Total Depravity

Other Names

Total Inability, Radical Depravity, Utter Depravity, Spiritual Death.

Definition

Total Depravity is the 'T' in TULIP, and is the Calvinist doctrine concerning the condition of man after the Fall in Genesis 3. The state of man according to the doctrine can be described as: fallen, depraved, or unregenerate. Total Depravity can be understood through the following four subheadings taken from [1].

(1) Our rebellion against God is total.

Psalm 14:2-3
The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men
To see if there are any who understand,
Who seek after God.
They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt;
There is no one who does good, not even one.

Romans 3:11
There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;

John 3:19-20
This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.
For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

(2) In his total rebellion everything man does is sin.

Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

Romans 14:23
But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.

(3) Man's inability to submit to God and do good is total.

Ephesians 2:1-2
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Colossians 2:13
When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,

1 Corinthians 2:14
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Romans 8:7
because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,

Jeremiah 13:23
Can the Ethiopian change his skin
Or the leopard his spots?
Then you also can do good
Who are accustomed to doing evil.

(4) Our rebellion is totally deserving of eternal punishment.

Matthew 25:46
"These will go away into eternal punishment…"

Jude 1:7
just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

2 Thessalonians 1:8-9
dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,

The reality of hell is God's clear indictment of the infiniteness of our guilt. If our corruption were not deserving of an eternal punishment God would be unjust to threaten us with a punishment so severe as eternal torment. – John Piper

The Importance of Believing Total Depravity

It is "necessary for the due humiliation of a sinner... that he may see an absolute need of Christ and of the power of His grace." -Thomas Boston

"It is hard the exaggerate the importance of admitting our condition to be this bad. If we think of ourselves as basically good or even less than totally at odds with God, our grasp of the work of God in redemption will be defective. But if we humble ourselves under this terrible truth of our total depravity, we will be in a position to see and appreciate the glory and wonder of the work of God discussed in the next four points." -John Piper, "TULIP: The Pursuit of God's Glory in Salvation", p. 12

The Righteous Requirements of the Holy Law of God

Not only does Total Depravity teach that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23) but that we are by nature law-breakers and utterly unable to curb our law-breaking behavior.

Matthew 5:28
"But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Matthew 19:17
"If you wish to enter life, keep the commandments."

Luke 10:27
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself."

James 2:10-11
"Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not murder.' If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law."

James 4:17
"So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."

Characteristics of Unregenerate Sinners

Dead in Adam

Romans 5:12-14
"Just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned-for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come."

Adam was mankind's representative in the garden: he was without sin and sinned of his own free agency. All following him are in his bloodline-sin follows the blood. Because we are all of the blood of Adam, every single person is a sinner. Like a disease being passed from one generation to the next, every human being inherits the sinful nature of depravity.

Psalm 51:5
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me.

Everyone after Adam has sinned of his own free agency. No one seeks for God, and nobody wants to because the desires of his/her sinful flesh are to do the will of sin. People reject God and His Law because their sinful nature tells them to do so.

While Adam was an individual, he was also the perfect representation of human. The ideal of human was Adam, before the fall. He was the exact representation of the nature of human being. Every other person would have done the exact same thing as Adam if they were in his position. If the angels wanted to see what human is, perfectly, they could look at Adam and say, "ah, that is a human." The only other perfect representation of human ever seen was the last man, Jesus Christ.

Spiritually Dead And In Need Of A Resurrection

"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." -Ezekiel 36:26-27 (emphasis added)

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins... 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" -Ephesians 2:1,4 (emphasis added)

"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..." -Colossians 2:13

A sinner "has all the passive properties belonging to a corpse" (Abraham Kuyper), and must be spiritually resurrected.

"Unregenerate man can no more choose Christ or see spiritual truth than a rotting corpse can play tennis or debate philosophy. There is no middle ground between being alive and being dead. Unregenerate men are not just sick, handicapped or impaired but dead." -Brian Schwertley

Actively Pursues Evil

"...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..." -Ephesians 2:2-3 (emphasis added)

Even though spiritually 'dead', the sinner nevertheless actively pursues sin.

"A zombie is a person who has died but who is still up on his feet walking around. It is a gruesome concept, which is why it appears in horror stories. But it gets worse. This upright, walking human corpse is putrefying. It is rotting away, which is probably the most disgusting thing most people can imagine. But this is a fair description of what Paul is saying about human nature in its lost condition. Apart from Jesus Christ, these sinning human corpses are 'the living dead' " -James Montgomery Boice, attributed to John Gerstner

Enslaved to Sin

"...a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him." -2 Peter 2:19

"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. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life." -Romans 6:16-22 (emphasis added)

"We are enslaved to the world because we follow 'the ways of this world.' (v. 2). We think as the world thinks, without regard for our relationship to God or our final destiny; and because we think as the world thinks, we also act as the world acts. We are enslaved to the flesh because our natural desire is to '[gratify]... the cravings of our sinful nature and [follow] its desires and thoughts" (v. 3). We wants what we want, regardless of God's law or the effect that what we want to do has on other people. Jesus said, 'Everyone who sins is a slave to sin' (John 8:34). We are enslaved to the devil because, just as we follow the ways of this world, so also we follow 'the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient' (Eph. 2:2). We are Satan's playthings, and never so much as when we are unaware of his presence. Paul wrote to Timothy that sinners are taken 'captive' by Satan 'to do his will' (2 Timothy 2:26)." -James Montgomery Boice, "The Doctrines of Grace", p. 74-75

"Man’s will is not free to choose spiritual good, because it is enslaved to a heart that cannot discern spiritual truth, that hates God and loves sin." -Brian Schwertley

None Seek After God

"The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have all together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no not one." -Psalm 14:2-3

"There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God." -Romans 3:11

Cannot Receive Spiritual Truth

"You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. But to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear." -Deuteronomy 29:2-4

"Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see [comprehend, perceive] the kingdom of God.’" -John 3:3

"But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." -1 Corinthians 2:14

"The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile. Therefore let no one boast in men." -1 Corinthians 3:20-21

Hostile to God

"And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds..." -Colossians 1:21

"For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot." -Romans 8:7

Hates God and Loves Another Master

"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." -Matthew 6:24 (cf. Luke 16:13)

Under The Power of Satan

"But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them." -2 Corinthians 4:3-4

"I [Jesus Christ] will deliver you [the Apostle Paul] from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me." -Acts 26:17-18

"God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will." -2 Timothy 2:25-26

Sinners need to be freed by someone more powerful than Satan, namely Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Unable to Do Good and Only Able to Sin

"Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." -Romans 14:23

"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

"For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out." -Romans 7:18

Corruption Extends to Every Part of the Person

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" -Jeremiah 17:9

"The word 'heart' in Scripture represents every aspect of man’s nature, including the intellect, will and emotions." -Brian Schwertley

Children of Wrath Deserving of Hell

"We were by nature the children of wrath." -Ephesians 2:3

"[God will inflict] vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might." -2 Thessalonians 1:8-9

"And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." -Matthew 25:46

"[I]f sin is as bad as the Bible declares it to be, nothing is more reasonable than that the wrath of a holy God should rise against it. The Old Testament uses more than twenty words to express the idea of God's wrath, and more than six hundred important passages in the New Testament. The Bible says, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' and again, 'The Lord will judge his people.' It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of a living God" (Hebrews 10:30-31)." -James Montgomery Boice, "The Doctrines of Grace", p. 75

Behavior Determined By Spiritual Nature/Paternity

"If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God." -John 8:43-47 (emphasis added)

The unregenerate aren't sinners because they sin, they sin because they are sinners--because they are not of God.

Unable to Believe

Some Obstacles to Saving Faith

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." -Matthew 10:37

"Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple... [A]ny one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." -Luke 14:27,33

"And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed." -John 3:19-20

"How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" -John 5:44

"...they refused to love the truth and so be saved." -2 Thessalonians 2:10

The Nature of Those Who Have Saving Faith and Repentance

"Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit... I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,' and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah." -Psalm 32:2,5

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." -Psalm 52:17

"To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life." -Romans 2:7

"In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, 'So shall your offspring be.' He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was 'counted to him as righteousness.' " -Romans 4:18-22

Saving Faith and Repentance Are Not Mustered Up By Man

"The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God [cf. John 5:44]. They have all turned aside, they have all together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no not one." -Psalm 14:2-3

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil." -Jeremiah 13:23

"That which is born of flesh is flesh." -John 3:6

"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day." -John 6:44

"No one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father." -John 6:65

"For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." -Romans 8:7-8 (cf. Hebrews 11:6)

Faith is certainly pleasing to God, but those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Those in the flesh, therefore, cannot muster up or dispose themselves towards saving faith.

"The most cunning artificer cannot work without tools; neither can the most skillful musician play well on an instrument that is out of tune. How can anyone believe, or repent, whose understanding is darkness (Eph. 5.8), whose heart is a stony heart, inflexible, insensible (Ezek. 36.26), whose affections are wholly disordered and distempered, who is averse to good, and bent to evil? The arms of natural abilities are too short to reach supernatural help..." -Thomas Boston

Depravity Affects Every Human Being

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." -Romans 3:23

"There is no one who does not sin. " -1 Kings 8:46

"Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you." -Psalm 143:2

"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." -1 John 1:8

Additional Relevant Texts

“Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).

“The imagination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21).

“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5).

“The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies” (Psalm 58:3).

“The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have all together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no not one” (Psalm 14:2-3)

“Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil” -Jeremiah 13:23

"For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." -Matthew 15:19

"That which is born of flesh is flesh." -John 3:6

"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 4:18

“They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions...having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin.... It has happened to them according to the true proverb: ‘A dog returns to his own vomit,’ and, ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire’” (2 Peter 2:13-14, 22)

Clarifications

Man Is Not As Wicked As He Could Be

"It is obvious that the pagan man who works hard to support his family, who is faithful to his wife, who obeys the civil laws, etc., is much better than a hardened criminal or serial murderer. It does not mean that an unsaved man cannot do good deeds. Jesus Himself acknowledged that evil men could give good gifts to their children (Mt. 7:11)." -Brian Schwertley

Man Still Has An Active Spirit And A Living Body

"It does not mean that the image of God in man in the broader sense is destroyed. Man still has reasoning capabilities and a conscience that discriminates between good and evil. Man has an active spirit that creates beautiful works of art, music, architecture, and that makes great strides in science. 'What it does mean is that, since the fall, man rests under the curse of sin, that he is actuated by wrong principles, and that he is wholly unable to love God or to do anything meriting salvation.' '[T]here is no spiritual good, that is, good in relation to God, in the sinner at all, but only perversion.' " -Brian Schwertley

Common Objections

Doesn't Responsibility Imply Moral Ability?


Don't Biblical commands and invitations imply man's moral ability to respond?


Don't Unregenerate People Seek After God In Religion?


Why Preach Christ If Men Are Unable To Believe?

"Why do you then preach Christ to us, call us to come to Him, to believe., repent, and use the means of salvation?" -Thomas Boston


Views That Blunt Total Depravity

Do Your Best And God Will Do The Rest

This view denies (either explicitly or functionally) both the reality of God's righteous demand of perfect holiness and obedience, as well as the imputation of Christ's perfect righteousness by faith (Romans 4:4-8). It generally holds that man heartedly desires to do good, but is incapable of doing so. Man's shortcomings are considered mishaps, rather than abominable imperfections that arise from the depravity of the flesh.

Decisional Regeneration

Many modern evangelicals promote (either explicitly or functionally) the idea that conversion is merely a decision a person makes. In this view, the obstacles to saving faith are disregarded...



Universal Prevenient Grace

Adherents to universal prevenient grace hold that the unregenerate, because of the Fall, would theoretically be totally depraved and unable to embrace Christ in glad submission, but in reality God restores to every individual the ability to seek after Him and prefer (choose) salvation. With this doctrine, the effects of total depravity are avoided, irrestistable grace is unneeded, the atonement can remain indefinite and ineffectual (and universal), and election unto salvation is finally conditional upon man.

The doctrine of universal prevenient grace is usually held alongside the doctrine of inclusivism, which states that the unevangelized may appropriately respond to general revelation and thus be saved.

Calvinists offer a number of objections to this doctrine:


Popular Passages in the Arminian Defense

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