Is Total Depravity necessary to be saved ?

civic

civic

Well-known member
I was lurking on another forum reading through this thread @makesends good job btw. But I’m disappointed as a former Calvinist reading some of their arguments and not understand their own doctrine.

In the order salutis regeneration precedes faith and faith is a gift which follows. So Calvinism teaches TD is not necessary to be saved. It’s a moot point and a fallacious argument in the first place to believe one must affirm TD to be saved. I also liked @Bob Carabbio and @PeanutGallery comments in the thread.

hope this helps !!!
 
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Total Depravity (TD) has to do with the Adamic curse and whether men are born fallen (has sin corrupted every part of every human being - mind, body and soul). Therefore, TD is either ‘true’ or ‘false’ irrespective of any action by either God (monergism) or man (synergism) and any specific Ordo Salutis.

The question actually being asked was, “Is knowledge of and belief in the Doctrine of Total Depravity necessary for salvation?”

I weigh in on the side of “NO”.
I believe that Jesus saves … God the Father saves … the Holy Spirit saves … so salvation is not hampered or helped by any “RIGHT” or “WRONG” thinking on our part. God “WILL SHOW MERCY ON WHOM HE WILL SHOW MERCY”. No semi-Pelagianism required.
 
atpollard said:
Total Depravity (TD) has to do with the Adamic curse and whether men are born fallen (has sin corrupted every part of every human being - mind, body and soul). Therefore, TD is either ‘true’ or ‘false’ irrespective of any action by either God (monergism) or man (synergism) and any specific Ordo Salutis.

The question actually being asked was, “Is knowledge of and belief in the Doctrine of Total Depravity necessary for salvation?”

I weigh in on the side of “NO”.
I believe that Jesus saves … God the Father saves … the Holy Spirit saves … so salvation is not hampered or helped by any “RIGHT” or “WRONG” thinking on our part. God “WILL SHOW MERCY ON WHOM HE WILL SHOW MERCY”. No semi-Pelagianism required.
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I agree it’s not necessary for salvation. But as you can see there is division among Calvinists on its necessity. The Ray Comfort pitch with it being a prerequisite.
 
Self-righteousness and pride is a forgivable sin, and that's what denial of TD boils down to, people thinking their nature is inherently good.

However, if they are still willing to admit they have sinned (with a good nature), and that they need Jesus to save them, that is enough.

It's a serious sin, however, that will require chastening, and no one should resist the Holy Spirit's efforts to show us our inherently sinful nature.
 
civic said:
I agree it’s not necessary for salvation. But as you can see there is division among Calvinists on its necessity. The Ray Comfort pitch with it being a prerequisite.
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It comes as no surprise to me that something as broad as “Calvinist” (which would include baby baptizing Presbyterians and snake handling KJVO Baptists) would disagree on a lot of secondary details. [There is no clever acronym for everyone to adopt, and even then is the P for “Preservation” or “Perseverance”, so we humans are an argumentative species.] ;)

As an aside, and a point of irony, I like Ray Confort, but I believe that Ray is Arminian … so he is in your ‘Free Will’ camp and not the Calvinist camp. :ROFLMAO:
 
atpollard said:
As an aside, and a point of irony, I like Ray Confort, but I believe that Ray is Arminian … so he is in your ‘Free Will’ camp and not the Calvinist camp. :ROFLMAO:
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This is true from what I could research.

Many don't realize there are more Arminians that believe in total depravity than Calvinists.

They are just not so vocal online.
 
dizerner said:
This is true from what I could research.

Many don't realize there are more Arminians that believe in total depravity than Calvinists.

They are just not so vocal online.
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Arminius believed in T.D. I use to correct the Calvinists and Arminians on this all the time on the old forum.
 
dizerner said:
This is true from what I could research.

Many don't realize there are more Arminians that believe in total depravity than Calvinists.

They are just not so vocal online.
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John Calvin and Reformed Theology.
Jacob Arminius and Classic Arminianism.
John Wesley and Methodism.

All start from accepting the Biblical consequences of the fall (Depravity of every part of man) and then propose different mechanisms by which God overcomes it. Only people like Pelagious start from a position that denies Depravity in man.
  • Does God actively overcome our Depravity on a case by case basis? [Calvinism]
  • Does God grant a blanket Prevenient Grace to all mankind to allow free will to choose or reject the Gospel? [Wesleyanism]
  • Does the Gospel itself contain within it the power to overcome Depravity and grant hearers a choice? [Classic Arminianism]
 
atpollard said:
John Calvin and Reformed Theology.
Jacob Arminius and Classic Arminianism.
John Wesley and Methodism.

All start from accepting the Biblical consequences of the fall (Depravity of every part of man) and then propose different mechanisms by which God overcomes it. Only people like Pelagious start from a position that denies Depravity in man.
  • Does God actively overcome our Depravity on a case by case basis? [Calvinism]
  • Does God grant a blanket Prevenient Grace to all mankind to allow free will to choose or reject the Gospel? [Wesleyanism]
  • Does the Gospel itself contain within it the power to overcome Depravity and grant hearers a choice? [Classic Arminianism]
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That still doesn't mean they are right. I get that thrown at me all of the time as an objection when I say x,y,z is a universal belief within Christianity. Then comes the response - since when is the majority the standard for truth.

The good news of the gospel is that through faith we are given grace and forgiven of our sins due to what Jesus did for us by dying on the cross and coming back to life. Putting your faith in something is as much a choice as any of the other choices that you’ve made in life — yet Calvinism denies that Christians have that ability.

We know that God does not change who He is (Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8, James 1:17) which in turn means that the character of God is not different between the old and new testaments. In the old testament, God makes it clear to the nation of Israel that they have two options in front of them.

Those options are to choose life or death (Deuteronomy 30:15–20, John 3:16–18). As another example, in the Garden of Eden, the devil had to make Eve choose to rebel against what God had commanded her and Adam to do. We are told in scripture that we cannot please God without having faith (Hebrews 11:3, Hebrews 11:6, James 1:5–8). We are also told that God wants none of us to perish (2 Peter 3:8–9) and that the gospel is now available to all men through Jesus’ death and resurrection (Titus 2:11).

hope this helps !!!
 
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Total Depravity was not taught until augustine brought it into the church. That is just a historical fact in church history. The liberty or freedom of the will - human choice was the church belief prior to augustine. Even augustine taught it for 25 years until he changed his view. :)
 
civic said:
Total Depravity was not taught until augustine brought it into the church. That is just a historical fact in church history. The liberty or freedom of the will - human choice was the church belief prior to augustine. :)
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Pretty sure this was written before Augustine:

9 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10 As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
 
Here is the renown Calvinist Lorraine Boettner :

It may occasion some surprise to discover that the doctrine of Predestination was not made a matter of special study until near the end of the fourth century. The earlier church fathers placed chief emphasis on good works such as faith, repentance, almsgiving, prayers, submission to baptism, etc., as the basis of salvation. They of course taught that salvation was through Christ; yet they assumed that man had full power to accept or reject the gospel. Some of their writings contain passages in which the sovereignty of God is recognized; yet along side of those are others which teach the absolute freedom of the human will. Since they could not reconcile the two they would have denied the doctrine of Predestination and perhaps also that of God's absolute Foreknowledge. They taught a kind of synergism in which there was a co-operation between grace and free will. It was hard for man to give up the idea that he could work out his own salvation. But at last, as a result of a long, slow process, he came to the great truth that salvation is a sovereign gift which has been bestowed irrespective of merit; that it was fixed in eternity; and that God is the author in all of its stages. This cardinal truth of Christianity was first clearly seen by Augustine, the great Spirit-filled theologian of the West. In his doctrines of sin and grace, he went far beyond the earlier theologians, taught an unconditional election of grace, and restricted the purposes of redemption to the definite circle of the elect.
 
The Rogue Tomato said:
Pretty sure this was written before Augustine:

9 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10 As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
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It doesn't mean what calvinists teach. Nowhere in that passage does it say man is born a sinner totally depraved. That is your assumption. I believe that passage too. We all at some point become a sinner, when we commit a sin and become guilty. We all have turned away and none are righteous, not one.

hope this helps !!!
 
It was the stoics, gnostic and manicheans who first taught unconditional election that augustine brought into the church and married it with christianity just like he did with total depravity which came from the same sources. Those who are familiar with church history know this to be true. :)
 
civic said:
It doesn't mean what calvinists teach. Nowhere in that passage does it say man is born a sinner totally depraved. That is your assumption. I believe that passage too. We all at some point become a sinner, when we commit a sin and become guilty. We all have turned away and none are righteous, not one.
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What about people before their first sin?

Aren't they all perfectly righteous logically?

There would be literally millions of righteous people.
 
The Rogue Tomato said:
Pretty sure this was written before Augustine:
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( personal attack removed )

“Every soul, then, by reason of its birth, has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ; moreover, it is unclean all the while that it remains without this regeneration; and because unclean, it is actively sinful, and suffuses even the flesh (by reason of their conjunction) with its own shame.” On the Soul, Tertullian

Now last time I checked, 160 AD is a long time before 354 AD, their relative births.
 
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From R.C. Sproul:

“It has been said that all of Western theology is a footnote to the work of Augustine. This is because no other writer, with the exception of the biblical authors, has had more influence on Christendom. Thomas Aquinas quoted Augustine heavily when he composed his Summa Theologica. When Martin Luther and John Calvin were accused of teaching new doctrine, they pointed to Augustine as an example of one who had taught the things they were teaching… His Confessions is one of the most important autobiographies ever written.”
 
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