In my recent theological statement for candidacy certification, I included explicit support for the doctrine of Total Depravity. Despite a recommendation to do otherwise due to its assocation with Calvinism, I decided to keep it in because (1) I believe it (2) it's thoroughly Wesleyan and (3) I couldn't find a better way to express the same idea with different language.But I also struggle with this doctrine.
Seminary has shown me how thoroughly humanist is my worldview [shakes fist]Curse/Bless you Ayn Rand![/shakes fist]. The idea that humanity is totally incapable of good on its own volition induces a bout of philosophical nausea. It is abhorrent. My mind rejects it violently as degrading to the accomplishments of mankind, such as democracy, technology, and art. And if humanity is totally depraved, how does it merit 'human rights'?We are born with Original Sin, inherited from Adam and Eve. We are imputed with Original Guilt by God who holds us accountable for that sin. I am held responsible for something that someone else did thousands of years ago. "It's our nature; we are born with a sinful nature," is the inevitable reply. Yes, but who designed us to have that nature? Who decided that we would bear the guilt for an ancient ancestor?
God did. How then is such a God rightfully called just?
That's my head talking. The humanist in me is outraged at the idea of original sin and guilt imputed by a just God.
But that changes when I'm in intensive prayer; when there's no one in the room but me and God. Then my head remains blind to his teachings, but my heart is receptive. When God and I are alone, he peels back the layers of my soul and quietly teaches me. He shows me how hopeless I am to resist sin without him. He shows me that although I am hopeless to resist, I am the sole person choosing to sin. It is a logical impossibility, and yet it makes perfect sense when he explains it.
Total Depravity (and its necessary companions Original Sin and Original Guilt) aren't ideas that I can reason, but they are ideas that I can emote. I can't think Total Depravity, but I can experience it. I can't rationalize it, but I can believe it.
UPDATE: Brett Royal has a post and a poll on Wesley's view of Total Depravity.
11 comments:
The idea that humanity is totally incapable of good on its own volition induces a bout of philosophical nausea.
And well it should.
I think I am a 5-point non-Calvinist, so I can talk about this. :-)
The doctrine of total depravity is not the doctrine of absolute depravity. We could be much more depraved than we are. There is still the image of God in us, and half the fruit of the tree was the knowledge of good. There is a lot of good, beauty, honor, and spirit alive in the most fallen of men.
But the best of us cannot have one living thought of faith toward God. We can do good, as long as we get the credit. We can see beauty as long as it was made for us, by us, or about us. We can live righteously, as long as we are living by our own code of honor.
None of us can believe God enough to love Him, unless He first loves us, unless He first be born in us as the Seed of the Word takes root and grows.
Total depravity is better called total inability. We are utterly unable to love the Lord Who gave us our mortal lives, so we are unable to take from Him the eternal Life He freely offers.
That's why our righteousness is filthy rags. That's why Ayn Rand could wrap herself in the Virtue of Selfishness, and see only her good. That's why there really is a seed of good in some of her rants, and a seed of evil in Ghandi. That's why the Tao can explain life so well. Nobody is totally depraved, but none of them could give God the glory for the things He has done. They are all totally unable.
God is able.
Praise the Lord, He has made us alive in Christ.
The Lord bless your recommendation bid!
"I am held responsible for something that someone else did thousands of years ago."
I’ve always found this reasoning intriguing. This is very close to the conclusion drawn by those demanding reparations for the descendants of slaves. If the reasoning holds for “Original Sin” (I myself prefer a more generalized “human depravity,” leaving room for both the universal nature of prevenient grace and my belief that Adam and Eve are non-historical types representing Everyman—make that “Everyperson”), does it also hold that you and I are responsible for the sins of our less-distant (and historical) ancestors?
I'm in the habit of pointing out to Calvinists that human free will is not powerful enough to totally annihilate the image of God. As such, I might at times use the word 'total depravity,' but I don't think I mean it in Calvin's sense. That is, I do think that the image of God sometimes shows through in good actions, even for the unregenerate. The good that God created in human beings is twisted and perverted by the Fall, but is nevertheless still there.
I like codepoke's term "total inability". I think that's a good way to avoid Calvinist language while still emphasizing our failures/shortcomings, but at the same time recognizing the spark God has put within us.
None of this would make sense without the doctrine of prevenient grace. Even if we can't turn toward God on our own, God has already given us the means to overcome our sinful nature. To put it another way, for humans it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
I think that the point is driven home when we finally come to realize how powerful a force sin actually is. We can will to resist it, but the fleshly pleasure associated with it seeks to please the physical self. The presence and conviction of the Lord God as to a bona-fide choice to get some Help to resist is more powerfully compelling.
Maybe it is by "Divine Design" that we are created to need, specifically, Him in our lives. Surely in His divine wisdom He could see the frailties of humanity.
I still perceive a logical conundrum.
1. Total depravity, by definition, is complete; otherwise, we do violence to the term “total.” The doctrine maintains that, if left to their own devices, persons are utterly incapable of turning to God.
2. But the doctrine of prevenient grace affirms that, by God’s grace, some vestige of the divine image has been preserved. Persons are prevented from being utterly incapable of turning to God. We are not left to our own devices.
3. So it is only with difficulty that the ideas of “total depravity” and “prevenient grace” are reconciled. One could say, “We would be totally depraved were it not for the prevenient grace of God poured out on all humanity and creation as a whole.” But that “were it not” introduces a state of affairs incompatible with “total.” And something slightly less than total, no matter how small, moves us into the territory of partial. Furthermore, if indeed prevenient grace is poured out on all humanity and creation as a whole, then the doctrine of total depravity moves into the realm of the purely hypothetical. That is, if prevenient grace is universal, “total depravity” describes a state of affairs that has never existed.
I have heard it said that Wesley believed in total depravity but not tee-total depravity. I personally am more comfortable speaking of “human depravity,” which I believe is universal but something less than total. That “something less than total” is the result of God’s prevenient grace. That “something less than total” is the part of each individual which, by God’s grace, remains capable of turning from sin and embracing the call to new life offered by God the Father through Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.
My friend Michael puts it this something like this:
Total depravity is the idea that Adam's sin has touched and tainted everything. Everything is not depraved but everything is influenced by sin.
"My mind rejects it violently as degrading to the accomplishments of mankind, such as democracy, technology, and art."
It is degrading to our own human accomplishments. They don't mean a thing in the long term. If we could work out our own salvation, that would be something to be proud of.
Scripture should be the foundation that we build our theology and our lives on. Not what makes us feel good, or what sounds good.
That's true Brett. It's just that I think that theology should be examined for its impacts. That's probably not epistemologically sound. But I avoid theology (or any ideology) which can be readily abused. A good example is the pop Christian notion that individualism is bad, if not the worst thing in the church today. In the Methodist Blogger Profiles, when I ask "What intellectual thesis do you think is most important combat?", the most common answer is individualism.
A low valuation of the individual can be easily used for totalitarian purposes. Likewise a low value of the human being (i.e. Total Depravity) can be misused to justify the enslavement of humans.
I agree with you wholeheartedly about the low value of a human being can be misused. If the story stopped here, it would be sad indeed. But the beauty is that while we were enemies of God, through the atoning death of Christ, we are a new creation. As a Christian, we have the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. It doesn't get any better than that. We were dead in sin, but we now have life in Christ.
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