Tearing Down Strongholds.

By Nathaniel Adam King @ www.protestantpub.com (Used by permission)

The following was written by Adam, who goes by Sofyst at the above web site, as a defense of the doctrine of Total Depravity. The arguments were posted at another site. Adam wrote to show the truth of what Calvinist believe.

Why you should not be a Calvinist

Reason # 1 - They misconstrue the doctrine of depravity

Calvinism teaches a doctrine that they call "total depravity." ...

The biblical doctrine of depravity means that in our natural state we are thoroughly corrupt in every compartment of our being: we are corrupt in our thoughts, corrupt in our affections, corrupt in our actions, corrupt in our bodies - in everything. As a result of this corruption of sin we are born alienated from God. We are spiritually dead at birth and there is nothing we can do to help ourselves.

Depravity is the result of Adam's sin and its corrupt effect on the human race. TD is the reason that God must provide our salvation, for we cannot provide it ourselves.

But the Calvinist has something more in mind than the biblical doctrine of depravity. When a Calvinist speaks of TD he is really means something he imagines results from depravity - total inability.

According to TD humans cannot repent or believe the gospel. It's not that they won't or don't; it's that they can't. The Calvinist doctrine of TD insists that people are so marred by the fall that they are totally unable to choose good or to believe God's Word. We have only the ability to choose evil. Even if the gospel is presented to us in clear and persuasive terms, we cannot believe!

The Calvinist says this is because he has the mistaken notion that believing is some kind of action, a work. He is also desperately afraid that people who are free to believe or not in some way threatens the sovereignty of God.

 It is refreshing, to say the least, that the author here recognizes the clearly Biblical idea of depravity; disappointing that he ignores the other blatantly taught Scriptural idea of inability, but we can't all be perfect.

 For the Scripture is quite clear of man's inability apart from the life-giving power of the Spirit. What in the world would the ideas of 'dead' and 'life' mean if they do not mean that we were once 'dead', i.e. not alive, not able to act, in our sins but now made 'alive', able to act, able to worship God, by the power of the Spirit? I really cannot conceive of what these ideas represent if not dead = inability, live = ability.

 I guess we could ignore the Scripture: "For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God." Romans 8:7-8. But to do so would leave us in an awkward position of reading 'the mind set on the flesh cannot submit to God's law' not as 'the mind set on the flesh cannot submit to God's law', but as something else that agrees with the fallacious idea of man being able to submit to God apart from God first enabling.

 Men have the ability to do good

Unfortunately for the Calvinist, there is plenty of biblical evidence that the unregenerate man does have the ability to do good things. This doesn't mean that he can earn his salvation! But he can do good things.

• "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children…" Proverbs 13:22

• "But glory, honor, and peace to every man who works good…" Romans 2:10

• "Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good…" 1 Peter 2:18

• "And if you do good to them that do good to you, what is your thanks? Even sinners do this!" Luke 6:33

Here the author misrepresents (hopefully not on purpose) the Calvinistic teaching. Of course men can do 'good' apart from being saved. Mother Theresa was a good woman. But her 'goodness', in the scope of all that matters, is crap.

 All that really matters in life is not the feeding of the poor or the giving food to the hungry, but the 'good' thing of obeying God. God will not consider your 'good' deeds toward the hungry when your life is at stake, but rather whether there is the good deed of submitting to God within your life. And as we have seen above, the natural man cannot submit to God. In other words, for the simple, the natural man cannot do that good thing that matters most.

Clouding the issue and pointing out Mother Theresa like actions by the pagans and the unregenerate does not help the conversation along. We are not concerned with whether the unsaved can sacrifice a few extra dollars to the hungry man on the road. What we are concerned with is whether the unsaved man can submit to God's law. Which Paul says he cannot. Therefore, the Calvinist recognizes that the unsaved man, being unable to submit to God's law, cannot do what is really 'good'.

Men have the ability to seek God

The Bible tells us to seek God. Unless this is mocking us with something we are unable to do, it must be within our abilities!

• "Seek the Lord while he may be found…" Isaiah 55:6

• "Seek me, and you shall live." Amos 5:4

• "Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth…" Zephaniah 2:3

I am not saying that seeking God is the same is believing. It is not. But these verses fly in the face of the way that Calvinists frame TD. Men do have the ability to do good, and they do have the ability to seek after God. What they don't do, according to the biblical formulation of TD, is to save themselves!

I will not go into the argument of how ridiculous it is to claim that command necessitates ability. Well I will briefly. To simply argue the point all one need do is point to Jesus' words of 'be perfect as the Father is perfect'. Either we posit the idea that we can in reality be as perfect as the Father, or we recognize that it is occasionally commanded someone to do something not because they can, but so that they will try.

Men can believe in God

If the Calvinist's formulation of TD is true, then men cannot believe. Yet there are plenty of verses in the Bible which, taken at face value, suggest that men can believe! In order to fit these verses into the Calvinist frame work, these verses must be interpreted theologically rather than exegetically.

• "And you would not come to me, that you might have life." John 5:40

• "Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles, that they might be saved…" 1 Thessalonians 2:16

• "Then comes the devil, and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved." Luke 8:12

These and other verses do not mean that under any given circumstances men will always believe. But they show that faith is possible with any given individual. And if faith is a possibility within the man, the Calvinist's formulation of TD falls.

The 'Calvinist's formulation of TD' does not state that men cannot believe, but rather that they cannot believe apart from God. The examples given by the author do in no way prove that men can, of their own ability believe. They merely state that these people considered could believe. Whether or not they were given the ability by God is a different issue all together.

It is as if we see a man buying a new car, and automatically assume he did so with his own money. It could very well be that he only bought the car because a friend gave him the money. The same is true with belief. Simply looking at people who do believe or who can believe does not answer the question of whether they were first enabled to believe by God. To assume that they were not enabled to believe by God before they did believe is presumptuous.

The Calvinist does not teach that men cannot believe, but that without God belief is impossible as it is a gift from God.

2Ti 2:25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,