As I understand "total depravity", and I may well be wrong, it's simply an assertion that no aspect or faculty of the human is free of taint. Consequently, even if we choose the right thing, our choosing will be at best imperfect. Where it gets dicey in is thinking about Reason.
And, yes, Hell on earth is kind of what's at stake here. Best case, without God's salvific intervention there is a kind of prolepsis not only of grace but of damnation. AND that's in Dante, so it MUST be true.
And as to Free Will, I think it's helpful to return to the phenomena once in a while and to realize that the notion is not a slam dunk. I simply cannot think that Luther and Calvin are, uh, totally depraved -- or significantly more depraved than I am, if left to my own devices. So I don't see Calvin is obviously perverted in his account of things. Maybe wrong, but not setting out to do evil.
My metaphor FWIW for understanding grace and the will is this: (I think I shared this with FK once.):
Your sadistic geometry prof has assigned you a difficult original. You spend hours on it. Every line you take on it fails. You are sick and tired. Then the answer comes to you.
And isn't that how we say it? It "came to me", as though it were not a result of our efforts but a gift from outside. In fact, I think all important truths (because they are True by virtue of the Truth Himself, Jesus Christ) "come to us".
Now when the answer comes we do not say,"Well, okay, I have the answer here. I can choose it or I can choose to go back to digesting my stomach lining. Hmm, what to do, what to do ...."
There is no question of choice. We embrace the answer and try to understand it and to work it out and live with it because our chance of choosing between this futile effort and that equally futile effort is swallowed up in the freedom of the truth.
Once I know the best way to New York, I don't think, "Gee I'll try and see if I can get there by going south." And we don't experience the loss of choice about how to get to New York as a loss of Freedom, but as the gaining of Freedom.
I don't think this is an exhaustive metaphor. It doesn't deal with every aspect of life in Christ -- and we still all have to ponder how it is that anyone, having tasted that Truth and Love, could look up from the fire on a chilly morning and say,"I do not know the man." But there's enough here to remind us, when we jump all over our Calvinist brethren for their detestable enormities and abominable heresies, that the question is deeper than we can deal with in a few angry or contemptuous words.
Yes, yes: I know I'm bad tempered and self-righteous.
Regarding the doctrine of total depravity
I will be sending you freepmail soon.
LoL..
Yes, that's not bad at all. I also agree with the following explanation by Arthur C. Custance, a 20th century author. He was a "science isn't inconsistent with faith" guy, and I believe he was Anglican:
"Total Depravity is not intended to signify that unregenerate man is wholly evil in everything he does, but rather that nothing he does is ever wholly good. In so far as motive determines the moral character and spiritual significance of an act, every deed has something of sinfulness about it because man's will is fatally corrupted by his fallen nature. Not all motives are equally sinful, but no motive is wholly pure. Hence, from a moral and spiritual point of view, human activity is always poisoned as to its motive, to a greater or lesser extent. This fundamental impurity of motive is the reason for saying that man is totally depraved. This depravity is reflected in man's entire impotence towards any spiritual good; in this respect unregenerate man is not merely sick but dead. Consequently the salvation of man is altogether a work of God, initiated and carried through by Him without the help of man, man being able neither effectively to resist nor to assist the elective purposes of God directed towards his salvation."
This appears to be at least consistent with what we actually see in the real world, since we know that lost people DO things that are normally considered "good".
And as to Free Will, I think it's helpful to return to the phenomena once in a while and to realize that the notion is not a slam dunk. I simply cannot think that Luther and Calvin are, uh, totally depraved -- or significantly more depraved than I am, if left to my own devices. So I don't see Calvin is obviously perverted in his account of things. Maybe wrong, but not setting out to do evil.
Right, and we remember that total depravity only applies to unregenerate man. After regeneration, we still suffer from a remnant of the old man, but it is no longer total depravity.
There is no question of choice. We embrace the answer and try to understand it and to work it out and live with it because our chance of choosing between this futile effort and that equally futile effort is swallowed up in the freedom of the truth.
Yes, that's an excellent way to look at it. I agree.