David and Jonathan Gibson have edited a new book called “Ruined Sinners to reclaim”, it’s part of their series on the Doctrines of Grace and follows on from “From heaven he came and sought us” on Definite Atonement.
Paul Smith has reviewed the book in Evangelical Times and notes:
This book on total depravity (the second in a series on the Doctrines of Grace) aims by church history and theological precision to ‘enrich our exegesis and rescue us from error’. The example of error in the editors’ introduction is John Stevens’s book on temptation. They state that Stevens ‘presents a Roman Catholic position on unbidden and unwanted desires’ and ‘ends up implying that there are parts of our fallen human natures that God’s grace does not need to redeem’. [1]
Now, the “Doctrines of Grace” are fantastic and worth a study in their own right. However, I am concerned that once again we are seeing an example of what looks like becoming the modus operandi of contemporary evangelical authorship, especially when coming from those seeking to write academically for a popular audience.
In this particular case, it is clearly nonsense to suggest that John Stevens is in the kind of error that would seek to imply “that there are parts of our fallen human nature that God’s grace does not need to redeem.” John’s view of concupiscense (strong desire, especially sexual desire) may be right or wrong. The specific debate is about whether or not desires themselves amount to sin, as in thoughts that we need to be repented of).[2] It is important to recognise that we can distinguish something as a sinful act from something that relates to our fallen, sinful nature and therefore needing specific ongoing repentance from.
At this stage, I wlsh to make a general point, or rather repeat a general point I’ve made previously. Too much of what has been advertised as “must read, ground breaking” over the past few years has turned out to be turgid and lacking in depth of insight. There seems to be a tendency at the moment to think that popular academic writing involves announcing that this or that issue is of first importance, that we’ve all got it wrong and that specific people are promoting error. We are warned that such people are expressing views that are a danger to the church.
The reality of course is first that there is a disagreement over secondary matters that are pushed up as first importance. Second, I think there is often a difference of language and that leads to people talking past each other. Third, I think that both the biblical and pastoral insights of men who spend the majority of their time applying God’s Word to pastoral care are treated dismissively. Finally we end up with extreme, uncharitable and untrue accusations.
We saw a lot of that kind of thing with the “EFS/Classical Theism” debate. I fear that we are beginning to see the same kind of thing over the Doctrine of Sin and Total Depravity.
There may be a discussion to be had on concupiscence. To be honest I’m not sure yet whether it is a major issue for Evangelicals or a minor concern for academics and authors. However, if we are going to have a discussion on it, I hope that it will be one that is charitable and that benefits the church.
[2] I will probably write a little more about this soon.
Faithroots 