Moreover, the aesthetic sensibilities are also corrupted. The mind, as well as the emotions and appetites, is biased against God. In practice, total depravity means that there is no human faculty left untouched by sin, even in relative terms. This sinful nature is the source of evil thoughts and actions (Matthew 15:16–20). It renders humans blind to the gospel (1 Corinthians 2:14 2 Corinthians 4:1–6) and enemies of God (Romans 8:7 Ephesians 2:1–3), and is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9). The biblical basis for their position is clear in that sin is universal (Genesis 6:5 Romans 1:18–3:20). On the other hand, the Reformers stressed that the depravity we inherited from Adam was real, total corruption (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.1.8). “Humans respond, but we do so since God makes us willing, and changes our hearts, so that we believe freely.” Rome came to define corruption in purely negative terms, as the loss of the righteousness that was given by God as an addition to humanity’s naturally created condition. It is like an illness, some sins being curable, others mortal (see Summa Theologiae, 1a2ae.85–87). Sin stains us and makes us guilty, deserving punishment.

He argued that it does not make us averse to virtue, although it weakens us in this pursuit and brings the penalty of death, all stemming from our inheriting Adam’s loss of original innocence. In contrast, Thomas Aquinas, whose treatment of this topic had a defining effect on later Roman Catholic theology, held that original sin simply wounded human nature. In William Shedd’s words, total depravity means “the entire absence of holiness, not the highest intensity of sin” ( Dogmatic Theology, 2:257). It means that no part of the personality is uncorrupted: the mind, the emotions, and so on. Nor does it mean that fallen humans lack a conscience or that the world since the fall is entirely miserable and incapable of making any progress or appreciating the beauty evident all around. It does not mean that sinners are as bad as they possibly can be or that any one person is as bad as he possibly can be. The modifier total in total depravity denotes that sin affects every facet of our nature. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation. As the Westminster Confession of Faith puts it,īy this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body. Not only did we all incur guilt in Adam’s sin, but his vitiated nature was and is communicated to all his descendants. Likewise, the actions of the one man Adam directly affected the many (Romans 5:12–21). Hence, when Achan sinned, all Israel sinned (Joshua 7:11, 20). In the Old Testament, people were seen in connection with their ancestors from the past and their tribal connections in the present you were A the son of B the son of C of the tribe N. We are part of a collective whole, rather like slices of a gigantic pizza.

“Total depravity means that there is no human faculty left untouched by sin.” Without that presupposition, the doctrine does not make sense. The necessary presupposition on which the doctrine of inherited depravity rests is the solidarity of the human race. In the phrase total depravity, the word depravity refers to a corrupt nature inherent in humanity ever since the sin of Adam. Moreover, we will not grasp its full import unless we see it in a wider context. It is almost as important to know what it does not mean as what it affirms. The doctrine of total depravity is widely misunderstood.

Depravity definition