User:Flex/Total depravity

Total depravity (or total inability) is a theological doctrine that derives from the Augustinian doctrine of original sin and is advocated in many Protestant confessions of faith and catechisms, including those of Lutheranism1, Calvinism2, and Anglicanism and Methodism3. The doctrine interprets the Bible as teaching that, as a consequence of the Fall of man, every person born into the world is enslaved to the service of sin and is utterly unable to choose to follow God or be saved.

Summary of the doctrine
The doctrine of total inability teaches that people are not by nature inclined to love God with whole heart, mind, or strength, as he requires, but rather all are inclined to serve their own interests over those of their neighbor and to reject the rule of God. Even religion and philanthropy are destructive to the extent that these originate from a person's own imagination, passions, and will.

Total depravity does not mean, however, that people are as bad as possible. Rather, it means that even the good which a person may intend is faulty in its premise, false in its motive, and weak in its implementation; and there is no mere refinement of natural capacities that can correct this condition. Although total depravity is easily confused with philosophical cynicism, the doctrine teaches optimism concerning God's love for what he has made and God's ability to accomplish the ultimate good that he intends for his creation. In particular, in the process of salvation, it is argued that God overcomes this inability with his divine grace and enables men and women to choose to follow him.

Differences in the doctrines
Although many Protestant denominations agree that man is unable to follow God because of original sin, the way in which God overcomes the problem of man's inability is a point of debate within their various systems.

Objections to the doctrine
There are many Christian groups that disagree with this interpretation of the Bible and of Augustine.

Augustine, who first developed the doctrine, wrote againt the monk Pelagius, who argued that man's nature was unaffected by the Fall and that he was free to follow after God apart from divine intervention. Pelagius' teaching was condemned as a heretical at the Council of Orange4 in 529 AD, which greatly influenced the Protestant doctrine, but some modern day Christians align more with him (for instance, the followers of Charles Finney). Augustine's understanding of human depravity and especially the idea of "original" (or inherited) guilt was not shared by his contemporaries in the Greek-speaking part of the church and is still not shared in Eastern Orthodoxy.

Catholicism also registers a complaint against the Protestant interpretation of Augustine. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "By our first parents' sin, the devil has acquired a certain domination over man, even though man remains free"5 (emphasis added). At the Council of Trent they condemn "any one [who] saith, that, since Adam's sin, the free will of man is lost and extinguished; or, that it is a thing with only a name"6. Additionally, they claim that they alone have been faithful to the principles taught by Augustine against the Pelagians and Semipelagians, though they freely admit to some "gradual mitigation."7

The doctrine of total depravity is also one of the five points of disagreement raised by the Arminian Remonstrants in the Quinquarticular Controversy against the Reformed churches. The Arminian doctrine was condemned at the Synod of Dort. John Wesley, often identified as an Arminian, actually departs from the Remonstrants on this one point and advocates a strong doctrine of inability.8