1. A text often cited is Genesis 6:5,—the reason given for destroying the human race, in the time of Noah, by the deluge: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” But this seems to be a description of the state of the world at that particular time, not of its character in all ages. It is not a description of man's natural condition, but of an extremely degenerate condition. If the state of the world here described was its natural state, it would rather be a reason for not having created the race at first; or, if it was a reason for destroying it, it would, at best, seem to be as strong a one against creating it again. If a man plants [pg 148] a tree in his garden, whose nature he knows is to produce a certain kind of fruit, it would seem hardly a good reason for cutting it down, that it produced that kind of fruit: certainly it would not be a good reason for cutting it down, and planting another of precisely the same kind in its place. The reason why the race of men was destroyed was, that it had degenerated. But there were some good even then; for in the ninth verse we are told that “Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation, and walked with God.”

2. There is another passage, in the fourteenth Psalm which is quoted by Paul in Rom. 3: “There is none righteous; no, not one: there is none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God. They have all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable: there is none that doeth good; no, not one. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

This passage is relied on to prove total depravity. But we may reply, that—

This also is a degenerate condition, not a natural one. It was a condition into which men had fallen, not one in which they were born. “They have all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable.” It does not, therefore, apply to men universally, but to men in those particular times.

It was not true of all, even at that particular time. It was not true of David himself, that he did not seek after God, or have the fear of God before his eyes; or else other passages in the same book are not true, in which he says the contrary. “O God! early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee.” He also frequently speaks of and to those who fear the Lord, and says, “I am a companion to all those that fear thee.”

The “all” is not to be taken strictly. It means people generally at that time. Just so it is said, “There went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round [pg 149] about Jordan;” which does not imply that no one staid at home.

“But,” it may be said, “does not Paul teach that this is to be taken universally, when he quotes it, and adds, ‘Now we know that what the law saith, it saith to those under the law, that every mouth be stopped, and all the world guilty before God’ ”? We think he means to say, that, as this is said to Jews, it proves that Jews, as well as Gentiles, are very guilty. He is addressing the Jews, who boasted of their knowledge of the law. Chap. 2: “Behold, thou art called a Jew,” &c.

3. Jer. 17:9. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”

If we suppose that we are to take this as an unlimited expression, and not merely a strong declaration of the wickedness of the Jews, it still does not prove total depravity of the nature, but merely that of the affections, or “the heart.” Man's nature has other things besides desire: it has conscience, reason, and will; and it does not follow that these are also depraved.

4. Rom. 8:7. “The carnal mind is enmity against God.”

This does not intend that the mind of man, in its natural state, is enmity, but in its carnal state; that is, when subject to fleshly desires. Nearly the same phrase is used in the verse before, and is translated, “To be carnally minded is death.”

5. There is one famous passage, however, which seems to say that God is angry with us on account of our nature. This is a passage very much quoted, and we hear it so often that it seems as if the Bible was full of such texts. It is in Eph. 2:3. “We were by nature children of wrath, even as others.” This is quoted to prove that God is angry with men for their natures, and hates them for being born evil—just as we may hate a snake, a scorpion, or spider, for its [pg 150] nature. But, as it happens, the very next verses show that this is impossible, unless God can be hating one of his creatures and loving it at the very same moment.

For, in the next verse Paul says that God loved us with a great love when we were dead in trespasses and sins, and children of wrath. It is therefore evident that “children of wrath” must mean something else. It may mean that men outside of Christianity—Jews and Gentiles—were afraid of God; living under a constant sense of his displeasure; that God seemed to them a terrible being, always disposed to punish them with severity. This was the fact. Jews and Gentiles were afraid of their gods, before Christ came, and so were “children of wrath.” Or it may mean that men are exposed to the consequences of sin; for, in Scripture language,—

Moreover, “nature,” in Scripture usage, does not necessarily mean, “as human beings.” It often intends external position, origin, and race. So (in Gal. 2:15) we read, “Jews by nature;” and so (in Rom. 2:27) “uncircumcision, which is by nature.”

The same word is used twice in James 3:7, and is translated kind. “Every kind of beasts, birds, serpents, things in the sea, is tamed of man-kind:” literally, “the whole animal race is tamed by the human race.”

If f?s?? here meant “constitutional depravity,” the same word in Rom. 2:14 must mean constitutional goodness, where we are told that some “do by nature the things contained in the law.” So, too, we read of the olive tree, wild by nature, in Rom. 11:24.

“By nature,” here, plainly means the original condition, not the original constitution. Just so we say that wild animals are in a state of nature, and call savages the children of nature.

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These five texts are the strongest in the Bible to support the doctrine of total depravity, and, as such, are constantly quoted. They have very little weight, and not one of them is from the words of Jesus.

On the other hand, there are many passages which seem to declare that there is something good in man in his unconverted or natural state, and that even in that state he may turn towards the light, and struggle against evil.

John 3:20, 21. “Every one that doeth truth cometh to the light.”

Matt. 26:41. “... The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.”

Rom. 2:24. “Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, and show the work of that law which is written in the heart.”

Acts 10:35. “In every nation, he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him.”

But the passage most strikingly and thoroughly opposed to the doctrine of total depravity, is the description, in the seventh chapter of Romans, of the conflict between the law in the members and the law of the mind. Paul, speaking evidently from his own experience in his unconverted state, describes the condition of one morally depraved, who is trying to do right, but is prevented by evil habits which have become a part of himself. He describes this as moral death, but not guilt. He says, “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” He describes himself as morally impotent—wishing to do right, but unable to do it. He says he delights in the law of God after the inner man. The inmost is right, but outside of that are evil habits, in the body, which drag down the soul and enslave it. Paul therefore distinctly says that a man in such a condition is not himself a sinner, because he does not commit the sin. Thus he makes clear and strong the distinction we referred to above, between depravity and guilt—between natural evil and moral evil.

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Paul teaches that man is not totally depraved, but that even in the carnal man there is a good principle, only that it is conquered by the evil. If the mind delights in the law of God, and the will to do right is present with us, we evidently are not totally depraved; but the total depravity, if anywhere, is in the flesh only, as Paul plainly says: “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing;” that is, the depravity is physical, not moral. But physical depravity is not guilt, but only disease.