Doctrine of total inability/total depravity or do we have a free will.

[hobie]

Lets see if everyone can check and see if I got the doctrine outlined correctly, then we can look at the issues it raises.... The doctrine of total depravity (or total inability) says that all men, as a consequence of the Fall, are born morally corrupt, enslaved to sin, at enmity with God, and unable to please Him or even of themselves to turn to Christ for salvation. Thus God must elect us to salvation, basically we are predestined to be saved or lost before we are born and thus have no true free will. This has always bothered me and I have always taken Calvinism with a grain of salt or have this feeling that Calvin never got a complete picture but it had to wait till Arminius came and drew a fuller picture of the cause of the wretchedness of sinners as taught in Scripture. Arminius writes:

'In the state of Primitive Innocence, man had a mind endued with a clear understanding of heavenly light and truth concerning God, and his works and will, as far as was sufficient for the salvation of man and the glory of God; he had a heart imbued with "righteousness and true holiness," and with a true and saving love of good; and powers abundantly qualified or furnished perfectly to fulfill the law which God had imposed on him. This admits easily of proof from the description of the image of God, after which man is said to have been created (Gen. 1:26-27), from the law divinely imposed on him, which had a promise and a threat appended to it (Gen 2:17), and lastly from the analogous restoration of the same image in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 4:24; Col. 3:10).

But man was not so confirmed in this state of innocence as to be incapable of being moved by the representation presented to him of some good (whether it was of an inferior kind and relating to this [natural] life, or of a superior kind and relating to spiritual life), inordinately and unlawfully to look upon it and to desire it, and of his own spontaneous as well as free motion, and through a preposterous desire for that good, to decline from the obedience which had been prescribed to him. Nay, having turned away from the light of his own mind and his Chief Good, which is God, or, at least, having turned towards that Chief Good not in the manner in which he ought to have done, and besides having turned in mind and heart towards an inferior good, he transgressed the command given to him for life. By this foul deed, he precipitated himself from that noble and elevated condition into a state of the deepest infelicity, which is under the Dominion of Sin. . . .

In this state, the Free Will of man towards the True Good is not only wounded, maimed, infirm, bent, and weakened; but it is also imprisoned, destroyed, and lost: And its powers are not only debilitated and useless unless they be assisted by grace, but it has no powers whatever except such as are excited by Divine grace." Twenty-Five Public Disputations: Disputation XI. On the Free Will of Man and its Powers," in The Works of Arminius, trans. James Nichols (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1986), 2:191-92.

Both Arminius and Calvin believed in the total depravity of all human beings as maintained in Scripture. And both Arminius and Calvin believed in the total inability of all human beings to do anything towards salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. The major difference between the two concerning their doctrine of depravity is in the solution of God in overcoming the effects of the fall. For Calvin, an unconditionally elect person must first be infused with faith in Christ Jesus in order to be justified and regenerated.

For Arminius, a person must be graced by the Spirit of God in the overcoming of the depraved nature so that the person may be freed to believe in Christ Jesus. If such is accomplished and not resisted, then the person is justified and regenerated. But sinners must be enabled by the Spirit of God because they are totally and utterly depraved, captured and enslaved by sin, and completely undone.

 

[Josiah]

Arminius denied total depravity, he held we save ourselves by choosing Jesus.
Calvin (and every Christian before him) hold to total depravity; Jesus saves us.

"Free will" in the Arminian sense is unbiblical.

 

[hobie]

Now we see that scripture says man is depraved as all has sinned and come short of God's glory. All are sinners and are spiritually separated from God.

Genesis 8:21
And the LORD smelled a sweet savor; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth ; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

Psalms 51:5
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Romans 5:12
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Romans 5:19
For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners

Ephesians 2:1
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins

Romans 3:12
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable ; there is none that doeth good, no, not one .

Romans 3:23
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God ;

However, the 'Total Depravity', of calvinism concludes that man's will becomes corrupted and thus non-functional and that man's will exists but it does not work so that we can choose God. Calvin in my opinion went too far and basically drew a picture of man with no free will, all his abilities for good taken from him to the point that man just sits and waits for his execution or salvation with no input.

Concerning the sinful state in which humanity exists, Calvin writes:

'Therefore, since through man's fault a curse has extended above and below, over all the regions of the world, there is nothing unreasonable in it extending to all his offspring. After the heavenly image in man was effaced, he not only was himself punished by a withdrawal of the ornaments in which he had been arrayed, i.e., wisdom, virtue, justice, truth, and holiness, and by the substitution in their place of those dire pests, blindness, impotence, vanity, impurity, and unrighteousness, but he involved his posterity also, and plunged them in the same wretchedness.'

It just strikes me as wrong, as man from the beginning had free will, that was the whole reason man was able to sin. If anything it was not God that takes it away, but Satan who enslaves man, as evil grabs man in its grip and takes away his free will.

 

[Particular]

It just strikes me as wrong, as man from the beginning had free will, that was the whole reason man was able to sin. If anything it was not God that takes it away, but Satan who enslaves man, as evil grabs man in its grip and takes away his free will.

I disagree with your final assumption.

The whole reason man was able to sin is because God allowed the rebellion. We are never given the direct reason why God allowed it, but he did.
We see that in allowing man to sin, God had designed a plan to redeem those he chose to redeem.
God also allowed Satan to rebel. But with Satan and the fallen angels God shows no grace. Their judgment is sure.
Neither Satan nor man could have rebelled had God not allowed it. Had God determined, all his creation would still remain in perfection to this day, but God determined to allow sin. Again, God never thinks it is necessary to tell us his plan for sin to enter his creation. He simply tells us his plan for reconciliation of rebellious man.