William Burt Pope: PERSONAL HUMAN AGENCY: FREE WILL

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PERSONAL HUMAN AGENCY: FREE WILL

The prevenient grace of the Spirit is exercised on the natural man: that is, on man as the Fall has left him. As the object of that grace man is a personality free and responsible, by the evidence of consciousness and conscience. As fallen he is throughout all his faculties enslaved to sin; but knows that sin is foreign to his original nature, and that the slavery is not hopeless nor of necessity. His will is still the originating power or principle of self-determination, under the influence of motives originated in the understanding and feeling, but capable of controlling those motives. And his whole nature, as fallen, whether regarded as intellect, sensibility or will, is under some measure of the influence of the Holy Spirit, the firstfruits of the gift of redemption.

These several propositions are in themselves clear and simple and true. They are in harmony with all sound psychology; with common sense; and with the tenour and tendency of all Scripture. Their difficulty is felt only in relation to the theological speculations which have been connected with the influence of the Holy Spirit, and the metaphysical speculations with which the doctrine of election has surrounded them.
1. Prevenient grace is exercised on the personality of man, free and accountable: not upon any particular element of his nature, but upon himself. That personality is the Suppositum Intelligens, the responsible author of all that he does: not his will, nor his feeling, nor his intellect; but the hidden man, the αὐτὸς ἐγώ, the central substantial person who is behind and beneath all his affections and attributes. That influence of the Spirit, directly or through the Word, is exercised upon the agent whom St. Paul describes as the active I or the passive Me of every religious feeling that precedes regeneration.
2. The person or personality of the natural or unregenerate man is free, inasmuch as no power from without controls his will. It is the very nature of will to originate volition: otherwise, if constrained, will is no more will; the possessor of it is not accountable; and volition is only a misnomer for the obedience, only in appearance spontaneous, to a natural or physical law. Consciousness and conscience alike attest that the sinner—for of the sinner we are now speaking—is free and responsible: his consciousness in its first elements is that of a free agent; and his conscience, or MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS, asserts his responsibility, not only for actions but for words and thoughts and the whole posture of the mind.
3. Again, that person is bound and enslaved to sin. Naturally the bias to evil and the aversion from the moral law are so universal that, even apart from New-Testament teaching, common consent allows that human nature is bound to what is wrong: so bound that none can escape without a direct Divine intervention; and bound so universally in actual experience as to warrant the induction that none will ever be born without it. In the case of actual transgressors, the effect of habit invariably both proves the original innate bondage and deepens its strength.
4. But the slavery is not absolute. It is conscious slavery, and not submitted to without reluctance. It is not so much a fetter on the will itself, as the ascendency of a sinful bias over the motives that actuate the conduct by governing the will: the feelings and desires of the affection, and the thoughts of the mind. The will is not bound; but the understanding which guides it is darkened, and the affection which prompts its exercise is corrupted by sense. Now here comes in the doctrine of Prevenient Grace. It is not needed to restore to the faculty of will its power of originating action: that has never been lost. But it is needed to suggest to the intellect the truth on which religion rests, and to sway the affections of hope and fear by enlisting the heart on the side of that truth."


William Burt Pope, A Compendium of Christian Theology: Being Analytical Outlines of a Course of Theological Study, Biblical, Dogmatic, Historical, Volumes 1-3 (London: Beveridge and Co., 1879). 363-64.

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Education

Tags:

• Arminianism
• freewill
• Reformed Arminian
• Calvinism
• Moderate Calvinism