President Finney approaches the Bible, as every one must do, with a certain amount of presupposition regarding the nature of the subject to which it is addressed. In his view, as in that of Augustine, the Bible is a religious revelation to the common people, which does not to any great degree lose its perspicuity in a translation. Its main revelation is so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. It is a practical revelation of a highway of holiness, which is not a substitute for common sense, but a supplement to it. The human will is self-determining in its action.
Obligation is limited by ability.
All virtuous choice terminates upon the good of beings, and, in the ultimate analysis, on the good of being in general. The will is never divided in its action, but with whatever momentum it has at each instant, it is either wholly virtuous or wholly sinful. With regard to total depravity, he accepts it as a biblical doctrine, that all the acts of men since the fall, and previous to regeneration, are sinful. Regeneration and conversion are treated as synonymous terms, descriptive of a coetaneous act both of the Holy Spirit and of the human will. The final perseverance of the saints is accepted as a revealed truth, which the reason can not contradict, and whose mysteries are left with the Lord.