“Because fallen man possesses the power of choice and is a
rational creature, he is obligated to make a wise and good choice. The fault
lies entirely at his door that he does not do so, for he deliberately chooses
evil. “They have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their
abominations. I will also choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon
them: because when I call, none did answer: when spake, they did not hear: but they did evil
before Mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not” (Isa. 66:3,4). The bondage
of the will to sinful inclinations neither destroys voluntariness nor our responsibility,
for the enslaved will is till a self-determining faculty, and therefore under inescapable
obligations to choose what man knows to be right. That very bondage is
culpable, for it proceeds from self and not from God. Though man is the slave
of sin it is a voluntary servitude, and therefore it is inexcusable.
“The will is biased by the disposition of the heart: as the
heart is, so the will acts. A holy will has a holy bias and therefore is under
a moral necessity of exerting holy volitions: ‘a good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit.’ But a sinful will has a sinful bias because it has an evil disposition
and therefore it is under a moral necessity of exerting sinful volitions. But
let it be pointed out once more that the evil disposition of man’s will is not
the effect of some original defect in the creature, for God made man ‘upright’.
No, his very sinful disposition is the abiding self-determination of the human
will. Its origin is due to the misuse Adam made of his freedom, and its
continuation results from the unceasing, self- determination of everyone of his
posterity. Each man perpetuates and prolongs the evil started by his first
parents.”
-A. W. Pink British
Minister, Author 1886–1952
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