Total depravity

1834 · Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: Galatians 2.16

Charges of a very serious nature are brought against man by his Maker. He is charged with violating the Law of God; with a want of love to his Maker; with a corrupt, proud, sensual heart; with being entirely alienated from God by wicked works; in one word, with being entirely depraved. This charge extends to all people; and to the entire life of every unrenewed person. It is not a charge merely affecting the external conduct, nor merely affecting the heart; it is a charge of entire alienation from God; a charge, in short, of total depravity; see, especially, Rom. 1; 2; 3. That this charge is a very serious one, no one can doubt.

1838 · John Henry Newman, Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification Lecture 4. Secondary Senses of the Term Justification

I observe, then, we become inwardly just or righteous in God's sight, upon our regeneration, in the same sense in which we are utterly reprobate and abominable by nature, or (to use the strong language of the Homilies) as we are since Adam's fall "corrupt and naught," "without any spark of goodness in us," "without any virtuous or godly motion," "the image of the devil," "firebrands of hell and bondslaves to the devil," "having in ourselves no one part of our former purity and cleanness;" but being "altogether spotted and defiled," and "nothing else but a lump of sin." Now these fearful words, however true, do not imply that our original nature is pure evil, as Satan's now is, though even to Satan's nature, left to itself, it assuredly tends; they are not inconsistent with an admission that the natural man may have many high thoughts and wishes, and may love and do what is noble, generous, beneficent, courageous, and wise. But the writer means that, whatever good principles there be, in whatever degree, remaining to us since Adam's fall, they are, to use his own expression, "altogether spotted and defiled," thoroughly and hopelessly steeped in evil, saturated with evil, dissolved in evil. They do not exist by themselves in their unmixed nature, as if we could act on them and nothing but them, whatever might be their worth if so exerted; but though good, viewed in themselves, still they are, in fact and as found in us, of a sinful nature. All that we do, whether from better principles or from worse, whether of an indifferent nature or directly moral, whether spontaneously, or habitually, or accidentally, all is pervaded with a quality of evil so odious to Almighty God, as to convert even our best services almost into profanations; or, in the expressive words of St. Paul, "They that are in the flesh cannot please God."

1861 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 7 (1861) 385

I do not mean to say for a single moment, that sin has destroyed any of the faculties of man’s soul, for they are all there. They all exist as they did when they were produced; but I mean to say, that sin has deprived man of the principle of spiritual life, and made him a depraved and debased creature; and we believe that we can prove this from the word of God, as well as from observation.

1864 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 10 (1864) 572

So, again, take the total depravity of the race and its original corruption—a doctrine much abhorred of those who lift up poor human nature—but is, nevertheless, true. We hold that man must be entirely lost and ruined, because if there is some good thing in him, then it cannot be said that, "of God and through God and to God, are all things," for at least some things must be of man. If there are some relics of virtue and some remnants of power left in the race of man, then some things are of man and to man will some things be. But if of God are all things, then in man there must be nothing—man must be set down as ruined—hopelessly ruined— "Bruised and mangled by the Fall," and his salvation must be described as being from the first to the last, in every jot and every tittle of that almighty Grace of God, which at first chose him, at length redeemed him, ultimately called him, constantly preserved him and perfectly shall present him before the Father's Throne.

1871 · Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (Part II, Anthropology; Part III, Soteriology, chapters I-XIV) 2.8.13

All this is perfectly consistent with the Scriptural doctrine of total depravity, which includes the entire absence of holiness; the want of due apprehensions of the divine perfections, and of our relation to God as our Creator, Preserver, Benefactor, Governor, and Redeemer. There is common to all men a total alienation of the soul from God so that no unrenewed man either understands or seeks after God; no such man ever makes God his portion, or God’s glory the end of his being. The apostasy from God is total or complete.

1872 · William S. Plumer, The Treasury of David, vol. 2 (Psalms 27-57) 36.q6

Total depravity is not too strong a term to describe human wickedness. The sinner has “no fear of God.” Where that is wanting, how can there be any piety? And if there is no piety, there must be total want of right affections, and that is the very essence of depravity.

1878 · Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Systematic Theology 22

The moral depravity of the unregenerate moral agents of our race, is total. By this is intended, that the moral depravity of the unregenerate is without any mixture of moral goodness or virtue, that while they remain unregenerate, they never in any instance, nor in any degree, exercise true love to God and to man. It is not intended, that they may not perform many outward actions, and have many inward feelings, that are such as the regenerate perform and experience: and such too as are accounted virtue by those who place virtue in the outward action. But it is intended, that virtue does not consist either in involuntary feelings or in outward actions, and that it consists alone in entire consecration of heart and life to God and the good of being, and that no unregenerate sinner previous to regeneration, is or can be, for one moment, in this state.

1907 · Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology Chapter III. Sin, Or Man's State Of Apostasy

The phrase “total depravity” has respect only to relations to God, and it means incapability of doing anything which in the sight of God is a good act. No act is perfectly good that does not proceed from a true heart and constitute an expression of that heart. Yet we have no right to say that every act of an unregenerate man is displeasing to God. Right acts from right motives are good, whether performed by a Christian or by one who is unrenewed in heart. Such acts, however, are always prompted by God, and thanks for them are due to God and not to him who performed them.

1918 · Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God Chapter 7 - God's Sovereignty and the Human Will

When we say that man is totally depraved we mean that the entrance of sin into the human constitution has affected every part and faculty of man's being. Total depravity means that man is, in spirit and soul and body, the slave of sin and the captive of the Devil-walking "according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2). This statement ought not to need arguing: it is a common fact of human experience. Man is unable to realise his own aspirations and materialise his own ideals. He cannot do the things that he would. There is a moral inability which paralyses him. This is proof positive that he is no free man, but instead, the slave of sin and Satan. "Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts (desires) of your father ye will do" (John 8:44). Sin is more than an act or a series of acts; it is a state or condition. It is that which lies behind and produces the acts. Sin has penetrated and permeated the whole of man's make-up. It has blinded the understanding, corrupted the heart, and alienated the mind from God. And the will has not escaped. The will is under the dominion of sin and Satan. Therefore, the will is not free. In short, the affections love as they do and the will chooses as it does because of the state of the heart, and because the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked "There is none that seeketh after God" (Rom. 3:11).

1932 · Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 10

In writing to the Ephesian Christians he reminded them that before they received the Gospel they were "separate from Christ, alienated from the common. wealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world," 2:12. There we notice the five-fold emphasis as he piles phrase on top of phrase to stress this truth. This doctrine of Total Inability, which declares that men are dead in sin, does not mean that all men are equally bad, nor that any man is as bad as he could be, nor that any one in entirely destitute of virtue, nor that human nature is evil In Itself, nor that man's spirit is inactive, and much less does it mean that the body is dead. What it does mean is that since the fall man rests under the curse of sin, that he is actuated by wrong principles, and that he is wholly unable to love God or to do anything meriting salvation. His corruption is extensive but not necessarily intensive. It is in this sense that man since the fail "is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil." He possesses a fixed bias of the will against God, and instinctively and willingly turns to evil. He is an alien by birth, and a sinner by choice.

c. 206–207 · Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh (De resurrectione carnis) 34

In fact, since the transgression which caused man’s ruin was committed quite as much by the instigation of the soul from concupiscence as by the action of the flesh from actual fruition, it has marked the entire man with the sentence of transgression, and has therefore made him deservedly amenable to perdition. So that he will be wholly saved, since he has by sinning been wholly lost.

1554 · John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, part 1 (chapters 1-23) 6.5

Moses has traced the cause of the deluge to external acts of iniquity, he now ascends higher, and declares that men were not only perverse by habit, and by the custom of evil living; but that wickedness was too deeply seated in their hearts, to leave any hope of repentance. He certainly could not have more forcibly asserted that the depravity was such as no moderate remedy might cure. It may indeed happen, that men will sometimes plunge themselves into sin, while yet something of a sound mind will remain; but Moses teaches us, that the mind of those, concerning whom he speaks, was so thoroughly imbued with iniquity, that the whole presented nothing but what was to be condemned. For the language he employs is very emphatical: it seemed enough to have said, that their heart was corrupt: but not content with this word, he expressly asserts, “every imagination of the thoughts of the heart;” and adds the word “only,” as if he would deny that there was a drop of good mixed with it.

1558 · Jean du Bourdel, Matthieu Verneuil, Pierre Bourdon, and André la Fon, The Guanabara Confession 10

Concerning free will, we believe that the first man, created in the image of God, had freedom and will, both for good as well as evil. Only he knew what free will was, for he was fully able. Nevertheless, he did not even keep this gift of God, as well as it was deprived from him on account of his sin, and to all that descend from him, in such a way that no one from the seed of Adam has anything good. For this reason, Saint Paul says, the natural man does not understand the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:4).

1559 · John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.3.2

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes,” (Rom. 3:10–18). Thus he thunders not against certain individuals, but against the whole posterity of Adam—not against the depraved manners of any single age, but the perpetual corruption of nature. His object in the passage is not merely to upbraid men in order that they may repent, but to teach that all are overwhelmed with inevitable calamity, and can be delivered from it only by the mercy of God. As this could not be proved without previously proving the overthrow and destruction of nature, he produced those passages to show that its ruin is complete. Let it be a fixed point, then, that men are such as is here described, not by vicious custom, but by depravity of nature. The reasoning of the Apostle, that there is no salvation for man, save in the mercy of God, because in himself he is desperate and undone, could not otherwise stand.

1559 · John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.2.12

As to the will, its depravity is but too well known. Therefore, since reason, by which man discerns between good and evil, and by which he understands and judges, is a natural gift, it could not be entirely destroyed; but being partly weakened and partly corrupted, a shapeless ruin is all that remains. In this sense it is said (John 1:5), that “the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not;” these words clearly expressing both points—viz. that in the perverted and degenerate nature of man there are still some sparks which show that he is a rational animal, and differs from the brutes, inasmuch as he is endued with intelligence, and yet, that this light is so smothered by clouds of darkness that it cannot shine forth to any good effect. In like manner, the will, because inseparable from the nature of man, did not perish, but was so enslaved by depraved lusts as to be incapable of one righteous desire.

1605–1610 · Johann Arndt, True Christianity 1.11

Sad experience teaches us continually, that our whole nature, body and soul, is polluted with every kind of sin, vice, and corruption. These are the works of the devil appearing in the carnal man; and it is principally in the depraved and perverted will, that these diabolical operations are most visibly discerned. For the depraved will is the root of all sin: if that were removed, there would be sin no more. With regard to the power and natural bias of this will, it consists chiefly in turning man away from God and from His will.

1619 · Synod of Dort, The Canons of Dort 3-4.1

Man was originally created in the image of God and was furnished in his mind with a true and salutary knowledge of his Creator and things spiritual, in his will and heart with righteousness, and in all his emotions with purity; indeed, the whole man was holy. However, rebelling against God at the devil’s instigation and by his own free will, he deprived himself of these outstanding gifts. Rather, in their place he brought upon himself blindness, terrible darkness, futility, and distortion of judgment in his mind; perversity, defiance, and hardness in his heart and will; and finally impurity in all his emotions.

1619 · Synod of Dort, The Canons of Dort 3-4.16

However, just as by the fall man did not cease to be man, endowed with intellect and will, and just as sin, which has spread through the whole human race, did not abolish the nature of the human race but distorted and spiritually killed it, so also this divine grace of regeneration does not act in people as if they were blocks and stones; nor does it abolish the will and its properties or coerce a reluctant will by force, but spiritually revives, heals, reforms, and—in a manner at once pleasing and powerful—bends it back. As a result, a ready and sincere obedience of the Spirit now begins to prevail where before the rebellion and resistance of the flesh were completely dominant. It is in this that the true and spiritual restoration and freedom of our will consists. Thus, if the marvelous Maker of every good thing were not dealing with us, man would have no hope of getting up from his fall by his free choice, by which he plunged himself into ruin when still standing upright.

1640 · Thomas Shepard, The Sincere Convert Chapter III

Every natural man and woman is born full of all sin, (Rom. i. 29,) as full as a toad is of poison, as full as ever his skin can hold; mind, will, eyes, mouth, every limb of his body, and every piece of his soul, is full of sin; their hearts are bundles of sin; hence Solomon saith, "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child"; whole treasures of sin. "An evil man, (said Christ,) out of the evil treasure of his heart, bringeth forth evil things": nay, raging seas of sin. The tongue is a world of mischief. What is the heart then? "For out of the abundance of the heart the tongue speaketh; "so that, look about thee and see, whatever sin is broached, and runs out of any man's heart into his life through the whole world, all those sins are in thine heart; thy mind is a nest of all the foul opinions, heresies, that ever were vented by any man; thy heart is a foul sink of all atheism, sodomy, blasphemy, murder, whoredom, adultery, witchcraft, buggery; so that, if thou hast any good thing in thee, it is but as a drop of rosewater in a bowl of poison; where fallen it is all corrupted.

1642 · John Owen, A Display of Arminianism 13

Yea, all the faculties of our souls, by reason of that spiritual death under which we are detained by the corruption of nature, are altogether useless, in respect of any power for the doing of that which is truly good. Our understandings are blind or “darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in us, because of the blindness of our hearts,” Eph. iv. 18; whereby we become even “darkness” itself, chap. v. 8. So void is the understanding of true knowledge, that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; they are foolishness unto him,” 1 Cor. ii. 14. [He is] nothing but confounded and amazed at spiritual things; and, if he doth not mock, can do nothing but wonder, and say, “What meaneth this?”

1647–1657 · Thomas Manton, Works, vol. V Sermons at the Morning Exercise:—, Man’s Impotency to Help Himself Out of His Misery

The scripture sets forth man’s condition thus: that he is born in sin, Ps. li. 5; and things natural are not easily altered. Greedy of sin: ‘He drinketh in iniquity like water,’ Job xv. 16; it noteth a vehement propension, as greedy to sin as a thirsty man to drink. Thirst is the most implacable appetite; hunger is far better borne. But this, you will say, is but now and then, in a great temptation or vehement passion. No; ‘Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is’ evil, ‘only evil,’ and that ‘continually,’ Gen. vi. 5. By how many aggravating and increasing circumstances is man’s sin there set forth! There is in him a mint always at work: his mind coining evil thoughts, his heart evil desires, and carnal motions; and his memory is the closet and storehouse wherein they are kept. But may not a man be reclaimed? is not this his bondage and trouble? No; his heart is a heart of stone, Ezek. xxxvi. 26; that is, inflexible, insensible. When God useth the word, some common motions of his Spirit, some rousing providences, yet all is in vain; for man’s ‘heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,’ Jer. xvii. 9; inventing shifts and excuses to avoid God, and to cheat itself of its own happiness.

1674 · John Owen, Pneumatologia, or a Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit (Books I-V) 4.3

By the entrance of sin, this image of God, so far as it was our righteousness and holiness before him, was utterly defaced and lost. This also I have sufficiently evidenced before. It did not depart from any one power, part, or faculty of our souls, but from our whole nature. Accordingly, the Scripture describes, — (1.) The depravation of our nature distinctly, in all the powers of it. In particular, the corruption that ensued on our minds, wills, and affections, upon the loss of the image of God, I have before declared and vindicated. And, — (2.) In reference unto the first actings of all these faculties, in things moral and spiritual, the Scripture adds, that “all the thoughts and imaginations of our hearts are evil, and that continually,” Gen. vi. 5. All the original first actings of the powers of our souls, in or about things rational and moral, are always evil; for “an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit.”

1767 · John Gill, A Body of Doctrinal Divinity Chapter 11. Of The Of The Corruption Of Human Nature

This corruption of nature is general, with respect to the parts of man, to all the powers and faculties of his soul, and to the members of his body. To the powers and faculties of the soul of man, to all that is within him; his heart is deceitful and desperately wicked; his inward part is wickedness itself; the thoughts of his heart are evil, vain, and sinful; yea, the imagination of the thoughts of his heart, the very substratum of thought, the first motions that are in man that way; the mind and conscience, are defiled, and nothing can remove the pollution but the blood of Jesus: the understanding is darkened through the blindness and ignorance that is in it; so that a mere natural man cannot discern the things of the Spirit of God; whatever knowledge men have of things natural and civil, they have none of things spiritual; wise they are to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge; they know not, nor will they understand: the will is averse to that which is good; the carnal mind is enmity to God, and not subject to the law of God; nor can it be, without his grace; it is hard, stiff, obstinate, and perverse, until the stony heart is taken away, and a heart of flesh is given. The affections are inordinate, run in a wrong channel, are fixed on wrong objects; men hate what they should love, and love what they should hate; they hate the good, and love the evil; they are lovers of pleasures, of sinful lusts and pleasures, rather than lovers of God, good men, and good things. In short, there is no place clean, no part free from the pollution and influence of sin. All the members of the body are defiled with it; the tongue is a little member, and is a world of iniquity itself, and defiles the whole body; the several members of it are used as instruments of unrighteousness; several of them are particularly mentioned in the general account of man’s depravity, (Rom. 3:1-31 as the throat, lips, mouth, and feet, all employed in the service of sin.

1823 · Robert South, Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions, Volume 7 61

Here we must reflect upon ourselves, and know that, upon the unhappy fall of man, sin, and the wretched effects of sin, immediately entered upon, and took full possession of all his faculties: his understanding, that before shined clear like the lamp of God, was by sin overspread with darkness: his will, that bore a perfect conformity to the divine will, was rendered totally averse from and contrary to the things of God. When man was first created, there was such an exact symmetry and harmony of all the faculties, such an absolute composure of the whole, that he was not only the workmanship, but also the image of his Maker. But sin shattered all, it took the whole fabric asunder.

1834 · Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: Romans 3.18

it may be observed further, that the apostle has given a view of human depravity which is very striking. He does not confine it to one faculty of the mind, or to one set of actions; he specifies each member and each faculty as being perverse, and inclined to evil. The depravity extends to all the departments of action. The tongue, the mouth, the feet, the "lips," are all involved in it; all are perverted, and all become the occasion of the commission of sin. The entire man is corrupt; and the painful description extends to every department of action.

1860 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 6 (1860) 345

I confess that the mind of the natural and carnal man is darkened, his affections are depraved, his will is refractory, and that the man is dead in sin."

1871 · Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (Part II, Anthropology; Part III, Soteriology, chapters I-XIV) 2.8.14

In opposition to all these doctrines Augustinianism, as held by the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, teaches that the whole man, soul and body, the higher as well as the lower, the intellectual as well as the emotional faculties of the soul, is affected by the corruption of our nature derived from our first parents. As the Scriptures speak of the body being sanctified in two senses, first, as being consecrated to the service of God; and secondly, as being in a normal condition in all its relations to our spiritual nature, so as to be a fit instrument unto righteousness; and also as a partaker of the benefits of redemption; so also they represent the body as affected by the apostasy of our race. It is not only employed in the service of sin or as an instrument to unrighteousness; but it is in every respect deteriorated. It is inordinate in its cravings, rebellious, and hard to restrain.

1871 · Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (Part II, Anthropology; Part III, Soteriology, chapters I-XIV) 2.8.13

His understanding is darkness, so that he does not know or receive the things of God. He is not susceptible of impression from the realities of the spiritual world. He is as insensible to them as a dead man to the things of this world. He is alienated from God, and utterly unable to deliver himself from this state of corruption and misery. Those, and those only, are represented as delivered from this state in which men are born, who are renewed by the Holy Ghost; who are quickened, or made alive by the power of God, and who are therefore called spiritual as governed and actuated by a higher principle than any which belongs to our fallen nature.

1872 · John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions 7

Know thyself to be a sinner, and what manner of sinner thou art. Know that corruption of thy inmost nature, whereby thou art very far gone from original righteousness, whereby “the flesh lusteth” always “contrary to the Spirit,” through that “carnal mind” which “is enmity against God,” which “is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Know that thou art corrupted in every power, in every faculty of thy soul; that thou art totally corrupted in every one of these, all the foundations being out of course.

1900 · Abraham Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit Volume Two. The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Individual, First Chapter. Introduction, V. Original Righteousness

With Scripture we confess: “There is none righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” But how is this to be reconciled? How can these two go together? On the one hand the sinner has nothing, absolutely nothing good or praiseworthy; and on the other, this same sinner always retains features of the image of God! Let us illustrate. Two horses become mad; the one is a common truck horse, the other a noble Arabian stallion. Which is the more dangerous? The latter, of course. His noble blood will break loose into more uncontrollable rage and violence. Or two clerks work in an office; the one a mere drudge of slow understanding, the other a youth with brains and piercing eye. Which could do his master the greater injury? The latter, of course, and all his schemes would show his superiority working in the wrong direction. This is always the case. There is no more dangerous enemy of the truth than an unbeliever religiously instructed. In all his impious rage he shows his superior training and knowledge. Satan is so mighty because before his fall he was so exceedingly glorious. Hence in his fall man did not put off the original nature, but he retained it. Only its action was reversed, corrupted, and turned against God.

c. 421–422 · Augustine of Hippo, Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love 30

Can they do anything by the free determination of their own will? Again I say, God forbid. For it was by the evil use of his free-will that man destroyed both it and himself. For, as a man who kills himself must, of course, be alive when he kills himself, but after he has killed himself ceases to live, and cannot restore himself to life; so, when man by his own free-will sinned, then sin being victorious over him, the freedom of his will was lost.

1525 · Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will (De Servo Arbitrio) 114

Moses says nothing there about proneness. But, that you may have no room for cavillation, the Hebrew, (Gen. vi. 5), runs thus: — “CHOL IETZER MAHESCHEBOTH LIBBO RAK RA CHOL HAIOM:” that is, “Every imagination of the thought of the heart is only evil all days.” He does not say, that he is intent or prone to evil; but that, evil altogether, and nothing but evil, is thought or imagined by man throughout his whole life. The nature of his evil is described to be that, which neither does nor can do any thing but evil, as being evil itself: for, according to the testimony of Christ, an evil tree can bring forth none other than evil fruit. (Matt. vii. 17-18).

c. 1536 · Menno Simons, A Plain Instruction Concerning the Spiritual Resurrection The Spiritual Resurrection

A carnal man cannot apprehend or comprehend divine things, for by nature he has not that discernment; but on the contrary his mind is depraved; God is not in his mind. A carnal man cannot understand spiritual things, for he is by nature a child of the devil, and is not spiritually-minded, hence, he comprehends nothing spiritual; for by nature he is a stranger to God; has nothing of a divine nature dwelling in him, nor has communion with God, but is much rather at enmity with him; he is unmerciful, unjust, unclean, not peaceable, impatient, disobedient, without understanding and unhappy. So are all men by nature according to their birth and origin after the flesh. This is the first or old Adam, and is comprised in the Scriptures in a single word, ungodly, that is, without God, a stranger and destitute of the divine nature.

1571 · Church of England, The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion 10

The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God: Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.

c. 1603–1609 · James Arminius, Public Disputations Disputation 11

In this state, the free will of man towards the true good is not only wounded, maimed, infirm, bent, and weakened; but it is also imprisoned, destroyed, and lost. And its powers are not only debilitated and useless unless they be assisted by grace, but it has no powers whatever except such as are excited by Divine grace. For Christ has said, "Without me ye can do nothing." St. Augustine, after having diligently meditated upon each word in this passage, speaks thus: "Christ does not say, without me ye can do but Little; neither does He say, without me ye can do any Arduous Thing, nor without me ye can do it with difficulty. But he says, without me ye can do Nothing! Nor does he say, without me ye cannot complete any thing; but without me ye can do Nothing."

1640 · Thomas Shepard, The Sincere Convert Chapter III

Consider, secondly, every man is born stark dead in sin. (Ephes. ii. 1.) He is born empty of every inward principle of life, void of all grace, and hath no more good in him (whatsoever he thinks) than a dead carrion hath. And he is under the power of sin, as a dead man is under the power of death, and can not perform any act of life; their bodies are living coffins to carry a dead soul up and down in.

c. 1714 · John Reynolds, Commentary on 1 John 3.4-10

Here we may call to mind the usual distinction of natural and moral impotency. The unregenerate person is morally unable for what is religiously good. The regenerate person is happily disabled for sin.

1754 · Jonathan Edwards, A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of the Freedom of Will 4.14

The things which have been said, obviate some of the chief objections of Arminians against the Calvinistic doctrine of the total depravity and corruption of man’s nature, whereby his heart is wholly under the power of sin, and he is utterly unable, without the interposition of sovereign grace, savingly to love God, believe in Christ, or do any thing that is truly good and acceptable in God’s sight. For the main objection against this doctrine, that it is inconsistent with the freedom of man’s Will, consisting in indifference and self-determining power; because it supposes man to be under a necessity of sinning, and that God requires things of him, in order to his avoiding eternal damnation, which he is unable to do; and that this doctrine is wholly inconsistent with the sincerity of counsels, invitations, &c. Now, this doctrine supposes no other necessity of sinning, than a moral necessity; which, as has been shown, does not at all excuse sin; and supposes no other inability to obey any command, or perform any duty, even the most spiritual and exalted, but a moral inability, which, as has been proved, does not excuse persons in the non-performance of any good thing, or make them not to be the proper objects of commands, counsel, and invitations.

1767 · John Gill, A Body of Doctrinal Divinity Chapter 13. Of the Punishment of Sin

Man has not lost the natural liberty of his will to things natural; but the moral liberty of his will to things moral; his will is not free to that which is good, only to that which is evil; and that liberty is no other than bondage. Man’s free will is a slave to his lusts; he is a home-born slave (Jer. 2:14). Man has lost his power to do good; how to perform that he knows not; through the weakness of the flesh, or corrupt nature, he cannot do what the law requires; he cannot of himself think anything; and, without the grace of God, cannot do anything as it ought to be done; for he has no principle of life and motion in him to it; he is dead in trespasses and sins.

1871 · Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (Part II, Anthropology; Part III, Soteriology, chapters I-XIV) 2.8.15

The second is the Semi-Pelagian doctrine (taking the word Semi-Pelagian in its wide and popular sense), which admits the powers of man to have been weakened by the fall of the race, but denies that he lost all ability to perform what is spiritually good. And thirdly, the Augustinian or Protestant doctrine which teaches that such is the nature of inherent, hereditary depravity that men since the fall are utterly unable to turn themselves unto God, or to do anything truly good in his sight.

1903 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 49 (1903) 2835

What a dreadful inability sin brings with it! That simple command of the Gospel, "Believe," the sinner cannot obey of himself. He can no more repent and believe without the Holy Spirit's aid, than he could create a world! And, unless Divine Grace gives him the power to obey the command which bids him to believe, he never will be able to believe. You have lost all strength, Sinner.

1907 · Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology Chapter III. Sin, Or Man's State Of Apostasy

Man's present inability is natural, in the sense of being inborn,—it is not acquired by our personal act, but is congenital. It is not natural, however, as resulting from the original limitations of human nature, or from the subsequent loss of any essential faculty of that nature. Human nature, at its first creation, was endowed with ability perfectly to keep the law of God. Man has not, even by his sin, lost his essential faculties of intellect, affection, or will. He has weakened those faculties, however, so that they are now unable to work up to the normal measure of their powers. But more especially has man given to every faculty a bent away from God which renders him morally unable to render spiritual obedience. The inability to good which now characterizes human nature is an inability that results from sin, and is itself sin. We hold, therefore, to an inability which is both natural and moral,—moral, as having its source in the self-corruption of man's moral nature and the fundamental aversion of his will to God;—natural, as being inborn, and as affecting with partial paralysis all his natural powers of intellect, affection, conscience, and will. For his inability, in both these aspects of it, man is responsible.

1932 · Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 21

The reasoning, however, is fallacious; for man labors under a self-acquired inability. He was created upright and voluntarily sank himself into sin. He is, therefore, as responsible as is the person who in order to escape military service deliberately mutilates a hand or an eye. If inability canceled obligation, then Satan with his inherent depravity would be under no obligation to do right, and his fiendish enmity toward God and men would be no sin.

1559 · Reformed Churches of France, The French Confession of Faith (Gallic Confession) 9

We believe that man was created pure and perfect in the image of God, and that by his own guilt he fell from the grace which he received, and is thus alienated from God, the fountain of justice and of all good, so that his nature is totally corrupt. And being blinded in mind, and depraved in heart, he has lost all integrity, and there is no good in him. And although he can still discern good and evil, we say, notwithstanding, that the light he has becomes darkness when he seeks for God, so that he can in nowise approach him by his intelligence and reason. And although he has a will that incites him to do this or that, yet it is altogether captive to sin, so that he has no other liberty to do right than that which God gives him.

1577 · Authors of the Formula of Concord, The Formula of Concord: Epitome II. Free Will

Likewise we believe, teach, and confess that the unregenerate will of man is not only turned away from God, but also has become an enemy of God, so that it only has an inclination and desire for that which is evil and contrary to God, as it is written Gen. 8:21: The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Also Rom. 8:7: The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither, indeed, can be. Yea, as little as a dead body can quicken itself to bodily, earthly life, so little can man, who by sin is spiritually dead, raise himself to spiritual life, as it is written Eph. 2:5: Even when we were dead in sins, He hath quickened us together with Christ; 2 Cor. 3:5: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything good as of ourselves, but that we are sufficient is of God.

1658 · Congregational Churches (Savoy Assembly), The Savoy Declaration of the Congregational Churches 9.3

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.

1677 · Particular Baptist elders and congregations of London, The Baptist Confession of 1689 (the Second London Confession) 9.3

Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has 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.

1833 · New Hampshire Baptist Convention, The New Hampshire Baptist Confession 3

We believe that man was created in holiness, under the law of his Maker; but by voluntary transgression fell from that holy and happy state; in consequence of which all mankind are now sinners, not by constraint, but choice; being by nature utterly void of that holiness required by the law of God, positively inclined to evil; and therefore under just condemnation to eternal ruin, without defense or excuse.