2. Human being as a sinner
If both the Articles and Outline are correct in their estimate of human nature then human beings have improved dramatically in terms of their moral and spiritual being in the last two centuries!
The Outline begins with a heading, “Human Nature’”, which contains a description of human beings as part of God’s creation and made in his image (which is defined as being free to make choices and live in harmony with both creation and God). Then it explains that human beings have not used their freedom aright for they have made wrong choices and thereby rebelled against God.
So who can help them? God can! And his first way of helping the human race was by his revealing of himself in nature and history, particularly Israel’s history. In this history (dealt with in section 2, “God the Father”) God revealed himself as “the Father almighty creator of heaven and earth.” The universe is good and is “the work of a single loving God who creates, sustains and directs it.” Further, within the created order all people are worthy of respect and honor and all as made in God’s image can respond to the love of God.
What about sin? It is presented as the wrong use of freedom and of making bad choices. There is no permanent “bondage of the will” here to sin and thus “all can respond to the love of God” anywhere at any time. In fact, in the fifth section, ‘Sin and Redemption,” sin is defined as “the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people and with all creation.” Further, it is claimed that “sin has power over us because we lose out liberty when our relationship with God is distorted
In the Outline, the type of doctrine found in the Rite 2 Services of the 1979 book is summarized. It is a theology which rightly emphasizes that God is the Creator of the universe and what he made was good. At the same time it is a theology which fails to identify clearly the biblical basis of the revealed name of “the Father” (which is not, as suggested in section 2, because he is Creator of all persons, but rather because he is the Father of the only-begotten Son, the eternal Word). Then, it presents a doctrine of human sinfulness which omits any reference to sin as a permanent disease or bias of the soul. That is there is actual sin but not “original sin.”
If we turn to the Articles then we find that they begin not with human nature but with the primary Christian doctrine, God the Holy Trinity, the One God who is the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Creator of the visible and invisible worlds. Then they speak of the Incarnation of the Son, so that he becomes One Person, with a divine and a human nature, and as such he lives, dies as a sacrifice for sin and is raised from the dead.
We may regret that the Articles do not provide any statements of man made in the image of God. In the sixteenth century this doctrine was assumed by Catholics and Protestants as a given, as was also the doctrine that this image is now deface and corrupted in all of us. But the Articles do deal fully with human sin which they describe in that tradition of biblical theology that is usually called Augustinian. And here the difference between the 1979 doctrine and the Reformed Catholic is great. Article IX is entitled “Of Original or Birth-Sin” and Article X “Of Free Will.” Here each of us is declared to have from birth a human nature that is not perfect for it already is spiritually deformed and has a bias towards evil. This human nature will only be fully sanctified and redeemed with the resurrection of the body at the last Day. In this life God provides regeneration, new birth by the Holy Spirit from above, which introduces into the soul a new principle, a new nature, which by grace mortifies the old nature and enables the born-again believer to live in the freedom of Christ. Without the divine act of regeneration, each person remains in bondage to sin for the human will is not free to choose to do that true good which is acceptable to God, the Holy One.
In the Articles, the doctrine of the sinfulness of man is stated in order to present the doctrine of God’s salvation provided through the saving work of Jesus Christ as the Mediator (see especially Articles XI to XV on the doctrine of Justification by Faith through Grace). At the center of the Book of Common Prayer (1662/1928) service of Holy Communion is the presentation of Salvation from the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit, in which salvation man is justified by faith and is sent forth to produce good works in faithfulness to the glory of God. In contrast, the Rite II services lack the depth and clarity of the Reformed Catholic presentation of justification by faith.
October 11, 2005
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