Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
You said:

I understand that you believe in a sin nature from Adam and Greg does not, but the logical conclusion of what you are saying leads to the same path. You say we have the ability as unregenerate people to come to God.

Hold on there, back up that boat! I didn’t say that unregenerate people have the ability to come to God. I said that unregenerate people can seek God. These are two completely different things.

God cannot be found unless He allows Himself to be found. God has given the promise that He will be found under several circumstances. One circumstance is that the person seeks for God with their whole heart.

Deuteronomy 4:29 (NASB)
29 “…you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.

Seeking God and “coming to God” are not the same thing.

You have an interesting misunderstanding of my position as you said:

You say that we have the ability as unregenerate people to not sin. If this is true, then theoretically we could be sinless.

I didn’t say that unregenerate people have the “ability” to not sin. It is impossible for a person with a sin nature to never commit one sin. That is one of the reasons why Jesus had to be born without a sin nature.

What I did say was that unregenerate people have the ability to choose to not follow the temptation to sin. While the “old man” nature within us propels us into various levels of sinful behavior, this nature cannot force us to sin. We are left with the choice, but our “free will” is not completely free since the “old man” naturally tends toward rebellion. A person can fight the “old man” but never master this “old man nature” without the help of the Holy Spirit and even then we are fighting a battle that will never be won perfectly until the “old man” within this mortal body is put to death and we take on our new bodies with our perfect new nature made in the image of Christ.

If I am able to avoid sinful behaviour because of my free-will, this should apply to all sin, therefore theoretically I could avoid sin even though I have a sin nature.

Nope. It is not even possible. The “old man nature” is not an after thought of God’s but part of His Sovereign plan to make us all alike in need of Him.

Romans 11:32 (NASB)
32 For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.

Because all have one nature (the old man nature given to us through Adam) all are shut up in disobedience through our human nature. God did this by making sure that there was not even one single offspring of Adam that was conceived before the fall. All of us are shut up together in this nature for the purpose of making us all equally in need of a Savior and all equally in need of God’s mercy.

This then leads to the problem you pointed out with Greg that we then no longer need a saviour. I can’t see how you can worm your way out of that one.

I don’t need to worm my way out of anything since I affirm the Scriptures. Our “old man” nature has made sure that all of us are in the same hot water. All of us need a Savior and my view can never be twisted to say that we can be sinless and work our way to Heaven.

Either we will by nature always sin or we won’t, and we can keep God’s commandments. The view you are presenting doesn’t make sense.

Actually it is your view that doesn’t make sense. While I am saying that it is impossible for a person with a sin nature (old man nature) to stay sinless, it seems to me that you are saying that it is impossible for a person with a sin nature to fight a temptation. If that were true then there would be no faithful marriages and no truth could possibly be told by any unregenerate person. But this is obviously not true. is it?

You used the example of an adulterer. Problem is Jesus up’d the anti. Anyone who looks lustfully is committing adultery. Are you willing to say that we can fulfil this requirement by ourselves, without the intervening of the Holy Spirit.

What I am saying is that no unregenerate person is forced to commit adultery because of his/her sin nature. And some have even dealt successfully with lust. After all it helps to be an unregenerate person who is a eunuch 😉 However all of us are bound up in this common nature that brings rebellion out in us in one area or another (or in all areas!) We all need a Savior.

I agree that God gave us the abililty to make choices. God calls on us to follow him. The problem is that after the fall our nature was corrupted by sin. We by nature reject God by sinning from the moment we are born.

Nah. That is overstating your case. You may have sinned the first day you are born, but most babies are unable to break the 10 commandments until a little later.

I’m sure you can see Cheryl after having children, that we as parents have to teach our children how to be good. They will by nature be evil.

Nah again. Jesus said that even those who are by nature evil people, can also by nature do good things. Young children can just as easily reach out to comfort another child as they can smack the nonsense out of an irritating sibling. No one has to teach them how to comfort a hurting child or how to smack down a nuisance. Even babies can do good out of their human nature as they still have enough of the God-image within them to do good things. That image has not been destroyed.

You don’t teach a toddler how to lie, he/she will do it automatically.

Most toddlers will naturally lie, but some will not sin as easily in this area. Their weakness may be in another area even though they will all be bound under sin.

Thus our ‘free-will’ is totally corrupted.

If this was true, then Jesus did not tell us the truth when he said that evil people can do good. And they can do this good freely of their own free-will without coercion

We will always choose sin over God In our natures. This is why we need a saviour, we can’t do it by ourselves.

We don’t need a Savior “because we always choose sin over God”. We need a Savior because we are all sinners and without the price that Jesus paid on our behalf, we would be lost in our sin and alienated from God.

I am having trouble with my internet tonight so I am going to see if these comments go through and I will get to the rest as the connection allows me to.