Sunday, November 03, 2019

Depravity

Calvin or Arminius both believed in "total depravity. (I've been reading church history ( *) --the topic has come up from time to time, and still turns out to be a live issue.) I think I get the hang of it, but I would say things rather differently.

All humans have partly corrupted wills, so that just about everything we do is from mixed motives. We sell land and give the proceeds to the church, but hold something back. If we persist in trying to do right, and hold our evil passions in check, we will become better--though only relatively so. We ought to applaud those who try for virtue, even though we know they can't perfectly succeed, as inspirations to each other. God will be the final judge, and none of our tainted righteousness is of any value before Him. There may be a lot of good drink in our punchbowl, but there's still a turd floating in it--even if it's just a little one.

When faced with our shortcomings, we can try harder (albeit never perfectly), or double down on evil (again, not perfectly). If we were simple creatures, our striving to be better would bring us closer and closer to perfection -- exponentially close -- but never quite there. We're not simple creatures; we have "islands" of greater or lesser self-awareness and obedience, and we have active enemies (world and the devil, as well as the flesh). So more realistically, we'd never get close. We need God's grace.

Given the opportunity to accept grace, we can accept (with caveats we never mention to ourselves). To those who have a little obedience, more opportunity for obedience will be given. Those who have not lose what they have as they turn farther and farther away. Given those unmentioned caveats we(**) use, it doesn't seem that we hang onto grace by our own good will alone.


(*) There is a lot of it. I'm digging in a little more before calling my chapter done.

(**) Me and those I've had opportunity to observe closely enough. I extrapolate from there.

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