Objection 5: Natural Man – Whitby’s refutation of Arguments in favor of irresistible grace

OBJECTION FIVE. It is still more impertinent to argue this from the words of the apostle, 'the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they art foolishness to him; neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.' (1 Corinthians 2:14)

For First. The natural man here is not barely the unregenerate man, but the wise man and disputer of the world, who will admit of nothing but what he can see proved by reason, and so receives not things revealed by the Spirit, because he doth not see them proved by philosophical deductions from reason; but deems them foolishness, for want of that which only is, in his esteem, true wisdom; as has been fully proved in the note upon that place.

Secondly. When the apostle says that this man cannot know the revelations of the Spirit, he speaks not of the inability of a Heathen to understand the meaning of any revelation discovered to him; for how then is it discovered to him? Nor does he say that when they are declared to him, he lacks further means to attain to the true sense of them; but only that he cannot know them by that human wisdom by which alone he will be guided: for being mysteries, and secret counsels of God's will, they are not knowable by human reason, till God is pleased to reveal them; whence the apostle demonstrates the necessity of a supernatural revelation, that the hidden wisdom of God may be made known unto the world.

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