Display of Arminianism
By John Owen
(Modern English)
In the previous chapter, we saw how the Arminians attempt to raise fallen humanity back up to the condition of innocence and holiness in which God originally created mankind. Yet because they cannot deny that we have lost much good and fallen into much evil through sin, they face a problem. Since we now lack what Adam once possessed and suffer corruption that did not belong to humanity at creation, someone must answer for that loss before the justice of God.
Unable to elevate fallen humanity to Adam's original condition, they attempt the opposite strategy: they bring Adam down to ours. They argue that our first parents, from the moment they were created, possessed essentially the same inward weakness and inclination toward sin that characterizes fallen humanity today.
I fear, however, that they will succeed no better than Mohammed in the famous story where he promised to call a mountain to himself. When the mountain failed to move despite all his commands, he replied, "If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, then Mohammed will go to the mountain," and walked toward it himself. Likewise, the Arminians cannot climb up to the mountain of innocence, nor can they bring that mountain down into the valley of sin where they now dwell.
Their first attempt has already been shown to be unsuccessful. Let us now consider their bold claim that God's pure and holy creatures, before any sin had entered the world, possessed the same inward corruption and disorder that we experience today.
I do not intend to enter into speculative discussions about Adam's original state. It is enough for me to affirm what God Himself declared concerning all His works: they were "very good." No evil, defect, or tendency toward evil proceeded directly from the hands of the all-wise and perfectly good Creator.
Therefore, mankind—the crowning work of God's creation and the highest earthly reflection of His glory—must have been free from every stain and defect. Adam possessed every perfection appropriate to his nature and condition. We must be careful not to attribute faults to Adam that would ultimately reflect upon the image of God in which he was created.
Nothing demonstrates more clearly how far human nature has fallen from its original condition than our natural tendency toward evil. Within us there is a constant inclination toward sin, a flesh that opposes what is good, a sinful desire that conceives, nourishes, and produces wickedness. Unregenerate humanity possesses a continual bent away from God and toward disobedience.
Because neither Scripture nor experience allows anyone honestly to deny this corruption of human nature, the Arminians try instead to minimize it. They argue that our present inclination toward evil is not substantially different from what Adam experienced before the fall.
But consider what this means. Did God create Adam with a tendency toward evil? Was a desire for forbidden things part of the glorious image of God?
Corvinus answers yes. He claims that by virtue of creation itself, man possessed an inclination toward what God's law forbade.
Yet this appears highly unjust. How could God give a law to a man and at the same time build into his nature a tendency to violate that law?
The Arminian reply is that man could not properly receive a law unless he first possessed a natural inclination toward what the law prohibited.
But why should this be true of human beings and not of angels?
Surely angels also received a law and a rule of obedience from God. Some angels obeyed that law and remained faithful, while others transgressed and fell. Were the holy angels created with an inborn inclination toward sin? Did God place within them a natural affection for what He forbade?
Only those willing to speculate beyond Scripture would dare charge such injustice upon the righteous Judge of all the earth.
Yet Arminius himself teaches that there was indeed an inclination toward sin in man before the fall, although not as strong as it is now.
Until now, Christians have generally understood original righteousness to mean that Adam's entire nature was upright and rightly ordered. His body was subject to his soul, his affections were governed by reason, and his mind and will possessed genuine holiness. Through this original righteousness, Adam was enabled to obey God and pursue the higher purpose for which he was created.
The Arminians reject this understanding. They claim that original righteousness was merely a restraint placed upon man's already-disordered desires—a kind of bridle to keep sinful inclinations under control. According to them, the faculties of the soul were never inherently holy. Indeed, some of their teachers explicitly state that no spiritual gifts were lost from the human will in the fall because no such gifts had ever been present.
The conclusion of this teaching is startling.
Man was created not merely weak and incapable of attaining his supernatural destiny by natural powers alone; he was also created with desires contrary to God's will and with an inborn inclination toward sin.
I will not here discuss how these same writers diminish the gifts Adam certainly possessed while attributing greater privileges to fallen humanity. For example, they deny that Adam possessed the ability to believe in Christ or assent to future divine revelation, yet they grant such power to all his descendants even after the fall.
According to this reasoning, Adam actually gained a greater supernatural privilege through his fall than he ever possessed in his original state. Such claims are absurd, and I will leave them aside for now.
Instead, let us see how Scripture refutes this error.
God created man in His own image (Genesis 1:27). Scripture also says that God made man upright (Ecclesiastes 7:29). Adam's nature was therefore fitted for obedience and holiness.
The original righteousness with which he was endowed was necessary for the purpose for which God created him. Every faculty of his soul possessed proper order and harmony. Through supernatural grace, those faculties were fully equipped to perform the duties God required.
This is what we mean by the innocence of our first parents.
Human nature was then inclined only toward good. It possessed every qualification necessary to please God and to fulfill His law under the promise of everlasting blessedness.
We must not imagine that nature and original righteousness existed in conflict with one another—as though nature leaned toward evil and righteousness merely restrained it. Rather, nature and grace worked together in perfect harmony, leading man in the path of obedience toward eternal happiness.
There was no warfare between flesh and spirit. Every part of man's being sought the same end: his highest good in God. He possessed all the means necessary to attain it.
There was no inclination toward sin, no sinful desire, no resistance to God's law in the original constitution of human nature.
This may be demonstrated in several ways.
When Scripture speaks of man's creation, it says that he was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and upright (Ecclesiastes 7:29). These descriptions exclude any natural tendency toward evil.
Moreover, when believers are renewed by Christ, they are renewed after that same image (Colossians 3:10). Scripture explains that this renewed image consists in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:24).
If restoration to God's image involves righteousness and holiness, then the original image must have consisted of the same.
The desire for forbidden things is precisely the corruption that now infects human nature.
Scripture everywhere condemns it.
Paul identifies sinful desire as sin itself in Romans 7. He teaches that it produces all kinds of evil, hinders what is good, and constitutes a "body of death." James describes sinful desire as the womb from which all acts of wickedness are born (James 1:14–15).
Could such a thing have existed in Adam before the fall?
Where then would be his innocence? Where would be his uprightness?
A tendency toward what God's law forbids is itself a violation of that law. A desire for evil is already a departure from God's holy standard.
If Adam possessed such desires, then the root of sin existed before any outward act of sin occurred. In that case, innocence would mean nothing more than a brief period during which sinful desires had not yet expressed themselves in outward actions.
But this destroys the very idea of original righteousness.
Which commandment requires an inclination toward evil?
Is it "You shall not covet"? Or is it the great commandment to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength?
Can a nature full of forbidden desires be described as innocent?
If Adam had possessed such inward corruption, paradise would have been a place of constant internal struggle, with righteousness acting merely as a restraint upon powerful sinful impulses—just as we observe in fallen human beings today.
This is the most serious problem of all.
Where did Adam's supposed inclination toward evil come from?
It could not have been a punishment for sin, because no sin had yet been committed.
What fault had Adam committed simply by being created?
If an inclination belongs to a thing from the moment of its existence, then it must arise from the same source as that thing's existence itself. Fire rises upward because that tendency belongs to its nature and proceeds from its creator.
Likewise, if Adam possessed an inborn inclination toward evil from the moment of creation, then God Himself must have implanted it.
The consequence is unavoidable.
God would become not merely the indirect occasion of sin but its actual source. The sinful tendency from which all subsequent sins flow would have originated in Him.
Thus, the doctrine ultimately makes God the author of sin.
At that point, free will can boast of its triumph. Formerly all blame for sin rested upon man's misuse of freedom. Now the blame is shifted to God Himself, who supposedly created man with a natural inclination toward evil.
The argument would become: "Why blame free will? God did the same thing at creation that free will does now—He inclined man toward evil."
Those who wish may rejoice in such blasphemous conclusions.
For our part, it is enough to hold firmly to the testimony of Scripture:
"God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes."
God created humanity righteous and holy. The corruption and disorder we now experience arose not from creation but from man's own fall. Therefore, in this dispute, we gladly cling to the teaching of Scripture rather than the inventions of men.