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Primum Mobile is a quarterly web magazine. This issue and all its contents are © Copyright 2004-2009 by the editors. All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.
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Total Depravity
by Paul Lytle
"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned."
-1 Corinthians 2:14
Can sinful and fallen,
spiritually dead men rise up on their own and seek God,
or does God seek us instead?
What exactly do we mean when we say that man is “fallen?” Surely we mean that he has sinned. Well, that clears everything up, right? That word is tossed around a lot, but I wonder how many really understand it.
In sin we have willfully disobeyed God. In disobedience we are in rebellion. We have sought ourselves instead of God. We have not loved enough or properly. While God deserves to be the focus of our lives, we replace Him with something lesser. We trade Him for some temporary gain or pleasure. We rebel over something we want, whether that be money, power, sex, television, success, a person, or to advance a cause.
Many of us claim to be “good people,” even if we will admit to the occasional sin. We march out the usual defenses: “I’ve never killed anyone;” “It’s not like I’m a rapist;” “Bob down the street is cheating on his wife, but I’m not doing stuff like that.” Every defense we conjure up has this one point in common — we can only claim to be good when comparing ourselves to other people.
The question must be this then — what is God’s standard for “goodness?” After all, God will not consult with Bob down the street when judging the world, so His opinion is the one that really matters. What does He consider good enough? Will He accept you into eternal life because you’re doing better than Bob, or do you have to rise up to the level of a Mother Teresa?
Trouble is, God’s standard is actually quite a bit higher than Mother Teresa. His standard is actually moral perfection. Jesus tells us that even if we get angry enough at someone to call him a “fool,” we have sinned enough to earn hell (Matthew 5:22). James tells us that even if we are morally perfect except for one tiny slip, we are still guilty of breaking the entire law (James 2:10). “[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God knows our hearts, and so every dark movement of our hearts is clear before Him. Think about that. If every thought you had were projected on a screen, would you think that you deserved eternal life?
Without the sacrifice of Christ to pay the debt we owe because of sin, none of us would have a chance.
Surely this is part of what we mean when we say we are fallen. We have all sinned and all deserve death. We are all fallen.
But that is not the end of it (or should I say, it is not the beginning of it). It is not that we have just sinned here or there and now, a little slip every once in a while. No, the truth is something deeper: we are sinners. We are not sinners because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners.
That is what Total Depravity is about. The title the theologians have given this may mislead us. When we think of someone being “depraved,” we often think of a Hitler or serial killer. Someone who hasn’t a shred of goodness in him. That’s not really what we are speaking of. Humans are capable of being charitable, giving, and kind. We are not all running around thinking of new ways to kill people.
It means that we are spiritually dead. This death comes from the Fall in Genesis, when God warned Adam that if he ate of the forbidden tree, he would die. Physically, he lived, but he became spiritually dead, incapable of having a relationship with God without someone to mediate for us. He became a sinner, whose natural inclination was for himself rather than for God. We have actually inherited sin from him, and in that we are spiritually dead as well.
In our deadness in sin, we cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14) and we are constantly at war with God (Eph. 2:14-16). Left to ourselves, we would not even seek Him. That’s important to understand — God tells us that, left alone, we cannot even understand.
We are, in essence, a slave to our own dark desires. Have you ever tried to make yourself quit something that was morally wrong by sheer force of will? It almost never works. But even when it does, you are plagued by a hundred other sins you just can’t shake. And if by chance you can, you get prideful about your accomplishment, which was the sin that got Satan thrown out of Heaven. We are trapped by sin, with no hope to escape on our own.
We are slaves, trapped within ourselves. At the core, we seek ourselves. At the end, this is what we do. That nature is never going to get us beyond our own skin.
If left to our own devices, we would never consider repenting to Jesus as a solution. Without the prompting of the Spirit, we could never do it ourselves. Without the Spirit, we are running headlong into death without even looking up.
Basically, what Total Depravity says is this — without His help, I never would have found Him, and nor would I ever have looked.
The true wonder of this doctrine though is that He does seek us, even when we would not seek Him. In love Jesus came to earth to die in our place. What were we doing at the time? We were nailing Him to a Cross, and yet He still prayed for our forgiveness. That is the love that finds us, spiritually dead without hope to be revived, and bringing us to life. Like Lazarus (who could do nothing, remember, to even plead for resurrection, being dead and all) who was called back to life by the Son of God, He comes and calls us.
It’s not something I can figure out on my own. My spirit was not calling out to be rescued, because it was already dead. Only He could do it. Such love has He that He did it!
What I Am NOT Saying
I think a lot of the objections to Calvinism are actually against things that Calvinism doesn’t claim. There have been far too many strawmen demolished over this subject, and far too little discussion over the heart of Calvinism. I want to include a section on what I am not saying for just that very reason, so that we can do away with some of these things that I am not claiming.
I am not saying that I had absolutely no choice in accepting Christ. I am saying that, left to my own, I could not have made that choice. With help from the Holy Spirit, I am perfectly able to make the choice. In fact, with the help of the Spirit, I can make no other choice.
If this sounds like splitting hairs, I assure you it is not. We encounter situations every day where a choice is made easier on us by outside action. If I am debating whether to make a stand over an injustice, it is easier if I see someone stand up before me. If I am debating whether to buy a car, a salesman can make it easier on me by lowering the price. This case differs, for it is rather like suddenly being offered air when I had no idea I needed it before. At once I understand that I cannot live without it, and must accept the gift. I gasp for air, wondering how I ever did without (and understanding, in that moment, that I wasn’t doing very well without it at all). So it is with God. The regeneration of the Spirit does not fail to bring about repentance.
From where I started, where we all start, seeking God seems a quest that would force me to give up too much for a gain I really didn’t care about. The Spirit softened my heart and prompted my desires to better consider that path. That understanding, brought by the Spirit, makes me understand that God is like air — something I must have. Without that help, I would not have made that choice.
I am also not saying that unbelievers can do nothing worthwhile. There have been so many noble and worthwhile enterprises set upon by fallen man. The difference is that they are worthwhile on earth, but not spiritually. Without the help of the Spirit, we can do nothing toward eternity. Truly, God can use our efforts to bring about the good for others (Romans 8:28), but without that Spirit, we will see no effort of ours last beyond this world.
Scriptural Support
The Bible makes clear the state of man.
The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
-Genesis 6:5
And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
-Mark 7:20-23
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
-Jeremiah 17:9
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
-2 Corinthians 4:44
To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
-Titus 1:15-16
I said before that we are slaves to sin and that we are dead in sin. I was not exaggerating, for this is exactly what the Bible says.
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
-Romans 6:16-18
[B]ut she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives.
-1 Timothy 5:6
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved.
-Ephesians 2:1-5
Note first in the above passage how we are dead in sin. Did we come out of it ourselves? Certainly not. Beginning in verse 4, we see the real reason we were saved. “God . . . made us alive together with Christ.”
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
-Colossians 2:13-14
Again, it is God who makes us alive, not us. How can we? We are spiritually dead. The Spirit did not inspire this word randomly.
Let me restate that I am not trying to suggest that we are utterly incapable of doing any good. The Bible does say that fallen man can do good, but that it is insufficient in spiritual matters.
If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
-Luke 6:32-33
It is possible, as this verse says, for sinners to love people. The following verse reinforces that evil people can “give good gifts.”
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!
-Luke 11:13
No matter what we do without Jesus, it falls short.
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
-Hebrews 11:6
We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
-Isaiah 64:6
[A]s it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
-Romans 3:10-13
But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
-Romans 14:23
Furthermore, spiritual things are nonsense to us.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
-1 Corinthians 2:14
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
-Ephesians 4:17-18
It is the Spirit that gives us the power to understand:
Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
-1 Corinthians 12:3
And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.”
-Mark 4:11-12
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
-John 1:12-13
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,
-Philippians 1:29
This sin in which we are all trapped originates in the Fall.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.
-Romans 5:12
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
-1 Corinthians 15:22
The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.
-Psalm 58:3
Objections
Are there not good non-Christian people in the world? People with good ideas? Surely we cannot say that everyone is evil.
Indeed, there are good people in the world, but we can only consider them such if we compare them with other people. We can all find a generous man, but perhaps we call him generous because he gives more than anyone else. We can find a man of noble character, but he is only noble in comparison with the others around him.
If we were to look at it from God’s point of view, it may look different. From His point of view, we are still chasing our own desires, lusts, greed, and pride. Yes, we will find those who seem better than others. Even so, the tilt of the heart is to work for its own gain, not love. That tilt makes it certain that we will not seek Him. We have chosen our side — that of sin — and we cannot even understand spiritual things.
Also remember, the measure of a man is not merely his actions, but his thoughts as well. Can anyone claim to be good once his thoughts are exposed? If you still think you know someone who has passed the test, remember also that anything we do without faith is sin. It’s sin because, even if we are being totally noble, we are not honoring the God who created us. We deny Him with our very actions.
If we are so bad, then why does God love us?
The question perhaps misunderstands the nature of love and the nature of God. Let us begin with a very plain statement — we can offer God nothing. God does not need us. He is complete and eternal, lacking nothing. He did not create us because He was lonely or something.
I say this because the belief of many seems to be that God loves us because we have some nobleness to us, or some great quality, or that He needs us to accomplish His purposes. But that’s not really what is going on, and that’s not really what love is like. His love does not depend on who we are or what we have done. And let’s be honest, if we had to earn His love, how many of us would really get as far as Heaven?
We were created for His Glory, not our own. For His Glory, He has chosen to redeem us from our sin. We don’t deserve it, but God’s love is not based on our action, but based on His Goodness.
Even amongst us, this is what we hope our love would become — something that can forgive, hope, and never fail, no matter what happens. In His perfection, that is what God’s love is.
I agree that we are sinful, but isn’t “Totally Depraved” a little much?
If you are stumbling over the term, then use a different term. “Total Depravity” was a descriptive term theologians came up with to describe the truth found in the Bible, but the words themselves do not come from the Scripture
We do this a lot, by the way. The word “Trinity” never appears in the Bible, but the truth of the Trinity is throughout the Bible. Someone came up with the word to describe it. It isn’t wrong to do label something like this, so long as we realize that the label is not found in Scripture. In other words, the label isn’t infallible like the Word is.
I am not concerned that much with the theological term, but the truth behind it. It is true that men can be noble, unselfish, and kind. But what we cannot do is please God without Jesus. We cannot seek Him, we cannot love Him, we cannot repent and believe. The Scripture is clear that this is impossible for fallen man.
That is the truth this phrase describes. Personally, I think the phrase is a little misleading, but that’s okay, because the phrase is not biblical — the truth is.
You don’t think much of people, do you?
Frankly, if I didn’t love others, I probably wouldn’t be writing this. It’s rather time-consuming, you know? But theology is not about what I think of others. It is what I think of God. I believe in the God who created the universe with mere words, who orchestrates history for the good of His people, who came to earth to die for me.
I do not believe the Bible is here to glorify us. When compared to a perfect, loving God, we are not worth it. But He is. He is. The Bible glorifies Him, and so should we. People who have a man-centered theology make a critical mistake — that we are somehow on the same level as our Creator. It is not so. He is the Creator, we the creation. It is by His Grace alone that we can have life. Let us praise Him for that Grace!
If you are stumbling over the fact that this Doctrine does not exalt men, then I wonder if you have really come to understand the depth of your own sin. Do not hold on to that sort of pride when looking into the ways of God, for there is room for only one to be praised here. You can either praise yourself, or you can praise Him.
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