Chapter 4:

Moral Inability (Total Depravity)

 

 

 

 

What is meant by the phrase “Total Depravity?”  It does not mean that man is as bad as he could be.  Although it is hard to imagine, it would be possible for Stalin or even Hitler to have been more bad than they already were.  As R.C. Sproul points out, “It would be conceivably possible for Hitler to have had some sort of love perhaps for his mother or someone else.”  What Total Depravity refers to is the extent of the fall.  It refers to the fact that in the fall, all areas of man were affected.  From physical death to slavery of the man’s spirit and will, the fall affected all aspects of mankind.

There are three views of moral ability (or inability), primarily.  1) The Pelagian view (sadly, according to Sproul, the most popular in today’s church), 2) The Semi-Pelagian view, and 3) the Augustinian view.

The Pelagian view of man’s fallenness says that man acts out of no prior inclination to sin or not to sin.  Man is free to sin or not to sin.  Man does not need any of God’s grace in order to have faith in Christ, he simply decides on his own.  Pelagius held this view.  He actually believed that because of man’s ability to not sin, there have actually been people who have lived perfect lives because they simply chose to.  Finney also approached the same understanding of man’s will as Pelagius, although he never denied original sin as openly as Pelagius.  (More on Finney  later.)

The second view of man’s fallenness is the semi-Pelagian view.  This view is held by the Roman Catholic Church, Wesleyan/Arminian churches (at least for the purposes of this discussion), and numerous other churches the world over.  The semi-pelagian view says that man has something horribly wrong with him, that sin has polluted man throughout, and that the consequences of his sin is death.  The semi-pelagian believes, however, that there is still a remnant of goodness left in man, at least sufficient for man to come to God on his own power.  It should be noted that I will be speaking of all Arminians as a group but that Arminianism comes in many different flavors and styles.  Wesleyan/Arminians, especially may desire to be differentiated from simply Arminians, but they all basically hold to them same tenants.  Some Wesleyan/Arminian readers may puzzle or even be offended that I’ve grouped them with semi-Pelagian.  The truth is that Arminians also believe that God’s grace is necessary in order for a person to believe, but they believe that in the final analysis, it is man’s decision for or against God that determines his eternal destination.  Now, if Arminians believe that man is thoroughly corrupt, how is it that they believe man has the power in the final analysis to believe when everything in him cries out against it unless God does a work?  Because Arminians believe that in the end, it is man who makes the decision for or against salvation, I have grouped them in with Semi-Pelagian.

The third view is the Augustinian view.  This view was popularized by Augustine in the third century.  By Augustine’s understanding, man is so thoroughly corrupt that he is literally dead in his sin, unable to move one way or another.  In order to be saved, a work entirely of God must be done in the sinner’s heart.  The man’s will must be turned by God (regeneration) before he can desire God.  That is why, many times, Reformed theologians will say that regeneration precedes faith.

 

 

Of course, by now the attentive reader will know that I have been persuaded of the Augustinian view of man’s fall.  Throughout the rest of this book I will attempt to defend and clarify the many misunderstandings that abound about the doctrines of grace.

The very beginning of Calvinistic doctrines lies in the biblical view of man’s moral inability.  Man is unable to come to God because the fall has so damaged his ability to come to God that he needs God’s help.  According to Paul, unless a person’s heart is regenerated, he cannot please God.  (Romans 8:7-8)

John 6:44 records a statement that Jesus makes after hearing the Jews complain about him.  In this passage Jesus says, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him…”  Again, Jesus re-iterates His statement in verse 65, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”

            In the first two verses Jesus states the drawing of a person into the Christ-life as an action performed by God, “unless my Father draws him…”  In the second verse he not only attributes the action of a person’s salvation but also the very granting of a person’s ability to believe belongs to God Himself.

            Here is where this passage gets tricky.  Even Arminians believe that God must draw a person in order to be saved.  Basically, Arminians believe that God woos someone and that it is enough wooing to be effective, but not so much wooing that it forces a person to make a decision.  They believe that this wooing or enticing of the sinner is necessary or else no one can be saved.

The debate is not over whether this passage should be in the New Testament.  Rather, the debate regarding this passage actually centers on the word “draws” in verse 44.  The question which arises is, is the drawing a strong sort of word implying necessary action by God, or is it an open, voluntary persuading of souls as the Arminians hold?

The Greek word helkuo which is rendered “draws” in most versions is also used in the exact same form in James 2:6 and Acts 16:19, only in those verses, most versions of the Bible translate helkuo “dragged.”  “…they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities” (my italics).  As you can see, this is the exact same word, one rendered dragged, another toned down and rendered draw.

            The word for God’s working in a person’s heart appears to be much stronger than a wooing or a persuading as the Arminians believe.  You don’t simply draw someone into jail.  You drag them into jail!  This is the same word, allowing for the possible translation: “no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me drags him.”

Kittle’s Greek Lexicon (whose founders were far from Calvinist) actually gives helkuo the preferred rendering “compel.”  This changes everything.  “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me compels him.”  You don’t compel a person into jail.  If I say I am compelled by the evidence, I mean that I am practically forced into a particular situation by the evidence presented to me.  Webster’s actually defines compel as such: “to force or constrain; to get or bring about by force; to gather or drive together by force.”  It also lists a synonym for compel as “force.”

As the reader can tell, the evidence does not seem to lead one towards a weaker sort of “wooing” or “persuading,” but that in reality, Jesus is telling his disciples that if anyone is to come to him, God must be the driving force, compelling him to become a disciple.  This is because there is an inability on the man’s part.  Before the word “draw” is mentioned, “No man can come to me.”  That is, not one person in the entire world has the ability to come to me.  There is an inability on man’s part.  That is, unless something happens.  That is where the work of God steps in: “unless the Father Who sent me [compels] him.”

Regarding a deficiency on man’s part, Jesus told his disciples in John 15:5, “Without me you can do nothing.”  This verse was the focal point in one of Luther’s debates with Erasmus.  Luther was constantly repeating that Jesus said no one has the ability do anything without Him.  Here was Luther’s basic line of thought: If God simply prompts a person’s heart to salvation but the man has to respond in order to be saved, in reality man is doing something.  In fact, he is doing the most important thing!  If man must respond, ultimately making the final decision, man is not only doing nothing, but he is doing the most important thing.  Rather, Luther made it abundantly clear that man is entirely dependent on God.  Jesus did not say “without me you cannot do most things,” or “without me you can do very little,” but instead he says, “without me you can do nothing!”  He is not only a little dependent on God to simply prompt his heart, but man is dependent on God to do the ultimate work in his heart, turning his spirit towards the Lord, that faith might be possible and that God Himself might receive all honor and glory for being the God Who saves!

 

Free Will?

Calvin says the following:

Since the Spirit of God declares that every imagination of man’s heart from infancy is evil (Gen. 6:5; 8:21); that there is none righteous, none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God (Ps. 14:3); but that all are useless, corrupt, void of the fear of God, full of fraud, bitterness, and all kinds of iniquity, and have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:10); since he proclaims that the carnal mind is enmity against God, and does not even leave us the power of thinking a good thought (Rom. 8:6; 2 Cor. 3:5), we maintain with Augustine that man, by making a bad use of free will, lost both himself and it.  Again, that the will being overcome by the corruption into which it fell, nature has no liberty.  Again, that no will is free which is subject to lusts which conquer and enchain it.

 

            Calvin here makes a charge against man’s free will.  Calvin asks, if a man is a slave to sin, how can he also be free to not sin?  (Rom. 6:6)  How can a slave also be free?  The answer is that it cannot also be free, since slave and free are entirely contradictory.  The question is, is the whole man in slavery or is it just that the man is now inclined towards sin?  Or more appropriately, when the scripture speaks of the man as being in slavery, does it really mean that the man is a slave, or is it just speaking in a figurative way?

            Speaking of Christians before conversion, Paul says, “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, and that we should no longer be slaves to sin-because anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (Rom. 6:6-7).  Here Paul refers to the unsaved man (the old man for Christians) as in slavery.  Perhaps the question to raise here is, does Paul mean to use slavery in his example as a figurative form, something artistic or at least not to be taken literally?  Or does Paul mean what he actually says, that the old man was in sin until he was set free?  If in fact Paul means what he says, we are not free to Choose Christ on our own.  Someone else must set us free.  Once again, we hearken to the very words of Jesus, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him”  (John 6:44).

            Unless he is to attempt a jailbreak (which would not fit this analogy), a prisoner must be set free by someone else.  If we are arrested by the magisterial authorities, we need the police commissioner to set us free.  How can we believe and therefore, be saved, if on our own we are locked up in prison?  God could allow us to remain in prison for the remainder of our life, but He graciously opens the prison doors for some and sets them free from their previous enslavement and unbelief.

 

“Man by his fall into a state of sin, have wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.”  The Westminster Confession of Faith (IX. 3)

 

            When we speak of Free Will, it is important to differentiate between free volition or choices and free will.  In Christian terms, we refer to volition as the ability to make choices in life, to go to this place or that, to marry such and such a person, or to get up and get a cup of milk out of the fridge at midnight.  Free volition is a mark of all of humanity.

            When we speak of Free Will, we speak, of man’s free ability to choose God or reject God freely.  The scriptures speak of man being in bondage (Romans 6).  “It says that only a freed will (Paul calls it a freed person) freely and heartily chooses Righteousness.” Says J.I. Packer in Concise Theology. 

            In a sense man does have free will because he does not want to choose God, and so he does not choose to come to God.  His not choosing God is not against his will, in fact, it is very much in accord with his will.  It has been that way since birth!  Augustine defined free will as the ability to do what one wants.  When a person does not want Christ and does not receive him, he does so with his will’s total cooperation.  In the same sense, when God sets a man’s heart free (regenerates him), he freely and willfully also chooses Christ because he truly desires God!

Many argue against Calvinism, stating that it is not right for someone to be sent to Heaven who does not even want to go.  On the contrary!  God would never have a reluctant soul enter His kingdom, indeed, God does not allow unbelieving souls who do not believe wholeheartedly!  Those who do enter, enter because He has graciously given them the ability to believe, freeing their heart from moral slavery.  From man’s perspective, everything he does is in accord with his will and he can’t tell the difference until long afterward when he reflects on his conversion, realizing the swift 180º turn from rejection of God into a moment of acceptance of God.

Charles Spurgeon, the King of Calvinists and King of Evangelists, says the following with regard to belief in Christ and the will:

 

But there are some who say, “It is hard for God to choose some and leave others.”  Now, I will ask you one question.  Is there any one of you here this morning who wishes to be holy, who wishes to be regenerate, to leave off sin and walk in holiness?  “Yes, there is, “ says some one, “I do.”  Then God has elected you.  But another says, “No: I don’t want to be holy, I don’t want to give up my lusts and my vices.”  Why should you grumble, then, that God has not elected you to it?  For if you were elected you would not like it, according to your own confession.  If God, this morning, had chosen you to holiness, you say you would not care for it…  You love this world’s pleasures better than religion; then why should you grumble that God has not chosen you to religion?  If you love religion, he has chosen you to it.  If you desire it, he has chosen you to it…  According to your own confession, many of you do not want religion, do not want a new heart and a right spirit, do not want the forgiveness of sins, do not want sanctification, you do not want to be elected to these things: then why should you grumble?  You count these things but husks, and why should you complain of God who has given them to whom he has chosen?  If you believe them to be good, and desire them, they are there for thee.  God gives liberally to all who desire; and first of all he makes them desire, otherwise they never would…  If any of you desire to have salvation, you are elected to have it, if you desire it sincerely and earnestly.  But, if you don’t desire it, why on earth should you be so preposterously foolish as to grumble because God gives that which you do not like to other people?

Spurgeon, C.H.  Election.  Sermons, Volume II, Funk and Wagnalls

 

As you can see, Calvinists also do not believe that God “drags people kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God.”  For if a person did not believe with their whole heart in Christ and that god raised Him from the dead, that person would not fit God’s requirement for salvation: that they believe.

It is also becoming apparent right now that man is very much reliant upon God for salvation.  R.C. Sproul once said with regard to moral inability, “Before I believed these doctrines, I understood that man was reliant upon God for his salvation and that without God’s grace no man could be saved, but I certainly didn’t think it depended on God this much!”

Indeed, we see here that man depends completely on God’s grace in order for his heart to become open and willing to the gospel, to the message that he is a sinner in need of God and the sacrifice Christ made on the cross in order to save him from the coming wrath of God upon the sins committed by all men.

 

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