If mankind believed that their fellow men were totally depraved, it would destroy all confidence between man and man. Who would trust a fellow that he believed was by nature “wholly inclined to all evil?” Who would employ such a physician, lawyer or clerk? Who would trust such a banker, or commission merchant? Who would ride on a railroad, or sail in a vessel, that he believed was run by such wretches? If men really believed in total depravity, they would tremble with fear by day and by night. They would shun each other as they shun a deadly serpent. And if that dogma is true, there would be no virtue, truth, purity in the world, but crime of every name and grade would reign supreme. God would not be known, and a devil would be universally worshiped.
And then what wonderful transformations, according to the creeds, have sin and grace wrought in human nature. God created man perfect in holiness and righteousness. Human nature was then all divine; not a spot nor a blemish in it. Every faculty of the mind was in perfect harmony with every other faculty. Angelic harmony reigned in the soul. But the devil in the shape of an ugly serpent, in one moment, ruined the best, the most perfect of God’s works, and for the creation of which he had exercised his greatest skill. And how easy it was effected. One temptation was presented and the work was done. Why, even some of those who are said to be totally depraved, and fire-brands of hell, often resist temptation. But mother Eve, holy and divine as she was, succumbed at the first attack, and soon caused her heroic husband to do likewise. This one sin transformed Adam and Eve into devils, and caused all their progeny down through a thousand generations to be born devils, “vessels of wrath,” “fire-brands of hell,” and “wholly inclined to all evil.” Their nature became entirely changed—changed from angelic purity to total depravity. According to this theory, sin is far more potent than grace. One sin committed by one person, ruined countless millions—unborn countless millions of mankind; but the grace of God in one soul sanctifies only that one soul, and perhaps not that one permanently; he may fall from grace. One sin ruined the world, but all the power, wisdom, and grace of heaven will fail to redeem it.
And then by doing so and so, it is said another change is wrought in our nature—we are restored to the divine likeness, to the purity and holiness Adam enjoyed before his fall. This theory of the change of man’s nature from purity to depravity, and from depravity to purity, is all a fiction. If the nature of man can change from the divine to the infernal, why not change from a man to a horse? The truth is, the nature of nothing changes from God down to the worm. Every mineral, plant and animal has received a definite nature, and never changes one iota. So with men, their nature is unchangeable—soul and body then are the same yesterday, to-day and forever. The body may be diseased to-day, but by proper means it may be restored to health, but its nature is not changed. So the mind, the soul, may be disordered, and by moral means may be restored to a healthy condition, but its nature is not changed. I am aware that several passages of Scripture are adduced to sustain this terrible theology of innate total depravity, and I will briefly show that they refer to nothing of the kind.
1. “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Psalm. li. 5. There is nothing here about total depravity, or about our nature being “wholly inclined to all evil.” All inherit tendencies to evil and to good, for mankind are imperfect. We inherit these tendencies, not from Adam, but from our immediate parents. Such biases are constitutional, not down deep in man’s nature. Besides, we are not to understand these words strictly literal. David uttered them in a season of great debasement. They are hyperbolical like the following: “I am poured out like water; and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.” “And my bones are consumed.” “All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee.” “I am a worm and not man.” All this is to be understood figuratively.
2. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing? Not one.” Job xiv. 4. Of course, the moral character of many is unclean, but what does that prove about their nature? It does not intimate that any one is born unclean.
3. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thought of his heart was only evil continually.” Gen. vi. 5. This simply means that the antediluvians were a very wicked people; not that they were born totally depraved, for in the 12th verse it is said, that “all flesh had corrupted his way,” which it could not have done if the Creator had made “all flesh” totally corrupt at its birth. They were corrupt by practice, not by nature.
4. “The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jer. xvii. 9. The prophet is speaking of the sin of Judah. In the first verse he says, “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond; it is graven upon the table of their hearts, and upon the horns of your altars.” It was not the sin of Adam entailed upon them, it was their own sin, the sin of Judah. They had corrupted their hearts, had departed from virtue’s ways, and had become “desperately wicked.” We see nothing here about being created totally depraved.
5. “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there are none that doeth good, no, not one.” Rom. ii. 12. This passage clearly proves that men, in the days of St. Paul, had corrupted themselves, not that they were born totally corrupt. They had “gone out of the way,” not born “out of the way.” They had “become unprofitable,” not born “unprofitable.” “Their throat is an open sepulcher, their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet is swift to shed blood.” Verses 12, 14, 15. Is this true of infants? We know it is not. He is not speaking then of man’s condition by nature but by practice. In the preceding chapter the apostle says, “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which shows the works of the law written in their hearts.” Wicked as men were in those days, “deceitful” as were their hearts, and “desperately wicked,” the law of God was written in their hearts, and they often did by nature, proving that their nature was not totally depraved, “the things contained in the law.”
These are the principle passages that the advocates of total depravity cite to sustain their theory; but it is evident they fall far short of proving any thing of the kind. They prove, what all know to be true, that mankind have voluntarily corrupted themselves—some more and some less. None are perfect, none are totally depraved, and there are all grades and degrees, from the best man to the worst man. And as we corrupt ourselves, we can reform ourselves. Corruption and purity, right and wrong, evil and good, life and death, salvation and damnation, heaven and hell, are set before us, and we have the ability to turn from the wrong and lay hold on the good. But the terrible theory, that we inherit by nature, corruption, evil, death, damnation, and hell, from Adam, that they permeate our very nature, corrupt the very springs of our life, constituting us “fire-brands of hell,” and that nothing but a miracle by Almighty God can purify us, and save us from endless burnings, I reject as utterly false and monstrous.
“There’s the marble, there’s the chisel;