10 departed,” the conscience was “depraved,” they suffered a “privation of the image of God,” and they lost their “original righteousness,” which amounted to original sin. Arminius adds, “But in his lapsed and sinful state man is not capable, of and by himself, either to think, to will, or to do that which is really good….” Arminius looks much like a Calvinist with regard to his view of fallen human nature, though he differs when he adds that grace from God is resistible and that the will and intellect retain some natural capability.3 Arminius certainly did not go as far as Aquinas, but he did begin a tradition among Protestants that views man’s nature as only partially disabled by the Fall. Unfortunately, this view translates into a greater problem: that humans can be autonomous in their reason and will, and that as a result, we don’t have to worry too much if we allow the foundations for our knowledge and practice to ignore the Bible. This is precisely what happened, as the followers of Arminius deviated even further than he himself did. It would not be too much to say that Arminianism, in its more radical form at least, aided the shift to modern philosophical thinking about human nature and natural (or unaided) moral ability. If Arminianism is the theological backdrop for free will, then modern philosophy is its rational conclusion. The Philosophical View of Human Nature Beginning in the 17th century, with hints even earlier, a philosophical view of human nature developed that primarily exalted reason as autonomous. Not all philosophers agreed on just what this looked like, but all agreed that the rational and moral ability of human beings were in fact not affected by the Fall, at least not in any significant way. Moreover, the very idea of a “sin nature” begins to disappear as a philosophical explanation for any limitations in man. Instead, humans are defined by an essence that is either some sort of “blank slate” or is morally good. René Descartes provides a glimpse of this new view around 1637 when he used unaided reason first to derive his own existence, then that of other humans, followed by the existence of the natural world, and finally the existence of God Himself. Obviously that gives a lot to the creature’s ability to reason on his own authority! But for autonomous reasoning to have such great intellectual capacity, humans simply could not have been born in a morally distorted condition. 3 The Writings of James Arminius, translated by James Nichols, 3 vols. Baker Book House reprint, 1977, Vol. 1, 252, 253-254; vol. 2, 77–79.
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