Calvinist Meaning of Corruption of Human Nature

[Joseph Hinkle]

I understand the reformed doctrine of total depravity to be that the human nature is such that it is utterly unable to choose to follow God. Another way I've heard it put is that men are by nature inclined to reject God.

Further, I've heard it said that the way human nature became like this was is that it was corrupted by the Fall.

So my question is, do we have the same human nature that Adam originally had before the Fall? Or do we have a different, corrupt human nature which is still yet similar to that uncorrupt human nature prior to the Fall?

 

[Tolworth John]

I understand the reformed doctrine of total depravity to be that the human nature is such that it is utterly unable to choose to follow God. Another way I've heard it put is that men are by nature inclined to reject God.

Further, I've heard it said that the way human nature became like this was is that it was corrupted by the Fall.

So my question is, do we have the same human nature that Adam originally had before the Fall? Or do we have a different, corrupt human nature which is still yet similar to that uncorrupt human nature prior to the Fall?

Do you remember the lessons your parrents gave you, that taught you how to lie, to steal, to cheat, to be mean/spitful etc etc

Children do not get these lessons, rather parents spen a lot of time trying to stop their children doing these things.

As the bible says we all haved sinned.
As calvanist theology say man, babies are totaly depraved, not that a sweat little baby is a mass murderer already, but that there is nothing in its nature that will stop it if it so chooses.

 

[dreadnought]

I understand the reformed doctrine of total depravity to be that the human nature is such that it is utterly unable to choose to follow God. Another way I've heard it put is that men are by nature inclined to reject God.

Further, I've heard it said that the way human nature became like this was is that it was corrupted by the Fall.

So my question is, do we have the same human nature that Adam originally had before the Fall? Or do we have a different, corrupt human nature which is still yet similar to that uncorrupt human nature prior to the Fall?

There is no such thing as human nature. We make decisions. Sometimes we make the right ones and sometimes the wrong ones. When we stop making bad decisions we have paradise.

 

[Eloy Craft]

I understand the reformed doctrine of total depravity to be that the human nature is such that it is utterly unable to choose to follow God. Another way I've heard it put is that men are by nature inclined to reject God.

Further, I've heard it said that the way human nature became like this was is that it was corrupted by the Fall.

So my question is, do we have the same human nature that Adam originally had before the Fall? Or do we have a different, corrupt human nature which is still yet similar to that uncorrupt human nature prior to the Fall?

God created man naturally ordered to perfection. Sin disordered our nature. The perfectly ordered man was master of himself.

The order proper to man.

The intellectual powers of the soul (reason and will) ruled over the sensitive powers (flesh). The sensitive powers obeyed the intellect. The body (flesh) obeyed the will(intellect). This meant that Adam never experience involuntary movements of his body. Involuntary movements of the body are the reason he covered his loins after he sinned. The body informed the intellect of the change from Original Innocence and Justice to the state we are all in now.

The disorder caused by sin.

Now the intellect, home of our will, fights the sensitive powers of our soul. This is the law of sin in our members as Paul put it. This is human nature disordered by sin. The soul was not at war within it'self and human nature was ordered properly before the fall.

Proper to human nature is to be perfect and ordered towards becoming more perfect, by Grace, until we reach our natural end in God. Our true end in God was natural to being human before the fall and was Adam's human nature before he sinned.

Sin disordered Adam's soul and we aren't naturally human now in the same way we were naturally human before. Human nature is wounded by sin. Read below and Paul describes the rebellion of the sensitive powers of the soul against the rule of intellect.

The Inner Conflict
Romans 7 15-25
15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

What is the law of sin? If it feels good do it. This is the law that pleases our senses. The sensitive powers of the soul. Powers that originate in the organs of our body.

What is the law of God? Do what ought to be done. This is the true object of our will and perfects the powers of the intellect. Powers that do not originate in any organ of the body.

If this raises further question feel free to ask.

May God bless you through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

[sdowney717]

Before your born of God's Spirit, you are dead in your flesh.

5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’

Adam and Eve sinned and died. they died and were dead when they sinned, thay had become nothing but dust of the earth.
Does not mean that God was not merciful to Adam and Eve and made them alive who were dead afterwards. Everyone born sins, there is no human that has not sinned, Adam is the head and we have born his image in our flesh, even though we do not sin the same sin, but sin we do and that causes our death. Christ is also the head of His body, His church, in a spiritual manner and we will also bear His image.
God's Holy Spirit determines who God will make born of the Spirit, His Spirit by His choice, God's will.

8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

1 Corinthians 15:47-49 New King James Version (NKJV)
47 The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.

If all you are is dust, then your dead. Paul tells us believers in Christ will bear the image of the heavenly man, just as did Christ, as He was and is , so shall we also be, when we see Him we shall be like Him. So we are no longer just of the dust of the earth.

Example from Romans 8

5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

 

[DeaconDean]

In order to get a look at this topic, Arthur W. Pink writes concerning the "Human Will":

"In any treatise that proposes to deal with the human will, its nature and functions, respect should be had to the will in three different men, namely, unfallen Adam, the sinner, and the Lord Jesus Christ. In unfallen Adam the will was free, free in both directions, free toward good and free toward evil. Adam was created in a state of innocency, but not in a state of holiness, as is so often assumed and asserted. Adam’s will was therefore in a condition of moral equipoise: that is to say, in Adam there was no constraining bias in him toward either good or evil, and as such, Adam differed radically from all his descendants, as well as from “the Man Christ Jesus.” But with the sinner it is far otherwise. The sinner is born with a will that is not in a condition of moral equipoise, because in him there is a heart that is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked”, and this gives him a bias toward evil. So, too, with the Lord Jesus it was far otherwise: He also differed radically from unfallen Adam. The Lord Jesus Christ could not sin because he was “the Holy One of God.” Before he was born into this world it was said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” Luke 1:35. Speaking reverently then, we say, that the will of the Son of Man was not in a condition of moral equipoise, that is, capable of turning toward either good or evil. The will of the Lord Jesus was biased toward that which is good because, side by side with his sinless, holy, perfect humanity, was his eternal Deity. Now in contradistinction from the will of the Lord Jesus which was biased toward good, and Adam’s will which, before his fall, was in a condition of moral equipoise — capable of turning toward either good or evil — the sinner’s will is biased toward evil, and therefore is free in one direction only, namely, in the direction of evil. The sinner’s will is enslaved because it is in bondage to and is the servant of a depraved heart."

Source

How is this important?

Rule 1: This was not offered as an excuse to debate the issue of "free-will".

Rule 2: This shows us just how different Adam and Jesus were.

Now, there were no children born prior to Adam's sinning.

Therefore, when Adam sinned and was driven out of the Garden because of that, every child, boy or girl, has since been born with a "sin nature". If you don't accept that, then perhaps one should read Psa. 58:3.

God Bless

Till all are one.