When we last heard from our intrepid doctrine, Augustine had taken Paul's interpretation of Genesis 2-3 in Romans 5 and taken that to mean that Adam's sin conferred not only death on the entire human race, but also guilt. This was a big step, to be sure, and, as I've written, it hinges on a particular reading of the second creation narrative in Genesis and on a particular biology of the transmission of moral standing via semen. Some of my readers find both of these fairly dubious.
A thousand years after Augustine, John Calvin came along and ginned up the Reformation that Martin Luther had begun just a few years earlier. Calvin in his monumental Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin took the doctrine of Original Sin one step further than Augustine, arguing that our inherited sinfulness has erased virtually all remnant of the imago dei in us -- God might have said, "Let us make man in our image," but the subsequent sin of Adam expunged that image:"Therefore original sin is seen to be an hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature diffused into all parts of the soul . . . wherefore those who have defined original sin as the lack of the original righteousness with which we should have been endowed, no doubt include, by implication, the whole fact of the matter, but they have not fully expressed the positive energy of this sin. For our nature is not merely bereft of good, but is so productive of every kind of evil that it cannot be inactive. Those who have called it concupiscence [a strong, especially sexual desire, lust] have used a word by no means wide of the mark, if it were added (and this is what many do not concede) that whatever is in man from intellect to will, from the soul to the flesh, is all defiled and crammed with concupiscence; or, to sum it up briefly, that the whole man is in himself nothing but concupiscence."
Calvin's acolytes seized upon the idea of "hereditary depravity" and made it the opening salvo of the TULIP doctrine:
That quibble aside, Calvinists make clear that total depravity is not the same as absolute depravity. While the latter allows for no good in humans, the former merely means that every aspect of the human being is besmirched, but that good is still possible within a human. (No, I don't quite see the difference either.)
But total depravity does mean that the human being is not capable of producing anything good, not capable of doing anything that is pleasing to God.
What this promotes is the sovereignty of God, a doctrine which, it must be noted, Calvinists value more highly than any other. Acknowledging the sovereignty of God, they argue, necessitates the doctrine of human depravity because if God is totally sovereign, then we are totally lacking in sovereignty.
As I have found with the doctrine of Original Sin in general, it seems to me a solution (God's sovereignty) in search of a problem (total depravity). It also seems to me that I can affirm God's sovereignty without accepting total depravity.
So, what say you? Are any of you willing to come to the defense of Calvin's theological foe, Arminius, as some of you were for Pelagius?
(BTW, I officially ban comments to the effect of "Need proof of depravity? Look around!" and "GK Chesterton said that Original Sin is the one doctrine that is empirically provable. Puh-leeze.)
The first question I always ask 5-point Calvinists is this: If you believe in total depravity of the human intellect, how can you be so damn certain that you're right about total depravity? The answer usually seems to be something about the "plain meaning of scripture."Total Depravity
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement
Irresistable Grace
Perseverance of the Saints
That quibble aside, Calvinists make clear that total depravity is not the same as absolute depravity. While the latter allows for no good in humans, the former merely means that every aspect of the human being is besmirched, but that good is still possible within a human. (No, I don't quite see the difference either.)
But total depravity does mean that the human being is not capable of producing anything good, not capable of doing anything that is pleasing to God.
What this promotes is the sovereignty of God, a doctrine which, it must be noted, Calvinists value more highly than any other. Acknowledging the sovereignty of God, they argue, necessitates the doctrine of human depravity because if God is totally sovereign, then we are totally lacking in sovereignty.
As I have found with the doctrine of Original Sin in general, it seems to me a solution (God's sovereignty) in search of a problem (total depravity). It also seems to me that I can affirm God's sovereignty without accepting total depravity.
So, what say you? Are any of you willing to come to the defense of Calvin's theological foe, Arminius, as some of you were for Pelagius?
(BTW, I officially ban comments to the effect of "Need proof of depravity? Look around!" and "GK Chesterton said that Original Sin is the one doctrine that is empirically provable. Puh-leeze.)
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Brian,
You go against all every bit of Romans and Hebrews with that statement.
You give no proof or biblical text supporting your claim. I cannot endorse it.
phil,
im sorry to nit-pick but i DONT think this is an issue of salvation. You made it sound like i thought it was, and i very strictly know that this is not an "requirement" for salvation.
One only needs the faith that the father gives in order that we may be saved, sanctified and eventually glorified through that faith, that is all.
Now they're objective evidences that we have that proof or disproof that one has that faith, but this is surely not one of them
and i think i agree with you phil on your last statement, but the writer of Genesis makes very clear that physical death came about as a result of Adams sin. Genesis 2:16-17
ben, sorry I accidentally missed the word 'don't' from my comment. my apologies.
I did intend to write that youn "DONT think this is an issue of salvation"
Ezek. 18 - the son shall not be held accountable for the sins of the father, nor the father for the sins of the son.
Not just an isolated passage, but a whole chapter written to combat the teaching that the father eats sour grapes and the son's teeth fall out.
Whatever ever Adam's sin means for us -- it does not mean we are guilty. In Romans -- it says death came to man from Adam 'for all sinned'. The guilt of Adam didn't come to all men from his sin -- no more so than the salvation of Jesus came to all men. Just the possibility for it.
What we get from Adam's transgression is the same thing he got....kicked out of the garden, labor and pain in childbirth. Oh, and the most important thing "the knowledge of good and evil".
You see, where there is no law, there is no sin. Because of Adam, we all have a conscience that tells us the good and bad (before we sear it) and the sin in us springs up and kills us -- WHEN -- we sin.
Jesus was tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. Thus Jesus too had the sinful nature from Adam, but that did not confer guilt upon Him.
Nonny
Total depravity refers to the fact man alone is incapable of reconciling himself with God.
Adam sinned, we now all suffer. We are no longer born walking with God, we must come to walk with God through Christ. Adam's "sin" is heridatry in the sense we are born outside Eden, not that we are born with crimes punishable by death. We are outside Eden, which alone is punishable by death, as we not in God's Kingdom.
Total depravity means your works are not sufficient to make you righteous before God. Only through Christ can we be seen as righteous.
Total depravity also means you can not act purely good. As there will allways be a motive of the flesh for some sort of self gratification, some sort of self gain. Only works of pure good come from the Holy Spirit which dwells in us. The Holy Spirit guides our flesh to do such things.
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