I want to try to examine the teaching of Charles Finney. In doing so I will exercise the same courtesy as if he were before me. I will not attack his character or his ministry but will contain myself to examining what he has written and what we should understand by it.
I will take my quotations from the 1851 version of the published work. Some have objected to other versions has having omissions and additions.
The front page of the book has the title...
LECTURES
ON
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY,
EMBRACING
MORAL GOVERNMENT,
THE ATONEMENT, MORAL AND PHYSICAL DEPRAVITY,
NATURAL, MORAL, AND GRACIOUS ABILITY, REPENTANCE, FAITH,
JUSTIFICATION, SANCTIFICATION, &c.
BY THE
REV. CHARLES G. FINNEY,
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE OBERLIN COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE, OHIO, AMERICA.
THE WHOLE WORK REVISED, ENLARGED, AND PARTLY RE-WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR,
DURING HIS LATE VISIT TO ENGLAND.
It will be helpful to see the priorities that Finney himself placed on this publication; it is an exposition of the theory of Moral Government in Systematic Theology. The opening words of the preface reads...
TO a great extent, the truths of the blessed gospel have been hidden under a false philosophy.
Finney's "Systematic Theology" lectures are the exposition of a philosophy. He claimed that much of the Calvinism and hyper Calvinism of his day was a 'false philosophy' and this series of lectures is Finney's attempt to provide a true philosophy.
This will explain a pattern which may surprise those who read it for the first time, namely that in the foundational chapters there is very little quotation of scripture. It is philosophy rather than Bible exposition. Finney begins not from scriptural revelation but from reason. He was a lawyer and his style is very pedantic, building one idea on the last. This has some advantages but one disadvantage it has if that is you cannot accept the earlier part of his reasoning the later parts are so dependent upon the earlier that it leaves you with a sense of uncertainty.
The pattern is A therefore B, B therefore C, C therefore D etc. If you cannot accept A the whole pattern grinds to a halt. You are left with an elaborate building with no foundation or at least with a foundation in which you have no confidence.
Finney's whole philosophy is built on what might be called 'fairness'. God's works and ways must be seen to be fair. This is another pattern of the law with which Finney was so familiar; justice must not only be done, it must also be seen to be done. There are truths which he holds to be self-evident and which everyone will agree to. He tries to build on a sense of 'moral' common sense. In this sense he is not so different from the Roman Catholic notion of 'natural theology'. Catholic theologians claimed that logic steps would take any reasonable man from the fact of the existence of the world into fully convinced believers. There is something of the same presumption in Finney's writings. He believes that what he is writing is self-evident and that it is the only reasonable explanation for things as they are.
In these lectures he does not begin with the Bible but with self-evident facts which no reasonable person would contradict. He continues...
I often said to myself, "If these things are really taught in the Bible, I must be an infidel." But the more I read my Bible, the more clearly I saw that these things were not found there upon any fair principles of interpretation, such as would be admitted in a court of justice. I could not but perceive that the true idea of moral government had no place in the theology of the church; and, on the contrary, that underlying the whole system were the assumptions that all government was physical, as opposed to moral, and that sin and holiness are rather natural attributes, than moral, voluntary acts.
So Finney claims that it was his reading of the Bible that alerted him to these 'discrepancies' but his lectures do not begin with the Bible but with "How we attain to the knowledge of certain truths". He then lists the ways in which we attain such knowledge...
1. The Revelation of Self-Consciousness
2. The Revelation of the Sense
3. The Revelation of the Reason
4. The Revelation of the Understanding
He is presenting his case as he would do to a court of law;
such as would be admitted in a court of justice.
It is important to keep this in mind when we try to understand his points later on. He is basing his case on 'natural theology' and his arguments are those that he believes would carry the verdict in a court of law. Finney, of course, was a lawyer... as was Augustine, Tertullian and John Calvin!!
The question must be asked as to whether it is appropriate to start at this point. Finney himself believed in 'human depravity' but saw it as being self-induced rather that transmitted. Is it safe to base our case, as Christians, primarily upon the functions of natural reason and obeying such such laws of evidence as would convince a court of law?
In his lectures, at least, Finney does not begin with divine revelation but with human reasoning. To my mind this is going to have serious repercussions to all he writes. Traditionally orthodox Christians have said 'I believe therefore I think'. Belief arises from revelation but for Finney in his lectures conviction will not arise from divine revelation but from the power of reason. We should bear this in mind as we move on to consider his views on the Atonement.
