Moral and natural necessity [see post on necessity] "serve to explain" moral and natural inability.
Natural Inability - "We are said to be naturally uable to do a thing, when we cannot do it if we will, because what is commonly called nature does not allow of it, or because some defect obstacle that is extrinsic to the will either in the faculty of the understanding, constitution of body, or external objects."
e.g. Bartimaeus was naturally unable to see [Mark 10.46]
Moral Inability - "The want [lack] of inclination, or the strength of a contrary inclination, or the lack of sufficient motives in view to induce and excite the action of the will [I Cor. 2.14].
eg. "A woman of great honor and chastity may have a moral inability to prostitute herself to a slave." [p. 28]
So both natural and moral inability "consists in the oppostion or want of inclination. For when a person is unable to will or choose a thing . . . it is the same thing as his being unable of a contrary inclination."
Or as Piper writes when summarizing Andrew Fuller's views [informed by Edwards] on inability: "It is just as impossible for you to choose to do what you have no inclination to do as it is to do what you have no physical ability to do."
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I'm wondering if the Roman Catholic Church believes in the kind of moral inability Edwards speaks of, with regard to an understanding of man's role in regeneration and justification particularly. Note this article on the will from the Council of Trent...
CANON IX.-If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.
Note especially the last few sentences. Edwards and every other Calvinist is cursed by the Roman Catholic Church for believing in the moral inability of unregenerate man to seek God. Herein lies much of the debate between Calvinist orthodoxy and Arminianism. Is unregenerate man utterly unable to seek that good which is contrary to his nature? Can a dead man raise himself? For Edwards, the answer is a resounding no! For Trent, the Roman Catholics, and Protestant Arminians, the answer can be nothing but a resounding yes.
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