John Stevens recently shared my article about John Calvin”s views on Concupiscence (desire) via Social Media.
Oddly, at the time of writing, I haven’t seen anyone come back either directly to me or via John’s Facebook page to argue that I’ve got the case wrong.
instead, a couple of people were very quick to complain that John was framing the debate in terms of temptation. Yet, according to them, noone was saying that temptation is a sin.
Well, it would be fantastic if that were the case but unfortunately it is not.
It’s not the case because given that John has been talking about resisting temptation for sometime, it is peculiar that up until now, the response hasn’t been “hey John, we agree with you that temptation is to be resisted, not repented of. However there are other things to consider.” Instead, on social media people have been a little het up and expressed concern about John’s dangerous views marking a departure from
It’s also not the case because in writing, people have specifically disagreed with John over what temptation is. Here are David and Jonathan Gibson in Ruined Sinners to reclaim.
First, they explicitly observe that John
“presses a distinction between temptation and sin.” (Gibson and Gibson, 5).
It is John’s use of James 1 to show this distinction that they specifically object to (Gibson & Gibson, 6) and argue , incorrectly that John Calvin disagrees with John Stevens on this. Then they say
“For instance, without engaging with it at all, and seemingly unaware of it, Steven’s treatment of temptation wades into the deep waters of the doctrine of concupiscence (literally the faculty of desire and in church history, the anatomy of sinful desire) and therefore in a Protestant book, actually presents a Roman Catholic position on unbidden and unwanted desires as the straightforward reading of Scripture(Gibson & Gibson, 6).
In my articles I’ve been demonstrating that this represents quite the misreading of John Stevens, John Calvin, the Roman Catholic counter position and Scripture itself. I would hope that by now a retraction would have been made. The important point here is that the focus of John’s critics is very much on the issue of whether temptation is sin or not.
Then, have Stephen Wedgeworth disagreeing with Sam Allberry (in Gibson and Gibson (663). Wedgeworth berates Sam for allegedly collapsing the distinction between external and internal temptation, without substantive evidence for the claim. Yet, he himself is not clear on the distinctions between sin, desire and temptation.
In my opinion, the emphasis on a distinction between external and internal temptation lacks Biblical, theological insight into the enemy’s strategy when it comes to temptation. The account of Jesus’ temptation is instructive. Jesus experiences external temptation in terms of an audible voice, immediate encounter with Satan. However Satan’s aim is to play on Jesus’ desires, to distort the legitimate or neutral desires for identity, comfort and security into sinful desires. However, the crucial point remains that Wedgeworth has, of his own volition framed the debate in terms of whether or not temptation is sin.
To some extent, I’m not surprised that there is confusion about who is saying what. Dare I say, it seems that some people might even be confused about what their own argument is.
I think this reflects the way that words have been interchanged so that at times there has been a risk of collapsing the meaning of desire, temptation and sin into each other.
It is a lack of care in terms of definitions and distinctions. that I believe is confusing the debate and leading to people talking past each other. I suspect that it is also contributing to it remaining a minority discussion. I note that my own articles on the subject get substantially less engagement than my contributions on other subjects and suspect that this reflects that this subject isn’t getting much traction beyond a very tight circle of those with an academic interest.
This is disappointing because whilst a narrow discussion of a Latin term for a technical and obscure discussion of interpretations and misinterpretations of church history is of minimal interest, there is real value in proper discussion about a Biblical and pastoral response to desire, temptation and sin in the life of the believer.
Faithroots 