Theology Club: Total Depravity
- Thread starter Saved.One.by.Grace
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Saved.One.by.Grace
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John is talking about man's nature, a sin nature. It doesn't mean that the lost cannot give or do good things for others. The bible says they can and if anyone knows the bible it's John MacArthur. But good deeds (works) will not get you to Heaven. But God's grace will. God's grace cannot be earned. Our own faith is not of ourselves, it's from God by His grace. (Ephesians 2:8-10 NASB) I know this is a hard concept to accept, but it's 100% biblical.
JM is okay but definitely not the best out there. What's unique to his strict Calvinism is his views on Israel.
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Saved.One.by.Grace
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I would fall into that category too with respect to Israel. I differ with JM only on his interpretation Genesis, particularly, Young Earth Creationism. I am not aware of differing with him on anything else.
Dialogos
Well-known member
No he doesn't. You are in error.
No, you are wrong about what John MacArthur teaches.Angel4Truth said:
The following is John MacArthur speaking for John MacArthur on this very topic.
Our hearts are poisoned by sin, and that is why we do not and cannot love God on our own. That is precisely what we mean when we talk about total depravity. It’s not that we are as evil as we could possibly be, but that evil has infected us totally—in every part of our soul—so that we are incapable of righteous desires and holy motives and loving affections toward God. Some theologians prefer the expression total inability, rather than total depravity. But the truth is the same—and I hope you can see how it is implied in this text. Arminians, if they are true Arminians, and not full-blown Pelagians, actually affirm that truth. (John MacArthur, Grace to You, Why I am a Calvinist, Part 6) Website address: http://www.gty.org/resources/articles/A346/why-i-am-a-calvinist-part-6 |
Are you now ready to acknowledge that your understanding of the Calvinist Doctrine has been in error?
Brother Vinny
Active member
This amounts to the same thing, though, as sin is defined as whatever is done apart from faith (Rom 14:23), and the unregenerate man is faithless.
I'm interested. Thanks. I love to listen to JM even tho just a few times. He's a great speaker and he truly loves The Lord.
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If this MacArthur fellow said
I really fail to see how A4T's assessment that he teaches that 'man can do nothing BUT sin' is wrong. As far as I can see, A4T didn't suggest that Calvinism taught that man was as evil as can be. That's a straw man, as I stated before. It does nothing to make total depravity any more palatable.
I'll answer Dialogos's post when I have more time.
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Dialogos
Well-known member
It would be wrong because of the rest of the context of that quote.
Incidentally, what MacArthur says at the end of that quote is also true.Macarthur said:
Arminianism affirms the doctrine of Total Depravity. They deal with it differently than we Calvinists do but they affirm the truth of the doctrine nonetheless.
Pelagianism (which is a heresy) denies total depravity.
I see that many folks who claim to be Arminian's aren't really arminians at all, they are pelagians.
Desert Reign said:
As far as I can see, she absolutely did.
Now, that really isn't all that big a deal. Most uninformed folks I have spoken to really don't get the doctrine of Total Depravity and most think it means exactly what Angel4Truth thought it means.
There isn't anything shameful in having the wrong impression, but when multiple people make good natured attempts to correct her and she blows them off and insists that she knows what Calvinists believe better than the Calvinists do, then it gets rather ridiculous.
This is A4T's original statement.
I don't see anything here indicating she believes TD means that man is as evil as he can be. The fact that she quotes Matthew 7:11 shows that her belief is that TD teaches that man is incapable of doing any good. Not that man is as evil as possible. Your beliefs are not enhanced by telling her that she is in error when she is not.
And when you say:
Are you referring to people on this forum? I know of only one or two who would affirm to being called Arminian. Who are you talking about, or is that just another of your straw men?
Dialogos
Well-known member
TD doesn't mean that man is incapable of doing any good.Desert Reign said:
TD teaches that there is part of man that sin has not affected.
Matthew 7:11 does not refute TD. It might refute a caricature of TD but I am not responsible for defending caricatures of TD nor is any other Calvinist.
Incidentally A4T has misrepresented what John MaCarthur believes.
John MacArthur does not believe that man is incapable of doing any good. He believes that man is no capable of doing any good toward's God.
For the life of me I can't understand why the both of you insist on misrepresenting the doctrine of total depravity. The only explanation I can come to is that you can't logically or scripturally refute the "actual" doctrine of TD and therefore you must create a perversion of it and then hold Calvinists responsible for that perversion so that you can refute the perversion while pretending to refute us.
You are all free to refute FTD (Fake Total Depravity) all you like.
But it doesn't represent what I believe, or what John MacArthur believes or what the preponderance of Calvinists on the globe believe.
But if it makes you all feel better to joist the windmill and win.
Enjoy yourselves.
:chuckle:
Are you under the impression that what you quoted is the only thing the man has ever stated? I have several books by John MacArthur and he indeed states that man can do nothing but sin, as the meaning of total depravity when he is speaking about election and goes on to state that this is the reason that mankind cannot reach out to God and wont reach out to God.
Nope and if it isnt what he believes, he needs to be more clear, because hes stated it verbatim.
You're avoiding the question. You stated that A4T claimed that TD meant that man was as evil as he could be.
Then you said that A4T was 'in error' because of this. She is not. She never said any such thing. If she is in error about something else then that is another matter. But on this matter, you are wrong. Tarring your opponents with false accusations doesn't help your case whatsoever. End of story.
Exactly, i just said what John MacArthur says it means, and he said total depravity means man can do nothing but sin. I didnt say anything about someone being as evil as they can be.
So let me get this right, there are two kinds of good: good that is 'towards God' and good that is not 'towards God'?
So presumably there must be two kinds of evil as well: evil that is 'towards God' and evil that is not 'towards God'?
A4T was right. The only way you can justify this is if God is totally absent from the world. In that way no one could do any good 'towards God' (whatever that means) because God would not be there.
And then, you can no longer argue that there is something inherent in man that prevents this. The issue is only whether God is present or not. Can't you see how ridiculous this is? There is no difference between the good that is 'towards God' and the good that is not 'towards God'. If there were, good would not be good.
The idea that there is something inherent in man that prevents him from seeking God is very nebulous. We can see that if man is infected by sin then that would lead to him sinning (kind of obvious really...) but how that would prevent him from seeking God remains a mystery. How are you with mysteries?
Let's look at this another way. By the way I assume you made a typo there and meant
This means that sin has affected every part of man.
Now, if you then wish to imply that man can still do good, then you must also agree that being affected by sin and doing good are compatible. Agreed? I'll assume so as this seems very obvious. Sin therefore doesn't seem all that bad to me. It doesn't prevent you from doing good.
Now, this doesn't sound to me much like the 'all your righteousness is as filthy rags' (i.e. the bottom-wiping kind) so often touted by Calvinists. It rather sounds to me that you are suffering from a bad case of special pleading. You need TD to support predestination. That is the only justification for it. Your argument that sin prevents you from doing good 'towards God' but not other forms of good, is special pleading. You simply need an excuse to explain why some people choose to seek God and others don't. The real answer is that there is no reason because that's what choice means.
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Dialogos
Well-known member
Dialogos
Well-known member
Then quote that book, title and page number please.
Dialogos
Well-known member
Of course. Men do good things, humanly speaking, all the time. Heathen give good gifts to their children. Crime bosses put money in the Salvation army plate at Christmas time.
Nah! Of course not! It just separates us from God, offends a our Holy Creator and created a situation wherein God's only Son had to come and die in our place, but on the whole, its not all that bad...Desert Reign said:
Man, this has to be one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever heard anyone make.
Did you really mean that?
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