Blog on the Lillypad
Friday, October 24, 2003
 | Total Depravity
For the readers who are new to all of this: Total depravity means that man by nature has no inclination or power to be good. This doesn’t mean that we cannot do good; we can. We can intellectually realize that doing good profits us in the long term. Man has a conscience that will sting if he does anything to violate it. These shadowy forms of goodness are not the real thing, as genuine goodness clings to good no matter what it suffers as a consequence, and finds a true pleasure and fulfillment in goodness. People, on the other hand, do good because they think they ought to. We have to learn to do good and be drilled in it, then discipline ourselves to do it. This is because we are not good. But innately good creatures do good as naturally as we eat or sleep. |
Total depravity also means that we are capable of committing any sin. Again, our performance will be tempered and restrained by the very pride that condemns us. We often refrain from performing evil actions because self respect prevents us (We have an image of goodness that we try to live up to.), but the inclination is there. Take away the props of self respect; remove the sting of conscience, and we will do anything to justify ourselves, gain what we want, serve our own ends, accrue power, etc. This, of course, is why people sin in secret and why they whisper behind each other’s backs. Such actions reveal their recognition that what they are doing to get what they want is evil. Yet rather than not do it, they do it secretly, as though God is fooled.
So how total is total? Most people think that demons are the personification of evil. And demons are totally depraved. But so are human beings. In nature, we are no less sinful and wicked than demons, because total means total, and we are totally depraved. The difference is that demons have been entirely stripped from their first estate and lack the restraints of conscience and other appreciative sensibilities that we, by virtue of our bodies, emotions, and minds, still retain. Mankind still labors under an urgency to re-establish the link with God that was broken by sin (but as totally depraved creatures, they will always make it on their terms, no matter how slavishly they seem to devote themselves to reconciliation with God). Demons don't do that. Most human beings insist that they are still righteous, or can be righteous again, and so they work towards re-establishing their righteousness. And that's why religion has always been put to such perverted uses. Don't blame God. They're not His religions. Blame the creatures who invented those religions: human beings. Only one revelation (the true revelation) tells man that his estate is hopeless and he is fit only to receive mercy and be adopted back into righteousness by the gracious rescuing action of God Himself; and that revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Of course, I suppose that most of my readers disagree with the idea of being totally depraved, as most people consider man to be neutral in matters of right and wrong, and each choice that he makes indicates his progression up or down the proper path. However, the Biblical teaching is that of total depravity. I don’t mind if readers disagree with the Bible, for as long as we both know this, there’s room for discourse.
Most (if not all) of the IFB-KJVO people who post on the Fighting Fundamentalist Forums attend churches where the doctrine of Total Depravity is claimed in the church's doctrinal statement as a doctrinal truth. But many of them still don't know what it means, and many of them, when confronted with the idea of Total Depravity, deny that it's true.
What Total Depravity means in terms of church government and church leadership is that when we look for a man to have a blameless life (one of the requirements for an elder or pastor), we are looking for God working in him. We do not assume that people in and of themselves get better and better. The evidence of the grace of God in the life is good works, because consistent good works (love, joy, patience, peace, temperance, chastity, reverence, etc.) indicate the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ being demonstrated through the life of the person, overcoming his sin. It doesn't mean that the person himself has ceased being a sinner. Nor does it mean that he is by nature a better man than any other man. What the wise congregation looks for is the work of God in the person, not the person's work to impress God.
