By Rev. H. M. Sydenstricker, Ph.D., West Point, Mississippi
1. THE CASE STATED
The penetration of scientific investigation into the erstwhile unknown regions of things is one of the wonders of the age. All departments of creation are yielding up their secrets to the searching eye of science.
The causes of things are being sought after, not only in the natural world, but in all realms as well, so that things may be brought more certainly and directly under the human will. The unseen operations by which powerful results are produced are forced to yield and tell their secrets. New powers are discovered in all realms of investigation and subdued as never before to the service of man. Practically everything is reduced to science, and men are learning the how and the wherefore of things physical, mental and spiritual. The better these things are understood, the more completely are we the masters of the world for whose subjection man was commissioned.
Now our inquiry is whether the conversion of the human soul - the divinely wrought new birth - lies within the range of scientific investigation. Can the operations of the Divine forces and the divinely appointed means for the conversion of a soul be made to yield to scientific research, so that we can produce results with the same degree of certainty as does the chemist in his laboratory? Do the laws of cause and effect operate in the spiritual realm as in the natural world, and can we apply spiritual means and causes with the same degree of certainty as in physical things? Can we get out of the realm of the uncertain and the vague in working with human souls and operate with absolute assurance of adequate and satisfactory results?
In this greatest of all works, and which is practically committed to man, has God left us to absolute uncertainties as to results? Is it not true that if the divinely ordained means be properly used the results can be obtained with the same scientific certainty as in other things, and results also which are in no sense spurious but the actual effect of efficient and properly applied causes? Are not the promises of God absolute, and do not many incidents in the work and history of the Church demonstrate that the conversion of souls was the direct result of God-appointed and man-applied means thereto, operated by purely scientific methods, although the workers had no thought of science in their work? Are we not bound to obey God’s laws in all scientific operations in the physical world, and must we not scientifically obey His laws in the higher realm of His domain?
2. THE CASE DIAGNOSED
A careful diagnosis of the case under consideration may help us towards a scientific answer to our investigation. To know the patient, and especially to know precisely the nature of the disease, is of prime importance in the successful treatment of it. Otherwise, all treatment is mere guess-work.
Our subject in this inquiry is a degenerate human soul. Degenerate meaning an inherent unrighteousness and an innate corruption that has affected every fiber and faculty of the human soul. This total depravity does not mean that man is actually and practically as mean as he is capable of being, but it means that the total man is depraved in all of his parts, and that he is born in that condition.
This native degeneracy is of a twofold nature: First, it is a legal condemnation descending to every human soul from a justly condemned ancestry who represented and stood for the whole race in the government of God under the covenant of works first made with man. Second, it is a complete moral corruption of the whole soul so that all the faculties of the soul are affected in such a way as to make them incapable of right action, so that every imagination of the heart is only evil continually. This morally degenerate man, in the adult stage, is also guilty of manifold actual sins, confirming his condemnation and making his moral nature all the more depraved. In addition to this already depraved condition, this degenerate man has no desire for a better life; his perverted natural taste refuses it, and he is even unwilling to consider anything better. He actually loves his depraved condition and revels in the things that develop still more the baser principles in him. Moreover, his intellect is so blunted that he is incapable of apprehending spiritual truths and his eyes are so stigmatized that he cannot see the light.
Such then is the character of the unconverted man, the subject now under consideration. And it is very evident, that while we may be able with the aid of Divine revelation and human observation and experience to diagnose the case correctly, the remedy is found in a higher realm, though it may be applied in part through human agencies.