In this series of posts, I am interacting with Dr. Max Barnett’s little booklet titled “The Truth About Calvinism”. In this second post, I will tackle his second chapter titled “Total Depravity”.
On page 7, Max says this:
I agree with total depravity, but not as the Calvinist does.
He then cites Laurance Vance’s book “The Other Side of Calvinism” which says:
When a Calvinist says Total Depravity, what he means is Total Inability which has nothing to do with Total Depravity at all, but is rather the supposed result of it
Vance is correct about how “Calvinists” understand the term Total Depravity as it relates to salvation: Man is totally incapable of responding in faith to the call to believe unless he is first regenerated by the Holy Spirit. This idea is what Max attempts to debunk in his short chapter.
He says of Total Inability:
I believe that is completely unbiblical. The Bible teaches that faith precedes regeneration and salvation (p. 8)
Oddly, Max fails to cite any scripture that directly teaches his claim. He goes on immediately to say:
Calvinists believe that being dead in sin means they cannot do anything by way of responding to God. Certainly a man would not turn to Christ in faith unless he was convicted by the Holy Spirit. The conviction of the Holy Spirit enables a person to be free to choose to believe but does not determine he will believe. Jesus said this to His disciples,
But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment (John 16:7, 8)
Notice the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin and the world does not mean the elect.
When a person is exposed to the gospel and is convicted by the Holy Spirt, by God’s enabling grace, he can do something that can affect his eternal destiny. When a person is convicted of his sin he sees himself as he is, a sinner. He, sees Christ for who He is, the Son of God and the One who can save him from his sins. That person can then make a decision, if he will, to trust Christ to save him. Certainly in salvation God does the work, but it is a gift that has to be received by faith. (p. 8)
I cite Max at length because he does not actually deal with Total Inability in this chapter. The reason for this is that he cannot actually draw hard lines against it without contradicting the clear teachings of the Bible on this topic. The proof is in his own words:
Certainly a man would not turn to Christ in faith unless he was convicted by the Holy Spirit.
The conviction of the Holy Spirit enables a person to be free to choose to believe but does not determine he will believe.
When a person is exposed to the gospel and is convicted by the Holy Spirit, by God’s enabling grace, he can do something that can affect his eternal destiny.
Certainly in salvation God does the work, but it is a gift that has to be received by faith.
(As an aside to that last quote, he is assuming what he has yet to prove with a single verse from the Bible that “faith precedes regeneration and salvation”.)
Max has not proven that man is totally unable to respond to the gospel unless God first changes his heart. As seen above, his argument cannot help BUT prove that God MUST act first, before man has any chance at all at salvation.
The total inability of mankind cannot be escaped from without flying right in the face of the Bible. Max knows this given his extensive time spent in Scripture as well as his 2 graduate level degrees in ministry.
Here is what the Bible does say about the condition and ability of man:
Then the LORD saw that the evil of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually - Genesis 6:5
Can the Ethiopian change his skin; Or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good; Who are accustomed to doing evil. - Jeremiah 13:2
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 worthless; There is none who does good, there is not even one. Their throat is an open tomb, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths. and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” - Romans 3:10-18
Jesus answered them, “Truly truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin” - John 8:34
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false witness, slanders. - Matthew 15:19
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so - Romans 8:6-7
Do you not know that when you go on presenting yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were given over, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then having from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit, leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 6:16-23
Fallen man is evil. He is evil all the way through. He is so evil that the Bible calls him a slave to sin. Slaves have no “free will”. They have no ability to do anything other than what their master tells them to do. We are taught that we were purchased by God. Redeemed; “Bought with a price”.
Apart from being bought by God, becoming HIS SLAVE, we are not able to choose God. The testimony of the Bible is quite clear that man, on his own, is not able to come to God. God MUST intervene on behalf of the individual.
This idea of libertarian “free will” that has infected the church is foreign to the teaching of Scripture. Man is only “free” to do what his master tells him to do. Either his master is sin (Romans 6:14) or it is Christ. In order for man to obey Christ, to trust Him fully for his salvation, his heart must first be changed from stone to flesh.
But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, and his praise is not from men, but from God. - Romans 2:29
Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, Truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” - John 3:3
Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again. Man has no ability to control when he is born the first time, why then should it be expected or understood that he gets a say in his second birth?
And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates hates the Light, and does not come to the Light lest his deeds be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been done by God - John 3:19-21
Men love darkness. They only come into the light if they do good but what it shows is that those good deeds are done by God!!
But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were held in custody under the Law, being shut up for the coming of faith to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor unto Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. - Galatians 3:22-25
Paul is clear that faith is something that comes from outside the man.
And the Lord’s slave must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may give them repentance leading to the full knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will - 2 Timothy 2:24-26
Paul is clear again that God must be the one who grants repentance. Earlier Max cited John 16:7-8 as evidence that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin. Indeed He does! But conviction and repentance are two different things entirely. Unsaved men all the time feel conviction of their sin. They all have a conscious. The Holy Spirit does indeed convict the world of sin, but what does sinful man do? Well as Paul says in Romans 1:18-19:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
Max claims at the end of this chapter:
God commands us to repent and He would not do that if we were totally incapable. (p. 9)
This is a ridiculous argument. God commanding man to do something he is totally incapable of is the reason why Christ had to come and die and rise again.
God commands us to “Be holy for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44, 1 Peter 1:16). Are we able to obey this command on our own?
Could we obey the Law perfectly on our own?
For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh - Romans 8:3
Is there any work of righteousness which we are able to perform perfectly?
The best of them is like a briar, the most upright like a thorn hedge - Micah 7:4a
For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are life a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, carry us away - Isaiah 64:6
The answer to all of these questions is no, no, no. None of these things we are able to do and yet God commands them of us. In like fashion, He also commands us to repent and believe and we are not able to do even that unless our heart of stone is first turned to a heart of flesh, unless we are first born again, unless we are first brought from death to life.
This doctrine is the lynchpin to “Calvinism”. Everyone and their mother wants to go after Unconditional Election/Predestination or Limited Atonement so that if somehow they just “debunk” those two “unbiblical teachings” then those nasty “Calvinists” will just disappear like mist. But they will continue to fail over and over again because the Bible’s clear teaching on the sinfulness and resultant inability of mankind stands stalwart against all such attacks.
Max fails in this chapter to offer any Biblical argument whatsoever against the total inability of man. The faulty foundation will prove detrimental for the remainder of his arguments as he works through the rest of the doctrines.
He is not alone in this. It is the same reason why so many other have tried and failed. It will be and is the same reason why college/university students, seminaries, pastors, and laymen are coming and will come to adopt these doctrines of grace as the consistent and revealed teaching of the Bible.
“God will not be mocked” - Galatians 6:7