Saturday, January 20, 2007

What is "Total Depravity"?



“There have been those who have wished to deny the doctrine of total depravity on the grounds that it failed to recognize any good in man. The presence of all this evil does not deny the existence of a natural goodness in varying degrees. All that such goodness can do is to make it possible for men to live together with men. What the doctrine of total depravity means is that there is no good in man that can satisfy God, and that, therefore, all the help that man receives must originate in God and come to man by the grace of God. And it is the grace of God that brings salvation that has appeared to all men in Jesus Christ.”

(Donald Grey Barnhouse, Exposition of Romans, Vol. I, (1952), Romans 1:28-31)