A few weeks ago a student came to me upset because she did not agree with the understanding of humans that her church taught. She wasn’t looking for an argument against it, she was convinced her church held the “correct, biblical view.” Her church teaches that humans are basically evil. She wanted me to help her come to that same understanding, because her own opinion is that humans are not completely evil at all. So I shared this verse with her:
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Ps. 139.14
As you can see, I wasn’t much help in her quest to fit in with her church’s teaching.
Then yesterday, I made a short post about calling on the Holy Spirit to help me wage war on my unruly flesh, which led one reader to think I was teaching what they teach at my student’s church.
Which leads me to this short reflection:
There are a couple of ways you can take David’s statement. It may mean: I praise You because You have made me to be a creature of praise – worship is in keeping with my most fundamental nature (like the Chris Tomlin song: “you and I were made to worship”). It may also mean: I recognize how wonderful it is that You have made me and that fills me with the desire to praise you.
Both ways of taking this seem in keeping with David’s overall perspective; he may have meant both here at the same time.
Either or both serves as an important corrective to the Protestant doctrine of “total depravity” as understood in the TULIP Confession. It is important to note that it was David who said this (anointed by the Spirit), not Adam in his pre-fallen state. Even in our fallen state, we are still wonderfully made, still made in the image of God, still bearing the same natural goodness that God pronounced over the creation in Gen. 1.31.
This does not at all mean everything is okay. Sin is a debilitating disability, a disease, “a splinter in the mind” (as Morpheus said in The Matrix) that prevents us from having full relationships with God and each other. We require divine intervention for that, which Jesus provided through his incarnation, death and resurrection.
The term “total depravity” wants to ensure that we know the work of Christ was necessary both for our salvation and for leading a holy life. The TULIP confession was concerned about the heresy of Pelagianism, which taught that humans were good, unfallen, and in no need of God’s intervention for salvation. Thinking of ourselves as “totally depraved” is supposed to remind us that we cannot save ourselves.
The trouble with theological positions that are mainly a response to some error is that the response often overcompensates and winds up in another error. In this case, the total depravity doctrine comes very close the Gnostic and Manichean heresies, which denied the goodness of created being altogether. While a good Calvinist will demur at such a claim, the normal, everyday meaning of “totally depraved” definitely has this ring to it – that humans are basically evil, as they supposedly teach at my student’s church.
You might say that the job, then, is to educate people as to what is meant by “totally depraved,” but the creation of technical terms is not the solution. The solution is to find better, more creative language to express our anthropology, so that people don’t overhear us and leave supposing we think people are totally evil, or else in no need of God.
So, no Christian theology does not teach that humans are basically evil or totally depraved. We teach that all humans are created in the image of God, that in our capacities to love, reason, create, and communicate we are good – we are wonderfully made. Yet, we also teach that something has gone terribly wrong with us. We are not as we should be, not fully as we were created to be. Our loss is not total, but it is real and costly. But thanks be to God who has overcome this wrong through His Son, Jesus Christ our Savior. He shows us both the extent of God’s love and the maximal measure of human goodness.
T down. ULIP to go…
If we explain away our faults by saying that “something has gone terribly wrong with us”, and then turn to God to make us right, we have learned nothing about ourselves. Everything happens for a reason, and growth occurs as we uncover the reasons for our behavior through self-examination. I believe that many Christians shirk their personal responsibility in this regard. Instead of trying to understand their behavior, they say the “devil in me did it”, or they think their natural sinfulness came to the surface when their faith lapsed. It is all well and good to love Jesus, but that’s no substitute for self-awareness. What you say seems to suggest that people will fall into sin if they are not constantly on guard. That’s not true (for most of us) since there are plenty of non-religious people who are perfectly good.
Your student exemplifies another problem with Christianity. Instead of trusting her natural instincts, she was intend on abandoning her healthy beliefs about people for the unhealthy beliefs of her church. Christian churches of all types encourage their followers to ignore their inner wisdom in favor of church dogma. This is one of the ways that Christianity is a negative influence in the world.
I agree with Pelagius: Human beings are not naturally sinful and do not need to be saved. Everyone is saved by default. In fact, there is no such thing as NOT being saved. Christian theologists don’t understand the great flaw in Christianity: Whatever the true religion is, it must encompass everyone. Christianity as it is practiced now is like an exclusive club. Anyone can join, but only some people have the temperament or opportunity to do so. Those people who don’t have the temperament or opportunity — 95% of humanity, perhaps — are doomed. This is why Christianity is actually the Bad News, and why it cannot be the true faith. God is not such a cruel god that he would sacrifice 95% of his children!
You’re explaination was prepared wisdom. In addition, calvinists should know that being created in God’s image is also a gift from God as is our ability to recognize God’s saving grace and our responsibility to decide to receive it or reject it(Joshua 24:15).