Are We Depraved?

What’s your gut reaction to the total depravity of man? Do you shrink from this doctrine because it sounds too pessimistic? Today, R.C. Sproul explains why so many people have this response.

How do you respond to the concept total depravity? Emotionally now—I’m not asking you for your intellectual evaluation or analysis of it. But is there a visceral reaction, a gut reaction to this concept as you hear it? Is this an idea that you want to distance yourself from because it’s so pessimistic, so gloomy, and so denigrating of our humanity? Or do you think there is something to this concept of total depravity that is important for the Christian to understand? I hope that you answered it the second way, because part of the problem is we have lost any sense of the divine standard, any sense of the law of God, which is the mirror that tells us our moral state.