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Wednesday, April 05, 2006

A corrupt banana

Perry Robinson continues to make heavy weather over Evan’s use of the word “nature.” As I said before, this is a linguistic convention, nothing more.

For example, the Westminster Confession speaks of a “corrupted nature” which is conveyed to all of Adam’s posterity. “This corruption of nature,” it goes on to say, “doth remain in those that are regenerated.”

What it means by this is that the unregenerate are “defiled” in all “faculties” of the “soul,” rendering the agent “utterly indisposed” to all good.

If, however, Perry is of the opinion that “nature” carries too much ontological freight, then we are happy to substitute a more neutral-gray term. Suppose we revise the Confession as follows:

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

“This corruption of banana, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated.”

2 comments:

  1. So are you saying that even the regenerated believers are not capable of doing good works?

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  2. The regenerate can do good works, although their works are never meritorious and can never contribute to their justification.

    ReplyDelete