Total Depravity

The doctrine of total depravity tells us that sin has affected not just part of us or part of creation but rather has affected everything that God has made. It is the first point of the acronym TULIP (what theologians often refer to as the doctrines of grace), and it establishes the dire need that sinners have for God’s gracious work of redemption. Total depravity does not mean that man is as sinful as he could possibly be; rather, it speaks to the pervasiveness of sin. There is no part of man that is untouched by the guilt and corruption of Adam’s sin. The doctrine of total depravity stands in contrast to numerous heterodox theological views of fallen man, most notably Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism. In the early church, Augustine engaged in polemics with Pelagius over the depravity of man, rejecting the notion that after the fall, mankind can do good apart from the grace of God. The essence of this error came to be known as Pelagianism. In the seventeenth century, Dutch Reformed theologians convened the Synod of Dort (1618–19) to address the faulty understandings of the impact of sin taught in the theological system now called Arminianism. The Canons of Dort succinctly state the Reformed understanding of depravity against the teaching of Jacob Arminius, a theology professor at Leiden University, and his followers, the Remonstrants. Arminius had raised questions about Calvin’s teaching on such things as the total depravity of man. Accordingly, the Canons of Dort defend the five essential doctrines of grace, including total depravity.

Scripture teaches that Adam represented all people descended from him by ordinary generation. Therefore, all those whom He represented, which is every human being except for Jesus Christ, fell with Adam in his first transgression (Rom. 5:12–21). When he sinned, Adam brought sin and misery into the world. The guilt of Adam’s sin was imputed to those whom he represented. The corruption of his nature is also transmitted to them. Scripture expresses the nature of human depravity when it teaches that all men (except Jesus) are, by nature, “dead in sins and trespasses” (Eph. 2:1–4). In short, man’s depravity is nothing short of spiritual death. Accordingly, it is impossible for those in Adam to please God unless He first renews them by His sovereign grace. The Apostle Paul captures the essence of this depravity by drawing together in Romans 3:10–18 what many Old Testament passages say about the condition of mankind and by explaining in texts such as Ephesians 4:17–19 what sin has done to our human faculties.

The doctrine of total depravity does not say that human beings express the full extent of the depravity of their fallen natures. Instead, it reflects the biblical teaching that every part of man (his mind, will, emotions, etc.) is corrupted by sin. In this sense, some have referred to total depravity as pervasive depravity or radical corruption. The doctrine of total depravity also emphasizes the teaching of Scripture regarding fallen man’s inability to help himself out of this state of corruption.

The biblical doctrine of total depravity establishes the need that all men have for Christ and His saving work. Because all human beings in Adam are spiritually dead and unable to do anything to bring themselves out of a condition of depravity, they are utterly dependent on God’s sovereign mercy and grace. In the counsels of eternity, God mercifully elected a people for whom He sent Christ to die. Additionally, God determined to raise the elect from spiritual death to spiritual life by the sovereign working of His Spirit. Those for whom Christ died will, by the same grace with which they were redeemed, persevere to the end.

During the Pelagian controversy in the fifth century, Augustine of Hippo wrote two books, On Nature and Grace and On the Proceedings of Pelagius, to refute the teaching of Pelagius, whose teachings have come to be known as Pelagianism. Gerald Bray explains the essence of this debate. He writes:

The dispute between Augustine and Pelagius was not about the origin of sin but about the effect of Adam’s disobedience on his posterity. Augustine maintained that all human beings have inherited the broken relationship with God caused by the disobedience of our first parents. We are not free to choose our inheritance and must accept what we have been given. Pelagius, on the other hand, believed that sin is an act of the will and that, like Adam and Eve, every human being is free to choose whether he will sin.

During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther wrote The Bondage of the Will to refute the semi-Pelagianism of the Roman Catholic theologian Erasmus. Later, John Calvin wrote The Bondage and Liberation of the Will to express the doctrine of total depravity and spiritual inability. Both Luther and Calvin argued that God had given man free will but that Adam’s fall has left all people, except for Christ, subject to the bondage of sin and corruption. Accordingly, since human nature is now pervasively depraved, people practice only evil until they are regenerated by the Holy Spirit.

The doctrine of total depravity was later at the center of the seventeenth-century theological debate centered around the teachings of Jacob Arminius. Arminius, a professor of theology at the University of Leiden, began to question the view of human depravity taught by John Calvin and others. With respect to the impact of sin on human nature, the disciples of Arminius (the Remonstrants) held that man is not as sinful as earlier Reformed theologians had maintained. The Reformed Churches of the Netherlands convened a national synod in the city of Dort to answer the Remonstrants’ errors concerning the extent of human depravity and other matters. This synod produced the Canons of Dort, which contain a very clear statement about the nature of man’s depravity. Article 3 of the third and fourth heads of doctrine states:

All men are conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, incapable of saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin, and in bondage thereto, and without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they are neither able nor willing to return to God, to reform the depravity of their nature, or to dispose themselves to reformation.

Despite the work of the Synod of Dort, the views of the Remonstrants have persisted and are still taught today in the theological system known as Arminianism.