This being so, the system of common sense neither affirms or denies the direct access of the creative mind to the minds of his creatures. It is a question to be settled solely by revelation.
Note E.
This mode of explaining the depravity of mind is to be found in the Conflict of Ages. On page 90 the following passage exhibits the author's idea, both of a perfectly constructed mind, and of a depraved mind:
“So there is a life of the mind. It involves an original and designed correlation to God, and such a state of the affections, passions, emotions, intellect and will, that communion with God shall be natural, habitual, and the life of the soul. He who has been so far healed by divine grace as to reach this state, has a true idea of the normal and healthy state of the soul. And if he finds that there is that in the state of his moral constitution and emotions which seems to lie beneath his will and undermine its energy to follow the convictions of reason and conscience, and that by divine grace this has been changed, and an energy not only to will but to do good is supplied, is it to be wondered at that, in some way, he should come to the conclusion that there is in his nature or moral constitution, depravity or pollution, anterior to the action of the will?”
The theory which this author adopts is, that the “normal” state of man's “nature or moral constitution” was created in man by God in a preëxistent state, and that man's “depravity or pollution anterior to the action of the will” consists in “a habit of sinning,” generated in this preëxistent state.
This habit of sinning was not a part of the perfectly-constructed nature made by God. Man himself introduced it into his own mind, thus rendering it so depraved that every moral act is sin, and only sin.
Regeneration, according to this theory, consists in a change of the “state of the moral constitution,” whereby “an energy not only to will but to do good is supplied.” That is to say, the “habit of sinning” can be lessened or removed by some supernatural change of the “moral constitution” by God. And yet all men are born with this depravity which God can remedy, and will not, except for a select few.
It is manifest, therefore, that this writer holds to a depravity of nature in the true and proper sense of the term, signifying constitution or construction.
This being so, his theory puts it out of his power to prove the benevolence of the Creator, or to establish any revelation from him as a reliable guide to truth and happiness.