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"Ought" Does Not Imply "Can"
"Ought" Does Not Imply "Can"
Before the children, who shall be born hereafter, can distinguish between good and evil, the land which thou hatest shall be forsaken,
This has nothing to do with, nor teaches, a claim that unbelievers are morally able to not sin for this would import more intent into the passage that it actually contextually bears.
Further, that the unbeliever knows what he ought to do is not in dispute. Ought does not imply can. As Romans 1 teaches, the unbeliever knows what he ought to do, but he has suppressed that knowledge in unrighteousness.
Given Scripture's description of the state of fallen man in Adam....
...the unbeliever is deceitful and desperately sick (Jer. 17:9), full of evil (Mark 7:21-23), not able to come to Jesus unless given to by God (Eph. 2:2), must be quickened by God (Eph. 2:4-5), cannot choose righteousness until regenerated (Titus 3:5), loves darkness rather than light (John 3:19), is unrighteous, does not understand, does not seek for God (Rom. 3:10-12), is helpless and ungodly (Rom. 5:6), is dead in his trespasses and sins (Eph. 2-1), is by nature a child of wrath (Eph. 2-3), cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14), and is a slave of sin (Rom. 6:15-20),
...the unbeliever's moral inability to not sin is undeniable, leaving no room to smuggle in some minute seed of righteousness that enables them to not sin.
If, when Adam sinned, nothing happened to human nature other than some woundedness that still permits ability to not sin, it becomes theologically inexplicable why Scripture constantly portrays all of humankind as evil and thus deserving punishment. In fact, if this were true, Paul's discussion of the first and last Adam is completely wrong.
Yet, in Romans 5 Paul is not speaking about man's actual sin after Adam. Paul is not saying we become sinners by sinning. Rather, we sin because we are sinners from birth. For if every person contracts his own guilt by becoming a sinner by sinning, then one wonders why Paul in Romans 5 bothers to form a comparison between Adam and Christ. After all, if the claim is that we contract our own guilt by sinning, then the same logic must lead one to claim that we contract our own righteousness by being righteous! Paul is certainly not teaching such a terrible Pelagian scheme.
Rather, in Romans 5 the symmetry of Paul's comparison between fallen Adam's innate corruption and Our Lord's innate righteousness, and the respective imputations of our sin upon Christ and Christ's righteousness upon man, is inescapable. Given what Paul has actually written, comparing Adam and Our Lord, it follows that our innate and hereditary depravity and our Lord's innate and hereditary righteousness, imputed to us, is what is being referred to in Romans 5.
AMR
"Ought" Does Not Imply "Can"
Within the context of Isaiah 7:13-25, it is not probable that this promise of the overturn of the kingdoms of Syria and Samaria, which immediately followed, would be deferred for five hundred years, that is, until the coming of Christ (see Isaiah 7:15); and, indeed, it would have been altogether absurd. Hence, the prophecy in question in Isaiah 7:16 teaches,
Before the children, who shall be born hereafter, can distinguish between good and evil, the land which thou hatest shall be forsaken,
This has nothing to do with, nor teaches, a claim that unbelievers are morally able to not sin for this would import more intent into the passage that it actually contextually bears.
Further, that the unbeliever knows what he ought to do is not in dispute. Ought does not imply can. As Romans 1 teaches, the unbeliever knows what he ought to do, but he has suppressed that knowledge in unrighteousness.
Given Scripture's description of the state of fallen man in Adam....
...the unbeliever is deceitful and desperately sick (Jer. 17:9), full of evil (Mark 7:21-23), not able to come to Jesus unless given to by God (Eph. 2:2), must be quickened by God (Eph. 2:4-5), cannot choose righteousness until regenerated (Titus 3:5), loves darkness rather than light (John 3:19), is unrighteous, does not understand, does not seek for God (Rom. 3:10-12), is helpless and ungodly (Rom. 5:6), is dead in his trespasses and sins (Eph. 2-1), is by nature a child of wrath (Eph. 2-3), cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14), and is a slave of sin (Rom. 6:15-20),
...the unbeliever's moral inability to not sin is undeniable, leaving no room to smuggle in some minute seed of righteousness that enables them to not sin.
If, when Adam sinned, nothing happened to human nature other than some woundedness that still permits ability to not sin, it becomes theologically inexplicable why Scripture constantly portrays all of humankind as evil and thus deserving punishment. In fact, if this were true, Paul's discussion of the first and last Adam is completely wrong.
Yet, in Romans 5 Paul is not speaking about man's actual sin after Adam. Paul is not saying we become sinners by sinning. Rather, we sin because we are sinners from birth. For if every person contracts his own guilt by becoming a sinner by sinning, then one wonders why Paul in Romans 5 bothers to form a comparison between Adam and Christ. After all, if the claim is that we contract our own guilt by sinning, then the same logic must lead one to claim that we contract our own righteousness by being righteous! Paul is certainly not teaching such a terrible Pelagian scheme.
Rather, in Romans 5 the symmetry of Paul's comparison between fallen Adam's innate corruption and Our Lord's innate righteousness, and the respective imputations of our sin upon Christ and Christ's righteousness upon man, is inescapable. Given what Paul has actually written, comparing Adam and Our Lord, it follows that our innate and hereditary depravity and our Lord's innate and hereditary righteousness, imputed to us, is what is being referred to in Romans 5.
AMR
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