Christianity Today

There's no ducking the point if one takes the first eleven or so chapters as something more than fairy tale respecting man, his nature and purpose. From innocence to command, from exposure to evil, thru temptation, beyond commission in violation to condemnation, something ongoing, there is no excuse for failing to appreciate God's finding that man's imagination, absent His grace, inclines toward's evil, whether in the choice or from the choice, whether willfully or from a deformity of understanding, ignorance is and remaining no excuse. For the normal believer in Jesus, we know because the Bible tells us so.

Now Gordon, a response only a learned theologian could understand (and wade through). But for us normal believers in Jesus--huh?--come again?

One is better off reading Isaiah Berlin's work on freedom. From a Biblical perspective, confused. From a Calvinist perspective, false. Bondage in the Biblical sense, always respecting sin. Freedom, in the Calvinist sense, always in the freedom from bondage, and there of the will beyond any material condition. Moral depravity, even in the will if not the understanding, is always seen in a controlling context, the 'inclination' prevailing until set free by grace, the more the assent the better. Free will, always defined in its Arminian sense, a Pelagian adoption of the philosopher's presumption, the essential goodness of man - contrary to a human condition, clearly revealed and historically proven, all too fallen, and there, despite the raptures of Pope espousing the cause of Leibniz. Confusing the faculty of choice with an ability to choose good is the devil's play to ultimately dispose of evil, its existence, in the choice, the choice paramount beyond good and evil!