An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible

by Catharine Esther Beecher

It thus appears that theologians and creeds that adopt the Augustinian theory contradict themselves mainly in these two points:

First, they teach that man's nature is depraved and that it is not depraved.

Next, that previous to regeneration, men do not perform any truly virtuous acts, and yet that while unregenerated they do perform such acts.

The quotation from creeds and theologians, in preceding chapters, is proof that they teach that man's nature is thus depraved, and that previous to regeneration he never performs a single truly virtuous act. [pg 215] This and the preceding chapter present some of the evidence that they teach the opposite.

The following is submitted as still further evidence of such contradictions.

In the first place, it is allowed by all, that the Augustinian creeds and theologians teach that man, as a race, including every individual, has a depraved nature. The question, then, all turns on the meaning of the word nature, and whether they affirm its depravity in the same sense as they affirm that in nature man is the living image of the living God and our only guide to a knowledge of him.

It is claimed that they do use the word nature in one and the same sense when they affirm that man's nature is and is not depraved. In proof of this we must resort to our lexicographers who have collected the various senses in which mankind use the word nature. And here we must again recognize the fact that the true meaning of every word is settled simply by ascertaining what meaning men attach to it when they use it.

In examining our dictionaries, we shall find that the word nature is used sometimes to signify every thing that God has created; as when it is said, “all nature speaks its Maker's praise.” Sometimes, by a figurative use, the Author of all things is called Nature, as when it is said that “Nature paints the flowers and spreads her repasts.”

No one will claim that either of these is the sense in which the word is used in reference to the nature of the mind of man as a race.

The leading and primary signification of the word nature is that which is intended and understood when [pg 216] we say that “the nature of a design or construction is proof of the character and intention of the author.” It is in this sense that men use the word when they speak of the nature of animals, the nature of trees, and the nature of the soul.