Theopedia

Charles Finney

Overview

Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) was an American revivalist and New School Presbyterian minister who marked, in Bavinck’s phrase, “an important change” in American revivalism from the generation of Jonathan Edwards.1 He taught theology at Oberlin University in Ohio, where his “Lectures on Systematic Theology” (1846) set out a doctrine of sin, regeneration, and entire sanctification built on man’s natural ability to obey God’s law without supernatural change of nature.2 His theology broke sharply enough from Reformed orthodoxy that Charles Hodge devoted a named section of his own Systematic Theology to refuting it point by point.3

Life and Ministry

Bavinck places Finney’s revivalist career after Jonathan Edwards and before D. L. Moody in the development of American revival preaching. Where Edwards “spoke of God’s wrath and the torments of hell,” Finney “proceeded from the assumption that human beings are sinners voluntarily and urged them to make a decision to give their heart to God now, in this very moment,” earning him the description “the preacher of duty.”1 Hodge’s Systematic Theology repeatedly cites Finney as “Professor Finney,” grouping him among “the officers of Oberlin University” alongside its president, Asa Mahan.4 Finney’s own Lectures on Systematic Theology was published from Oberlin in 1846, the primary source Hodge quotes throughout his rebuttal.2

Theological Contribution

Finney held that regeneration is not the implanting of a new nature but “a simple change of purpose”: an “instantaneous” change “from entire sinfulness to entire holiness,” produced by the sinner’s own choice rather than a prior work of the Spirit on the soul.2 Hodge quotes him teaching that “satisfaction, happiness, blessedness, is the only absolute good,” that virtue consists entirely in “the intention to promote the happiness of being,” and that “all sin is selfishness, or the choice of our own happiness in preference to the good of universal being.”5

This rested on Finney’s governing axiom that ability limits obligation: “To talk of inability to obey moral law, is to talk sheer nonsense.”2 He rejected the traditional distinctions between natural, moral, and gracious ability as “perfectly nonsensical,” arguing instead that “moral obligation implies the possession of every kind of ability which is required to render the required act possible.”4 Barrett traces this natural-ability doctrine to the Remonstrant Philip van Limborch, later revived by Nathaniel Taylor’s New Haven theology and adopted by Finney.6

On this foundation Finney taught, together with Oberlin’s president Asa Mahan, that entire sanctification is available to believers in this life: “the consecration of the whole being to God… Nothing more nor less can possibly be perfection or entire sanctification than obedience to the law,” a law whose demand is “regulated by our ability” rather than fixed to God’s own perfect standard.4 Hodge groups this “Oberlin theory” with the Pelagian theory of perfection, since both ground the law’s demand in man’s own natural ability and locate holiness solely in “generic volitions” directed at the highest good of the universe, with no moral character in feeling or in anything the will does not directly choose. He sets both apart from the Arminian and Wesleyan theory, which grounds the possibility of perfection not in natural ability but in “the grace of God, or supernatural influence of the Spirit.”4

Historical Significance

Hodge judged Finney’s system “a remarkable product of relentless logic… valuable as a warning,” one that “shows to what extremes the human mind may be carried when abandoned to its own guidance,” its conclusions following logically from axioms that “shock the moral sense” and so prove those axioms false.2 Hodge’s Systematic Theology gives Finney’s doctrine its own named section rather than a passing mention. A. A. Hodge’s Outlines of Theology likewise catalogs the “Oberlin” theory alongside the Pelagian, Roman Catholic, and Arminian theories of perfection as one of the era’s live rival positions.7 Barrett’s 2011 survey of Arminian synergism places Finney in the line running from Limborch through Taylor, and notes continued critical engagement with his theology, including Michael Horton’s chapter “Finney’s Attacks on the Westminster Confession.”6

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 19, “Faith and Conversion.” ↩ ↩2

  2. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:9. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1873), 8. ↩

  4. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:253-255. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:8-9. ↩

  6. Matthew Michael Barrett, “Arminian Synergism in Theological Perspective,” in “Reclaiming Monergism: The Case for Sovereign Grace in Effectual Calling and Regeneration” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011), 269-270, citing Charles Finney, Finney’s Systematic Theology, ed. J. H. Fairchild (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1976), 199-278. ↩ ↩2

  7. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), chap. 35, “Sanctification.” ↩