Though I should expect nothing from my reader, I would nonetheless like to make one request – please approach my article in good faith, as I am treading novel ground. While not my first attempt at articulating a reasoned theological position within the context of the Reformed Tradition, my analyses and arguments will, for the foreseeable future, be those of an amateur; but, they will also be those of a person of faith who is seeking understanding. Reader beware, perhaps I should say.
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Sin is committed by everyone and at all times. That will always be the case, and man would do well by himself if he were to recognize that reality and to shape his life accordingly. Sin cannot be overcome by man, yet it is frequently the case that sin seems to overcome man. Yet by articulating this truth, I am not arguing for moral laxity or resigned despair. I am reasserting the Christian duty of each person, myself included, to engage in a battle that is as old as mankind, as arduous as any task that could ever be undertaken, and as indispensable as Divine grace for the salvation of one’s eternal Soul. I mean the battle against faithlessness and the courage to accept God’s sovereignty.
One of the keenest insights possessed by persons of faith – whom I will define as rational (mono)theists who have chosen to follow a particular religion, whether Christianity or not – is that man’s fallen nature is attributable to a specific event, wrought by the first human beings, which can never be undone. Certainly, simple theists (and possibly freethinking atheists) would seem to acknowledge, from their own empirical experiences, that something is fallen about our nature, but they are unaware of a sufficient explanation – they have an understanding that universal unity necessitates an omniscient Creator, in comparison to whose greatness human beings are vile creatures, but they are rather weak on the details.
Persons of faith, on the contrary, are able to account for why this is the case. Specifically, in Christian doctrine, Original Sin is the justification for such a fallen nature. The Bible reads:
Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. ((Genesis 3:22-24))
Original Sin was the metaphorical foot in the door, which ushered into the world pain, suffering, work, personal sin, and death. Moreover, this felix culpa ((“fortunate fall”)) resulted in man’s knowledge of good and evil, and the mental anguish which naturally accompanies a rational being’s knowledge that his definable, material body will one day come to an end. The diverse effects of the Fall of Man are adequately captured in the following sung line, traditionally a part of the Christian Easter Vigil: “O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem.” ((“O happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer”))
With sin in the world, an indelible mark had been left. The world could never be perfect again; a lesson to be gleaned from this reality is that man should regard with suspicion any person who would claim otherwise. For the antithesis of God, Satan, lurks everywhere—that is not saidwith the intention of emanating a paranoiac mentality, but rather to evince that the temptation to turn away from God and Nature eternally exists, until the very last Soul be saved—and his seductive, sophistic appeals have succeeded far too often in leading the Saved astray, or, infinitely worse, to regard Divine salvation as either nonexistent or as inconsequential.
But, as was hinted with the reference to the felix culpa, the tragedy of sin need not leave man without hope or without a feeling of potency. The presence of sin should not be construed to mean that man is eternally destined to torment or that he is without any means of personal rectification. In many ways, the Fall of Man should be lauded for its consequences in practice, although it indubitably merits sharp condemnation due to the intentions which brought it into existence. Man’s practical ownership—though not theoretical ownership, it must emphatically be stressed—of his Soul is now possible, as the decision is now his to accept or to reject God; to follow or to deviate from the law of Nature; to turn outward toward God or to turn inward toward himself.
I have endured much intellectual distress of late concerning the idea of Divine grace, its irresistibility, and its relation to whether man is justified by his adherence to faith in Christ. Is grace bestowed by God without regard to individual belief and effort, perhaps only to a predestined Elect? If grace is irresistible to the individual person, would He bestow it without one’s having merited the grace, possibly through faith, in the first place? What role, if any, does “merit” have in this theological inquiry? The questions are boundless, and fittingly so because God’s wisdom is likewise bound less. Yet a rough outline of a sound Reformed approach to these pressing concerns can be given.
In keeping with the previous contention that sin grips each and every person, from the moment of conception to the moment of salvation, it is therefore the case that man’s original unity with God has been irreparably shattered, in the sense that only the Divine can repair what has been tarred. God, He Who is, alone possesses the sovereignty that is necessary to reincorporate errant men, for it is His Kingdom—defined as a spiritual unity, as opposed to a physical dominion—into which such men are to return.
But there do seem to be conditions for how one acquires acceptability to God. As Christ teaches:
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ((Matthew7:7-8))
Christ, I believe, was communicating to man that faith ((The amalgamation of belief and the proof of belief via good works)) must be evidenced before grace would be bestowed. A true request of salvation will demonstrate one’s unshakeable faith in the saving power of Christ and in the Resurrection’s conquering of sin and death. Man still has his part in the redemption of his Soul, although he never actually saves himself. He merely justifies himself before God, through faith; and upon such justification God grants grace, as it is in His nature, we are told, to save the sinner who has sought forgiveness. Yet, the crucial theological argument for God’s sovereignty still stands – that is, God’s eternal omnipotence over the universe logically remains despite man’s participation in his own salvation. God, with his infinite wisdom, has established the grounds for salvation; He grants a reprieve from vile temporality, and its agonizing uncertainty, to those who have met said grounds. Practical personal sovereignty and theoretical Divine sovereignty are, therefore, entirely reconcilable.
Merit, per this argument, does not achieve salvation. God must still grant grace to and save, through His own willful action, the justified person, irrespective of how ostensibly “good’ that individual person may be. God reigns over all Souls, and no one can escape His penetrating love. The only question is, When will each person—at some time in this material life, or at some time in the pre-Heaven post-material Afterlife—submit to God and demonstrate through faith that he desires irresistible grace?
Grace, it has been said, is that which a person receives without deserving it; the framework explicated here, with regard to the purpose of and disposal of grace, does not contradict that helpful aphorism. As was mentioned in the beginning, sin is committed by everyone and at all times, as a consequence of our inheritance from the Fall of Man. But, with the maintenance of and dedication to faith, irresistible grace from God may cleanse each person of the filth that is sin, and likewise grant to each the gift of eternal life with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus, I urge all not to despair, but to go and serve God—for eternal life awaits.