Total depravity

== History ==
In opposition to [[Pelagius]], who believed that after [[Fall of man|The Fall]] people are able to choose not to sin, and contrary to all prior [[early church fathers]], [[Augustine of Hippo]] argued that, since the Fall, all humanity is in a self-imposed bondage to sin. All people are inescapably predisposed to evil prior to making any actual choice, and are unable to refrain from sin.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kelsey |first=David H. |author-link=David Kelsey |editor-last1=Hodgson |editor-first1=Peter C. |editor-last2=King |editor-first2=Robert H. |chapter=Human Being |chapter-url=https://www.questia.com/library/117838118/christian-theology-an-introduction-to-its-traditions |title=Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks |publisher=[[Fortress Press]] |year=1994 |pages=176–178 |access-date=2017-09-17 |archive-date=2017-07-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170708203507/https://www.questia.com/library/117838118/christian-theology-an-introduction-to-its-traditions |url-status=dead }}
* {{cite book |last=Williams |first=Robert R. |editor-last1=Hodgson |editor-first1=Peter C. |editor-last2=King |editor-first2=Robert H. |chapter=Sin and Evil |chapter-url=https://www.questia.com/library/117838118/christian-theology-an-introduction-to-its-traditions |title=Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks |publisher=[[Fortress Press]] |year=1994 |pages=201–202 |access-date=2017-09-17 |archive-date=2017-07-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170708203507/https://www.questia.com/library/117838118/christian-theology-an-introduction-to-its-traditions |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Free will]] is not taken away in the sense of the ability to choose between alternatives, but people are unable to make these choices in service to God rather than self.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kelsey |first=David H. |author-link=David Kelsey |editor-last1=Hodgson |editor-first1=Peter C. |editor-last2=King |editor-first2=Robert H. |chapter=Human Being |chapter-url=https://www.questia.com/library/117838118/christian-theology-an-introduction-to-its-traditions |title=Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks |publisher=[[Fortress Press]] |year=1994 |pages=176–177 |access-date=2017-09-17 |archive-date=2017-07-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170708203507/https://www.questia.com/library/117838118/christian-theology-an-introduction-to-its-traditions |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Thomas Aquinas]] also taught that people are not able to avoid sin after the Fall, and that this entailed a loss of [[original righteousness]] or sinlessness, as well as [[concupiscence]] or selfish desire. [[Duns Scotus]], however, modified this interpretation, and only believed that sin entailed a lack of original righteousness. During the [[Protestant Reformation]], the Reformers took Scotus's position to be the Catholic position and argued that it made sin only a defect or privation of righteousness rather than an inclination toward evil. [[Martin Luther]], [[John Calvin]] and other Reformers used the term "total depravity" to articulate what they claimed to be the Augustinian view that sin corrupts the entire human nature.<ref>{{cite book |last=Williams |first=Robert R. |title=Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks |editor-last1=Hodgson |editor-first1=Peter C. |editor-last2=King |editor-first2=Robert H. |chapter=Sin and Evil |chapter-url=https://www.questia.com/library/117838118/christian-theology-an-introduction-to-its-traditions |publisher=[[Fortress Press]]{{Subscription required |via=}} |year=1994 |page=204}}</ref> This did not, however, mean the loss of the ''[[imago Dei]]'' (image of God). The only theologian who argued that the ''imago Dei'' itself was taken away and that the very substance of fallen humanity was sin was [[Matthias Flacius Illyricus]], and this view was repudiated in the [[Formula of Concord]].<ref name="Muller 2012">{{cite book |last=Muller |first=Richard A. |title=Calvin and the Reformed Tradition |publisher=[[Baker Academic]] |year=2012 |location=Grand Rapids, Michigan |page=51 |author-link=Richard A. Muller (theologian)}}</ref>

[[John Calvin]] used terms like "total depravity" to mean that, despite the ability of people to outwardly uphold the [[Divine Law|law]], there remained an inward distortion which makes all human actions displeasing to God, whether or not they are outwardly good or bad.<ref name= "Muller 2012" /> Even after [[regeneration (theology)|regeneration]], every human action is mixed with evil.<ref>{{cite book|title= John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait|last= Bouwsma |first=William J. |page= 139|url= https://www.questia.com/read/79070626/john-calvin-a-sixteenth-century-portrait |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=1989}}</ref> Later Calvinist theologians were agreed on this, but the language of the [[Canons of Dort]] as well as the 17th century Reformed theologians which followed it did not repeat the language of "total depravity", and arguably offer a more moderate view on the state of fallen humanity than Calvin.<ref name="Muller 2012"/>
=== In Arminianism ===
[[Arminianism]] also accepts a doctrine of total depravity, although not identical to the Calvinist position. Total depravity was affirmed by the [[Five articles of Remonstrance]], by [[Jacobus Arminius]] himself, and by [[John Wesley]], who strongly identified with Arminius through publication of his periodical ''The Arminian'' and also advocated a strong doctrine of inability.<ref>Sermon 44, [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/sermons.v.xliv.html#v.xliv-p0.2 "Original Sin."]; compare verse 4 of [[Charles Wesley]]'s [[hymn]] [http://gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/hymns/umh363.stm "And Can It Be"].</ref> ''The Methodist Quarterly Review'' states that:
{{quote|It is not sufficiently known, we opine, that Methodists—the genuine Arminians of the present—do not entirely agree with this view of depravity. To what has been said, as being the Calvinist view of the total depravity of our nature, we do heartily assent, with the following exceptions:—First. We do not think that all men ''continue totally depraved until their regeneration''. Secondly. We think man, ''under the atonement'', is not, properly speaking, in a state of nature. He is not left to the unalleviated evils of total depravity. The atonement has not only secured grace ''for'' him, but a measure ''in'' him, by virtue of which he not only has moral light, but is often incited to good desires, and well-intended efforts to do what is perceived to be the divine will.<ref name=MQR>{{cite journal|editor=George Peck|year=1847|title=titre=Chalmers' Natural Theology |journal=The Methodist Quarterly Review|publisher=Lane & Tippett|location=New York|volume=XXIX|page=444}}</ref>}}
Some Reformed theologians have mistakenly used the term "[[Arminianism]]" to include some who hold the [[Semipelagianism|Semipelagian]] doctrine of [[limited depravity]], which allows for an "island of righteousness" in human hearts that is uncorrupted by sin and able to accept God's offer of salvation without a special dispensation of grace.<ref>{{cite book |last=Demarest |first=Bruce |title=The Cross and Salvation: The Doctrine of Salvation |publisher=Crossway Books |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-58134-812-5 |location=Wheaton, Illinois |page=56}}</ref> Although Arminius and Wesley both vehemently rejected this view, it has sometimes inaccurately been lumped together with theirs (particularly by Calvinists) because of other similarities between their respective systems such as [[conditional election]], [[unlimited atonement]], and prevenient grace. In particular, prevenient grace is viewed by some as giving humans back the freedom to follow God in one way or another.