In fact, the primary characteristic of God to a mind which was totally depraved could not be goodness, because He may well be a devil as far as the individual knew it could only be power.ДЄs C.S. And therein lies the problem: if I myself, before regeneration by Christ, lacked the ability to recognize good accurately, then I would be unable to know that God is good and I am not. If that's where it stopped, fine, but those things are supposed to be corrupted totally. Total depravity holds that our reason and sense of right and wrong are corrupted by sin. You look around at the world, or spend any time reading the news or social media, and you nod and go, 'yep, total depravity.' But total depravity is morally and theologically unworkable. Total depravity is one that just feels good to believe. However, since I did spend a few years defending the position, I think it's likely I have a reasonable idea of what it entails. I think I gave a pretty fair summary of the five points of Calvinism, though I'm open to the charge that I didn't represent the position accurately. Perseverance of the Saints: God preserves and enables the elect to remain in Him without the possibility of falling away. Irresistible Grace: The elect can't reject God's grace and salvation. Limited Atonement: Christ died only for the elect. Unconditional Election: God chooses who will be saved, and that choice is solely a result of His will. Total Depravity: All parts of man's nature are corrupted. I'll put the list, then address them individually: (Which is good, because the Institutes is hefty, and I'd rather not try to pull quotes from it.) TULIP: Pretty at First, but its Flower Fades QuicklyДЇirst up, the Calvinist acrostic. Given that Calvin is separate from the -ism, just as Arminius is not to be confused with the brothers Wesley, recourse to the primary sources isn't necessarily required. I'm aware that Calvin's thought was more variegated than that of much modern Calvinism, but Calvin isn't currently a minister or an elder in a church, while Calvinists are. So I'll use this post to explain why I am neither Calvinist nor Arminian with reference to the classical Calvinist TULIP and the much-newer Arminian FACTS. In it, I talk about discovering and rejecting Calvinism, but I don't explain why I find Calvinism untenable. This is somewhat of a companion post to an article I wrote recently on the ERI Blog.

Arminius total depravity