A Short Explanation of Total Depravity

The word total in the term total depravity means that the depravity that came to all of us as a result of the fall affects every part of our being. If I’d been naming the doctrine, I’d have called it “comprehensive” depravity, but no one asked me, so  we’re stuck with a name that many find confusing.

It all boils down to this: Post-fall, nothing in us works the way it was created to work. Our bodies have their faults. We get sick; our teeth decay; we have genetic imperfections; and we all eventually die. Our minds are imperfect, leaving our thinking powers warped. Our emotions run amuck, too. And this depravity extends to our wills, leaving us with desires that have also been corrupted. 

The corruption of our desires—of our will—puts us in a pickle when it comes to the demands God makes on us as his creatures. He commands that we obey him, but in our natural state, we don’t really want to, and even when we make an attempt to obey, we don’t do it for the right reasons. Ephesians 2:1-3 tells us that people in their natural post fall state—those who remain dead in trespasses and sins—are living out their lives in the cravings of their flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind. They don’t care about pleasing God; but rather, they care about pleasing their own flesh. This problem of persistent warped desires is universal. Those who are not yet believers remain in that state and those who are believers were once in that state.

You see the predicament, right? God’s commandments are nothing more than what people ought to be doing, yet the corruption that came to every one of us through the fall warps our desires so that we just keep on indulging our twisted cravings instead of doing what God asks us to do. Fallen human beings are so intransigent in this disobedience that scripture tells us that the natural person—a person who remains as they are born post fall without any supernatural intervention—is unable to submit to God’s commands (Romans 8:7-8). 

This is one aspect of the inability that is part of our depravity. We just can’t keep God’s commands. Not that any of them are too hard for us; technically, we ought to be able to keep them. Our problem is that we consistently choose to please our flesh rather than God. It’s a character flaw that we were born with, resulting in a moral inability to do what we ought to do.

Some people have difficulty with the words “unable” or “cannot” being used to describe a condition that involves continued refusal, but those are the scriptural words. And it’s not using those words in a way we don’t already use them. If I told you about a woman who was so proud that she was unable to go out in public without heavy makeup, a fur coat, and all her jewelry, you’d understand that the source of her inability to leave the house unadorned was a character flaw within the woman. You’d understand that if the woman woke up one morning and decided to go do her grocery shopping bare-faced and wearing a pair of ripped up sweat pants, she certainly could. No one would stop her. But because she is proud, she will never in a million years let herself go out looking like that. She has a character trait that results in a consistent action that she can’t not do as long as that character trait exists. 

It’s the same way with natural (or fleshly) people. If they willed above all else to submit to God, nothing would stand in their way. They are unable to keep God’s commands because they have a character flaw causes them always want to fulfill the desires of their flesh and of their mind more than they want to obey God. It’s in this sense that they are unable to do what God commands them to do. They continually refuse to submit to his righteous demands because of their strong and persistent sinful desires.

And there is one more facet to the inability that is part of total depravity. Not only are people in their natural state unable to submit to God’s law, they are also unable to come to Christ or savingly believe on him. In John 6, Jesus himself makes statements that affirm this inability to believe:

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him…. (v 44).

But there are some of you who do not believe…. Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father (vs 64-65).

It’s the same word of ability—or rather inability—used here as is used in Romans 8 (see above) when we are told that natural people can’t submit to God’s law, but this time it’s used in regards to coming to Christ. And you can see from verses 64 and 65 that in this passage coming to Christ is used synonymously with believing. What’s more, this inability exists in everyone—no one is excluded—unless God takes action on their behalf. This action by God is described as drawing or granting or giving or permitting, depending on which verse you read (see verse 37, too) and which version you use. Whatever it is that these words mean precisely (We will get to this eventually, I hope, but in another post.), there is an action performed by God that is required before anyone can believe on Christ or come to him. As we stand naturally, without God’s intervention, we are unable to believe.

Our total depravity is bad news. It means that we are all naturally corrupted in every part of our being, including our minds, our emotions, and our wills. This corruption causes us to be unable to submit to God’s commands and unable to believe. We are in a doubly messy situation: We can’t do what God expects of us and the only way out of this first mess is to come to Christ, and we can’t do that either. Total depravity, we might say, leaves us with no hope. 

It’s a good thing there’s more to the story.