THERE can be no question but Scripture teaches man’s utter inability to do anything spiritually good. This inability he has inherited from the Fall. On the other hand, it is also clear that God is calling upon men to obey His commands—to love Him, to repent and believe. This state of apparent contradictions raises a number of questions which have been for long discussed and variously answered. In an attempt to find a solution which does not interfere with God’s sovereign rights and claims over man, and man’s responsibility to God, it is necessary in steering clear of the Arminian-Pelagian quagmire that we avoid asserting that man’s responsibility is cancelled because of his inability or that we should harbour in our hearts the dark thought that God is not just or consistent in asking man to do what he is utterly unable to do. Our readers need not be reminded that our great and honoured Scottish preachers and messengers of God without a doubt, while proclaiming man’s ruin, on the other hand stressed his responsibility to God. It would be an extraordinary position to assume that because man lost the ability God had given him that he was now by this rebel act set free from that responsibility and further that he had by this same rebel act annulled forever the sovereign rights of God to command the sinner to obey Him. God’s rights cannot be so lightly ignored. So when the sinner is commanded to obey Him, repent and believe God is only asserting His inalienable claims upon the creature whom He has created and to whom He had given power in his creation to obey what God commanded. But, it may be asked, why should a helpless sinner be asked to do something that God knows full well he can never do. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts but may we not put the question with all reverence and attempt an answer, deeply conscious of the finite nature of our understanding. “May not God have another purpose than what there appears on the surface in giving such commands? May He not have the purpose of bringing home to the sinner his own inability and thus shut out all hope of attaining salvation by his own efforts? The question has been discussed by Dr. William Cunningham with his usual clarity and sane judgment in his Historical Theology, and William Guthrie touches on the subject in his Christian’s Great Interest.”
*The distinction between moral and natural inability followed by Edwards in his great work on the Will will not help us here.—Editor.
“The objections to the doctrine of fallen man’s inability,” says Dr. Cunningham, “may be said to be all ultimately resolvable into this one general position, that in Scripture commands and exhortations are addressed to men, requiring them to abstain from sin and turn to God; that they are responsible for rendering obedience to these commands, and incur guilt by disobeying them; and that these commands would not have been issued, that this responsibility would not attach to them, and that this guilt could not be incurred, unless they were able to will and do the things commanded. Now, it is obvious that this whole argument resolves, as to its sole, real basis and foundation, not into anything which is actually stated in Scripture, directly or by implication, but to certain notions with respect to the reasons why God issued these commands or exhortations—the grounds on which alone moral responsibility can rest; subjects, both of which are in their very nature profound and mysterious, which do not lie very fully within the range or cognizance of our faculties, and with respect to which men are certainly not entitled to pronounce dogmatically through the mere application of their own powers of reasoning, and unless guided plainly and distinctly by the Scriptures themselves.
The argument or objection, though in reality one, may be said to resolve itself into these two positions: First, God would not, or rather, could not, have addressed such commands or exhortations to men unless they were able to obey them; and the reason commonly assigned is, that it could, at least, serve no good purpose to issue commands to men for which they were unable to render obedience; and, secondly, an ability to do, and, of course, to will to do, what is commanded, is necessary in order that men may incur responsibility and guilt by not doing it. Now, it is admitted that God commands fallen men—men as they are—to do what is spiritually good, and to turn unto Himself, and that they are responsible, or incur guilt, by not doing what is thus commanded; and this being universally admitted as clear and certain from Scripture, the question is, How are the inferences or conclusions of the objectors to be met? This subject has been most abundantly discussed in every age, and leads into the examination of some questions which have never been solved, and never will be solved in man’s present condition. I can make only a few remarks upon it, rather in the way of indicating where the answers to the objections lie, than of expounding or developing them. Let it be remembered, then, what is the true statement or condition of the argument. There has been produced from Scripture what seems to be very strong and conclusive evidence that fallen man has wholly lost, and does not now possess, any ability of will to anything spiritually good accompanying salvation,—evidence which cannot be directly answered or disposed of, and which is not contradicted by anything like direct evidence from Scripture in support of the opposite position.
Note.—God’s precepts are no test of the extent of our ability of will but only of our duty. When our Creator has given to us capacities to know and love Him, and the thing which prevents is our depraved wills, this is no reason why He should or might cease demanding that which is His due. If the moral opposition of nature into which God’s creatures may sink themselves by their own fault, is that a reason why He should cease to urge His natural rights on them? Then He would soon have no right left” (Dabney’s Systematic and Polemic Theology, II. 587).