The question of the difference between ought and can (with regard to man) is important, just as is the matter of relating the will of God to the manner of its expression.
There is no ought to with regard to God's behavior—whatever God wills for himself is right ethically, and aligns with God’s being and knowledge. If some evil is permitted to be done by some creature, the proper response by believers is to view it as allowed for the greater purpose of its ultimate frustration and destruction. "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good."
God defines that which is morally proper to do, because the creature is naturally subject to his Creator. Now here explanation is sought to account for the fact of human rebellion, man's defiance of the expressed will of God. The one explanation that aligns with Scripture’s description of divine providence is that God's imperatives do not consistently line up with God's indicatives prior to the final moment of history, when they line up perfectly.
The basic or descriptive mood of speech is the indicative. It the sort of speech one regularly encounters in narrative, whether in past, present—excluding the content of dialog. The future tense can also be in the indicative mood, where description is the purpose. Thus, the statement:"Jesus will be coming again," is indicative.
For example, "Even so, Come! Lord Jesus," is in the imperative mood. Carefully note the rather obvious contextual limits on this being a command believers issue to Christ. In Luther's words, "Nothing else is signified than that which ought to be done." Morality implies oughtness. To say that humans are responsible to God is to say that they ought to obey Him.
The statement by Luther may sound like it comes in the context of dealing with the argument that whatever Scripture commands (imperative mood) assumes the possibility of fulfillment. In other words, as the opening assertion argues by implication, ought implies can by logical or moral necessity. Such an argument assumes that God—either because of his knowledge or his moral character—never demands of anyone that which lies beyond their ability to perform. This argument reads this belief into the imperatives of Scripture.
But that's not a logical implication of the imperative mood at all. There is no "moral necessity" for God to limit his commands to that which men can naturally perform. The possibility that a creature might resent him for such a command is irrelevant; and resentment would only occur to the sinful creature anyway, while a believer would be only too willing to die in the attempt. Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
The notion that commands such as, "Look unto me, all you ends of the earth, and be saved," means that dead men can look to God apart from God’s making them alive, erroneously takes the theologically descriptive indicative (bound/captive/enslaved will) and subordinates it to philosophical presuppositions that
(1) men possess the power of contrary choice; and
(2) God deals with men "fairly"—God lowers the bar for men in their fallen condition, and doesn't ask as much from them as God asked of Adam and then of Jesus Christ.
Again, none of these humanistic assumptions are tethered to the imperative mood.
Human responsibility does not require neutrality of the will in order for the person to be morally accountable. Here is exactly where the Reformed and others differ. Others, argue that moral responsibility necessitates that the person is at a crossroads and can equally choose either option. We Reformed disagree.
What Scripture commands (imperative) indeed is what ought to be done. "He did/didn't," "he does/doesn't," "he will/won't," are all indicative expressions of the moving relation from "ought" to "is."
We note from Scripture that no man is neutral towards Christ, who said, He who is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30, and the logical converse, “He that is not against us is for us”, Mark 9:40). In turn, this means ”No man can serve two masters” (Matt. 6:24). A person cannot serve two and he cannot serve none. At any given moment, the will of man is serving God or serving sin. Therefore, moral neutrality is impossible. Like Dylan sang, You gotta serve somebody. It might be the Devil and it might be the Lord. But you gotta serve somebody.
In fact, non-neutrality is required from the very nature of moral responsibility, for to not to be for a certain moral law is to be against it. Therefore, the pretense that one can be morally neutral is an escape and a cover up of enmity to God. All men know that God exists and by nature are opposed to Him. They are not neutral, they are guilty. Hence, moral responsibility in man is synonymous with moral culpability. We are able to be guilty, and we are guilty.
Finally it is a mistake to suppose that the will is self-determining. The will is no more independent than it is neutral. The will may in turn affect other things, but the will is not itself self-determining. God alone is self-determining—it is self-evident if we carefully look at the will. A man chooses something for a reason, namely, because that something seemed like the best thing at the time. Thus, the will is internally affected by the mind. But the mind is in turn affected by the nature. Hence, and from Scripture, we see that a good nature produces good wills; a bad nature produces bad wills (Matt. 7:17). All men are born with a nature and all men always follows their nature. If a man follows a good nature he is praiseworthy; if a man follows a bad nature, he is blameworthy. This is responsibility.
The Reformed reject the notion that the human will must be totally free from all intervention in order to be responsible. Arminians and others argue that man must be totally free and independent. But, the Reformed reply, “Why? Who says this? Not God in Scripture. If anything, the very notion of independent wills is a symptom of sinful wills. Furthermore, the Reformed rightly observe, using reductio ad absurdum, that when human wills are sinful, the theory of Arminians and others can be used to defend the human will from punishment. For example, John was “free” to choose A or B. So if John is truly “free” either way, how can John be punished? Rather, the Reformed say that man is not “free” like the Arminians and others claim.
Moreover, the Reformed argue that the human will is not off-limits to God. The human will is not a holy of holies where God cannot tread.
God can and does intervene in the human will. Logically, if it can be shown from the Word of God that God does intervene in the human will, it follows that He can. And if God can, then God is sovereign and man is still responsible. Responsibility of man is not destroyed by Divine intervention. God is First Cause of all things. No one in Christendom disputes this. However, what is often overlooked, misunderstood, or even denied, is that God uses second causes. The point being, the human will is just a second cause which God uses. God does not destroy the human will, rather God uses the human will according to its nature. (<--an excusus on the matter appears here)No they do not. This is nothing but an erroneous assignment of a label, libertarian freedom to their affirmation that Adam was able to sin and able not to sin before the Fall. Adam was not unbounded by his nature, as libertarian free will ultimately entails, any more than God is unbounded by his nature. God created our first parents with the moral capacity to sin or not to sin before the Fall, and though their sin severely affected their wills it did not abolish them—unlike the regenerate, the unregenerate is not able to not sin.
Ought implies can…
I will grant that in some contexts, this principle does apply. At work I would operate under the assumption that the responsibilities of every worker should be a fair measure of their abilities, and their abilities should be related to their responsibilities. But this principle simply does not apply all the time. For example, only the baseball player at bat has the ability to drive home runs or to strike out. If the player at bat strikes out, losing the game, the whole team loses. Which situation here fits that of Adam when he fell into sin?
Was he the office worker who alone was fired for his failure? Or was he a player up to bat for the entire team who struck out? Hint: Romans 5:19.After Adam’s fall into sin, Adam no longer had the moral ability to meet his continuing moral obligation. Adam retained the moral ought but lost the moral can. And all his progeny inherited the same situation.
That was but one dimension of the death God had warned would result from sin. However, Adam did not, through his disobedience lose any of his moral responsibility to obey God. Just as squandering the family inheritance does not somehow automatically lessen financial obligations, so Adam's loss of original righteousness did not relieve him or his posterity of their obligation to obey God.
Scripture teaches that those who are accustomed to doing evil ought instead to do good. Scripture also teaches that those who are accustomed to doing evil can no more do good than the leopard can change his spots (Jeremiah 13:23). The axiom, “ought implies can” simply proves too much. Limiting its application to Gospel obedience is quite arbitrary. If ought implies can, then everybody has the moral ability to live a sinless life because living a sinless life is what everyone ought to do. The consistent application of this axiom leads to pure Pelagianism, the teaching that fallen man has the moral ability to save himself by living a morally perfect life. That just won’t do.
