the Spirit, unconditionally bestowed upon all men, the power and responsibility of free agency exist from the first dawn of the moral life.”[7] In his The Theology of John Wesley Kenneth Collins states that “Prevenient grace must not be confused with free will. In the Fall, man completely lost his freedom for God… in the loss of what Wesley called the ‘moral image’. Thus freedom for God is not now a human possibility but is restored by the grace of God.”[8]

This main discussion centers upon what had been proposed by a Wesleyan scholar concerning the manner in which the initial work of prevenient grace in all those born into grace is affected. In his The Theology of John Wesley Kenneth Collins explains that “…since men and women in the natural state, according to Wesley, do not even have the freedom to accept or reject any offered grace, then this gift itself must be graciously and irresistibly restored”[9]

This language of an “irresistible grace” can unnerve some folk so it is advisable to replace the word with “efficacious grace”, that is a grace given us that is effective on its own merits, effecting the purpose for which it was sent. But is this not the clear meaning of how prevenient grace is conceived in its initial work upon all men who come into the world?

The notions of total depravity and prevenient grace are not placed successively in order of time, as if at the moment of conception we are in a state of mere nature and that within seconds the prevenient grace of God initiates a work of restoration. But rather we could take these two teachings in the order of thinking, that is, by inheritance, all men who are conceived, all who participate in human nature, are recipients of a depraved condition, that by nature, all are slaves to sin. Yet, at the same time we are born in a state of nature, we are in that very moment conceived in the realm of prevenient grace, and as a preservative power, we are prevented from the full effects and consequences of our inheritance. By the law of nature we have an inheritance of a fallen condition, but by the principle of prevenient grace we are gifted with a work of grace that is for all purposes efficacious in the lives of all men, as the immediate effect of the universal atonement.

See my forth coming blog post on the nature of original sin for a comparison between the Wesleyan and Catholic perspectives, and also my previous blog post on the Wesleyan notion of irresistible grace.

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[1] Jackson, Wesley's Works 8:285

[2] Jackson, Wesley's Works 10:359

[3] Jackson, Wesley's Works 10:229-30

[4] Jackson, Wesley's Works 10:392

[5] Jackson, Wesley's Works 6:512

[6] Williams, John Wesley’s Theology Today, 41

[7] Wiley, Christian Theology Vol. II, 357

[8] Dunning, Grace, Faith, & Holiness, 339

[9] Collins, The Theology of John Wesley, 80