This is late in posting due to my medical condition – chronic apathy… So before I start this one I found a few good links in blogland, where things are discussed in greater detail and inevitably more coherently and intellectually. JollyBlogger on the 5 Points of Calvinism and Adrian Warnock on T U L I P
Oh, and there’s even more… Spurgeon’s Defence of Calvinism, and good old John Piper – what his church believes about the 5 points and also some helpful thoughts on preaching and teaching these doctrines.
So, this post is slightly delayed because the main bit of scripture I was going to head to has just been spoken on by Carl Chambers at CU, and I was waiting to listen to that… Ephesians 2 is a great chapter of a great book and I think has a great deal to say on this topic… Carl started off by showing a certain Monty Python sketch about a Dead Parrot – genius.
So the first thing I want to do is move away from the phrase “Total Depravity” – I’m not entirely sure if this is one of those language things where the meaning of the word has changed over time, but to me depravity has the meaning of being as bad as one can be. Rather I prefer the phrase “Total Inability” which I think certainly by my perceived meaning of the words sums this doctrine up a little better.
So in what ways are we unable??
Ephesians 2 – “as for you, you were dead”, spiritually dead, unable to know God or to seek him, and therefore “objects of wrath”. It’s quite simple, dead people can’t do things, absolutely nothing, so we have an inability to do anything, we can’t seek God if we’re dead! But (speaking to Christians) Paul says ‘you’re alive!’, “you were dead”…
Who made us alive? – “..because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions..”
How were we made alive? – “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith”
What about our faith? – “..through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God“
From start to finish, it’s all God’s work in bringing us to new life, even our faith is a gift from God. So why can “no one boast”? If there was anything for man to take credit for then perhaps there could be a small amount of quiet boasting, but the fact is that man is unable to receive new life – except by God’s grace presented in Christ.
How is it ‘Total’?
It’s total in that everyone is unable – Romans 3 “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, and “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.”
I think also the doctrine of Original Sin is relevant here, as explained by Paul in Romans 5 – “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned”.
Sin is something which is inescapable to mankind – ALL have fallen, ALL have sinned, ALL have turned from God. This doctrine exposes lots of difficult and in my view pointless, distracting questions about the status before God of babies – don’t let it worry you, God is just, and you’re not a baby! Everyone is, by themselves, unable to seek God and have new life.
It’s Total in that Sin has corrupted all areas of life - I sin in the things I say, the thoughts in my head, what I look at with my eyes. I sin when I’m at home, when I’m at Uni, when I’m on holiday, when I’m on a Christian camp. I sin in the morning, the afternoon and the evening. I sin when I try to do good things, I sin when I avoid doing good things….
In Romans 7 Paul describes his struggle – “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” Even Paul’s desire to do good is thwarted by the sinful nature.
As I said in the change of words point, I don’t believe it’s Total in the sense that man is as bad as man can be. But in this, man again shows his dependence on God’s grace. The Bible teaches that God is at work in graciously restraining sin – Gen 20:6 “…and so I have kept you from sinning against me”. Also in Romans 13 Paul says that authorities have been appointed by God to judge and restrain sin.
To surmise this… all of mankind is spiritually dead to God, which has resulted in all areas of life being corrupted by sin. Man is unable to be made alive, to seek relationship with God or to be released from the curse of Sin, except by the Grace of God.
So now, to approach the related question posed by Mr. Spear…
“How can we reconcile an acceptance of the Total Depravity of man, with the fact that non-Christians do objectively good things?”
I’m going to pose two answers to this question, which initially will sound contradictory… but who knows? What is a good thing? JP always says that the chief end of man is to glorify God, and from ‘Don’t Waste Your Life’ – “Every good work should be a revelation of the glory of God”. Romans 3 is clear on this, no-one is good, no-one seeks to give God the glory. It could be argued therefore that non-Christians can’t do good things because glory isn’t given to God in the deed, however ‘good’ it appears to be.
Secondly, I want to say that non-Christians do do good things – not of their own doing but God’s. Wayne Grudem in Bible Doctrine puts it like this…
“By common grace, unbelievers do some good, and we should see God’s hand in it and be thankful for common grace as it operates in every friendship, every act of kindness, every way in which it brings blessing to others. All of this – though the unbeliever does not know – is ultimately from God, and he deserves the glory for it.”
The doctrine of Common Grace – God graciously working throughout his world apart from salvation (eg. patience in judgement, sustaining life and creation, restraining sin and all of life’s blessings) – is not explicit in scripture, but more an explanation of how we see God at work in his world.
I believe the first point is true, the second is not contradictory because it is not the ‘good work’ of the individual we see, but God’s grace displayed through the individual, pointing to His Glory.
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