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1 " According to Scripture, it was not man's flesh that fell into sin, but the whole man. The doctrine of total depravity means that the extent of the Fall is total, that every aspect of man's being is tainted by sin, and that the root of it is the 'heart' of man, in his mind, nature and being. To seek refuge in the spirit to escape from the flesh is to seek sanctity in the capitol of sin, for it was and is man's desire to be as God, to be his own god, determining good and evil for himself, which is the essence of original sin (Gen. 3:5). The ascetic quest thus took refuge in sin from sin! It flew from the suburbs of temptation into the central city of sin and was then bewildered to find the enemy there. "
― Rousas John Rushdoony , Flight From Humanity
2 " In the Bible, women are presented as no less intelligent than men, nor any the less capable of redemption; the question is one of authority, not of humanity or dignity, whereas in the neoplatonist tradition women are seen at times almost as a different species or at best a very inferior form of man. "
3 " Thus, the sons of Plato proclaim “the death of God,” i.e., the God of Scripture, because He refuses to exist in terms of their definition. It does not greatly trouble them to proclaim God dead; in fact, the supposed funeral is their celebration. The “death” of the God of Scripture, however, requires the death of the man created in His image, and, as a result, “the death of God” society seeks then to destroy historical man, the real man of time, in order to create a new man in terms of their idea and purpose. Man as an Idea in philosophy and sociology is an inhuman abstraction; he is a monster who neither exists nor can exist. "
4 " Man as an Idea in neoplatonist religion is again an abstraction, less a monster and more a bad joke. The religious idea of man is of a bodiless being who works to undo his flesh, deny his appetites, and to rise above the ordinary requirements of the body. This abstraction has a horror of the material world as a kind of fatal allure seeking to corrupt his soul. But no man finds himself more beset by lust than the man who tries to deny he is a man. "
5 " Thus a man will delude himself, believing that with his mind or spirit he is against committing fornication or adultery, but that by his lusts and bodily appetites he is being driven toward the act. His excuse for the commission of sins that his lusts are too strong and his spirit too weak and weary to resist them. In reality, his sin has been the act of a unified man, whose mind has willed to sin but has acted out a charade designed to impress his mind’s native innocence on God and himself. Man sins because he chooses to sin, because every aspect of his being, mind and body, are alike fallen and given to sin. Indeed, long after the body is too sated or worn to continue in sin, the mind pores over sin like a miser over hoarded gold. "
