Total Depravity

Christians sometimes use the phrase "total depravity" in descriptions of various parts of their worldviews.  But what one person means by it may differ extraordinarily from what another means by it.  Whether or not the phrase itself accurately describes humanity depends greatly on the intended meaning of the phrase.

In calling humanity totally depraved, a Christian is hopefully not meaning to convey the idea that each person is as evil as they could be.  It is impossible for me to even imagine what maximum sinfulness in human lives would look like, as if I envision any scenario in my mind I can always imagine a worse scenario.  Neither the Bible nor observation of everyday life even come close to teaching me that humans are as depraved as they can possibly be.  I can, for instance, think of multiple sins the Bible calls capital crimes that are not happening around me at this moment although I am in a building with others as I write this.  I can think of many sins I am neither committing in mind or in actuality.  It is clear that people are not maximumly sinful.

Total depravity, in and of itself, simply means that every aspect of human nature has been infected by sin in some way.  This is highly different from saying that all aspects of human nature are constantly being used in the most sinful way possible.  Agreeing with this meaning of the phrase is to acknowledge that the human mind, will, emotions, and desires can be misused, and nothing more.

Just because something has the capacity to be misused does not mean that it is incapable of being used rightly.  No one needs to be a Christian to do things that Christianity calls good.  No one even needs to believe in such a thing as right or wrong to by happenstance perform actions that are objectively right.  The human intellect may have been affected by sin so that it can ignore reason (as many do), but reason itself it no less infallibly reliable and humans are not incapable of disciplining themselves to use it correctly.  The human will may have been affected by sin so that it can voluntarily deviate from God, but volition itself can still be reoriented back to God.

If someone means by total depravity that everyone is as evil as possible by Biblical standards, he or she has leapt into an abyss of irrationality; if someone means by total depravity that every individual aspect of humanity--such as the mind, will, and emotions--have been tainted by sin, meaning that they have the capacity for misuse, then he or she is Biblically correct.  I hope people remember, though, that it does not follow from total depravity that humans cannot be or become reasonable or righteous.  It merely follows that they can abuse every aspect of their natures and that one can be quite lost without God indeed.