Total Inability in the WCF (Part 1)

In the next couple of posts, I will address the doctrine of total inability, as expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF), along with the proof texts used to support this doctrine.

From the WCF:

Chapter IX

III. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation:(d) so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good,(e) and dead in sin,(f) is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.(g)

(d) Rom. 5:6; Rom 8:7; John 15:5.
(e) Rom. 3:10, 12.
(f) Eph. 2:1, 5; Col. 2:13.
(g) John 6:44, 65; Eph. 2:2, 3, 4, 5; I Cor. 2:14; Titus 3:3, 4, 5.

Let’s consider the language of the Confession here along with the proof texts provided to support such language.

“Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.”

The texts cited to support this statement are:

Romans 5:6 While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

Romans 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot;

John 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Comments:

The “ability of will” is not mentioned in any of these texts. Yet the Confession asserts that man has wholly lost his "ability of will" to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.

Romans 5:6 speaks of being “weak”. Some, in characterizing our condition apart from Christ, emphasize the metaphor of “deadness in sin” to the exclusion of other metaphors such as this one. “Dead means dead”, they say. But the Scriptures also describe our condition as “weak” and as being a “slave”.

Romans 8:7 speaks of the mind set on the flesh being hostile to God. Such a mind cannot submit to God’s law. Again, there is no mention of “ability of will” here. I take this to mean that the mind set on the flesh cannot submit to God’s law as long as it remains hostile and set on the flesh. But, may a man not change his mind? The LORD says through Ezekiel (18:31): “Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel?”

Also, it seems that the force given to the Greek word translated “cannot” here ought to be given to John’s use of the same Greek word when he writes, “No one born of God commits sin; for God's nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.” (1 John 3:9)

In John 15:5, Jesus is speaking to his disciples who had already been made “clean” by the word he had spoken to them. These “branches” can do nothing, that is, bear no fruit, apart from the "vine". Taking this verse in its context, it seems to bear no relation to the assertion of the
Confession--that man has wholly lost "all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation".