Baptist History and Theology

The Calvinist Gadfly Refuses to Differentiate Between the Pre-Sin Adam and Christians


Alan Kurschner has continued to act like his views concerning the cause of Adam’s sin falls are in line with Reformed theology. However, as I have already demonstrated he has failed to provide any Reformed sources that will support his view. I have provided several Reformed theologians who hold different views than that of Mr. Kurschner’s.

Alan states “You first have to ask this question: Who gave Lucifer the desire not to sin? Answer: God. Was this gracious for God to give Lucifer this desire not to sin? Answer: yes. So, does God not have the freedom to remove his hand of grace from Lucifer? Answer: yes. If God chose to remove his hand from Lucifer, then Lucifer in and of himself being a creature apart from God’s grace would allow him to have this desire to sin. Lucifer had the desire to sin because God removed what enabled him in the first place to not sin.”

Where do you find this happening in scripture? Nowhere. Instead, we find “How YOU HAVE FALLEN FROM HEAVEN, O morning star, son of the dawn! YOU HAVE BEEN CAST DOWN TO THE EARTH, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds. I WILL MAKE MYSELF LIKE THE MOST HIGH.’”—Isaiah 14:12-14. And “Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth.”—Ezekiel 28:17.

When asked “Did God remove his grace on his good creatures, Alan? Created in His own image and declared good and yet removed his grace on them?”

Alan responded with “Again, Yes.”

Again Alan writes:
“God was not obligated to persevere Adam’s faith. Imagine that Rob…God would withdraw his gracious presence from us to demonstrate our weakness and dependency on Him.”

And “Yes, God’s wisdom is absurd to our creaturely sensibilities. Again, imagine that Rob, God would actually withdraw his hand of grace to demonstrate to the creature his weakness and dependence on Him.”

Again, Mr. Kurschner fails to differentiate between the pre-sin Adam and us, Christians. The pre-sin Adam had a nature quite different from our natures. His was without sin. He was declared a good creature by God. Edwards’ view of the will says that men must act according to their strongest desire at the moment based on their natures. Adam’s nature was without sin so the idea of sin was foreign to his nature. He could only act according to his nature which was good. He could not sin based on his good, sinless nature. So where did Adam get his desire to sin? Alan says God decreed it but this goes further than what Reformed theology teaches.

Here is where Alan parts company with Reformed theology and enters into the realm of hyper-Calvinism.

Alan writes:
"Your a troubler who is not interested in truthful interaction. I don’t mind if you disagree all day with me, but I am tired and done with spending 95% of my time in my comments with you correcting your misrepresentations of Reformed theology."

But he has yet provided ANY reformed theologians that agree with his position! And I am accused of misrepresenting Reformed theology? I have asked him to provide the names of any reformed theologians who support his view of the cause of Adam’s sin and he hasn’t provided ONE source!

Alan writes:
“You are not well read at all in Reformed theology. Your name-calling such as “hyper-Calvinism” shows your ignorance of the historical meaning of the term. Hyper-Calvinism is heresy, indeed, it is anti-Calvinism. You have come on this blog with the pretense of thinking you understand Reformed theology, let alone basic confessions such as the Westminster!

Alan thinks he knows how well read I am in Reformed theology but he does not even know me personally. How can he make this claim? I am the only one who quoted from Reformed sources and he has not!
My calling him a hyper-Calvinist comes from the definition provided by Monergism.com.

Alan writes:
“Your arguments and behavior over the past month or so, prove to me that you are prideful and full of arrogant ignorance. And I am not too fond of discussing these truths with those who do not represent my views truthfully.”

But yet he wrote earlier in the same post:
“I actually thought that Rob Mart was going to be an exception and be a level-headed anti-Calvinist commentator on my blog. But my hopes were soon vanished in some of his recent absurd comments about God’s freedom to give grace and his freedom to withdraw his grace.”

My comments concerning the withdrawal of grace came only a few days ago on June 28th 2006. In fact, I only started posting comments on his blog in late May of 2006. So which one is it? It seems like Alan is a little confused or maybe it is a cop out. He has banned me from posting anymore comments on his blog but yet he continues to leave comments concerning the errors of views.

He wrote the a day after his banning me from his blog:
“What Rob has failed to distinguish is that there is an immediate cause of Adam’s sin (temptation/self-centeredness), and God’s purpose in his decree of Adam’s sin. We know what the former is certainly, but the latter is what I am suggesting as the best plausible explanation: God in his all-wise council has chosen not to give Adam sufficient grace to overcome that particular sin to bring about his glorious purposes in redemptive history.

For some strange reason, this rubs Rob the wrong way. All Reformers would agree that God could have given Adam sufficient grace to overcome that temptation. Why Rob calls this “hyper-calvinism” demonstrates his absolute ignorance of Reformed theology. What is interesting as well, there are many Arminians who would agree that God could have given Adam the sufficient grace to overcome this temptation. Rob is filtering his theology to what makes “sense” to how he thinks God’s grace should operate in accord with his sensibilities.”

I guess it is easier to point the “errors” of someone when that someone CANNOT respond!