Does Command Imply Ability?

[Sam Jer]

One of the main arguments Martin Luther is replying to in his Bondage of the Will, in response to Desidirius Erasmus, is that command implies ability, and that this proves free will. Luther by many arguments seeks to bring down this way of arguing.

But then the puritan minister Christopher Love, hardly suspected of any popery, uses the same kind of argument many times in a diffrent matter - in his sermons which are brought together in his Treatise of Effectual Calling and Election - to prove that one can be assured of one's calling and election, drawing on 2 Peter 1:10 KJV.

So, what gives? Whose right? Or is perhaps Love's use fundementally diffrent from Erasmus's as to neutralise Luther's argument in Love's argument, but not in Erasmus's?

 

[Ploutos]

One of the main arguments Martin Luther is replying to in his Bondage of the Will, in response to Desidirius Erasmus, is that command implies ability, and that this proves free will. Luther by many arguments seeks to bring down this way of arguing.

But then the puritan minister Christopher Love, hardly suspected of any popery, uses the same kind of argument many times in a diffrent matter - in his sermons which are brought together in his Treatise of Effectual Calling and Election - to prove that one can be assured of one's calling and election, drawing on 2 Peter 1:10 KJV.

So, what gives? Whose right? Or is perhaps Love's use fundementally diffrent from Erasmus's as to neutralise Luther's argument in Love's argument, but not in Erasmus's?

Can you provide some quotations, to help give context?

 

[Sam Jer]

Can you provide some quotations, to help give context?

I have read Luther in Swedish and I also do not remember the exact referance, perhaps someone else can help out with that.

For Love, this is one example. He earlier uses the same argument and verse to prove one can be assured of ones' calling, and I think a few more times throughout the books he uses that argument with that text, to advance that point.

Screenshots taken out of Monergism's PDF version of the work.

 

[SolaScriptura]

It would be unjust and improper for a parent to look down at their newborn infant and command them to go clean up their room. Or for a drill sergeant to enter a smelly bathroom and bark at the trainees that they had better start sucking up all that stink…

There are many numerous real examples and conceivable hypothetical situations in which someone places a demand upon another that is just absurd and beyond the faculties or constitutional capacity to perform it. In other words, they’re demanding what is literally impossible even if the person being commanded sincerely desired to comply.

But none of God’s commands are in violation of our constitutional capacity. That’s kind of the point that God makes to Moses (i.e., Deut 30: 11-14) that no command of God is beyond our constitutional capacity to perform; He doesn’t make wild and unreasonable and unrealistic demands of us.

Man was created in such a way that he has every capability of doing what God commands. Proof? People obey commands all the time… People believe things all the time… People put their faith in things all the time… God asks nothing of us that we are incapable of doing.

The issue is our inclination… not our natural constitutional ability to do this or that. That’s where I think discussions about “free will” go awry and which is why I don’t typically engage in those discussions with that kind of language… too often the language and argumentation focuses on "ability" (as if there’s something I want to do, but I’m being constrained or prevented by something outside of myself… Or that there’s something I don’t want to do, but I’m being compelled by something outside myself to do it).

But the issue is how the fall has affected our nature in terms of what we desire and want and choose to function… So that we WILL NOT submit and love and obey… But nonetheless, every human being possesses the constitutional capacity to obey commands given to them, to believe in something they cannot see, to trust in something other than themselves., etc.

So God‘s commands to men are implicit affirmation of the righteousness of his condemnation of us because nothing is preventing us from obeying him and coming in repentance and faith to him, other than the simple fact that we don’t want to, i.e., we "love the darkness."

 

[CasualWestminsterEnjoyer]

Command implies a physical ability, but not a moral ability.

I.e. doing so is compatible with human nature in general (not considered specifically as fallen), even though it may NOT be compatible with your corrupt will and affections.

Or to say things another way, you could if you wanted to, but you don't, so you can't.

 

[MyCrows]

I was always under the impression that command simply implies obligation. God could command the very stones to cry out, and without any inherent ability to do so, they would.

 

[CasualWestminsterEnjoyer]

I was always under the impression that command simply implies obligation. God could command the very stones to cry out, and without any inherent ability to do so, they would.

Could God have justly placed man under an obligation that he had no ability to fulfil, even before the fall, and by no fault of his own?

E.g. would it be just for a king to fine a poor blind man for not paying a $50,000 tax, when the man only scrapes by on $5000 per year he makes from begging?

I suppose one could say "everything God does is just, so if he did that, it would be just," but surely we have some concept that there are things that God does not do because they are unfair and inconsistent with his perfectly just nature.

 

[Ploutos]

Could God have justly placed man under an obligation that he had no ability to fulfil, even before the fall, and by no fault of his own?

E.g. would it be just for a king to fine a poor blind man for not paying a $50,000 tax, when the man only scrapes by on $5000 per year he makes from begging?

I suppose one could say "everything God does is just, so if he did that, it would be just," but surely we have some concept that there are things that God does not do because they are unfair and inconsistent with his perfectly just nature.

"Even before the fall" is the critical part. After the fall, we are under an obligation that we have no ability to fulfill... And we won't have it any other way.

 

[MW]

The two are coming at it from two different sides of conversion. Luther, before conversion, is teaching the state of man because of the fall. The law does not empower us to obey; it convicts us of disobeying. Command reveals obligation and demonstrates man is not what he once was nor what he ought to be. Love, after conversion, is teaching the state of man as enabled by grace. There is a restored ability to do what the law commands in some measure, and this demonstrates the presence of grace as a mark of effectual calling, and consequently of election.

 

[Man of God]

It would be unjust and improper for a parent to look down at their newborn infant and command them to go clean up their room. Or for a drill sergeant to enter a smelly bathroom and bark at the trainees that they had better start sucking up all that stink…

There are many numerous real examples and conceivable hypothetical situations in which someone places a demand upon another that is just absurd and beyond the faculties or constitutional capacity to perform it. In other words, they’re demanding what is literally impossible even if the person being commanded sincerely desired to comply.

But none of God’s commands are in violation of our constitutional capacity. That’s kind of the point that God makes to Moses (i.e., Deut 30: 11-14) that no command of God is beyond our constitutional capacity to perform; He doesn’t make wild and unreasonable and unrealistic demands of us.

Man was created in such a way that he has every capability of doing what God commands. Proof? People obey commands all the time… People believe things all the time… People put their faith in things all the time… God asks nothing of us that we are incapable of doing.

The issue is our inclination… not our natural constitutional ability to do this or that. That’s where I think discussions about “free will” go awry and which is why I don’t typically engage in those discussions with that kind of language… too often the language and argumentation focuses on "ability" (as if there’s something I want to do, but I’m being constrained or prevented by something outside of myself… Or that there’s something I don’t want to do, but I’m being compelled by something outside myself to do it).

But the issue is how the fall has affected our nature in terms of what we desire and want and choose to function… So that we WILL NOT submit and love and obey… But nonetheless, every human being possesses the constitutional capacity to obey commands given to them, to believe in something they cannot see, to trust in something other than themselves., etc.

So God‘s commands to men are implicit affirmation of the righteousness of his condemnation of us because nothing is preventing us from obeying him and coming in repentance and faith to him, other than the simple fact that we don’t want to, i.e., we "love the darkness."

Well said Ben.