[Mankind is unable to make the slightest move towards Christ in his fallen condition without God first taking the loving and redemptive initiative.]
What is the ground and 'nature' (extent) of 'fallen condition'...???
?.....partial or total.....depravity?
See, thats where Wesley gets into trouble. Nothing wrong with "Mankind is unable to make the slightest move towards Christ" where the trouble begins is with the word "first". "First" implies a "second", and when a "second" is in man's hands then what you are getting back to is the doctrine of a helpless God who pines away hoping and wishing that man would do something right.
All of this wishful thinking that man somehow is the ultimate authority, still is a anthropocentric religion that makes man sovereign in matters of salvation. I just don't know by what calculus man feels that he can substitute for God in the claim "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end." How man can distort and pervert "election" into "acknowledgement" for that ultimately is what is done even with the magical Tunnel O' Time device, is that "God's election" is really "God's acknowledgement" and that is alien to Scripture.
What is the ground and 'nature' (extent) of 'fallen condition' ...partial or total.....depravity?
I have been asked this too many times not to see the trap. The classical rebuttal to the "T" in "TULIP" has been to demagogue a strawman argument "total" means that man is as evil as he can possibly be. I have seen pages and pages of rants and ravings on how this can't be so. Let me head that fallacy off at the pass. "total depravity" means that there is nothing in man that acknowledge or love God. Man is not sick, he is not merely knocked out, nor dizzy; Man is not on life-support, or is in need or crutches. Man is dead. As in dead, dead. As in there is no pulse, there hasn't been a pulse, and man is three days in the tomb, rotting and sticking from decay dead. Man can't grab the rescue line; man can't feebly reach out his hand; man can't even open the medicine bottle. All of those analogies that the Pelagians have offered fail to recognize that the Bible says that man's spiritual condition is dead. So when someone says "partial" I am thinking that man has the ability to some measure or another.
When I think "total depravity", then I open to the pages of Scripture and see that "No man seeks God". "Man is in enmity with God". "They hated me First", "All man's righteousness is as filthy rags", "No one does good", "Man is enslaved to sin", "Man is dead". That is total depravity.
When I think partial depravity", I open the pages of Arminian/Pelagian/Neo-evangelical/Free-Will commentaries and feel-good books (because it is not found in Scripture) and see that man "needs to be enabled first", or "man just needs a light to follow", or "they just need to feel the love of Jesus", or some other thing that conveys the idea that man just needs a kick in the pants, and then he will straigten up and fly right.
So in that light, call me a believer in Total Depravity
Amen!
What is the ground and 'nature' (extent) of 'fallen condition'...??? ?.....partial or total.....depravity?
It is 'total' in the sense that man is helpless to do anything for his own salvation.
Man can still however, say no to God's free gift,(Rom.6:23,Jn.3:16) which is why man is condemned, for saying 'no' to God (Jn.14:6, Rom.1:20-21 2Cor.4:4, 1Jn.5:10)