Dear Calvinists... Please define the word "Depravity"

[Sozo]

I have yet to see an absolute definition of this term.

Also, what is the source of your definition?

[Freak]

Today @ 01:29 AM
Sozo:

I have yet to see an absolute definition of this term.

Also, what is the source of your definition?

God's Word tells us:

As it is written:
"There is no one righteous, not even one.

In a nutshell that is totally depravity.

[Arminian]

In a nutshell that is totally depravity.

No, in a nutshell, it tells us what the law says to those under it, otherwise it would contradict Scripture.

[Sozo]

Yesterday @ 11:48 PM
Freak:



God's Word tells us:

As it is written:
"There is no one righteous, not even one.

In a nutshell that is totally depravity.


Being unrighteous, does not remove your ability to accept what is righteous.

For an entire belief system to be built around this term, doesn't anyone have an absolute definition?

[joelkaki]

Basically, total depravity is that the Fall of man resulted in sin being p***ed down to every single human being, and that sin has so affected and corrupted every part of man's being that he us unable to choose God.

Eph 2:1,5
1 Cor 2:12
Romans 3:10-12
Jeremiah 17:9 for starters

Joel

[Sozo]

Today @ 09:47 AM
joelkaki:

Basically, total depravity is that the Fall of man resulted in sin being p***ed down to every single human being, and that sin has so affected and corrupted every part of man's being that he us unable to choose God.

Eph 2:1,5
1 Cor 2:12
Romans 3:10-12
Jeremiah 17:9 for starters

Joel

Please forgive me, but I am well aware of the Calvinist doctrine of Total Depravity, but I am looking for the source and root of the absolute definition of the term "depravity".

[Freak]

Today @ 01:42 PM
Sozo:




Being unrighteous, does not remove your ability to accept what is righteous.

For an entire belief system to be built around this term, doesn't anyone have an absolute definition?

Scripture tells us no one is righteous--no not even one.

[Sozo]

Today @ 11:54 AM
Freak:



Scripture tells us no one is righteous--no not even one.

Am I that unclear?

Please give me evidence that "no one is righteous" is the definition of depravity

and if that is the definition,

Show me where the bible says that the unrighteous cannot accept a gift from God!

[joelkaki]

'None seek after God." (Romans 3:10-11)


Joel

[Freak]

Today @ 07:17 PM
Sozo:



Am I that unclear?

Please give me evidence that "no one is righteous" is the definition of depravity

and if that is the definition,

Show me where the bible says that the unrighteous cannot accept a gift from God!

Show me where man is basically good? Unconverted men are totally evil-depraved. What does Romans 3:10 tell you?

[Freak]

Today @ 08:03 PM
joelkaki:

'None seek after God." (Romans 3:10-11)


Joel


Exactly--God looks for us.

Sozo, faith is a gift from God. Humans don't go looking for God. God desires us.

[Arminian]

Freak,


Scripture tells us no one is righteous--no not even one.

Yes, that's what Scripture says. Now what was Paul's point just before he said that, and what was his conclusion right after quoting those OT verses? It has nothing to do with total depravity.


Unconverted men are totally evil-depraved. What does Romans 3:10 tell you?

Paul quotes David who is talking about his own sin and that's about "unconvered man"? I don't think so! His point concerning the law is so clear that it's blinding you!

Note that he says "no man," and not "unconverted man." David is lamenting his own sin. David was a man after God's own heart. Think about it.

[Freak]

Today @ 08:59 PM
Arminian:

Freak,



Yes, that's what Scripture says. Now what was Paul's point just before he said that, and what was his conclusion right after quoting those OT verses? It has nothing to do with total depravity.

Arminian--

What does verse 9 tell you:

What shall we conclude then? Are we any better ? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin

Then he goes on to tell us in verse 23 "...all have sinned."

We are all sinners. Fairly simple. Do you understand now or do you need me to teach you?

[Freak]

Today @ 08:59 PM
Arminian:

Freak,



Yes, that's what Scripture says. Now what was Paul's point just before he said that, and what was his conclusion right after quoting those OT verses? It has nothing to do with total depravity.



Paul quotes David who is talking about his own sin and that's about "unconvered man"? I don't think so! His point concerning the law is so clear that it's blinding you!

Are you that dense?

Paul in the whole chapter was making it clear we are all sinful in the eyes of God. If you can't understand this elementary teaching perhaps you can email me and I can help you learn some of the basics, ok?

[Woman]

FREAK: Humans don't go looking for God.
All my experience as a human being, all my observations of humanity...tells me this statement is blatantly untrue!

I believe we are hard-wired to seek the divine. All of us. Not only the "chosen." And certainly not just those who profess to have found the answers.

I believe we all struggle with existential angst; that it is singularly human to search for meaning in the universe and in our place in it.

I believe that all other human endeavors are distractions from this goal. I believe that our illusion that we are separate from the Divine is the real "Fall" and that until we awaken to who we really are, the search continues unbroken for all our lives.

I believe that everyone is capable of this, but that understanding comes on many levels.

I believe no one has all the answers. I believe God cannot be taught, only experienced. I believe that once directly experienced, faith plays no part in this knowing.

And I believe that to deny we are all on a path to reunion with the Divine is to deny that very Divinity.

Just my humble opinion.


:teeth:

[Sozo]

Woman...

"...as it is written, "There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one."

Btw... There is still no evidence from Freak, or anyone else, what the term depravity means, and a source for that term.

Also, The above verse in no way discounts the idea that God seeks us out and offers us a gift.

[Arminian]

Freak,


Are you that dense?

Paul in the whole chapter was making it clear we are all sinful in the eyes of God. If you can't understand this elementary teaching perhaps you can email me and I can help you learn some of the basics, ok?

What's wrong, Freak? You couldn't reply directly to my point, once again? Was David saying that he -- a believer -- was totally depraved? Duh! Why not reply, Freak?

And what does Paul conclude? That he is totally depraved? No, silly Freak, he does not. He concludes that the law demonstrates the sin of Israel.

And who lives under the law (which is what God commanded)? The totally depraved unbelievers? LOL!! The totally depraved don't care about the law!

No, silly Freak, your lesson concering Paul's teaching has now begun. What was the purpose of the law? To flesh-out sin, to act as a tutor, and to provide a temporary covering until the arrival of Messiah. Did it provide righteousness? Of course not.

I shall prove my argument from Scripture after your next arrogant comment. Be ready to learn from someone who can actually read and remember Paul's arguments in Romans, Galatians and Ephesians.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Hey guys I am moving this to theology 102.

[Arminian]

Hey guys I am moving this to theology 102.

Now I'm even more outraged!!:rant:

[Solly]

Yesterday @ 01:29 AM
Sozo:

I have yet to see an absolute definition of this term.

Also, what is the source of your definition?

Sozo. do you mean the meaning of the word itself, or as a theological term. Tried to follow this thread, but it went around the houses a bit.

If theological, then I include this snippet from Lorraine Boettner:

IN the Westminster Confession the doctrine of Total Inability is stated as follows: — “Man, by his fall Into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.”

Paul, Augustine, and Calvin have as their starting point the fact that all mankind sinned in Adam and that all men are “without excuse,” Rom. 2:1. Time and again Paul tells us that we are dead in trespasses and sins, estranged from God, and helpless. In writing to the Ephesian Christians he reminded them that before they received the Gospel they were “separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world,” 2:12. There we notice the five-fold emphasis as he piles phrase on top of phrase to stress this truth.

This doctrine of Total Inability, which declares that men are dead in sin, does not mean that all men are equally bad, nor that any man is as bad as he could be, nor that any one is entirely destitute of virtue, nor that human nature is evil in itself, nor that man‘s spirit is inactive, and much less does it mean that the body Is dead. What it does mean is that since the fall man rests under the curse of sin, that he is actuated by wrong principles, and that he is wholly unable to love God or to do anything meriting salvation. His corruption is extensive but not necessarily intensive.

It is in this sense that man since the fall “is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.” He possesses a fixed bias of the will against God, and instinctively and willingly turns to evil. He is an alien by birth, and a sinner by choice. The inability under which he labors is not an inability to exercise volitions, but an inability to be willing to exercise holy volitions.

[Sozo]

So then, "depravity" is really an incorrect description, but rather inability?

Which is the correct description used by Calvin, or the students of Calvinism?

[Solly]

I think you'll find "inability" has replaced the term in some circles, since "depravity" as a word has been modified to imply behviour rather than nature. It has a perjorative tinge to it that the Reformers did not use, since they used it in a specifically theological context, not an ethical one.

[Sozo]

If inability was what Calvin had in mind when he prepared his thesis, then "sharing the hope" serves absolutely no purpose. We might as well be talking to brick walls.

Our relationship to God, has as much meaning as when I alphabitize my collection of CDs.

[Solly]

No. We still stand as responsible to God for our natures and the volitions of our natures, since we are still accountable to God - that is what makes us sinners, before you come to any ethical outworkings - this is why "depraved" is not used in some circles, since it implies to some that we are morally evil, whereas it should imply that we are volitionally rebellious, and trapped in our rebellion by the chains of sin and power of the Evil One: it is moral and volitional inability arising from the fact that "we desire not this man to rule over us". He has given enough to inform us that we are in the wrong, either in the conscience Rom 1, or in the scriptures 2 Tim 3.15, but men prefer darkness to light.
Secondly, becoming a Christian isn't a matter of intellectual information being supplied, leading to a lifestyle change. It is a spiritual work of rebirth that attends the preaching and ministry of the Gospel. That is why it is salvation. We need rescuing from our condition, not behaviour mod. That is why it is a new birth, regeneration, new creation, because we are "dead" to God; you of all people should know that, because you have championed it so often.
Through the foolishness of preaching, men are saved. It is not our work, but God's work, and we are the means he uses. God forbid that I should ever convert anybody. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God!! Non Nobis Domine

[HemofHisGarment]

I tend to think of it as being in a crude state whereas God works with us to refine us (i.e. the potter's clay, etc)


:doh: oops,...I'm not a Calvinist; sorry!

[richilou]

03-16-2003 @ 07:17 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=37091#post37091)
Sozo:



Am I that unclear?

Please give me evidence that "no one is righteous" is the definition of depravity

and if that is the definition,

Show me where the bible says that the unrighteous cannot accept a gift from God!

Hi there,

The answer is quite easy to find in the Bible as you asked for. For example, Paul said that the flesh (i.e. human being by himself in his own strength) is not able to submit itself to God (Rom. 8.7). Moreover, as I saw in your many interventions asking an absolute definition for the term "depravity", if my understanding of your goal is right, you seem to look for an evidence that the doctrine of total depravity should be clear in the biblical texts so that we can explain how a person would not be able to respond positively to the call of God to be saved! Is that right? If it is the case, therefore, I will give you the answer you are seeking so intensely.

God bless

Richard

[Thomas2003]

03-16-2003 @ 01:29 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=36622#post36622)
Sozo:

I have yet to see an absolute definition of this term.

Also, what is the source of your definition?


Dear Sozo,

The term "depravity" is derived from two sources concerning sin. First, the "original sin" of Adam; second the hereditary corruption unto all of his progeny. It is not just Adam as a progeniture but as a root - is how Calvin explains it. Thus, Paul explains - by one man sin entered and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned - because in Adam, that is to say being of his seed and born in his image, all die (1 Corinthians 15:22, Genesis 3:15)

Man in sin is no longer the image bearer of God - that is probably the best single sentence that I can conceive at the present moment.

I would suggest you review Calvin's Institutes , the chapter entitled, "Through the fall and revolt of Adam, the whole human race made accursed and degenerate. Of Original Sin.

Hope that helps.

Cordially,

Thomas