Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 6:30:44 PM
There are throughout history only two religions: heathenism, of which Pelagianism is a religious expression, and a supernatural redemption. [B. B. Warfield]
Jonathan Edwards is consistent with Augustine and the Protestant Reformers. Charles Finney is consistent with Pelagius and Jacobus Arminius.
Let’s look at Augustine’s view of the will before considering the influence of Finney...
“Every man, whatsoever his condition, desires to be happy. There is no man who does not desire this, and each one desires it with such earnestness that he prefers it to all other things; whoever, in fact, desires other things, desires them for this end alone.” [Augustine]
This is what guides and governs the will, namely, what we consider to be our delight. Everything springs from delight. The dispute with Pelagius was that it is not in our power to determine what this delight will be. Augustine augues…
“Who has it in his power to have such a motive present to his mind that his will shall be influenced to believe? Who can welcome in his mind something which does not give him delight? But who has it in his power to ensure that something that will delight him will turn up? Or that he will take delight in what turns up? If those things delight us which serve our advancement towards God, that is due not to our own whim or industry or meritorious works, but in the inspiration of God and to the grace which he bestows.”
So saving grace for Augustine is God’s giving us a sovereign joy in God that triumphs over all other joys and therefore sways the will. The will is free to move toward whatever it delights in most fully, but it is not within the power of our will to determine what that joy will be.
Therefore, Augustine concludes, “A man’s free-will, indeed, avails for nothing except to sin, if he knows not the way of truth; and even after his duty and his proper aim shall begin to become known to him, unless he also take delight in and feel a love for it, he neither does his duty, nor sets about it, nor lives rightly. Now, in order that such a course may engage our affections, God’s ‘love is shed abroad in our hearts’ not through the free-will which arises from ourselves, but ‘through the Holy Ghost, which is given to us’ [Romans 5:5].”
[credits to John Piper: God's Passion for His Glory]