Which is the first commandment?

The first commandment is, Thou shall have no other gods before me.[1]

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Book Review: The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment

by Tim Challies.

Let’s cut right to the chase from the start: This is a very good book.

It’s a good book, first of all, because it’s a needed book. If you’ve been paying attention to what’s going on around you, you’ve probably noticed that there are a whole lot of conflicting ideas out there all claiming to be God’s truth. I don’t know if I can say that there are more varied ideas than there ever were—how would I know?—but I do know that more of them show up on my radar screen than did in the good old days before I had cable TV and internet access, when I managed to live my life mostly oblivious to the constantly changing trends in evangelicalism.

That I am constantly bombarded by different ideas, all demanding that I embrace them in order to be more in tune to the real truth, means that I am constantly called on to make judgments about the correctness of concepts or practices. And I’m betting my experience isn’t much different than the experience of most of us who claim to be Christians. Real life in the real world calls for frequent evaluations as to truth or error, and right or wrong. In other words, every single one of us needs to be discerning in regards to all sorts of things all the time.

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Theological Term of the Week

 

Augustinianism*

In this view of the nature of humankind since the fall, all human beings are corrupted by original sin, and this corrupted nature controls the human will and inclines it toward evil so that no person has ever or will ever take the first step toward a right relationship with God

 

• The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 6, 1-4:
  

  Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof.
  
  

  1. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.

  2. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

  3. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.

  4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.

• From Total Depravity by Loraine Boettner: The Extent and Effects of Original Sin

  This doctrine of Total Inability, which declares that men are dead in sin, does not mean that all men are equally bad, nor that any man is as bad as he could be, nor that any one is entirely destitute of virtue, nor that human nature is evil in itself, nor that man‘s spirit is inactive, and much less does it mean that the body Is dead. What it does mean is that since the fail man rests under the curse of sin, that he is actuated by wrong principles, and that he is wholly unable to love God or to do anything meriting salvation. His corruption is extensive but not necessarily intensive.

  It is in this sense that man since the fall “is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.” He possesses a fixed bias of the will against God, and instinctively and willingly turns to evil. He is an alien by birth, and a sinner by choice. The inability under which he labors is not an inability to exercise volitions, but an inability to be willing to exercise holy volitions. And it is this phase of it which led Luther to declare that “Free-will is an empty term, whose reality is lost. And a lost liberty, according to my grammar, is no liberty at all.”² In matters pertaining to his salvation, the unregenerate man is not at liberty to choose between good and evil, but only to choose between greater and lesser evil, which is not properly free will. The fact that fallen man still has ability to do certain acts morally good in themselves does not prove that he can do acts meriting salvation, for his motives may be wholly wrong.

  Man is a free agent but he cannot originate the love of God in his heart. His will is free in the sense that it is not controlled by any force outside of himself. As the bird with a broken wing is “free” to fly but not able, so the natural man is free to come to God but not able. How can he repent of his sin when he loves it? How can he come to God when he hates Him? This is the inability of the will under which man labors. Jesus said, “And this is the judgment, that light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil,” John 3:19; and again, “Ye will not come to me, that ye may have life,” John 5:40. Man‘s ruin lies mainly in his own perverse will. He cannot come because he will not. Help enough is provided if he were only willing to accept it. Paul tells us, “The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. So they that are in the flesh cannot please God,” Rom. 8:7.

Learn more:

1. C. Michael Patton: What happened at the Fall? Pelagianism and Augustinianism
2. Theopedia: Augustinianism
3. A. A. Hodge: Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism and Augustinianism

Related terms:

• Pelagianism
• Semi-Pelagianism

*This definition of Augustinianism defines it as it specifically relates to the previous two theological terms defined: Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism.

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