Total depravity: why we need to know
My apologies for the length of time it’s taken me to get this post up. I’ve discovered that I can’t seem to say what I want in one post (the last one was too long!), so my current plan is to take the next few posts to discuss the doctrine of the total depravity of fallen humanity.
In what follows, I will use several terms more or less interchangeably: “bondage of the will,” “total depravity,” “total inability,” “dead in sin,” etc. These terms are not entirely synonymous, but very closely related. For example, “total depravity” expresses the idea that sin permeates fallen man’s heart to the core. The “bondage of the will” is a corollary of this, namely that because we are by nature totally depraved, our wills are enslaved from within. The main idea expressed by all these terms is essentially the same; the patient is not merely sick—or unconscious—in sin, but stone cold dead in sin.
In this post I want to focus on the importance of the question of how much (or how little) power the fallen will has with respect to matters pertaining to salvation. Then, in the next couple of posts, to help alleviate any confusion, I’ll attempt to explain what total depravity doesn’t mean (since the terminology is prone to be misunderstood). Then, I’ll try to explain exactly what total depravity does mean.
In Adam's fall sinned we all
Before we get to our focus on the importance of knowing how much power the fallen will possesses, we’ll briefly discuss the consequences of Adam’s sin. As we’ve already had occasion to explain, by virtue of the creation covenant, Adam had been constituted the federal head of all his posterity. Had he stood his probation successfully, he would have secured the heavenly inheritance for us all. But because he failed, he instead plunged us into the mire of sin and death: “In Adam’s fall sinned we all” as the Puritans were fond of saying. In the words of the Westminster Confession:
[Adam and Eve] being the root of mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by original generation. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions (WCF 6.3, 4).
That is to say that all children of Adam begin our existence first of all, under the judicial wrath of God and subject to His curse, and second of all, utterly dead in sin (not merely unconscious or sick) and therefore totally unable to will and/or to do anything that pleases God.
The second of these two consequences is our focus in these posts, namely, our natural state of being totally incapacitated for doing anything to effect our eternal salvation. Or to cite the Westminster divines once again:
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 that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto (WCF 9.3).
The dismissal of the question today
We'll unpack this truth more in the next couple of posts, but like I said, my intent in this one is to focus on why it's so important to know it and affirm it unequivocally. Has fallen man really lost all "ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation"? It's necessary to dwell on this question for a bit because the prevailing view among conservative evangelicals seems to be that, while sinners are by nature not able to obey God’s law, they are able to exercise saving faith; somehow, they are able to “choose for Christ.” In fact, it is not uncommon to hear evangelicals describe someone’s conversion in terms of their being “born again by faith,” which clearly implies that the sinner first exercised saving faith, and was only then regenerated.
And this brings us back to the question I raised in the first post in this series, viz., which comes first, faith or regeneration? Can we know the answer to this question? Is this a question we should even want to answer? After all, the bible isn’t really so clear on this issue, is it?
Many conservative Christians today would respond to these queries with a resounding “No!” followed by the assertion that to insist that regeneration must precede faith is to claim knowledge in an area that scripture has left “mysterious,” or to apply “man’s logic” to God’s revelation—or worst of all, to count angels on pinheads.
I well recall the frustration I experienced in my early years of Christian faith upon meeting with this response after inquiring of more mature Christians as to the nature of salvation, and what precisely God does, and what exactly I’m supposed to so. Finally I gave up—and even worse, I am sure I responded as I'd been taught when confronted with similar inquiries by wide-eyed new Christians.
The urgency of the question for Martin Luther
But when I finally began to dig into the treasure trove of Reformed literature several years ago, I was amazed to find that no less than the great Martin Luther was convinced that this question was an absolutely crucial one! In fact, he wrote what he considered to be his best work of theology, The Bondage of the Will (a must-read!) for the purpose of dealing with this precise issue.
The occasion for Luther's writing on the powerlessness of the fallen will was the urgent need for a well-reasoned and scriptural response to Erasmus of Rotterdam, the great Dutch humanist, who had written a treatise defending the doctrine of free will. Luther’s work is a thorough, powerfully argued, systematic defense of the truth of fallen man’s enslavement to sin.
The Bondage of the Will was the second classic work of Reformation theology I read (soon after Calvin’s Institutes), and I found it an amazing eye-opener. Prior to my exposure to these books, I had assumed that the conservative evangelicalism I had been immersed in for ten plus years was the legitimate heir to the Protestant Reformation. After all, we were the one resisting liberalism, right? We were the ones who still held to the “essentials” of the faith, right?
Well after reading the Reformers, I saw how utterly naive I had been. I couldn't help but agree with the translators of the book (J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnston), who ask rhetorically in their historical and theological introduction:
With what right may we call ourselves children of the Reformation? Much modern Protestantism would be neither owned nor even recognized by the pioneer Reformers. … we are forced to ask whether Protestant Christendom has not tragically sold its birthright between Luther’s day and our own (The Bondage of the Will, p. 59).
Luther compelled me to acknowledge that one area where classic Reformation theology diverges sharply from what seems to be the prevailing evangelical consensus today is precisely in this doctrine of the bondage of the will.
A wise rebuke from Dr. Luther
I can do no better by way of demonstrating this than to quote some characteristic words of wisdom from Luther’s book. Erasmus (like most evangelicals today) had asserted that the knowledge of whether or not our wills are at all active in securing our eternal salvation was non-essential—in fact “idle and superfluous” knowledge. Luther responds to this assertion in no uncertain terms. Here he treats the question by way of analogy with various secular tasks and callings:Suppose a would-be poet or speech-maker never thought to ask what ability he had, what he could and could not do, and what the subject he was tackling demanded of him … but went straight to work, thinking: ‘I must strive to get it done; it is idle and superfluous to ask whether I have enough learning and eloquence and ability’—what would you think of him? And if someone who wanted a rich crop from his land was not idle enough to perform the superfluous task of investigating the nature of the soil … but rushed precipitously into action, thinking of nothing but the work, and ploughed the seashore and cast his seed wherever there was room, whether in the sand or in the mud—what would you think of him? And what if a man who purposed war, … or carried responsibility for some other piece of public service, was not so idle as to reflect upon what was in his power, whether the treasury could finance him, whether the soldiers were fit, whether there was opportunity for action; … and charged ahead with eyes shut and ears stopped, shouting nothing but ‘War! War!’—pressing on with the work? Tell me Erasmus, what would you think of such poets, farmers, generals, and statesmen? (The Bondage of the Will, pp. 76-77).
And of course it goes without saying that such poets, farmers, generals, and statesmen would have to be numbered among the most foolish of workmen. And the point is that if counting the cost is so absolutely necessary in our temporal pursuits, then how much more so as we consider what we must do to be saved! So to discourage God’s children from taking stock of whether or not they are naturally able to turn to God, Luther argues, is a heinous sin because it keeps them in a state of perpetual ignorance of the task at hand.
But when you tell Christian people ... that in the pursuit of eternal salvation they should not concern themselves to know what is in their power and what is not—why this is plainly the sin that is really unpardonable. For as long as they do not know the limits of their ability, they will not know what they should do; and as long as they do not know what they should do, they cannot repent when they err; and impenitence is the unpardonable sin (The Bondage of the Will, pp. 77-78).
And because biblical Christianity presents us with a comprehensive worldview, false teaching concerning one doctrine has a ripple effect that reaches to all the others. Hence, to draw a veil over the knowledge of what God does versus what we do in securing our eternal salvation is to obscure our knowledge of all the essential doctrines of Christianity: God, man, salvation, etc. Luther sums up the matter as follows:
So it is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether or not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. … If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity, and shall be in worse case than any people on the earth! He who dissents from that statement should acknowledge that he is no Christian; and he who ridicules and derides it should realize that he is Christian’s chief foe. For if I am ignorant of the nature, extent and limits of what I can and must do with reference to God, I shall be equally ignorant and uncertain of the nature, extent and limits of what God can and will do in me ... Now, if I am ignorant of God’s works and power, I am ignorant of God himself; and if I do not know God, I cannot worship, praise, give thanks, or serve Him; for I do not know how much I should attribute to myself and how much to Him. We need, therefore, to have in mind a clear-cut distinction between God’s power and ours, and God’s work and ours, if we would live a godly life (The Bondage of the Will, p. 78).
Conclusion
So why do we need to know whether or not we are totally depraved—whether or not our wills are in bondage? We need to know for the simple reason that ignorance of the power of our wills with respect to matters pertaining to salvation will necessarily result in ignorance in all areas of Christian faith and practice. If we don't know the limits of our ability, we can't live the Christian life. For Luther, this knowledge was not just important—it was essential—to the extent that dismissing it as superfluous is enough to falsify one's claim to be a Christian!
Well perhaps you’re still not convinced, but I hope you can at least begin to see the basis for the claim that to dismiss this as non-essential knowledge is to part ways with Luther (and for that matter all the heroes of the Protestant Reformation, who were fully agreed on this) and is to pursue a brand of “Protestantism” that for all its claims to wearing the mantle of the Reformation, has “tragically sold its birthright between Luther’s day and our own.”
Relating this issue to our series topic, “God saves sinners!” the point is that we need to understand exactly how powerless and undeserving sinners are, so that we can then also truly grasp the grace of God in choosing us, and the almighty power He exerts in saving us. And of course these are all among the most important things a Christian needs to know, because they lie at the heart of the gospel.
(To be continued …)
