Post by Josh Parsley on Dec 21, 2006 13:32:48 GMT -5
Charles G. Finney & Original Sin
by Pastor Leon Stump
Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) has been called “America’s greatest evangelist” and “the father of modern revivalism.” He studied extensively to be a lawyer, and though he was never admitted to the bar, he did serve as an assistant to a judge in Adams, New York, from 1818-1821. In 1821 his life was turned around dramatically by a remarkable conversion, after which in 1824 he was ordained by the Presbyterian Church and began holding revivals in upstate New York. These meetings were characterized by mighty displays of the Spirit of God in conviction and conversion, and the whole area was effected. In one congregation every person present was either brought to his knees or lay prostrate in a brief two minutes time period. Despite great opposition from some, the news of these meetings spread rapidly, and urgent appeals came from many towns and cities for Finney to come and hold meetings. The high point in his career as an evangelist actually came in these early years in 1830-1831 in Rochester, New York, where in six months time, over 100,000 people were converted and joined churches in the city and in a forty to fifty mile radius surrounding it. In 1832, Finney continued his evangelism for three years from two pastorates in New York City. Then in 1835, he accepted the invitation to become president of the newly established Oberlin College in Northern Ohio where he remained until his death.
Finney is most notable for his revival methods, his power in prayer and preaching, his support of social reforms, and his theology. Most evangelicals think of him only in terms of the first two-revival methods, and the power of the Spirit. But there is a small but influential number of people who think more of Finery’s theology than they do any of the other things for which he is noted. They call themselves, after a major emphasis in Finney’s theology, “Moral Government” people or those who follow Moral Government Theology. For many of these people, Finney was not only America’s greatest evangelist, but “the greatest evangelist since apostolic times” and “the greatest theologian since the apostle Paul.” It is primarily with this later claim that my articles will be addressed.
My acquaintance with Finney began early in my Christian life. Besides occasional references to him from Kenneth Hagin and others, I bought what is perhaps the best known book on his life, “Charles G. Finney” by Basil Miller. Since this book served as the official biography for the conference on the 150th anniversary of Finney’s birth, it is glowingly favorable to him. Any controversies over Finney’s message in particular are either hidden or presented in such a way that one is kept very much in the dark as to what his theology actually was. For example, the very term “perfection” does not set well with most evangelicals, and Miller, no doubt by design, treats Finney’s beliefs on it quite gingerly and in only two very brief paragraphs.
This [an experience of Finney in the Holy Spirit just before he left New York City for Oberlin] gave birth to Finney’s doctrine of Christian blessedness or sanctification or the “higher life” as Beardsley calls it. “A topic of absorbing interest at this time in Oberlin was the doctrine of the higher life,” writes Beardsley. Finney describes this experience as “the consecration of the whole being to God…that state of devotedness to God…a state not only of entire but of perpetual unending consecration to God.” He taught that the experience was to be sought and obtained through faith as a present and permanent possession. These views were enlarged in his book on Sanctification and also in his Systematic Theology, where as he says, “I discussed the subject of entire sanctification more at large.” (Charles G. Finney, Basil Miller; Zondervan Publishing House: Grand Rapids, MI; 1942, p. 96.)
Miller’s account of Finney on perfection is so sanitized that it is quite misleading. First, he adopts another term for it from another writer calling it “the higher life,” which would be far less offensive to many. Secondly, he makes it sound like it is the same as Wesley’s doctrine of sanctification (again, because of historical associations, much more acceptable). But Finney’s doctrine of perfection differs radically from the Wesleyan. Wesley taught that sanctification was a second work of grace subsequent to justification or the new birth in which one was delivered by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit from inbred sin or the sin nature we inherited from Adam. Finney would have none of this in every part-he denied inbred sin, so there was no need for deliverance from it to begin with.
Actually we must make a distinction between Finney and himself when it comes to his views on entire sanctification or perfection. It depends upon what part of Finney’s Systematic Theology and other works that you are reading. This is a common problem when reading the life works of any preacher or author. Apparent contradictions may be found owing possibly to the difference in time between one piece and another-the author’s views changed over time. This is common in Wesley’s writings, but nearly always accompanied by his own footnotes saying he had changed his mind on this or that particular point. Another advantage one has in reading Wesley’s Works is that dates are given for each sermon and treatise. Not so with Finney, hence the difficulty. Another possibility regarding apparent contradictions is that the author did not see any real contradiction in the things he said and can offer an explanation or clarification. Wesley does this often, but not Finney.
The contradictions in Finney on entire sanctification are enormous, even within his Systematic Theology. He argues in chapters seven, twenty-seven, and thirty-three that entire sanctification is nothing more or less than entire obedience to the moral law of God and that man has the natural ability (or free will) to obey this law completely. All sin is nothing more than the exercise of the will to disobey the law of God. But when a man repents and is converted, he turns his will to obey the law of God entirely (and thus be entirely sanctified). No sin is consistent with the repentance (turning from and forsaking all sin) that a man exercises in conversion, so there is no need for any change in a man’s nature or constitution in order for him to be entirely sanctified. No “second work of grace” is necessary. Man, Finney maintains, has the natural ability to keep the whole moral law of God.
But in chapter thirty-five Finney, rather masterfully, may I say, argues that entire sanctification is not at all possible in our own strength. We must, he says, have a revelation of and appropriate to ourselves by faith Christ and all His offices and relations to us as outlined in the New Testament. We need to know Christ as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30), our Mighty God, true vine, advocate, and shepherd if we are to be entirely sanctified.
In my discussions with Moral Government people, they seem to have an appreciation only for the first part of what Finney says about perfection-that it is attainable merely by the exercise of the free will (with the “help” of the Holy Spirit in some vague sense) beginning at conversion, which is the turning of the will to do the will of God. Therefore, they deny that perfection is something to progress toward after conversion, as Finney definitely teaches in chapter thirty-five, but insist that perfection begins at conversion. In none of their preaching, teaching, or conversation do they seem to have the least grasp on what Finney ways in chapter thirty-five about the necessity of having Christ revealed to and in the soul as our salvation and sanctification. They approach the sinner and the believer, justification and sanctification, entirely on the grounds of obedience to the moral law just as Finney erroneously does in chapters seven, twenty-seven, and thirty-three. Any salvation that does not have Christ as its center is no salvation at all and is the worst, most fundamental, and destructive of all errors.
Miller’s biography of Finney ignores or deliberately conceals the distinctive features of his theology and highlights his emphasis upon evangelism, holiness, prayer, practical consecration and service, and the power of the Holy Spirit. (The book is subtitled, He Prayed Down Revivals.) Possibly at least in part due to the popularity of Miller’s book, which went through many editions, most evangelicals have a very high regard for Finney. But if they had or took the opportunity to examine his theology, the regard of even non-Calvinists (who have always detested Finney) would not be nearly so high.
Besides the Miller biography and the occasional references from Hagin and others, my only other exposure to Finney’s teachings came from some youth groups that were part of “the Jesus movement” of the late 1960’s and early ‘70’s. I was saved in December of 1966, and at that time I knew of very few who had come out of the “hippie” culture that swept America in the mid-1960’s, primarily through the hallucinogenic drugs marijuana and LSD. But within a few years, tens of thousands of youth were being evangelized, beginning in California and then across the nation. This evangelistic movement, some of it planned but much of it spontaneous, came to be called “the Jesus movement” and the youth who were reached by it were called “Jesus freaks.” As with any raw religious movement, much of it was dubious and spurious, and many of those who had been reached were merely caught up in the excitement and the novelty of a current “fad” and did not become lasting disciple of Jesus Christ. Only those who were incorporated into churches with discipleship programs lasted.
One of the most prominent groups seeking to disciple young people in those days was founded by a youth pastor named Tony Salerno. Named “the Agape Force” after the Greek word for “love,” it began in California, then moved to East Texas along with several similar or associated ministries, including singer/songwriter Keith Green’s “Last Days Ministries” and David Wilkerson. (David Wilkerson was a prominent figure in the “Jesus movement.”) Often converted folk rock singer Barry McGuire, the Second Chapter of Acts, and a teacher from New Zealand named Winkie Pratney accompanied the Agape Force in meetings, seminars, and youth camps.
Tony Salerno and the Agape Force came to my home church in West Columbia, Texas, only once, but our youth were in their meetings in Houston and other nearby places on a number of occasions. In addition, a lesser known group from California that took in youth on drugs, etc., and tried to rehabilitate them came to our church, and some of that group stayed there for a number of years to work with our youth. All of these ministries (with the exception of David Wilkerson) based their teaching almost exclusively on the writings of Charles Finney. These groups had some strange ways, but not all of them were directly due to their adherence to Finney. For one thing, they all lived communally. The reason I didn’t like them was because by 1968 the “faith movement” headed by Kenneth Hagin based on the writings of E.W. Kenyon had completely captivated me, and the Agape Force and its associates were definitely not part of nor influenced in the least by the faith movement. I simply assumed, not having studied his theology, that since these groups were based on Finney’s writings they were orthodox or at least okay in their doctrine. They stressed, to put in mildly, repentance. It was their answer for everything it seemed. They preached on sin a lot, with a view to getting people to humble themselves and be “broken” (sorrowful) for their sin and “selfishness.” At that time I didn’t think that is what people needed at all, but in hindsight, that was probably the spiritual level of most of our youth; they could have used some true repentance. On the other hand, repentance will take you only so far with God, and if continued in as if it were the whole of Christianity and the Christian life, after a time it can have just the opposite effects intended. People become hardened, disillusioned, and oppressed and quit following the Lord altogether instead of being established in Christ. I realized that the great stress upon repentance was no doubt from Finney, but I did not understand at that time the basis in Finney’s theology that was behind this.
You can’t accuse people for being in error because they stress repentance. Some of their methods were a little strange, but they justified them with the claim that they were necessary for youth coming out of a background of sin, drugs, and rebellion. There were only a few things I heard from these groups that I questioned. I remember hearing and reading Winkie Pratney teach that we were sinners, not because of Adam’s fall, but because of our own choice, and that Adam was not the “federal head” of the fallen human race. This bothered me somewhat because, through the “deeper life’ influence in Kenyon’s writings, I had become quite familiar with Paul’s parallel between Adam and Christ in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. Pratney rejected this parallel, seeing it as the grounds for excuse for sin-“it’s Adam’s fault,” “I was born a sinner and can’t help but sin because I have a sin nature,” etc. I don’t think I realized that this was Finney’s teaching; I just knew I didn’t agree with it. On another occasion, one of our youth returned from a summer camp led by the Agape Force and related that one night the speaker, after stressing how much human sin over the millennia has grieved God, asked everyone to get on their knees and pray for God! On still another occasion, a Ft. Worth pastor remarked off hand that the Agape Force were into “Finneyism,” but I don’t know on what he based his remark. Other than a few anecdotal incidents like this involving Finney people, I was not aware of any major doctrinal error in the groups, and, like I said, because of a general high regard for Finney that everyone seemed to possess, despite the fact that few of us had examined his teaching in any detail, I assumed everything was all right, at least on the doctrinal score.
Years passed until I had the opportunity, after having gotten out of the faith movement, to meet others who were deeply into Finney’s teachings. Again, they laid great stress upon sin, judgment, and repentance, but by this time, because of my exposure to classic Christian writings of the past, I knew the validity of seeking to bring the lost to salvation by first leading them to repentance through exposing their sin. I still did not know or realize the distinctive elements in Finney’s theology and merely assumed they were okay or at least benign. It was only over a period of years of contact with these people that I increasingly became aware of some serious doctrinal differences between us. For some time I was not certain whether these differences were due to the actual teaching of Finney or those who followed after him. I had been given several small books by Gordon Olson, a leader in the “Moral Government” movement. There were a number of things in them that were troublesome, but these were of a relatively minor nature. At this time the only works of Finney himself I possessed were Lectures on Revival, The Heart of Truth (lectures on theology), a book of letters entitled Principles of Discipleship, and a book of sermons entitled True and False Repentance. But I had not read all of any one of these titles. The portions I had read seemed okay at the time.
At the beginning of my dialogues with the Finney people, the conflicts seemed to be over relatively minor points, namely, original sin, the foreknowledge of God, etc. Finney viewed the doctrine of original sin as a major “hiding place” for sinners and blasted away at it. Original sin is the belief that all men inherit through natural generation from Adam the tendency to sin or a sin nature. Infidels and Unitarians argued that God was unjust in punishing men for having and subsequently expressing in their deeds a sin nature inherited at birth from Adam. How could we help but sin if it was our nature to do so? Carnal “believers” excuse their continuing to sin by blaming the fallen nature of the flesh inherited from Adam, and that this nature, according to Calvinism, could not be shed until death. Sin, they insist, is a practical necessity, and it is impossible not to sin at least some.
I argued that one could knock down these excuses for sin from Scripture without giving up the doctrine of original sin. John Wesley certainly did. By the power of Jesus’ blood, the new birth, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the Word of God, we can overcome all sin. The Bible does teach a moral as well as natural depravity proceeding from Adam to all men, but this corrupt or sinful nature does not necessitate sin but only inclines men to it. They may therefore still be condemned by God for yielding to and following after it. Finney people see this as being logically “inconsistent” with oneself, but it seems no more inconsistent than Finney is with himself on many of his own views.
by Pastor Leon Stump
Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) has been called “America’s greatest evangelist” and “the father of modern revivalism.” He studied extensively to be a lawyer, and though he was never admitted to the bar, he did serve as an assistant to a judge in Adams, New York, from 1818-1821. In 1821 his life was turned around dramatically by a remarkable conversion, after which in 1824 he was ordained by the Presbyterian Church and began holding revivals in upstate New York. These meetings were characterized by mighty displays of the Spirit of God in conviction and conversion, and the whole area was effected. In one congregation every person present was either brought to his knees or lay prostrate in a brief two minutes time period. Despite great opposition from some, the news of these meetings spread rapidly, and urgent appeals came from many towns and cities for Finney to come and hold meetings. The high point in his career as an evangelist actually came in these early years in 1830-1831 in Rochester, New York, where in six months time, over 100,000 people were converted and joined churches in the city and in a forty to fifty mile radius surrounding it. In 1832, Finney continued his evangelism for three years from two pastorates in New York City. Then in 1835, he accepted the invitation to become president of the newly established Oberlin College in Northern Ohio where he remained until his death.
Finney is most notable for his revival methods, his power in prayer and preaching, his support of social reforms, and his theology. Most evangelicals think of him only in terms of the first two-revival methods, and the power of the Spirit. But there is a small but influential number of people who think more of Finery’s theology than they do any of the other things for which he is noted. They call themselves, after a major emphasis in Finney’s theology, “Moral Government” people or those who follow Moral Government Theology. For many of these people, Finney was not only America’s greatest evangelist, but “the greatest evangelist since apostolic times” and “the greatest theologian since the apostle Paul.” It is primarily with this later claim that my articles will be addressed.
My acquaintance with Finney began early in my Christian life. Besides occasional references to him from Kenneth Hagin and others, I bought what is perhaps the best known book on his life, “Charles G. Finney” by Basil Miller. Since this book served as the official biography for the conference on the 150th anniversary of Finney’s birth, it is glowingly favorable to him. Any controversies over Finney’s message in particular are either hidden or presented in such a way that one is kept very much in the dark as to what his theology actually was. For example, the very term “perfection” does not set well with most evangelicals, and Miller, no doubt by design, treats Finney’s beliefs on it quite gingerly and in only two very brief paragraphs.
This [an experience of Finney in the Holy Spirit just before he left New York City for Oberlin] gave birth to Finney’s doctrine of Christian blessedness or sanctification or the “higher life” as Beardsley calls it. “A topic of absorbing interest at this time in Oberlin was the doctrine of the higher life,” writes Beardsley. Finney describes this experience as “the consecration of the whole being to God…that state of devotedness to God…a state not only of entire but of perpetual unending consecration to God.” He taught that the experience was to be sought and obtained through faith as a present and permanent possession. These views were enlarged in his book on Sanctification and also in his Systematic Theology, where as he says, “I discussed the subject of entire sanctification more at large.” (Charles G. Finney, Basil Miller; Zondervan Publishing House: Grand Rapids, MI; 1942, p. 96.)
Miller’s account of Finney on perfection is so sanitized that it is quite misleading. First, he adopts another term for it from another writer calling it “the higher life,” which would be far less offensive to many. Secondly, he makes it sound like it is the same as Wesley’s doctrine of sanctification (again, because of historical associations, much more acceptable). But Finney’s doctrine of perfection differs radically from the Wesleyan. Wesley taught that sanctification was a second work of grace subsequent to justification or the new birth in which one was delivered by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit from inbred sin or the sin nature we inherited from Adam. Finney would have none of this in every part-he denied inbred sin, so there was no need for deliverance from it to begin with.
Actually we must make a distinction between Finney and himself when it comes to his views on entire sanctification or perfection. It depends upon what part of Finney’s Systematic Theology and other works that you are reading. This is a common problem when reading the life works of any preacher or author. Apparent contradictions may be found owing possibly to the difference in time between one piece and another-the author’s views changed over time. This is common in Wesley’s writings, but nearly always accompanied by his own footnotes saying he had changed his mind on this or that particular point. Another advantage one has in reading Wesley’s Works is that dates are given for each sermon and treatise. Not so with Finney, hence the difficulty. Another possibility regarding apparent contradictions is that the author did not see any real contradiction in the things he said and can offer an explanation or clarification. Wesley does this often, but not Finney.
The contradictions in Finney on entire sanctification are enormous, even within his Systematic Theology. He argues in chapters seven, twenty-seven, and thirty-three that entire sanctification is nothing more or less than entire obedience to the moral law of God and that man has the natural ability (or free will) to obey this law completely. All sin is nothing more than the exercise of the will to disobey the law of God. But when a man repents and is converted, he turns his will to obey the law of God entirely (and thus be entirely sanctified). No sin is consistent with the repentance (turning from and forsaking all sin) that a man exercises in conversion, so there is no need for any change in a man’s nature or constitution in order for him to be entirely sanctified. No “second work of grace” is necessary. Man, Finney maintains, has the natural ability to keep the whole moral law of God.
But in chapter thirty-five Finney, rather masterfully, may I say, argues that entire sanctification is not at all possible in our own strength. We must, he says, have a revelation of and appropriate to ourselves by faith Christ and all His offices and relations to us as outlined in the New Testament. We need to know Christ as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30), our Mighty God, true vine, advocate, and shepherd if we are to be entirely sanctified.
In my discussions with Moral Government people, they seem to have an appreciation only for the first part of what Finney says about perfection-that it is attainable merely by the exercise of the free will (with the “help” of the Holy Spirit in some vague sense) beginning at conversion, which is the turning of the will to do the will of God. Therefore, they deny that perfection is something to progress toward after conversion, as Finney definitely teaches in chapter thirty-five, but insist that perfection begins at conversion. In none of their preaching, teaching, or conversation do they seem to have the least grasp on what Finney ways in chapter thirty-five about the necessity of having Christ revealed to and in the soul as our salvation and sanctification. They approach the sinner and the believer, justification and sanctification, entirely on the grounds of obedience to the moral law just as Finney erroneously does in chapters seven, twenty-seven, and thirty-three. Any salvation that does not have Christ as its center is no salvation at all and is the worst, most fundamental, and destructive of all errors.
Miller’s biography of Finney ignores or deliberately conceals the distinctive features of his theology and highlights his emphasis upon evangelism, holiness, prayer, practical consecration and service, and the power of the Holy Spirit. (The book is subtitled, He Prayed Down Revivals.) Possibly at least in part due to the popularity of Miller’s book, which went through many editions, most evangelicals have a very high regard for Finney. But if they had or took the opportunity to examine his theology, the regard of even non-Calvinists (who have always detested Finney) would not be nearly so high.
Besides the Miller biography and the occasional references from Hagin and others, my only other exposure to Finney’s teachings came from some youth groups that were part of “the Jesus movement” of the late 1960’s and early ‘70’s. I was saved in December of 1966, and at that time I knew of very few who had come out of the “hippie” culture that swept America in the mid-1960’s, primarily through the hallucinogenic drugs marijuana and LSD. But within a few years, tens of thousands of youth were being evangelized, beginning in California and then across the nation. This evangelistic movement, some of it planned but much of it spontaneous, came to be called “the Jesus movement” and the youth who were reached by it were called “Jesus freaks.” As with any raw religious movement, much of it was dubious and spurious, and many of those who had been reached were merely caught up in the excitement and the novelty of a current “fad” and did not become lasting disciple of Jesus Christ. Only those who were incorporated into churches with discipleship programs lasted.
One of the most prominent groups seeking to disciple young people in those days was founded by a youth pastor named Tony Salerno. Named “the Agape Force” after the Greek word for “love,” it began in California, then moved to East Texas along with several similar or associated ministries, including singer/songwriter Keith Green’s “Last Days Ministries” and David Wilkerson. (David Wilkerson was a prominent figure in the “Jesus movement.”) Often converted folk rock singer Barry McGuire, the Second Chapter of Acts, and a teacher from New Zealand named Winkie Pratney accompanied the Agape Force in meetings, seminars, and youth camps.
Tony Salerno and the Agape Force came to my home church in West Columbia, Texas, only once, but our youth were in their meetings in Houston and other nearby places on a number of occasions. In addition, a lesser known group from California that took in youth on drugs, etc., and tried to rehabilitate them came to our church, and some of that group stayed there for a number of years to work with our youth. All of these ministries (with the exception of David Wilkerson) based their teaching almost exclusively on the writings of Charles Finney. These groups had some strange ways, but not all of them were directly due to their adherence to Finney. For one thing, they all lived communally. The reason I didn’t like them was because by 1968 the “faith movement” headed by Kenneth Hagin based on the writings of E.W. Kenyon had completely captivated me, and the Agape Force and its associates were definitely not part of nor influenced in the least by the faith movement. I simply assumed, not having studied his theology, that since these groups were based on Finney’s writings they were orthodox or at least okay in their doctrine. They stressed, to put in mildly, repentance. It was their answer for everything it seemed. They preached on sin a lot, with a view to getting people to humble themselves and be “broken” (sorrowful) for their sin and “selfishness.” At that time I didn’t think that is what people needed at all, but in hindsight, that was probably the spiritual level of most of our youth; they could have used some true repentance. On the other hand, repentance will take you only so far with God, and if continued in as if it were the whole of Christianity and the Christian life, after a time it can have just the opposite effects intended. People become hardened, disillusioned, and oppressed and quit following the Lord altogether instead of being established in Christ. I realized that the great stress upon repentance was no doubt from Finney, but I did not understand at that time the basis in Finney’s theology that was behind this.
You can’t accuse people for being in error because they stress repentance. Some of their methods were a little strange, but they justified them with the claim that they were necessary for youth coming out of a background of sin, drugs, and rebellion. There were only a few things I heard from these groups that I questioned. I remember hearing and reading Winkie Pratney teach that we were sinners, not because of Adam’s fall, but because of our own choice, and that Adam was not the “federal head” of the fallen human race. This bothered me somewhat because, through the “deeper life’ influence in Kenyon’s writings, I had become quite familiar with Paul’s parallel between Adam and Christ in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. Pratney rejected this parallel, seeing it as the grounds for excuse for sin-“it’s Adam’s fault,” “I was born a sinner and can’t help but sin because I have a sin nature,” etc. I don’t think I realized that this was Finney’s teaching; I just knew I didn’t agree with it. On another occasion, one of our youth returned from a summer camp led by the Agape Force and related that one night the speaker, after stressing how much human sin over the millennia has grieved God, asked everyone to get on their knees and pray for God! On still another occasion, a Ft. Worth pastor remarked off hand that the Agape Force were into “Finneyism,” but I don’t know on what he based his remark. Other than a few anecdotal incidents like this involving Finney people, I was not aware of any major doctrinal error in the groups, and, like I said, because of a general high regard for Finney that everyone seemed to possess, despite the fact that few of us had examined his teaching in any detail, I assumed everything was all right, at least on the doctrinal score.
Years passed until I had the opportunity, after having gotten out of the faith movement, to meet others who were deeply into Finney’s teachings. Again, they laid great stress upon sin, judgment, and repentance, but by this time, because of my exposure to classic Christian writings of the past, I knew the validity of seeking to bring the lost to salvation by first leading them to repentance through exposing their sin. I still did not know or realize the distinctive elements in Finney’s theology and merely assumed they were okay or at least benign. It was only over a period of years of contact with these people that I increasingly became aware of some serious doctrinal differences between us. For some time I was not certain whether these differences were due to the actual teaching of Finney or those who followed after him. I had been given several small books by Gordon Olson, a leader in the “Moral Government” movement. There were a number of things in them that were troublesome, but these were of a relatively minor nature. At this time the only works of Finney himself I possessed were Lectures on Revival, The Heart of Truth (lectures on theology), a book of letters entitled Principles of Discipleship, and a book of sermons entitled True and False Repentance. But I had not read all of any one of these titles. The portions I had read seemed okay at the time.
At the beginning of my dialogues with the Finney people, the conflicts seemed to be over relatively minor points, namely, original sin, the foreknowledge of God, etc. Finney viewed the doctrine of original sin as a major “hiding place” for sinners and blasted away at it. Original sin is the belief that all men inherit through natural generation from Adam the tendency to sin or a sin nature. Infidels and Unitarians argued that God was unjust in punishing men for having and subsequently expressing in their deeds a sin nature inherited at birth from Adam. How could we help but sin if it was our nature to do so? Carnal “believers” excuse their continuing to sin by blaming the fallen nature of the flesh inherited from Adam, and that this nature, according to Calvinism, could not be shed until death. Sin, they insist, is a practical necessity, and it is impossible not to sin at least some.
I argued that one could knock down these excuses for sin from Scripture without giving up the doctrine of original sin. John Wesley certainly did. By the power of Jesus’ blood, the new birth, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the Word of God, we can overcome all sin. The Bible does teach a moral as well as natural depravity proceeding from Adam to all men, but this corrupt or sinful nature does not necessitate sin but only inclines men to it. They may therefore still be condemned by God for yielding to and following after it. Finney people see this as being logically “inconsistent” with oneself, but it seems no more inconsistent than Finney is with himself on many of his own views.