9 This idea would be carried forward in later Reformed tradition, for example in the Canons of the Synod of Dort (1618) and the famous Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) and its Baptist variations. The Puritans of England and America certainly agreed with the Reformers on the nature of sinful man; it is held by most evangelical churches today. To reiterate, for Augustine and this line of doctrine, man is made in God’s image, but the Fall has so affected all of man, spiritual capacities as well as natural, that he is unable to will or to reason as he ought. Unbiblical Views of Human Nature The Voluntarist or Free Will Position Though we call this the Free Will view, it goes beyond just the will. This idea of human nature asserts essentially that the Fall did not have the catastrophic effects on man in the manner that Scripture teaches, and in the theological formula articulated by Augustine and the Calvinists. The origin of this view began in Late Antiquity with the British monk Pelagius, who taught that there was no sin nature and that the will therefore was completely free. The ability to reason is only distorted when it comes into contact with bad influences. Pelagius was condemned as a heretic, but his influence lingered in a modified form. The church condemned Pelagius but did not fully affirm Augustine’s views. As a result, the teaching on human nature was able to steer a middle course that came to be known as Semi-Pelagianism. This view largely was accepted in the church until the Reformation. Thomas Aquinas represents the detailed expression of it. Man was not so devastated by Adam’s sin that he lost all autonomy of will; man and God cooperate as partners in the process of salvation. Though man was harmed by the Fall in his relationship with God, human nature remains naturally capable of thinking and willing correctly. Given that a portion of our will and reason remain nearly unaffected by the Fall, man’s nature is only partly fallen, yet humans still need grace for righteousness before God. Aquinas continued and elaborated this view, and his theology eventually became the official version of the Roman Catholic Church. One might say that this view is a Roman Catholic teaching and not relevant to Protestants. However, a variation of it arose among later 17th- and 18th-century followers of the Dutch Protestant theologian Jacobus Arminius, who taught that the Fall profoundly affected man as a whole; every human was born a sinner in need of grace to do any good. Arminius argued that when Adam and Eve sinned, the “Holy Spirit
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