The Holy Spirit's function in the unregenerate

Man, Sin, & Salvation
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darinhouston
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The Holy Spirit's function in the unregenerate

Post by darinhouston » Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:49 pm

We tell kids that if they ask God He will empower them to do the right thing. We also tell them that the little voice inside of them is the Holy Spirit, which is telling them when they are doing the right thing (and similar things).

My wife and I were talking about that this evening -- it struck me that (especially for the "Reformed" brethren) this could be tricky, theologically speaking. I believe children aren't necessarily "accountable" for their sins and that God extends His grace to them as to ultimate consequences before they reach an age of accountability. But, salvation isn't just about the eternal consequences of our actions. It is also concerning the empowerment by and witness of the Holy Spirit which I understand only follows a regenerated heart.

When I suggested that our "theology of children" may be incorrect, and scratched my head a bit over it, she wisely dismissed any such notion and told me she didn't know about such things but in this situation she knew enough about God's character that surely He would provide whatever assistance is needed by a child if that child honestly reached out for that help. I tend to agree based on God's revealed character, but I can't quite square it in my mind with what I understand about soteriology, ordo soludis, etc. If an unregenerated person (child or not) can be "saved" in this sense from the "power of sin" in the temporal state anytime they rest on God to do so, then does that suggest that the only benefit of regeneration is with regard to the eternal state?

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mattrose
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Re: The Holy Spirit's function in the unregenerate

Post by mattrose » Tue Sep 07, 2010 12:04 pm

Interesting question/thoughts

Life itself is connected to the Spirit. If the unregenerate are alive, they have SOME SORT of relationship to the Spirit. I think Reformed/Calvinist people deal with this with the doctrine of COMMON GRACE. All people are blessed by God with things like life, a moral conscience, etc. Wesleyan-Arminian people go a step further and speak of PREVENIENT GRACE. The word 'grace' in such a system is 'almost' inseperable from the 'Spirit.' With prevenient grace, God is actively pursuing a relationship with all unbelievers. This may take the form of covering sins of ignorance, speaking through the moral conscience, pointing people toward Christ, etc. I think the Holy Spirit has a very active function in the unregenerate. But, at risk of spatial confusion, I think there is a big difference b/w the image of the Holy Spirit speaking to a stranger ('stranger' from the strangers perspective) vs. the Holy Spirit leading a friend.

SamIam
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Re: The Holy Spirit's function in the unregenerate

Post by SamIam » Tue Sep 07, 2010 8:11 pm

We tell kids that if they ask God He will empower them to do the right thing. We also tell them that the little voice inside of them is the Holy Spirit, which is telling them when they are doing the right thing (and similar things).
Where do the Scriptures teach that the "little voice" is the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit will tell someone when they are "doing the right thing?"

DanielGracely
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Re: The Holy Spirit's function in the unregenerate

Post by DanielGracely » Wed Sep 08, 2010 8:05 am

Hi Darin,

Some time ago I wrestled with these kinds of questions about children and their moral liability. Following up a tip from my brother about 5 years ago, who thought that an awareness of physical nakedness indicated guilt of sin (based on the experience of Adam and Eve), and looking at other Scriptures on the matter (such as those purporting to support original sin but which imo do not, e.g. Rom. 5:12), my own view, which I trust is the biblical one, can be summarized under the following points:

(1) All persons are made in God’s image, including children. This makes people more valuable than animals.

(2) Children, like animals, may commit disobedient acts even under the age of accountability, but such transgression does not carry with it eternal liability.

The serpent animal in Genesis which was cursed to crawl on the ground because of what it had done invoked a consequence of temporal liability (i.e., relating to its life on this earth), NOT eternal liability. Similarly, children are subject to a temporal, not eternal, liability for disobedience prior to their becoming aware of their physical nakedness.

(3) A person’s awareness of physical nakedness seems to indicate he has sinned unto eternal liability (i.e., is subject to eternal punishment).

(4) All persons subject to eternal punishment have the witness of creation, which points to the power and nature of a God who is sufficient to save them, even if they have not heard the gospel of Christ in particular (see NASB Rom. 10:18). However, all who are saved ARE saved through the atonement of Christ, even if they are not aware of Christ in particular.

Darin, related to these matters are concepts of what moral “state” a person is in, such as that of an infant or child. My own view, based on Gen. 3, a semantic evaluation of the Hebrew words for knowledge, and in part on a proper translation of Rom. 5:12ff, a passage which I do not think supports a doctrine of original sin, is that:

(5) A person is subject to liability according to the breadth and depth of his knowledge, and, further, apart from his ability to know, a person himself determines his knowledge. Moreover, God does not give us knowledge, but merely the ability to have knowledge. These are not the same things. So then, breadth and depth of knowledge pertain to accountability. That animals are not aware of their nakedness is a sign that they do not operate at a breadth and depth of knowledge that make them eternally liable to God for whatever disobedient acts they may commit. On the other hand, all humans ultimately will come into this kind of breadth and depth of knowledge at some point, even if only in the afterlife (such as those babies who were aborted). At the least, this FACT—of a person acting to come into a point of such breadth and depth of knowledge as to make them subject unto eternal liability—points to the form of his creation, and what it means to be made in the image of God. This is at least part of the explanation why God allows animals to be killed for food, but never persons. Humans are made in the image of God; animals are not.

(6) Finally, but fundamentally, CHOICE of what shall be considered knowledge is what defines individuated, sentient being. God, humans, animals, insects, etc. demonstrate this. Flowers and trees do not. And so CHOICE in regard to IDEA is always attendant re: sentient creation. Even the recognition of an idea AS an idea is itself a moral choice subject to some kind of liability, since one could at least verbally deny that an idea is an idea, even if one could not behave in the world according to such a denial. [For example, a man might deny his own being, yet fail to avoid existing.] While God supplies the ability for knowledge, it is persons, animals, insects, etc. who themselves supply the content of what they deem is knowledge. Improper designation of knowledge is transgression (sin) of a sort, yet not all transgression is sin unto eternal liability (as explained above).

THEREFORE any theological doctrine that purports that one can “choose” but can only “choose” evil, because of an alleged total depravity or because of an alleged state prior to “prevenient grace,” is non-sensical, since CHOICE is necessarily a part of what defines individuated, sentient being. So, again, the moral liability question revolves around the breadth and depth of knowledge (or partial lack thereof) of the sentient person, animal, etc. One difference between the Creator and sentient creation is that the latter needs an external Source (the Creator God) to supply ability to have knowledge. We are dependent on God for this, whereas God is independently sourced in His ability to have knowledge. But again, though God supplies the ability for us to create knowledge, we ourselves create the content of knowledge.

And so, this creation of knowledge’s content is what separates created beings, who are sentient, from the Creator who gave them the ability of knowledge. And so there is the form, or ability, of knowledge, and then there is the content of knowledge. The former God supplies, the latter we alone supply.

We must insist on this distinction. In other words, even as God did NOT take His “shoulder,” so to speak, to make creation, in which case there would be no final distinction between the Creator and creation, even so must there be a final distinction in SENTIENCE, otherwise there is no final distinction between God and created beings in their sentience. Unfortunately, certain Evangelical doctrines claim that moral liability arises from ancestor transference (i.e., Adam), rather than individual choice. This makes the attempt of assigning sin to “Adam’s descendents” based upon an idea of sentience as defined by something other than individual choice. That is, current Evangelical theology does not really distinguish between the moral being of “Adam” and “Adam’s descendents.” They are betimes treated as synonymous in Evangelical theology. I think that’s a tremendous mistake, and fails to really assign individual culpability for sin based on individual choice. In the same manner theories of total depravity and prevenient grace go hand in hand with denying individuated, sentient being, insofar as they deny individual choice.

On the other hand I believe Adam alone was given the ability to transfer the form of what knowledge his descendents would be capable of. Adam chose a higher form than what God designed and what was prudent for him, and because Adam did, the consequence of his act in eating the forbidden fruit was physical death, something transferred to all his descendents. I believe there is support for this idea in the Hebrew of Gen. 3, that is, that there are different kinds of knowledge, and that Adam chose a higher (or classified) type of knowledge. [The word "knowledge" in the phrase, "the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" is a slightly different word than the one normally used for knowledge, and indicates a higher, more exalted, or intensified, type of knowledge.]

Incidentally, as to the HOW of knowledge, this is a mystery (at least to us humans), since all sentient beings bring it ex nihilio (out of nothing) without prior necessity.

As far as I have been able to determine, this viewpoint seems to satisfy questions about children and of personal being while remaining true to how man and God are defined in the Bible. BTW I'm not saying anything new here, at least fundamentally. Decarte's statement, "I think, therefore I am," is imo the same idea more succinctly expressed. Unfortunately, De Cartes's statement only dawned on me after I began to examine the Bible on the problem of children and possible degrees of liability.
Last edited by DanielGracely on Sat Sep 11, 2010 6:33 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Homer
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Re: The Holy Spirit's function in the unregenerate

Post by Homer » Wed Sep 08, 2010 9:57 am

Hi Daniel,

You wrote:
Unfortunately, certain Evangelical doctrines claim that moral liability arises from ancestor transference (i.e., Adam), rather than individual choice. This makes the attempt of assigning sin to “Adam’s descendents” based upon an idea of sentience as defined by something other than individual choice. That is, current Evangelical theology does not really distinguish between the moral being of “Adam” and “Adam’s descendents.” They are betimes treated as synonymous in Evangelical theology. I think that’s a tremendous mistake, and fails to really assign individual culpability for sin based on individual choice. In the same manner theories of total depravity and prevenient grace go hand in hand with denying individuated, sentient being, insofar as they deny individual choice.
I'm thinking I am in agreement with you. I do question the age that actual guilt is incurred. You wrote:
3) A person’s awareness of physical nakedness seems to indicate that that person has sinned unto eternal liability (i.e., is subject to eternal punishment).
In my reading of certain passages of scripture (such as the age of those held liable for ther sin in the wilderness, Numbers 14:28-32), the age of accoutability seems to be much higher than the age when a child becomes concerned with nakedness. However, the recognition that they are naked and this is a problem might be learned much earlier than is natural because "mom and dad said so".

Not long ago I read about research that showed that teenagers' brains are not yet developed to the point where they are able to make decisions, about doing what is right, as well as older people are.

DanielGracely
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Re: The Holy Spirit's function in the unregenerate

Post by DanielGracely » Thu Sep 09, 2010 10:19 am

Hi Homer,

First, let me say I failed to thank you a month or two ago for emailing me privately to welcome me to the Narrow Path site. In fact, I was touched by that gesture, and I remain truly appreciative. So, thank you!

Re. Numbers 14:28-32 [in which only those who were 20-years old and older were held accountable at Kadesh-Barnea for refusing to go into the Promised Land], like you, I see this as the strongest challenge to the view I expressed in my last comment. For answer, then, I think I would understand Numbers 14 as follows:

(1)If we are to place Numbers 14 in a context of individual, eternal libability, it would suggest that all persons reach an age of accountability at exactly the same point—upon their 20th birthday. Yet from what we know about people in general such an arrival at accountability at the same exact point in age seems unlikely, since maturity and understanding develops at a different rate for every person. Yet, of course, Numbers 14 does speak of accountability, and so we cannot simply dismiss this passage nor the age it gives.

(2) Also, it seems harsh to most of us that a 6-year old who died might be in hell because he sinned unto eternal liability. But I don’t think it’s impossible that a child could so suffer, and this may be possible if we keep in mind that the Bible teaches that some in hell will suffer much less punishment than others, i.e., few stripes compared to many. The first, or one of the first, sins I can remember committing was one in which I repeatedly mocked the title of a hymn, which struck me as funny. I remember later coming under spiritual conviction about that act, and I don’t think I was probably more than four-years old. And then, too, some Christians feel they were saved at an early age, such as three or four-years old (myself at four). But how could that be if it were not also true that these persons had sinned unto eternal liability? Also, IMO it becomes very difficult to explain why children feel shame about their nakedness at so young an age, if not because of their sinning unto eternal liability. You mention that environmental conditioning may play a part, and perhaps so. But any point of knowledge finally comes into being only as an act of the self, and I think the same is true of shame. And so, while I think you are right to point out that there can be mitigating circumstances (e.g. parental influence) which may lead a child toward knowledge, and though I think the form of the development of the kind of knowledge which finds shame in nakedness is Adamic based, I believe the content of this knowledge is created by the child himself. Moreover, a child cannot simply be told that he is naked, and thus “know” he is naked. My wife and I have friends who have a special needs child, and though I think his parents believe he understood for years that nakedness was the state of being unclothed, his father told me that this child did not feel shame about nakedness until he was eleven. The shame factor is related to what I’m talking about, when I speak of the response to “knowing” one’s nakedness. And I don’t think such shame can be understood as shame merely because a parent tells a child he is naked.

(3) A further consideration of Numbers 14 is that the Lord said he pardoned the people’s sin. This seems to suggest that their deaths in the wilderness was a chastisement, not punishment due to eternal liability. The chastisement was aimed against the nation as a nation, in order to prevent the upcoming generation from a future rebellion. So it may be that the accountability age of 20 served more of a national, rather than individual, purpose. For if God desired that the upcoming generation should witness the sign of His chastisement of their fathers, a very specific cut-off age would need to be given so that all could observe the sign.

(4) Mitigating factors of accountability in Numbers 14 apply not just to those younger than 20 who escaped the chastisement, but also to those older than 20 who would die in the wilderness. As Num. 14:36-37 tells us:
As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land and who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing out a bad report concerning the land, even those men who brought out the very bad report of the land died by a plague before the LORD.
So, while those under 20 were, perhaps because of mitigation, spared the chastising death of their fathers, so, too, were those who were over 20 spared the worst of chastisement because of the 10 spies who “made” them rebel because of their evil reports. One other note: the upcoming generation did suffer indirectly because of the chastisement of their fathers, since they lost relatives to death sooner than they would have. I think the point I’m trying to make in all this is that the context of accountability mitigation in Numbers 14 seems to be of national chastisement, not individual eternal liability (at least) per se. And so I think it’s still possible to argue that, e.g., a young child today of, say, 6-years old (or even younger), could be eternally liable for his sins, and that his shame over his nakedness is a sign of this.

I admit this is a difficult subject. But I don't see any answers in following the lead of scientists who tend to see human experience through a materialistic lens, and thus (imo) make certain unwarranted assumptions about brain development among the young, e.g. teenagers, in order to explain teens' poor decisions. For what scientists seem to see as the chief evidence of immature brain development—i.e., that teenagers make poor decisions—is, I think, also their weakest evidence. For if (as they say) poor decisions are the result of immaturity in the brain core, not a lack of wisdom and/or life experience, then according to the laws of probability teenagers ought to make right decisions as often as they make wrong decisions. For if one doesn’t know which is the right choice in a multiple-choice test between A and B, one is likely to get the correct answer half the time. But many teenagers demonstrate a tendency to make the wrong choice. IMO it is much more likely, for example, that a 17-year old girl who is raised by an emotionally-distant and unloving father is going to end up with the same type of loser in a boyfriend. And so, primarily speaking, I think the cause for poor decisions among teenagers is a question of whether they are taught and exampled wisdom and are willing to retain it. I hasten to say that some teenagers, esp. those raised in the fear of the Lord, often make very wise decisions the majority of the time. So in the case of a teenager’s pattern of poor decisions, I think what primarily is lacking is wisdom, not brain core development, with parents being a mitigating factor.

One last, if incidental, note. I don’t think Christ felt shame about His nakedness. I believe the reason for this is because He was born without the form of the knowledge of good and evil which Adam obtained in eating the forbidden fruit and which he passed down to his descendents. I believe Christ escaped this form of knowledge due to His virgin birth. Interestingly, the Messianic section in Ps. 22 which speaks to the naked state experienced by a crucified victim, is, in the mouth of the Messiah, not expressed as nakedness as such. He does not say, “I saw my nakedness,” but rather, “They may tell all my bones,” a natural way a man who had no shame about his nakedness might express his unclothed state. Of course, for the benefit of others Christ dressed himself during his life. As for the believer, I think he will be delivered from Adam’s form of knowledge once he dies, leaving him in a state where again he experiences no shame in his nakedness. But this leaves open the question why people seem clothed in heaven. I don’t know if I have an exact answer for that, except that it may be for the benefit of those on earth still born with Adam’s form of knowledge during the Millenium, among whom I think the citizens of the New Jerusalem may have some interaction. I realize this touches on eschaetology and opens a can of worms for a lot of people (including myself), a subject I pretty much steer away from because I don’t feel overly competent discussing it. But to continue a discussion in this vien may be touching on too much minutia in this thread, anyway.

In any event, thanks for listening to this long explanation. I grant that we’re trying to fit a lot of puzzle pieces together—not an easy thing!

Cordially,

Daniel Gracely

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Jepne
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Re: The Holy Spirit's function in the unregenerate

Post by Jepne » Fri Sep 17, 2010 6:49 pm

I believe it could have only been the Holy Spirit wooing me the many times I was filled with wonder and love and all good things, though only for a time, in the decades before I became regenerated. Once it was suggested to me that had I died in those years, I would have been consigned to eternal damnation because I was unregenerate, and it made me cry to think that those times that I felt the presence of God in my life, that that same God wouldn't have loved me enough to let me be with Him. Now that I see hell as a place of correction, and that we are sent there because of His love, to change us so that we can enjoy Him forever, ahh! that is a whole different thing, praise the Lord! Jepne
"Anything you think you know about God that you can't find in the person of Jesus, you have reason to question.” - anonymous

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