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Objections to the Doctrine of Total Depravity

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Objections to the Doctrine of Total Depravity Biblical Soteriology: An Overview and Defense of the Reformed Doctrines of Salvation by Ra McLaughlin Total Depravity, Part 4 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF TOTAL DEPRAVITY 1. The most obvious objection to the doctrine of total depravity is the objection that man is not so sinful that God must condemn him. 2. Another objection to the doctrine of total depravity states that all men can savingly believe and trust the gospel, while a corollary objection asserts that man cannot savingly believe the gospel in and of himself, but that God graciously grants all men (or all men who hear the gospel) this ability, which man must then exercise by his own freewill in order to be saved. Under this second system, not all who have the God- given ability to believe actually exercise this ability in saving faith. Most versions of this view hold that all mankind has received this enabling gift. 3. Some objections to the doctrine of total depravity are based on experience. They insist that experience demonstrates that man may desire to be saved, to do good, and to please God prior to coming to saving faith. If any of these things are true, then total depravity is false. 4.. Most objections to total depravity also insist that a command by God to do something implies that the people of whom the thing is commanded possess a corresponding ability to do the thing commanded. That is, God would not command the impossible. Therefore, since God commands all men to exercise saving belief in the gospel, all men have the ability savingly to believe the gospel (whether from natural or graciously granted ability). 5. Similarly, a common objection is that total depravity necessitates a violation of free will. Since a totally depraved person cannot will to be saved, but must rather will not to be saved, God cannot save a totally depraved person without violating that person’s free will. 47 6. A common analogy used by the free will argument to describe the salvation process appeals to Ephesians 2:8-9 and other texts which refer to salvation or aspects thereof as gifts. This argument asserts that a gift is by nature something that can be refused or accepted, and therefore that man has the authority/ability to refuse or accept the gospel. Practically, almost all objections to the doctrine of total depravity argue that man’s free will ultimately determines whether or not a person is saved, as opposed to total depravity’s assertion that man’s free will is insufficient for this task. ANSWERING THE OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF TOTAL DEPRAVITY 1. Man is not so sinful that God must condemn him. There are two main forms of this objection: 1) A loving God would never send anyone to hell. 2) God is fair, and therefore he weighs man’s good works against man’s sins. Preponderance of good works is sufficient for salvation. The first of these objections draws a philosophical conclusion about the nature of “love” that Scripture does not substantiate. Specifically, while Scripture teaches that God is love (1 John 4:8,16), it also teaches that some people will go to hell: “‘If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to go into hell’” (Matt. 5:29-30; cf. Matt. 18:9). The warning assumes that men can and will be cast into hell, and therefore encourages them to take extraordinary measures to avoid being sent there. “‘Do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell’” (Matt. 10:28). 48 There would be no reason to fear God who can destroy both soul and body in hell if in fact God never would do these things. “‘Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell? Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation’” (Matt. 23:32-36). Jesus taught that the guilt of the Jews in his day would be full, and that with such guilt they could not hope for any destiny buy hell. This demonstrates God’s willingness to send people to hell, and the justice of sending people to hell. Further, this objection truncates the character of God so that love becomes his primary or controlling attribute. While Scripture extols God’s love, it never does so at the expense of any of his other attributes. His perfect wrath and his perfect justice match his perfect love in intensity and power in his character. He is not simply love, but love in conjunction with all his attributes. The second objection accepts that God is just and willing to send people to hell, but also asserts that man’s good works are sufficient to secure his place in heaven. “If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” (Ps. 130:3). This cry would be one of despair apart from the psalmist’s faith in God’s grace. Though poetic, it demonstrates an understanding that God’s grace is required universally for salvation. Thus, on his own merit man cannot be good enough to be saved. “And do not enter into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight no man living is righteous” (Ps. 143:2). Like the verse immediately above, this one demonstrates the psalmist’s assumption that mankind universally fails to meet God’s righteous requirements, whether by preponderance of good or by any other standard. For this reason, even the psalmist (presumably one of the 49 more righteous people in the world) feared God’s judgment of him on the basis of his works. “We have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, ‘There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one’” (Rom. 3:9-10,12). No one living at the time this Old Testament reference was written was righteous, just as no one was righteous when Paul commented on it. By implication, this is a perpetual problem for mankind. No one is even preponderantly good. “But the Scripture has shut up all men under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe” (Gal. 3:22). Here Paul taught that the requirements God placed on man through his revealed Word were so impossible to meet that all men fall under his condemnation. Therefore, the promises such as eternal life (Gal. 6:8) and justification (Gal. 3:8) can be obtained only in Christ. Apart from Christ, no one is good enough to merit these blessings. “Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest” (Eph. 2:3). All Christians, prior to coming to faith, were once children of wrath, just as the rest of humanity without faith in Christ. That is, God’s wrath rested on them — they were not and are not good enough on their own to escape condemnation. “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (Jas. 2:10). Preponderantly good, mostly good, almost perfect, and every other approximation of goodness short of perfection is not good enough to escape God’s condemnation. As James emphasized, God considers one who commits even a slight infraction to be a law breaker. This does not mean that God does not punish sins according to their degree of evil, but it does imply that any sin is enough to merit condemnation. 50 Further, Jesus taught that no one could do good works apart from being united to him: “‘Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from me you can do nothing’” (John 15:4-5). In these verses, Jesus clearly stated that unless a person abides in him, that person cannot produce fruit. That is, before being saved, it is impossible to perform good works. Prior to salvation, nothing anyone does can be considered “good” by God because nothing can be done from a pure, faithful, obedient heart with pure motives. Before salvation, nothing done is rooted in Christ (cf.
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