Total Depravity?

[patricks916]

This is a serious question, I am not trying to debate or anything of that nature, and please message me if you have any input, but how can we be wonderfully and fearfully made, and yet totally wicked? I want to be honest with the scriptures and only see it mentioned once in the Word that we were born in sin, but it is never mentioned that we are born sinners. I am not saying we are born with the image of God, but that we are not born sinners.

[uga0301]

This is how you refute total depravity. If us sinning is because we are sinners, then why did Adam sin since he was not a sinner? I have yet to hear a calvinist answer this question. We are given free will to obey God or suffer. 2nd thesolonians 1:7.

[rsoneill21]

@uga0301 Because he did not know it was evil...to him it was good

[uga0301]

@rsoneill21 Yes he did. God told him not to eat from it.

[rsoneill21]

@uga0301 You are correct but Adam had no knowledge of Evil all he knew was Good...it wasnt until after he ate the fruit that he had knowledge of good and evil

[LEGnewTube]

@uga0301 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—Rom 5:12

Adam chose to sin, he was perfect and he chose sin as Satan was a perfect angel and he chose sin. Adam sinned because he chose to we sin because we chose to. Rom1:18-31 We can only chose that which is in our nature, Eph 2 says we are by nature children of wrath, this is why we cannot chose God We are dead

Now you have heard a Calvinist explain it

[theluellen]

I woke up today and heard the word Depravity.

[logie2288]

How did i get here?

[dougmoerhoffman]

This is promising. Based on his comments about conscience in this video, it doesn't seem like he denies the 'free moral agency' of man. The tricky thing with Calvinism is that it's hard for an observer to easily tell if someone is just emphasizing oft-overlooked Biblical doctrines, or if they are being unBiblical by taking extreme positions ("hypercalvinism?").

I'm hopeful that Mark isn't a heretic on this issue. He's Biblical on nearly everything else, which is phenomenal.

[TheKJVberean]

@TheElectronicchurch your right, false teacher - another calvinist spueing the lies of calvinism.

[Drewsius]

@TheKJVberean Hey man, don't be a hater. I've read the Bible cover to cover many times and I'm a strong Calvinist. Does that make me a liar? That's a bold claim. If you're a Christian then we are brothers in Christ, I don't appreciate you calling my beliefs lies. Until someone can show me there's anything in Calvinism that goes against Scripture, I'll stand fast.

[enotstehw]

@TheKJVberean I have yet to converse with a Calvinist that listens to the voice of God. They always use the writings of mens experiences over two thousand years ago as their foundation of a relationship with God . . . who is a spirit, and communicates with us today.

[enotstehw]

Mark said

"Our nature is sin and we are made in the image of God". = typical calvinism = garbage. A wonderful tool . . . to control the people . . . and keep them from having a relationship with God. Man is soooooo bad God can not stand to look at us.

[Drewsius]

@enotstehw Clearly you do not have a correct view of Calvinism. I am a Calvinist and my relationship with God is the most precious thing on earth to me -- neither I am not controlled. Please study up on it a bit before calling it garbage.

[enotstehw]

@Drewsius So your loving God is doing to torture people in Hell forever. And your father Calvin ordered people that did not have the same ideas killed. Let me know if you have studied your history of Calvin?

[Drewsius]

@enotstehw God is love, yes, and He loves His creation. But He is also a God of justice, and holy righteousness. If you don't believe that, you're not reading the Bible closely enough, my friend. There's nothing wrong with emphasizing God's love, because He DOES love us, and praise Him for it. But He did not love us because there's anything in us worth loving -- He loves us simply because He chooses to display His goodness by doing so.

[Drewsius]

@enotstehw To say that "God is going to torture people in Hell forever" isn't fair to His character or to my argument that we are all totally depraved. We have brought our fallen nature upon ourselves, and it must be paid for either by us in hell or by Christ's work on the cross.

[enotstehw]

@Drewsius All are totally depraved . . . where do you find that the teachings of Jesus. Totally depraved is a Jewish fable. The Jews have to make their angry God happy by killing something. And better yet God is happy when his son is killed. The Jewish God is crazy . . . his is made happy when something is killed. When will your God turn on you? What did the people of Jericho do . . . to anger the Jewish God?

[Drewsius]

@enotstehw And one more thing... John Calvin is not my "father." I would never claim that I agree with every single detail of everything he said and did. The Bible says that you can have one of two fathers: God, or Satan. And God is my father. I look to the Bible first as my authority. But I also happen to believe that much of what Calvin said lines up with Biblical teaching.

[enotstehw]

@Drewsius If God is your father . . . then you would know that God does not demand a penalty for sin.

[enotstehw]

@Drewsius All of what Calvin taught . . . agrees with the teaching of men.

[enotstehw]

@Drewsius Wow . . . what an angry God you have. Anger is a sin my friend. If your God gets angry then his is sinning.

[Drewsius]

@enotstehw I see I was mistaken in believing you are a Christian... you do not understand the Gospel if you say that God does not demand a penalty for sin. This is the Gospel of Jesus: in order to be saved INTO something (God's Kingdom), we must be saved FROM something (Our sin). I want to respect your opinions, even if they are not Christian, though, so please tell me, what does "God" mean to you? In other words, who is God, do you think?

[enotstehw]

@Drewsius A woman . . . caught in the act of sin . . . was thrown in front of Jesus . . . by a group of believers in fables . . . and they demanded Jesus to condemn her.  And . . . Jesus said to her "I condemn you not."

I condemn you not = the Gospel = The Good News = God

[Drewsius]

@enotstehw After reviewing your comments here and on other videos, I can see that you have no idea what the Bible teaches about God. You have singled out just ONE of His attributes (love), and chosen to focus on that and ignore everything else about His character. You have a preconcieved idea of what God is like, and you are trying to use the Bible to fit your idea -- as a result, you ignore the many passages which talk about God's holiness.

[enotstehw]

@Drewsius The Jewish culture has many fables about God. Go . . . ask any of the great Bible teachers. What did the people of Jericho do to anger God? The Jews are killing other people . . . because their God . . . cares more about land than people.

[Drewsius]

@enotstehw On another video you claimed that since Oprah talks about love she should be listened to more than passages in Scripture or the words of a wise and knowledgable pastor (Mark Driscoll). It was at that point that I knew you are a fake who knows nothing of Christianity. Please go talk to a good pastor, and get some grasp of the Bible. I will pray that you come to see the TRUE love of God, not just the fluff you are presenting.

[enotstehw]

@Drewsius If Jesus showed up . . . in the same city and time Calvin was boasting about God. Would Calvin and Jesus get along? Calvin would have ordered Jesus to be killed.

[enotstehw]

@Drewsius So . . . would you toss your children . . . into a volcano . . . forever . . . because they had a flaw?

And if you say . . . no . . . I would never toss my children into a volcano . . . then your love . . . is greater than the love of the Jewish God.

[enotstehw]

@Drewsius Fluff . . . the people of Jericho . . . build a city of walls . . . to keep out the bad guys. They would go out and work in the fields by day and return at night to a walled city for safety. Then a bunch of blood thirsty people came and killed everyone in the name of their God. Jesus said "enter into the narrow gate and few will find it" the gate is love. And you call it . . . fluff.

[Drewsius]

@enotstehw You are COMPLETELY misquoting and misrepresenting Jesus. The verse you are quoting is Matthew 7:13-14:

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

[enotstehw]

@Drewsius your God is the Bible.

[Drewsius]

@enotstehw I'm done suffering fools.

[Drewsius]

@enotstehw You see his words about the ROAD TO DESTRUCTION? That is our sin, our depravity. The narrow gate is the decision to trust that Christ's death to save us from it. IF YOU'RE GOING TO QUOTE THE BIBLE, QUOTE IT CORRECTLY. You have plucked half of a verse out of context and used it to say that "the gate is love." Yes, the gate IS love, Christ's love that led him to die for us so we don't have to go down the way of destruction. Take your lies elsewhere.

[enotstehw]

@Drewsius The answer of a typical Calvinist? Jesus never calls himself the gate and Jesus never talks about your fable of total depravity.

[bassett22]

@TheElectronicchurch let me guess. you havent read the bible from beginning to end...

[benedewaard]

This makes me wonder... Are the bad things humans do their own choice and from the HUMAN themselves and when a human does a good thing is it God or the human who is doing that act? Like was God acting through the good samaritan?

[jvicx51]

the media glorifies depravity  : (

[ConqueredSun]

@hrtofdavid The Good Samaritan was undoubtedly moved by grace, and grace alone enabled him to do good. We have only the external image, by which I mean that our souls are still rational, but they unceasingly will sin. Whatever good we do is only by the active will of God, not because we still have remnants of the former grandeur.

[ConqueredSun]

@hrtofdavid My main criticism of his claim that the Image is still present in Man, to a limited degree, is his example of the Good Samaritan having echoes of the Image. This, to me, implies that even in our sinful state we still have the capacity to will good. His scheme means that Man is only tempted by evil, and not that we actively will evil.

[ConqueredSun]

@hrtofdavid I don't believe that the Image of God is corporeal. For God to have a body would mean that He would have to exist within the bounds of time and space. Christ had a body, but only because He was incarnated. Before that, He was beyond time and space. Whether there is a form of God is pure speculation, but I doubt it because time and space would have to be present for a form like that to exist.

I take the Image to mean our rational souls, myself.

[ConqueredSun]

Semi-Pelagian nonsense. Man is not COMPLETELY evil...! Your feelings and thoughts MIGHT be wrong! You still have ECHOES of God's Image in you. Don't feel too bad about yourself, you deserved damnation but there were still traces enough of good in you for God to see you worth the blood of Christ.

What is being taught here is partial depravity. In truth, we have only the external Image of God, which clothes the sheer darkness of the human will. Every deed is sinful, wrought for man's glory.

[hrtofdavid]

@ConqueredSun "Don't feel too bad about yourself, you deserved damnation but there were still traces enough of good in you for God to see you worth the blood of Christ."

I think you are interpreting what he is saying here wrong. If you listen to enough of his other stuff you'll see that he doesn't say what you are saying he says. Like picking out him saying "MIGHT be wrong," he is saying it like, "hello you who have never thought that your feelings/thoughts are wrong, newsflash: possibly are!

[hrtofdavid]

@ConqueredSun ...also, I would challenge your thoughts on the image of God. I don't think its really as much about our appearance as our spirit and stuff. Just some thoughts. Otherwise, you are right about total depravity. Hope you don't take this the wrong way, just some thoughts.

[sheaschrepf]

We consistently try to fit God into what we think God should be like. In actuality it is HIS creation, and not ours, and He is God, we are not. @nhprman

[polopowers1]

Its not that you sin but everything you do is flesh not Spirit

[polopowers1]

We sin because we are flesh not by nature and choice,unless you define properly the flesh as your nature to sin.Nothing of flesh can please God that is total depravity,all men are in death by sin.

[Noisegator]

Jehovah's antics in the bible - now there is Total Depravity!

[rayh3777]

The words total depravity should never be spoken. So much confusion. WE WOULD HAVE BEEN TOTALLY DEPRAVED if it were not for God seeking us(everybody).

Luke 19:10

For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Who is lost because of sin? ....????? Everyone. So God seeks everyone. end of story.

[alexbelenkds]

romans 5:12 says it all, romans chapter 1

[jockey88]

Sorry it took me so long to respond back. I don't check my youtube stuff very often. First off I didn't really mean cause Driscoll said it it is right I was just watching the video while typing my reply and he was saying the exact same thing I was typing. Anyway. The Bible also says that Adam was created in God's own image Gen 1:26. It says nothing of God's image being wiped off of Adam after he sinned so Adam's image was also, at least in part, God's image. Though it was smeared by sin.

[jockey88]

and Adam was made in the image of God. We don't lose that image when we fell. We stained it but we didn't delete it totally.  That's why we have a feel regret when we wrong people and hate injustice. As Driscoll says in the video.

[nhprman]

We're either sinners by nature OR by choice. It cannot be both, as this speaker says.

Under this man-made Total Depravity theory, God is the Author of our sins because he has not given us the ability to obey. Without this doctrine however, WE are the authors of sin and are fully accountable for those sins.

Without full ability, there is no full accountabilty. With no accountabilty, God cannot justly condemn us.

[jockey88]

Not quite. Under the idea of total depravity God did not cause us to sin. He allowed(ordained) it but did not force us to. He did not take away our ability to obey. At the same time though after that first sinful choice was made the image of God in us was stained and we became inherently sinful. We became sinful by nature. Naturally opposed to God who is perefectly Holy because we are not even close to that and are therefore under his wrath.

[nhprman]

So, jockey88, let me get this straight: we're born inherently sinful, our NATURE is that we cannot obey God, but we MUST obey, and will be punished if we do not obey. Correct?

Again, this is a wicked doctrine that makes God, and our ancestors, the authors of our own mis-deeds and failure to do righteousness, and makes God into an unjust monster for punishing those who (in this theory) cannot possibly obey (without His intervention to GIVE us the ability to obey, that is.)

Truly wicked.

[jockey88]

First off, Yes basically we are so fallen and sinful that we are in direct opposition with God and cannot choose to love that perfection that our sin wars against. But, God did not cause us to sin in the first place and therefore is not the author of our sin. We are born into a world broken by our own sin and in opposition to God. But even if God does create those who are to be against him and made for destruction that is his right as creator. He can make whatever the heck he wants.

[jockey88]

Romans 9:(21-23)

21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

[nhprman]

jockey88: Define "we" and "us". You use it in two different senses here. You say "we" are fallen, and God did not cause "us" to sin in the "first place." Obviously you're referring to Adam, the archetypal First Man. Look in your Bible. it teaches that we are responsible for our ACTIONS. We - each of us individually - are responsible to God for what we DO. We are also commanded over and over again to DO and SEEK righteousness. Your last lines make God into a dictator unworthy of worship.

[Philos2006]

All that we are is distorted by sin. Our thoughts

words, deeds and motives are not what they should be because we are all sinners.

What a morose view of the world. I think our thoughts, words and deeds are more distorted by IGNORANCE.

[jcook51]

"What a morose view of the world"

The Biblical view of the world is opposed to the world's view of itself.

"I think our thoughts, words and deeds are more distorted by IGNORANCE. "

The Bible does say man is ignorant due to his hardened heart.

[Philos2006]

jcook51:--The Bible does say man is ignorant due to his hardened heart--

What the bible says is irrelevant ,for 4 billion people on this earth.

[draggeddownthehole]

If your thoughts aren't 100 % occupied by the pursuit of good, justice, love and generosity, they are infected by selfishness or sin. That's what he meant. Ignorance has nothing to do with good and evil unless you believe Lucifer's doctrines. For the serpent, knowledge is good and ignorance is evil.

[jcook51]

Ephesians 4:17-18 says, "That you no longer walk as other Gentiles walk, in vanity of their mind; being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of their hardness of heart."

What Paul is saying is that as true knowledge of God is the life of the soul, on the contrary, ignorance is the death of it. The root of man's ignorance is his own heart, his very nature. Man is held entirely responsible for it.

[Brian685]

Wrong. We have a conscience. Con = with, Sciencec = knowlede. If you sin (lie, lust, steal, murder, ...etc. ) you do so knowing it's wrong. It's not about ignorance, it's about rebellion.

[MGCAUSTIN]

Totally but not utterly. I'm glad he was able to clear things up.

[coltonlatta88]

cityhunter84 what do you think happens after this life?

[CityHunter84]

these seminars dont help fuck all people. thanks for reading.