Depravity? Nay!

[PuerAzaelis]

Temptation and sin are two different things. At least one large branch of Classical Protestantism puts sin INSIDE human nature, instead of the passions which are sinful when not controlled in the manner Christ controlled them. Most evangelical Protestants refer to it as a "sin nature", which is highly misleading, giving the impression that sin is part of human nature, and not something that plagues human nature

Ok but placing depraved nature "outside" is not necessary to your argument, in fact it hurts it.

Premise 1: Christ was fully God and also fully human.
Premise 2: Christ was tempted by his human nature, that is, "as we are".
Premise 3: Christ resisted temptation solely by his human nature.
Conclusion: Human nature cannot be totally depraved, but only partially depraved.

PS: It seems this argument fails on the third premise. Just because Christ was tested "as we are" it does not necessarily follow that he resisted temptation solely by his human nature.

 

[PuerAzaelis]

The premise that Christ is human is false. He is not human only but also God. The God-man.

The additional premise is that Christ was tempted "in the same way" human beings are.

But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it;
James 1:14

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 4:15

 

[smithed64]

Ok but placing depraved nature "outside" is not necessary to your argument, in fact it hurts it.

Premise 1: Christ was fully God and also fully human.
Premise 2: Christ was tempted by his human nature.
Premise 3: Christ resisted temptation solely by his human nature.
Conclusion: Human nature cannot be totally depraved, but only partially depraved.

You logic is flawed. You forgot two very important premises.

Premise 4: Christ was the Son of Man..yet he had no sin.
Premise 5: We are conceived in sin and have iniquity born in us.

Because He wasn't created thru Human nature, He was already here, He's the Word made flesh. He was not conceived in sin, as we are. So mankind is depraved. Fully. Until we repent of our sins and place our trust in Christ.

 

[PuerAzaelis]

Premise 4: Christ was the Son of Man..yet he had no sin.

How do you read Hebrews 4:15?

PS: Part of the problem here is that we are conflating two uses of "sin", one i) as a disposition to submit to temptation, the other ii) as a choice to submit.

For temptation to retain its definition, there has to be at least i), a disposition to submit to it. Otherwise the situation can't really be described as "temptation" at all.

If you show grass to a lion, it won't even think about whether it should eat it.

Consequently it's hard to imagine a lion being able to "suffer" by being presented with grass, let alone "sympathize with the infirmities" of deer or be able to give "succour" to them.

PPS:

For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.
Hebrews 2:18

PPPS:

Hebrews 4:15 doesn't say that he sympathized with us because he saw us suffer as a result of our disposition to be tempted and our choice to submit. It says he "was tempted as we are" (i.e. suffered as a result of a disposition to be tempted) - but was able to choose not to submit (i.e. "yet without sin"). I don't see how there's any other way to make that verse make sense.

Like I said before, however, that doesn't mean that his choice not to submit came solely from his human nature.

 

[PuerAzaelis]

Dupe.

 

[sculleywr]

So many words, did you refute a single point that I made? Jesus had a dual nature, God in spirit and man in his flesh. I never said Jesus was not fully human in his flesh. This is exactly what Heb 2:14 says:

14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—​

As to what "human nature" is, as opposed to a spiritual nature, it is not something with a good common understanding. That is why I used sinful nature and defined it. As to the philosophical debate of which directs our actions more, our flesh or our spirit; it depends on where each places his importance. You seem to think the flesh/human nature to be the dominate source that guides our choices. I think the spirit to be dominate.


As to your thoughts on temptation, you should be careful to develop a doctrine on two verses of James. Further note James 1:13 says God can not even be tempted by evil. Do you think Jesus was not God? Take scripture in context and read it together with what the rest of scripture says. James 1 is not a doctrinal essay on the mechanics of temptation. It merely speaks of the process of how people fall into sin. It says evil desires lead to sin. Jesus said evil thoughts are just as much sin. So much for your argument that Jesus had the same evil desires that we have, only he did not act on them, therefore he was never guilty of sinning.

Look to the bulk of other scripture to learn that sin requires a temptation and since God does not tempt, Satan fills that job. Look to Genesis 3:6 to see that Eve did not even desire the fruit of the tree of knowledge until Satan deceived her. Look to the temptations of Jesus explicitly listed in scripture as being done by Satan himself. Look to the angels in heaven, they do not sin anymore. Maybe because Satan was thrown out of heaven at the fall. Look to the next age where there will be no sin, maybe because Satan will be in the lake of burning sulfur.


Your idea that temptation requires an evil desire doesn't fit very well with two of the three temptations explicitly listed for Jesus. First temptation, I give you that after fasting for 40 days, Jesus' humanity/flesh was hungry. To say that he had an evil desire to feed himself, I don't think so. Temptation two, Jesus had an evil desire to throw himself down to the ground, NOT. Temptation three, Jesus had an evil desire to rule the world, NOT, besides God already gave that to him.

As to your quote of Hebrews 4:15 and thinking that Jesus was tempted like us in every way, Not. I don't think Jesus had gay desires and was tempted to sodomy, so I think your literal interpretation needs an adjustment.


Since you take to such a legalistic reading of these words, I will test you. Did Jesus redeem women? He certainly did not assume to be a woman. So where do you draw the line when talking about Jesus' nature, being both God and man? You seem to dismiss his being God along with his spiritual nature. Understand that we all are the joining of flesh and spirit. How much our decisions are based on our heart, mind and soul is a mind game. How much Jesus was like us being driven by desires of the flesh vs. desires of the spirit is also a mind game. It is not even important to the concept that God sent his Son to die for us and redeem us. Is there even some law that said God had to come as a human to redeem us? No, scripture says he did this so that we know his compassion is true.

The problem is that it is not just two verses in James. Temptation is most thoroughly described there, but the description fits whether you use Psalms 1, or literally any other passage on temptation. If Jesus was "tempted in every way like we were" as Hebrews says, then His temptation HAD to arise from His human nature. Scripture declares Jesus was tempted. That's a plain and clear fact. The difference between Jesus and us, as far as humanity is concerned, is that while He controlled His passions, we let our passions control us.

And yes, it is important how much Christ is like us. That's the whole thing that makes the Incarnation unique among religions. God became man so that we might become like Him. Jesus proves that a relationship between the human nature and the divine can exist by being the relationship in Himself.If He didn't have a full human nature, then it is not true that we can have a relationship with God, because that wasn't really a human nature submitting to the divine, but some other nature altogether. Jesus might as well have been a Kryptonian for all it mattered.

 

[sculleywr]

Ummm, ok. It's a virus? Then it's a really sucky one considering you have to die to get rid of it.

Many viruses are that way. I'm never going to be rid of my Ulcerative Colitis in this life. But here's a question: if there had never been the ancestral sin, would there be viruses and illnesses? Death is the consequence of sin. It is the final symptom, but it was defeated by Christ in the Crucifixion, where He, to quote my favorite Paschal hymn, "trampled down Death by Death". No longer does man have to die to be free from sin, because Christ has promised us real righteousness.

 

[sculleywr]

Ummm, ok. You keep believing that lie. Toodles.

So Hebrews 4:22 is a lie. Good to know. I'll just go burn my copy of the book of Hebrews.

 

[sculleywr]

I would disagree that Christ "earned" His righteousness. He was already perfectly righteous. He demonstrated His righteousness.



And that would be a misrepresentation of Protestantism, and through implication, Reformed Theology.

Not really misrepresentation. That's what imputation means. Imputed righteousness is just saying you are righteous, without going through the process of making you so. That is what the word means. It's not my fault that Protestants invented the doctrine of imputed righteousness.

 

[sculleywr]

Ok but placing depraved nature "outside" is not necessary to your argument, in fact it hurts it.

Premise 1: Christ was fully God and also fully human.
Premise 2: Christ was tempted by his human nature, that is, "as we are".
Premise 3: Christ resisted temptation solely by his human nature.
Conclusion: Human nature cannot be totally depraved, but only partially depraved.

PS: It seems this argument fails on the third premise. Just because Christ was tested "as we are" it does not necessarily follow that he resisted temptation solely by his human nature.

The problem is that then we must say that Adam was created partially depraved.

And the third premise holds for the same reason that a person on steroids is not really being tested the same as other athletes in the Olympics. If you're taking a performance enhancing drug, then you're not really on the same playing field as the others. If Christ did not resist through His human nature, He was not tempted like we are, because He had tools we did not. Christ voluntarily relinquished some of His powers. Think of this, God cannot die, but Jesus died.

 

[AnticipateHisComing]

If He didn't have a full human nature, then it is not true that we can have a relationship with God, because that wasn't really a human nature submitting to the divine, but some other nature altogether. Jesus might as well have been a Kryptonian for all it mattered.

By your logic, man could not and did not have a relationship with God before Jesus was born. You keep insisting in some law necessitating that Jesus have a "full human nature". What you think a "full human nature" means is not even in scripture. I already pointed out how scripture defines Jesus' humanity as being his flesh as stated in Hebrews 2:14.

 

[sculleywr]

By your logic, man could not and did not have a relationship with God before Jesus was born. You keep insisting in some law necessitating that Jesus have a "full human nature". What you think a "full human nature" means is not even in scripture. I already pointed out how scripture defines Jesus' humanity as being his flesh as stated in Hebrews 2:14.

Not a full relationship with God. Before Christ, there was always a divide between man and God that could not be bridged. And I insist on this because it is the ancient understanding of these verses. The semi-Gnostic, semi-Monophysite view you're saying is true is not something that the Apostles taught. It doesn't even show up until the Protestants showed up. Fully God and fully man means FULLY.

 

[PuerAzaelis]

If you're taking a performance enhancing drug, then you're not really on the same playing field as the others. If Christ did not resist through His human nature, He was not tempted like we are, because He had tools we did not. Christ voluntarily relinquished some of His powers. Think of this, God cannot die, but Jesus died.

Yes, ok. Another good picture.

 

[AnticipateHisComing]

Not a full relationship with God. Before Christ, there was always a divide between man and God that could not be bridged.

So you insist, with no scripture to support the claim that man could not have a relationship with God before Jesus came. Qualify it all you want with full, it is just an admission of being wrong. You ignore the "perfect" man created by God that had such a relationship that they walked together. You ignore Enoch who walked with God and was taken to heaven without dying. Same for Elijah. You ignore the totality of Hebrews 11 and its commending the faith of many that came before Jesus. You fail to understand the meaning of Jesus saying "I am the good shepherd", a job he has been doing since time began, well before he came as the man Jesus. For the eternal Son of God, what do you think he did all those years before and after the 33 that he lived on this earth?

And I insist on this because it is the ancient understanding of these verses.

What verses are these? The only Bible translation that has fully in Hebrews 2:17 is the NIV and variants of it. Since when did the EO become so found of that Bible?

The semi-Gnostic, semi-Monophysite view you're saying is true is not something that the Apostles taught.

Let me see, you ignore practically all of my arguments, but think you can label my comments, of course you again qualify. I could say your posts are semi-correct. That would be true even if only 0.001% of what you said was true.

It doesn't even show up until the Protestants showed up.

How many years before the Catholics formalized their ridiculous doctrine of immaculate conception? That was hundreds of years after the Protestants had enough of government ruled religion.

Fully God and fully man means FULLY.

Please define fully. Putting it in all CAPS does not mean anything. Does fully mean 100%? I can say I am fully human because my father and mother were human. I am 100% human. You ignored my arguments that Jesus was not just like us because he had a human mother, but the "father" was the Holy Spirit. This conception did not create a new soul for the soul of the Son of God is eternal. Read the KJV Bible to learn the difference between beget and conceive. Women conceive, animals conceive, but only men beget. The Bible says Jesus is begotten of God, not man. It says Mary conceived, which means the forming of flesh, not spirit/soul. Further Hebrews says Jesus was made lower by taking on flesh. So while he was still God, he was not God in his fullest state of glory.

Jesus had a dual nature, both God and man. His God nature was not as full as in heaven. His human nature, meant as Hebrews 2:14 says exactly was to have flesh and blood. It says nothing of his mind/soul/spirit.

 

[TaylorSexton]

If you believe human nature is sinful, then you believe Christ is NOT human, because He does not have a human nature.

No orthodox Protestant says or has said that human nature is sinful. Christ has a fully human nature, but humanity by nature (i.e., as it was created) is not sinful. In fact, because of this, I would argue the exact opposite. It is only Christ who on this side of redemption was truly and fully human, in that he had no sin. In a very real sense, we can say that none of are truly human until we have our glorified bodies.

No; no orthodox Protestant has ever said that human nature is sinful; but they have said repeatedly that fallen humanity is by nature sinful and depraved. Paul agrees when he says, "We were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind" (Eph. 2:3). The problem is that, yes, we believe Christ is fully human, but not only that, he is fully God. In other words, he is no ordinary man.

 

[TaylorSexton]

Think of this, God cannot die, but Jesus died.

Jesus' human nature died. God, who Jesus is, cannot die.

 

[sculleywr]

So you insist, with no scripture to support the claim that man could not have a relationship with God before Jesus came. Qualify it all you want with full, it is just an admission of being wrong. You ignore the "perfect" man created by God that had such a relationship that they walked together. You ignore Enoch who walked with God and was taken to heaven without dying. Same for Elijah. You ignore the totality of Hebrews 11 and its commending the faith of many that came before Jesus. You fail to understand the meaning of Jesus saying "I am the good shepherd", a job he has been doing since time began, well before he came as the man Jesus. For the eternal Son of God, what do you think he did all those years before and after the 33 that he lived on this earth?

What verses are these? The only Bible translation that has fully in Hebrews 2:17 is the NIV and variants of it. Since when did the EO become so found of that Bible?

Let me see, you ignore practically all of my arguments, but think you can label my comments, of course you again qualify. I could say your posts are semi-correct. That would be true even if only 0.001% of what you said was true.

How many years before the Catholics formalized their ridiculous doctrine of immaculate conception? That was hundreds of years after the Protestants had enough of government ruled religion.

Please define fully. Putting it in all CAPS does not mean anything. Does fully mean 100%? I can say I am fully human because my father and mother were human. I am 100% human. You ignored my arguments that Jesus was not just like us because he had a human mother, but the "father" was the Holy Spirit. This conception did not create a new soul for the soul of the Son of God is eternal. Read the KJV Bible to learn the difference between beget and conceive. Women conceive, animals conceive, but only men beget. The Bible says Jesus is begotten of God, not man. It says Mary conceived, which means the forming of flesh, not spirit/soul. Further Hebrews says Jesus was made lower by taking on flesh. So while he was still God, he was not God in his fullest state of glory.

Jesus had a dual nature, both God and man. His God nature was not as full as in heaven. His human nature, meant as Hebrews 2:14 says exactly was to have flesh and blood. It says nothing of his mind/soul/spirit.

How could man have a relationship to God when God had not come to man. We can know God because Christ came to us. "No man has seen God" changed because God came to us as something we could see.

And if Christ did not have a human soul, then He did not have the evil desires from which temptations arise, and was therefore not tempted in every way like us. The fact that He had a human soul and will is evidenced in His request at Gesthemene, or in His weeping at Lazarus's tomb, or in His ability to comprehend and empathize with man.

Think of this, the whole reason a sociopath does not act like those of us who are "normal" is because he cannot comprehend what it means to have the full range of emotions. If Christ could not experience the desire to have sex, which comes from the HUMAN nature, then He could not be tempted to lust, and therefore cannot be touched by our infirmity, as Hebrews very clearly says.

Overall, saying Christ doesn't have a human soul and will is saying He cannot be touched by ALL of our infirmities. Is it not telling that the author of Hebrews doesn't refer to physical infirmities when he wrote that down? Why does he speak of temptation as an infirmity that Christ was subject to?

Because Christ had a human will. No will means no temptation, because the will is the source of that temptation. Temptation is not external. It is internal

 

[sculleywr]

Jesus' human nature died. God, who Jesus is, cannot die.

Yes, but it's still a very apparent contradiction. Jesus is God. Jesus died. Therefore God died. It's very obviously a paradox, but the Church has lived with paradox. Christ says the Bread and Wine are the Body and Blood. We don't try to explain how or investigate how. We accept Christ's words as true and simply say that if it were meant for us to understand how, then it would have been revealed to us. But since God did not reveal it to us, we do not need to understand the how. We only know that the Eucharist is the Body and the Blood. It doesn't have to be physical to be true. The Father isn't physical. I'd like to see someone say He isn't true.

 

[sculleywr]

No orthodox Protestant says or has said that human nature is sinful. Christ has a fully human nature, but humanity by nature (i.e., as it was created) is not sinful. In fact, because of this, I would argue the exact opposite. It is only Christ who on this side of redemption was truly and fully human, in that he had no sin. In a very real sense, we can say that none of are truly human until we have our glorified bodies.

No; no orthodox Protestant has ever said that human nature is sinful; but they have said repeatedly that fallen humanity is by nature sinful and depraved. Paul agrees when he says, "We were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind" (Eph. 2:3). The problem is that, yes, we believe Christ is fully human, but not only that, he is fully God. In other words, he is no ordinary man.

You're obviously not aware of the quotes of Calvin in relation to human nature. Calling us dung and other fun things that aren't exactly savory.

The problem is that when we make it NATURE, specifically the Physis, since there were multiple Greek words for nature, if Christ did not have it, then He did not get tempted like we are. Timothy describes how temptation occurs. It comes from within. So if Christ was tempted in every way like we are, then what within Him was He tempted by? Without the "fallen human nature", Christ wasn't tempted like we are.

See, the problem is not nature, but maturity. Think of this. If we lined up the seven "Deadly Sins", which we Orthodox call the Passions, you can find an appropriate expression of the extreme found in the sin:

1. Anger is sinful when it is out of control rage or directed at things not deserving of anger. But Christ tossed tables around in the temple and David got righteously angry at the man described in Nathan's parable. The anger itself was not sinful. It was the control of the anger that is sinful.

2. Sexual desire is sinful when it is allowed to control your life. But "the marriage bed is never defiled". Sure, you can still sin sexually with your wife, such as by ignoring "no" or by thinking of sex with your wife when you should be, for example, praying and worshiping God in Church.

3. Desire to eat is sinful when it is dialed up to gluttony or "gormandizing" (I like the word).

Essentially, literally every Deadly Sin is caused by letting a basic desire that we are created with become out of control. We did not gain the ability to sin from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We simply gained the knowledge of how to take our passions and overemphasize them. Before the tree, we were like an 11 year old who has never had the talk or heard talk about sex. But when we ate from the tree, it was like what happens if a malicious virus gets on the computer the innocent 11 year old girl is using and starts popping up inappropriate contentographic material. She was already fully equipped to perform the lustful actions before the virus. But now that ability is paired with a knowledge of how to use that ability. Nothing changed about her nature. What changed was her knowledge. And knowledge is not passed genetically. This is why the Scripture is specific to call it the tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil, and not the tree of good and evil. Nature is passed sexually. Knowledge is passed experientially. Now, knowledge can also be passed "Epigenetically". But epigenetics, which is CLOSE to nature, is not the same as nature. A rat who is exposed to a shock every time it hears a high pitch noise will grow to fear the noise. Remove the shock and the rat will still respond in fear. What's more, though, its children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will all ALSO respond with fear. But if you remove the DNA from a rat cell and implant it into an egg to grow into another rat, that rat will not have the fear response. So it isn't genetic.

Sin is the same way. It's something outside of our nature that, nonetheless, effects how our nature is expressed.

Now, since the Church didn't have the doctrine of Scriptural Inerrancy or Sola Scriptura at the Council of Chalcedon, they had no problem with saying that the word in Romans fell short of expressing the truth. Possibly that is the result of the limits of the language, because every language, even Greek, has limits. I stand by their decision in saying that Christ had a human nature, and that the "sin nature" is something outside that effects humanity.

Depending on your level of biology knowledge, I could fully flesh out this metaphor, because I am a microbiology graduate, and though I'm not using the degree to drive buses around, the knowledge has proven very useful in developing mnemonics and explanations that make sense to my very convoluted mind. But I would need to know your knowledge base of cellular biology to make it make sense. I can explain it at any level, but at some point the explanation becomes too verbose for even me.

 

[TaylorSexton]

Yes, but it's still a very apparent contradiction. Jesus is God. Jesus died. Therefore God died.

No, Jesus' human nature died. God, who Jesus is, cannot die.

Christ says the Bread and Wine are the Body and Blood.

A metaphor, of course.

You're obviously not aware of the quotes of Calvin in relation to human nature. Calling us dung and other fun things that aren't exactly savory.

Yes, he is talking about our fallen human nature. You are not reading what I am saying. I say no orthodox Protestant has ever said that human nature is sinful, and you rebut by talking about how Calvin talks about fallen human nature. That does make sense.

...if Christ did not have it, then He did not get tempted like we are.

That's not true. Eve had an unfallen human nature and she was tempted in a very real way.

Without the "fallen human nature", Christ wasn't tempted like we are.

That's not true. Again, Eve had an unfallen human nature, and her temptation was real. Temptation is therefore not a part of only fallen human nature.

It's something outside of our nature that, nonetheless, effects how our nature is expressed.

Not according to Paul. He says that we are by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3).

I stand by their decision in saying that Christ had a human nature.

So do I. Can you provide evidence that those of Chalcedon did not believe human nature to be depraved? Merely saying they didn't won't work. Also, can you prove that they didn't hold to the highest view of Scripture? Again, merely saying so won't work. That's not good historical scholarship.

...the "sin nature" is something outside that effects humanity.

Scripture?

Depending on your level of biology knowledge, I could fully flesh out this metaphor, because I am a microbiology graduate, and though I'm not using the degree to drive buses around, the knowledge has proven very useful in developing mnemonics and explanations that make sense to my very convoluted mind. But I would need to know your knowledge base of cellular biology to make it make sense. I can explain it at any level, but at some point the explanation becomes too verbose for even me.

Of course, as someone who believes what God has plainly says in his Word regarding fallen humanity, biology has no bearing whatsoever on what I believe regarding this. Unless a claim can be proven by Scripture, it is not true. You have made several claims here that are pure conjecture, not presenting even a shred of biblical evidence.