CALVINISM (3)

Total Hereditary Depravity

Victor M. Eskew

 

            In the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) of the Presbyterian Church, we find a definition of Total Hereditary Depravity.  “Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation:  so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from the good, and dead in sin is not able by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself there unto” (Chapter 9, Section 3).  Steele, Thomas, and Quinn, defend Total Hereditary Depravity under four headings:  Spiritual Darkness, Darkened Minds and Corrupt Hearts, Bondage to Sin and Satan, and Inability to Change (The Five Points of Calvinism:  Defined, Defended, and Documented).    

            There are four ingredients that make up the doctrine of Total Hereditary Depravity.  First, there is Original Sin.  Adam and Eve yielded to the demands of the serpent and took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 3:6).  Immediately, their hearts were made evil.  This disposition to sin, we are told, was passed on from generation to generation.  “By original sin we mean the evil quality which characterizes man’s natural disposition and will” (The Five Points of Calvinism, R.L. Dabney, pp. 6-7).  They do not deny the fact that men can manifest some positive traits such as friendliness and honesty.  The problem is that is nature is so defiled that man cannot do anything that enables him to be right with God.

            The second ingredient in Total Hereditary Depravity involves the meaning of “total.”  In their book, “The Five Points of Calvinism, Steele, Thomas, & Quinn write:  “The adjective ‘total’ does not mean that each sinner is totally or completely corrupt in his actions and thoughts as it is possible for him to be.  Instead, the word ‘total’ is used to indicate that the whole of man’s being has been affected by sin.  The corruption extends to every part of man, his body and soul; sin has affected all (the totality) of man’s faculties – his mind, his will, etc.” (pp. 18-19).

            The third element of Total Hereditary Depravity is the free agency of man.  Here is what the Calvinists affirm.  “God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined, to good or evil” (WCF, Chapter XI, Section i).  Dabney makes this affirmation:  “We fully admit that where an agent is not free he is not morally responsible” (p. 13).  These Calvinist makes is sound as if he affirms free moral agency, but later in our studies we will find that free moral agency and Calvinism do not mix.

The fourth ingredient of Total Hereditary Depravity is man’s natural disposition.  Calvinism states that our hearts are evil.  Since all actions originate in the heart, then we will always do that to which our hearts are inclined.  Thus, man’s natural disposition is to do his own will instead of the will of God.  After discussing man’s “natural disposition,” Dabney then asks this question:  “Now, then, all the argument turns upon the question of fact:  is it so that since Adam’s fall the natural disposition of all men is in this state of fixed, decisive enmity against God’s will, and fixed, inexorable preference for their own self-will, as against God?” (p. 18).

We often believe that those who teach false doctrine simply make up these concepts in their own minds and proclaim them.  Such is not usually the case.  Many times, false doctrines are based upon misunderstandings and perversions of God’s Word.  This is true regarding Total Hereditary Depravity.  The following are some of the verses a Calvinist will use in an attempt to sustain his doctrine.  “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5).  The Calvinist will focus on the last several words of this verse:  “…the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually.”  In Job14:4, Job proclaims:  “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?  not one.”  The sweet psalmist of Israel wrote:  “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5).  In Psalm 51:8, he states:  “The wicked are estranged from the womb:  they go astray as soon as they are born.”  The prophet Jeremiah describes the heart of man with these words:  “The heart is deceitful above all things:  and desperately wicked:  who can know it” (Jer. 17:9).  In the New Testament we have these readings from the pen of the apostle Paul.  “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God:  for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7).  In 1 Corinthians 2:14, he declares:  “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God:  for they are foolishness unto him:  neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.”  Lastly, in Ephesians 2:3, he describes the Ephesians prior to their conversion, saying that they “were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”  These are just a sample of the passages they use to establish the doctrine of Total Hereditary Depravity.  As you read them one after another, they seem to present a convincing case. 

When man enters into the world, he is depraved according to John Calvin.  In this state, he is totally incapable of coming to God.  If man is going to be changed, God must change him.  Darbey writes:  “…since the native disposition and will of man are wholly and decisively against godliness, there is no source within the man out of which the new godly will can come; into the converted man it has come; then it must come from without solely from a divine will” (p. 28).  Salvation is said to begin with regeneration.  This is an inward change.  It involves God acting on the heart of man.  “But manifestly in regeneration, in the initial revolution of disposition, the soul does not act, but is a thing acted on.  In this first point there can be no cooperation of man’s will with divine power.  The agency is wholly God’s, and not man’s, even in part.  The vital change must be affected by immediate divine power…The work must be sovereign and supernatural” (Darbey, 27).  One passage to which they will refer on this matter is John 6:44.  “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him…” Once regeneration has occurred, then conversion takes place.  This is the change of life that comes from the inward change, a continuous process that comes out of regeneration.

When presented by a skilled Calvinist, the doctrine of Total Hereditary Depravity seems to have merit.  In our next article, we will address this doctrine in two ways.  First, we will show how it runs contrary to the broad context of God’s Word.  Second, we will examine some of their proof-texts and show what the inspired writers are actually teaching instead of supporting this false doctrine of Calvinism.