Asa Mahan

Lectures on the Ninth of Romans; Election, and the Influence of the Holy Spirit Asa Mahan

During one of Mahan's visits to England he was agitated by the universal practice among English clergymen appealing to sinners to be passive about salvation with absurd necessarian notions of inability. After some twenty years of painstaking reflection and reexamination he gives us this critical exposition of one of the most misunderstood chapters of the bible. There is no element of bitterness or unkindness in his opposition to this contrary system as has been the case with many anti-Calvinists; nor is there any lack of appreciation for the piety of people that held to such systems. Mahan uses no weak and inconclusive arguments, but reather he gives us a fresh and comprehensive look at the context of Roman's Nine and traces all of the facts in harmony with Paul's clear purpose. He gives us a unique refutation of not only each essential argument of the fatalistic or necessarian system, but reveals to us the reasons for their adopting the faulty methods that lead to their belief. He shows us that the main problems in such reasonings have been owning to a wrong method used in theology, and in viewing the Bible, that assumes a contradictory system of mental philosophy, and in regards to the Bible, taking verses totally out of context. He demonstrates how any method ends up with its resulting conclusion as succinctly put by Cousin: "As is the method of a philosopher, so will be his system; and the adoption of a method, decides the destiny of a philosophy." In the same way: "As is a man's Philosophy so is his Theology." And as is a man's theology so will be his understanding of every verse of the Bible. The circle methodology amounts to what you put in is what you will get out of it: fatalism assumed, fatalism resulting. As one of the greatest teachers of mental science of his century, his analysis is worthy of special attention.