Raising Lazarus

Here’s another objection to the viewpoint of “total depravity”: in every time period, there are people who have lived virtuous lives. You shouldn’t pay attention to the small indiscretions in their character. Their overall conduct demonstrates they had a pure nature. (I’ll treat the value of these kinds of virtues in the sight of God…

The Bible severely condemns the human heart, describing it as "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9). One another passage stands out among the rest when describing human nature. The apostle Paul writes: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they…

The best way to understand human nature is by paying attention to how Scripture describes it. People are poor, miserable creatures as described by the words of Jesus, “That which is born of flesh is flesh” (John 3:6). The apostle Paul declares, “For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set…

Some Christians have taught that God’s grace enables our ability to choose and yet have also implied that human beings have the power in themselves to desire moral goodness, although they don’t have the full power to put it into practice. The church father, Origin, and others held this view. Origin would argue that the…

We now need to discuss the issue of free will. The most crucial question we need to answer is whether the power of choice resides with the human will or the human intellect. Many philosophers have taught that since humans naturally desire “the good,” their will must be “good” too. But that is not necessarily…

We have already pointed out Plato’s mistake of assigning all sin to ignorance. We also repudiate the belief that all sin occurs through deliberate forethought and intentionality. All of us know too well from experience how we often mess things up even when our intention was good. Our reasoning ability is filled with so many…

When you hear people making universal judgments about good and evil, you must not believe that this judgment is correct in every respect. Even though people have a sense of justice and injustice inscribed on their heart, it doesn’t mean that they are able to discern the truth in particular cases. People can’t even avoid…

The 4th-century Greek philosopher, Themistius, is more accurate than Plato in in teaching that the human mind is usually correct at discerning general principles, but not very good at applying it to particular circumstances. For example, no one would deny that murder is evil, yet people still conspire to kill others. Unfaithful spouses will condemn…

The third branch of spiritual knowledge is how to properly regulate behavior. We could also call this knowledge, “how to perform righteous works.” The human mind seems to have a little more discernment in how to this than the other two branches of spiritual knowledge (knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves). The apostle Paul…

God gives people wisdom and understanding into spiritual things; they do not have within themselves. As the Paul writes in Ephesians 1:17, “May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, grant to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation.” All wisdom and revelation of divine things is a gift from God.…