According to Christianity, to what extent can non-Christians develop and manifest the fruit of the Spirit?
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For the most part all Christianity hold to the doctrine of original sin. This means that human nature was cursed in Adam and subject to a total sinfulness under the law, separate from God, with no true good or love remaining. (Rom 5:12)
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Rom 3:11-12 NIV
In this state of being a ‘sinner’ nothing good exists as it was meant to be. (Rom 7:18)
Therefore sinners do not have the Spirit as they are without God. (Rom 8:9) This means any quality of their nature that might resemble a fruit of the Spirit, is not from the Spirit but from the flesh. So in simple terms a non Christian has zero fruits of the Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit presume faith in Christ as a priori for that Spirit of Christ to be working those fruits in the sanctified soul.
In deed any pretended love must be love for God ‘by faith in Christ’ otherwise it is not love and anything that is not from faith is sin. (Rom 14:23)
Upvote:2
Non-Christians can be virtuous, moral and even put many professing Christians to shame but they cannot manifest or develop the fruit of the Spirit to any extent. From the way you framed the question it seems that you equate the fruit of the Spirit merely with good behaviour. The fruit of the Spirit are a product of the unification of the human and the divine - the moral image of God is restored in us. In other words, we behave because we have submitted our will (power of choice) to God to be changed and ennobled and we now use it unselfishly to glorify Him. The power of the Holy Spirit only flows once we submit our will to Jesus which is something non-Christians have not chosen to do.
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