Building Blocks: Calvinism: Total Depravity

The first point of Calvinism that we are discussing is Total Depravity.  This concept is active on two levels, both at the level of individual sin and mankind.  We will discuss the condition of sin as well as individual sins.  We will discuss specific passages that make this clear.

Sin is breaking the Law, the Commandments.  In the Old Covenant, the rabbinical law was included in this definition, but Jesus has cleared away all of the rabbinical law and left us with the Commandments.  There are two ledgers of the Law: Love God and Love your neighbor.  While these sound innocuous at first glance, it must be understood that the Law is designed to convict us.  The Law will demonstrate to us that we are hopeless in sin.  We may not have realized it until we are measured against the Law.  The Law teaches us that we sin.

Total depravity is the idea that man is sinful by definition.  The doctrine of original sin is that Adam, as a federal representative of mankind, sort of like an elected official who votes for us in Congress represents a group of constituents, represented all of mankind in the Garden of Eden.  His sin is inherited by all of mankind federally and legally.  What has to be understood here is that a Covenant existed between God and Adam.  Covenants are contracts; there is a legally binding obligation involved.  God’s contract with Adam contained blessings if he obeyed and curses if he failed.  This all takes place in Genesis 3 and is worth reading.  Don’t get bogged down in the creation story.  This concept is not about creation, it is about the Covenant of Law established by God in creation, in which Adam was mankind’s covenant representative.  The curse part of Adam’s breaking of this covenant is death.  The wage of sin is death.  This is our inheritance from Adam.

Let’s look at this concept both from the point of view of each person being in the individual condition of sin as well as the futility of fulfilling each Commandment.  Man has fallen, and from the moment of conception, each individual human is a flawed creature destined for Hell without the intercession of Christ on his behalf.  We live under the condition of sin in which every aspect of our being is corrupted by sin.  All of our decision process is based upon the evaluation of data through a lens colored by sin.  We will always make a decision and act in accordance with the fact of that sinful condition.  Therefore, our free will is tainted.  We are free to choose an action between sinful choices.   

In Covenant theology, there is a very important distinction between two kingdoms.  We may make decisions and act in a way that has civic righteousness in it, but our motives are also important.  Oprah Winfrey uses her fortune to do much good in the world, but she has clearly demonstrated that her theology is not Christian.  She is not, at this point a duel citizen of the Present Age and the Age to Come.  She is firmly rooted in the Present Age, still under the yoke of sin through Adam.  Her civic righteousness amounts to dust in the Kingdom of Heaven.  This distinction is huge.  You must have these categories in order to understand Covenant theology.

Let’s back up and look at sin as specifically breaking the law.  Total Depravity means that we will all break the law.  To understand this concept, try to look at the Ten Commandments like this.  God gave us these basic rules to live by and Jesus reinforced them during his time on earth, see Matthew 5:17-20, 48.  That is the minimum requirement to fulfill our duty to God.  Breaking any one of them is sin.  Any sin is worthy of eternal damnation.  Plus, Jesus says that perfection is the standard that is required to fulfill the law.  Wait, it gets worse.  We do not have to act to sin.  Our thoughts convict us.  No, wait, it’s worse than that.  Our hearts, in their sinful condition have sinned before our minds have had the thoughts and long before we ever get around to acting on these sins.  In fact, we may never act on these sinful thoughts.  That’s pretty heavy justice to lay on mankind, but that is essentially the deal.  It’s no wonder that the history of national Israel is one of falling short of the Will of God.  These are tough standards.  So tough, in fact, that no man can possibly meet the standard.  Let me say that again.  No man can possibly meet the standard, and is therefore damned to Hell.  This is what total depravity means in the end game.  If you think that you can come before God with your body of works, your good life and have any kind of positive outcome, you are deluded.  It’s not happening.  You are by definition flawed and sinful.  That is total depravity.

From what passages in the Bible does this stuff come?  Let’s start in the Old Testament and then work our way through the Gospel and finally to Paul.  The beginning is a good place to begin: Genesis 6:5.  That last half of the verse requires no explanation: every intention of the thoughts of [man's] heart was only evil continually.  Sort of heavy news, isn't it?  Let's try some more.  Ecclesiastes 9:3 is a good spot.  That verse is so horrible, that I'm going to come back to it at the very end.  Jeremiah is one of the prophets who is particular tough.  Chapter 3 has this gem.  And here are some more from Jeremiah.

And now from Matthew 15, Jesus tells us what wonderful things come from the heart:  For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.  This is not exactly telling us how wonderful that we are.  There are, of course, similar passages in the other synoptics.  But the real damage is done by Paul in Romans 1-3.  I've quoted the first half of Romans 3 above and here again.  In case you are unaware, that quoted section is from various chapters of the Psalter.  Paul is using the Old Testament, sections I haven't even mentioned yet, to prove his point.  Can there be that much debate on this topic?

Elsewhere, I introduced some terms that I want to bring back here:  Supralapsarianism, Infralapsarianism and Amyraldianism. These three terms relate to the order of decrees by God concerning the fall of man relative to the creation of man. Here is a great post to delineate the issue of decrees.  What is important here is that all of these things have happened already.  Whether you believe that creation occurred before or after God decreed the fall of man, it’s all over and done now.  There was either one (Jesus) or two (Adam and Jesus) men who ever came into this world sinless.  That’s it.  The rest of us came into the world after the fall of man and are BY DEFINITION sinful.  This is what Total Depravity means.  BTW, I will be supporting the Infralapsarian position in all of my posts.  This is not necessary to learn, but I include it for completeness, so that you will know, if you choose, the grounds for the arguments and the other possible positions that people might take.  Most Calvinists are Infralapsarians.

Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.  I mentioned that I would come back to this verse.  Imagine for a second that you are God looking out at fallen humanity from eternity.  Without Jesus in the world, God sees nothing but dead people.  With Jesus in the world, He sees one life.  Then he sees more, then there are more than can be counted.  But until Jesus was introduced into the picture, all that there was, under the Covenant of the Law, was death.  Keep that picture in mind when we come to the next section.  When we are talking about what is fair, remember this sea of death that God would see if it were not for Jesus. 

And from Romans 5:  12 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— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.  It doesn't get any more clear than that.

This is where the doctrine of Total depravity leaves man: sinful, lost and most especially dead in sin.  So, how do we get by this little problem and hope to come to God and eternal life?  We’ll go to the concept of election in the next post.

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