DOCTRINES OF GRACE: CHAPTER 2: TOTAL DEPRAVITY PART I
IT’S IMPORTANCE
We now begin our theological journey through the Doctrines of Grace. As I said earlier the first doctrine we shall discuss is the foundation upon which all the other doctrines rest, the doctrine of Total Depravity. Twisting or misunderstanding this doctrine always leads to grave theological error down the road. William Wilberforce noted its prime importance:
"It (is) of such pressing moment not to pass cursorily over those important topics of the original and superinduced corruption, and weakness of man….It is here, never let it be forgotten, that our foundation must be laid; otherwise our superstructure, whatever we may think of it, will one day or other prove tottering and insecure." [1]
The importance of the doctrine of total depravity is seen by the amount of emphasis the Apostle Paul places on it. In his magnum opus, the Epistle to the Romans, Paul lays the foundation for his gospel message by describing the depravity of the human race. Paul clearly demonstrates the guilt of the idolatrous Gentile world in chapter one, and in chapter two he goes after the self-righteous Jews. Both groups, says the Apostle, are altogether bound in sin. In chapter three verses 1-20, he summarizes his argument by marshaling one Old Testament text after another to show that men are defiled in every aspect of their being. Calvin also follows this pattern in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. He titles the second book of this great work "On the knowledge of God the Redeemer.” He begins his treatment of the person and work of Christ with the Fall of Adam and its effects upon mankind. To be sure, no one will ever appreciate the greatness of God’s salvation until he first grapples with the utter defilement of the human race. Indeed, the doctrine of Total Depravity is the compass that fixes the proper direction for all subsequent gospel truths.
THE EARLY CHURCH STUGGLE TO PRESERVE IT
Given that this doctrine is so crucial, one might expect Satan to be quite active to distort it. This is exactly the case. No sooner had the dust settled on the graves of the apostles that men began to attack the doctrine of the sinfulness of man by inflating his goodness. Almost from the onset of the Christian church some taught that humans did not inherit the sin of Adam but were born with a neutral or provisional moral nature. That is, men were totally free to choose or not to choose good or evil. They had a will that was autonomous. The controversy came to a head in the early 5th century when a British monk named Pelagius visited Rome and began to teach the idea that Adam's sin "ruined only himself and did not injure his descendants." Pelagius went on to say that Adam's transgression influenced other men only to the extent that it was a bad example. Adam, he argued, influenced men to sin in the same way that a violent movie influences viewers to commit crimes. Sin was caused by environmental and other external causes not by any corruption resident in the man himself. Salvation, therefore, was the exercise of one’s free will to do right. This teaching found wide appeal as it took God off the hook for man’s sin. In trying to protect God, Pelagius was rendering Him powerless.
But was Pelagius’ teaching heretical? Making man innocent or guilty for his own actions seemed to be in accord with the biblical revelation. To cut through this latent (and fatal) error, it would take one mighty in the Scriptures to define and address the issues. His name was Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. Augustine had lived a profligate life for many years and knew the power of sin in his life. As he meditated on sin, he intuitively knew that there was nothing in him that could arrest the advance of sin in his life. Never was there a man more in touch with his own innate sinful nature. He knew that evil naturally dwelt in him and needed not the aid of external influences. He was, in his own mind, innately evil. He writes in his autobiography,
“And what was it that I delighted in, but to love, and be loved, but I kept not the measure of love, of mind to mind, friendship’s bright boundary: but out of the muddy concupiscence of the flesh, and the bubblings of youth, mists fumed up which beclouded and overcast my heart, that I could not discern the clear brightness of love from the fog of lustfulness.”[2]
In his early 30’s Augustine experienced a radical conversion famously recounted in the previously quoted Confessions. Taking cues from his personal experience and through reading Scripture Augustine concluded that if a man would be saved it must take more than the human will. God must do something inside the human soul to make obedience to God possible. He summarized his thinking with his famous statement, “O God, command what you wouldst, and grant what thou dost command.” With this statement, Augustine had drawn a line in the sand. For a man to obey God, God must grant obedience to man as a gift. In other words, salvation was all God’s initiative, all of grace. Pelagius rejected this idea. He could not believe that God would command anything that humans were incapable of obeying. Augustine’s response forever cemented biblical orthodoxy. He explained that man was born with original sin which he inherited from Adam. And it was this very sin nature that rendered man unable to obey God. But, said Augustine, this spiritual malady did not relieve man’s culpability. Man’s will was very active and had the power to choose. The only problem was that man always chose sin. Pelagius, however, said man could choose the good. This denied the disabling effects of sin. Augustine rightly reckoned that to deny the deadening effects of sin made righteousness possible without Christ. Taken to its natural conclusion Pelagius’s theology would gut the entire need for salvation, Jesus and the cross. Augustine's tenacity, copious writings and Scriptural faithfulness eventually won the day. In 416 AD, the teachings of Pelagius and his followers were condemned at the Council of Carthage. Over the course of church history, no error has been condemned more than this heresy. Not surprisingly this error is called by the name Pelagianism.
This early victory by Augustine hardly chased Pelagianism from the church. Soon it would enter in by a more subtle and insidious door. The church realized that grace was absolutely necessary in order for anyone to be saved. Nevertheless, the church taught that grace was impotent apart from some effort by man. Attempting to reconcile this tension between God’s grace and man’s duty birthed the idea that salvation must therefore be a cooperative venture between God grace and the human will. The church held that both were necessary causes but neither was the sufficient cause.[3] God graciously did everything to make salvation possible but man must choose to respond in order for salvation to occur. Augustine’s prayer was half believed. God could command anything He willed but it was in man and man alone to respond to that command. In other words God’s will made salvation possible; man’s will made salvation actual. This way of seeing salvation married the grace of God with man’s self-effort; salvation was a cooperative venture between God and man. As the church moved forward in the Middle Ages this way of looking at salvation grew in influence. It was, however, a move away from the Augustinian doctrine of grace alone. Though not purely Pelagian as if to say man could save himself, it did advocate man’s part, however little, in salvation. The movement came to be known as semi-Pelagianism.
The questions must be asked, “Is semi-Pelagianism an acceptable compromise between two opposing theologies?” As much as it tries to magnify the grace of God, in reality semi-Pelagianism, as the name suggests, bears a close kinship to Pelagianism. In all its forms it places the final determinant of salvation on a human decision. In any semi-Pelagian system grace is a necessary condition but never a sufficient one. That is, salvation must be initiated by God’s grace but grace in itself is not able complete salvation. That honor falls to the will of man. A thousand years after Augustine this system has become the dominant view of the church, not just the Catholic Church but Protestantism as well. And it was this idea of man’s will being a necessary component of salvation that so enraged Luther and eventually sparked the Reformation. One can remember his debate with the humanist Erasmus, the core of the debate revolving around this very issue. Luther’s most famous book, The Bondage of the Will, thoroughly debunked the Medieval idea that man’s will retained any inherent ability to choose the good. While the Reformation rediscovered the Augustinian doctrines regarding the human will, not too many years went by before Protestant churches began to slip back into a semi-Pelagian theology. As we discussed in the last chapter, semi-Pelagianism regained its influence through the teaching of 17th century theology professor Jacob Arminius. So pervasive is this error today that theologian R.C. Sproul makes reference to the "Pelagian Captivity of the Church." Never before has this theology gained such an entrenched foothold in Christianity as it has in our generation.
But we must ask the question, "Why are Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism so popular?" The reason is very simple. They appeal to the natural man. Men, by nature, are born wanting to be the center of their own existence. They want to be told that they are basically good. They want to feel that they can control their own destiny. Any theology that exalts man’s spiritual abilities and denies God’s ultimate authority over salvation will feed human pride. Those who teach semi-Pelagianism often gain many adherents. Isn’t this why Paul told Timothy that in the latter days men would not "endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers" (2 Tim 4:3)? What trapped Eve into succumbing to the devil? Was it not the promise she could be free from God and find a fulfilled life if only she would eat of the fruit and be like God, knowing good and evil (Gen 3:5)? We, who are in the free west where individualism and self-autonomy are considered desirable virtues, are particularly vulnerable to succumbing to Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism. This emphasis on the autonomy of man’s will lies behind many of the aberrant theologies of our day including the self-esteem movement, ‘name it and claim it’ theology, a seeker friendly emphasis, entertainment based worship and the psycho-therapeutic gospel. These all have one thing in common, they place man at the center of his salvation. As such they are children of Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism. Only a true understanding of the doctrine of Total Depravity can chase man out of the center of the universe.
THE MEANING OF TERMS.
It’s time for us to analyze the phrase Total Depravity. At first glance the phrase sounds a bit foreboding and exaggerated. Call someone totally depraved and you are immediately thinking of a serial killer or sexual pervert of the highest order. Given that, I think it would be wise for us to define the terms as they were meant to be understood when they were first employed. Let me first deal with the word "depravity." As I said, when we say someone is depraved we immediately think of someone who has no moral restraint, someone who is degraded in sin far worse than the average person. We think, for example, of Fagin in Dicken’s Oliver Twist, or Hitler, or Jeffrey Dahmer. But to the average person on the street, to label all men as depraved is going way too far. After all, we see men doing many nice things for one another. Would we want to say that such kind people are depraved? Sure there is the occasional bad apple but we could never describe the human race as depraved. If total depravity referred only to the really bad people in the world, then who would oppose it? But in the Christian sense depravity applies to all humanity indiscriminately. When we look up the word depravity in its classic usage according to Webster we find that it simply means "a corrupt act or practice." That is, anything that is not in line with a general consensus of righteousness is a form of depravity. In Christian theology, the standard of righteousness is the righteousness of God. Thus depravity in theological terms refers to anything that falls short of God’s righteousness. Depravity is just another word for falling short of the divine will. We call it sin. According to this definition, all people are depraved in the sense that all people sin. Few will disagree with that.
What does it mean when we say men are totally depraved? By using the adverb total, it sounds as if this doctrine is saying that man is nothing more than a big mass of sin. That is, man is as sinful as he can possibly be. Now if this is what the word meant, then no orthodox theologian would hold to it. Any cursory view of humanity would demonstrate that this cannot be true. Man certainly does things that are noble. He often chooses the more righteous of two options. He has established foundations for the mentally disabled, husbands go home to their families rather than stopping off at the local pub, taxpayers often pay their honest due and there are many ‘Good Samaritans’ who help stranded motorists. Some men have even been known to die for others. In fact if we could put on a scale all the works of men performed on a given day we would be surprised how far the scale leans toward the side marked ‘good.' Men made in the image of God often do God-like things. This shouldn’t surprise us. These observations cause many of us to question if the doctrine of "total depravity" is really true or merely a phrase conjured up by grumpy theologians who think men are a wholly degenerate race.
This is not what the doctrine of total depravity means. To explain what the concept means we must discover what the theologians mean by the word ‘total.’
DIFFUSION NOT SATURATION
The word depraved, as we have seen, simply refers to a sinful act but what about the word total? For many the word itself connotes the idea of "that which is the full number in a given set" or as Webster says, "the whole amount of something; the entirety." For example, we might say, "The total number of people in the room was twelve" or "The total number of bird species in Colorado is 507." The word total can be used in an intensive or extensive way. Let me explain the difference. If I have glass of water and I put several drops of food color in it, I can safely say the entire glass of water has been colored. No part of the water is clear. Or we could say, “The total glass of water is green.” This is the intensive use of the idea of total. Every part of the water is as green as any other part. This is NOT the way the theologians are using the word ‘total.’ Let me give a second illustration to demonstrate what they do mean. Let’s assume there is a car that has been sitting outside for several decades. A man wants to restore it. He looks at the front bumper. It has rust. He looks at the doors. They have rust. He looks at the hood. It has rust. And the trunk has rust on it too. He opens the hood and the engine has rust on it also. So the man says, “The car is totally rusty.” But note the man sees that they doors are not nearly as rusty as the hood, and the hood is not as rusty as the trunk, and the engine has very minor rust. The automobile is totally rusty but not as rusty as it could possibly be. Let me further illustrate this by two scientific concepts called saturation and diffusion. Let’s think for a moment about a glass of water and salt tablets. If you drop several salt tablets into a glass of fresh tap water and come back in five minutes you will note that the salt has dissolved in the liquid. If you taste the water you will notice that all parts of the water are equally salty. This demonstrates the concept of diffusion. Diffusion is when a soluble substance dissolves equally throughout water. Diffusion does not mean that all parts of the water are as salty as possible. This is exactly how sin works in human nature. Sin has entered humanity and like leaven in dough it has diffused equally to all parts of man’s nature. No part of man is left untouched by it. The mind is darkened, the emotions are warped, and the will is inclined toward evil.
SCRIPTURAL PROOF
Total depravity is clearly taught in the scriptures in a variety of places. One of the clearest comes in the book of Isaiah, where the prophet describes the state of the people of Israel in his day. He describes their condition this way,
"Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil" (Isaiah 1:5-6).
The moral condition of the people in Isaiah’s day was woeful. Their heads were corrupt and so were their hearts. Every part of their being was infected, from the bottom of their feet to the top of their head. But does this mean Israel was as bad as she could possibly be? No. Surely things in Israel could have been worse. What Isaiah is saying is that no matter what the Jews did or thought or spoke, it was tainted by sin. And because sin was ingrained in their very being it even touched their worship. Isaiah goes on to make this point.
“'What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?' says the LORD; 'I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause’" (Isaiah 1:11-17).
Isaiah’s point is clear. The Jews, the chosen people of God, were from top to bottom a moral mess. Every element of their being, including their religion had been corrupted by sin. In modern terms we would say they were totally depraved.
This illustrates the extensive use of the word total. This is how the theologians use it. So when we say that man is totally depraved, we mean that every part of man is infected with depravity, or sin, but certainly not to the greatest extent possible.
So men are extensively corrupt; that is, every part of their nature is infected. Now let’s go back to our salt cubes and water illustration. Let’s assume that so many salt cubes were placed into the water that it could no longer dissolve them all. You would look at your glass and see some of the cubes sitting at the bottom of the glass. The reason for this is that the water molecules have absorbed the maximum amount of sodium chloride possible. This is called the saturation point. A man would have reached the saturation point of sin if he had absorbed in his person the maximum amount of sin possible. In other words he would be at the point where he could not add any more sin to his life. No man has ever reached that point, for nature shows us that even the worst of men could actually be a little worse. Evil men will at times choose the better options. Some even love their mothers. In theory it is possible for a man to sin to his maximum capacity, but in reality it will never happen. We believe that the only being that has reached the absolute saturation point of sin would be the devil himself.
What have we learned thus far about sin in humanity? First that sin infects men as salt diffuses throughout water. That is, it infects every part of men. Second we have learned that men are evil in differing degrees just as different bodies of salt water have differing salinities. Some men are morally good from a human perspective, they have less salt, and other men are morally reprehensible, they have more salt. But each of these men is still a sinner in all his parts. When we say that men are totally depraved we are saying that men are infected by sin extensively but are not infected intensively. They are salty throughout but they have not absorbed all the salt they can. This concept is crucial when considering the meaning of the term Total Depravity.
But there is more we wish to say.
IT’S THE ROOT NOT THE FRUIT
A second thing we need to know about Total Depravity is that it is expressed radically not experientially. This takes a little explaining but it is important. The Latin word for root is radix from which we get our word radical. In mathematics the radical sign is the sign for finding the square root of a number. When we say that humans are depraved radically we mean that sin infects the race at the root of its being. That is, depravity is not defined by one’s actions but by what that person is at his very core. Actions are merely the outward expression of the inward nature. Jesus spoke of this issue when He talked about bad trees and good trees. Bad trees, trees that have a bad root system will always bear bad fruit. The bad fruit is not the problem with the tree. The problem with the tree is its roots. Fix the roots and the fruit will be good. Jesus said it this way:
“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:43-45).
As with the tree so it is with human nature. Bad speech comes from a bad heart; "From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." If the nature, or root, is infected then anything that springs from it will be infected as well. Actions always proceed from nature. This is why R.C. Sproul says the doctrine of total depravity could easily be called "radical corruption."[4]
The Bible clearly teaches that man has a sin nature. It further says that the sin nature was inherited from our first father, Adam. This is not a popular idea for many because no one wants to suffer the consequences of another’s failure. But no matter what one thinks about this doctrine it is clearly taught in Scripture. Paul says it this way,
"Therefore, just as through one man (Adam) sin entered the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned" (Romans 5:12).
There is an unassailable syllogism here. Those who have a sin nature die. All men die. Therefore all men have a sin nature. And where did this sin nature come from? It came from Adam. In the next chapter this will be discussed in more detail. Suffice it to say that men are born with a love for sin and an aversion to God. They have a sin nature. And because of that, they sin.
The prophet Jeremiah puts it into more illustrative terms. The prophet speaks to Judah and tells the nation that she will be taken out of her land as a captive. The reason is that the nation is evil and wicked, not only a little evil and wicked but incorrigibly so. He says their sin is as much of their nature as skin color. He asks the probing question,
"Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to doing evil" (Jeremiah 13:23).
Sin is not a bad habit or some trait that can be changed. Sin is a component part of human nature. It is as intrinsic to humanity as spots on a leopard or black skin to an Ethiopian. So men sin because they have a sin nature. This makes the human condition a desperate one. If sin is in the root, then salvation can never come through any effort to repair the branches or manipulate the fruit. Total depravity necessitates the need for a radical salvation, a salvation that gets right at the very root of the issue. A picture of the kind of salvation needed is found in the waters of Marah that the Israelites encountered shortly after their miraculous passing through the Red Sea. As the name suggests, the waters were corrupt through and through and undrinkable (Ex 15:23). Those waters picture the filth of the human heart. Then Moses performed a miracle. The Lord instructed him to throw a branch of a tree into the waters (15:25). And when he did the "waters were made sweet."
Salvation can only come by invasive act of God into our lives. It is a salvation that comes from a tree. And that tree is the tree of Calvary.
DEPRAVITY LURKS IN THE VERY MOTIVES.
One last aspect of total depravity must be discussed. Total Depravity descends far down into the very depths of one’s being even to the point of the thought life. In the Bible this is called the heart, in other places the mind. It all means the same thing. Quite often when someone does something wrong we will hear another person justify the act by saying, "But he has a good heart," or "He really didn’t mean to do it," or "At least his motives were good." Most of us realize that such excuses carry little weight. We hold people accountable if they do anything sinful no matter what the excuse. But what if sin has formed only in one’s mind but never acted upon? What if we only think about sin but never take it further? In other words is man even depraved in those thoughts and fantasies and plans that no one else sees? How deep is man’s depravity, anyway?
One need not go very far in the Bible to see that Jesus saw that man’s depravity began in the very depths of his mind and in his motives. In his famous Sermon on the Mount Jesus stunned the Jewish crowd by expanding the depths of the moral law. Up and till that time, sin had been defined by external actions. But Jesus spoke differently. Man is so depraved, he said, that even those desires that spring up deep in one’s soul are a sin against God. The act of adultery was of course, an egregious sin. But Jesus went on to say that man sins even if he thinks about adultery. He said,
"I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Jesus’ teaching on depravity was simple; even thinking of anything contrary to the law of God was tantamount to actually doing it. Sin hid itself deeply in the crevices of one’s motives. One wise man said, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7). In other words depravity reaches to the deepest nooks and crannies of every man’s being. It even exists in those secret thoughts that no one else sees.
One last thing must be said. Some people think that their depravity can be negated by doing external acts of kindness to cover or offset the sinfulness of their motives. This too is a falsehood illustrated by the life of King Jehu.
King Jehu was raised up by God through the prophecy of Elijah to exterminate the wicked house of Ahab (see 1 Kings 19:15-18). True to his calling he wiped out that wicked line in 2 Kings 10 verses 11 to 17. His outward actions seemed to suggest that he was a righteous instrument in the hand of God. He even boasted about his zeal for God (10:16). But even though Jehu did the will of God externally he had a bad heart and bad motives. God calls him an idolater (10:2). As to his motives he desired to wipe out Ahab’s house, not for the glory of God but for his own glory. Despite the fact that Jehu did the will of the Lord externally, he was cast off by God because of his motives. Man is depraved all the way down to the depths of his most secret thoughts; he is bad to the bone; he is tainted by sin in thought word and deed.
In this chapter we have tried to show you what the words Total and Depravity mean. In addition we have tried to explain what the doctrine of total depravity means by looking at it from three aspects. Total depravity means men are wicked extensively, in all parts, but not intensively, that is, not as bad as he could be. The center of man’s depravity resides in the very root of his being not in his actions. And thirdly, human depravity has so deeply infected the human soul that it extends even to the very thoughts that arise in the mind, even if those thoughts are never carried out. For anyone who has truly seen his depraved heart must cry out as the man in Romans 7 cried out, "O wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death? I thank God – through Jesus Christ my Lord."
In the next chapter we will do an extensive biblical defense of this doctrine and answer any viable objections people have against it
Endnotes.
[1] Wilberforce, William. Real Christianity. DUBLIN: Printed by Robert Dapper, FOR B. DUGDALE, NO. 6, DAME-STREET. 1797. Pg 63
[2] Augustine, Aurelius. Confessions. Book II.
[3] A necessary cause is that which must be present for the effect to happen. A sufficient cause is that which alone guarantees the effect to happen.
[4] Sproul, R.C., What is Reformed Theology, 1997 Baker Book House, pg 120