Total Depravity (Total Inability)

Total Depravity is clear in scripture. When we speak of humans as "totally depraved," we are saying that man is as lost as he can be, and as bad as he can be. Not in actions but in nature.. The effect of the fall upon man is that sin has extended to every part of his personality -- his thinking, his emotions, and his will. Sin has extended to his entire being.

The unregenerate (unsaved) man is dead in his sins (Romans 5:12). Without the power of the Holy Spirit, the natural man is blind and deaf to the message of the gospel (Mark 4:11f). This is why Total Depravity has also been called "Total Inability." The man without a knowledge of God will never come to this knowledge without God's making him alive through Christ (Ephesians 2:1-5).

(Genesis 2:17) "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

(Genesis 6:5) "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

(Job 14:4) "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one."

(Psalms 51:5) "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."

(Psalms 58:3) "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies."

(Proverbs 30:12) "There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness."

(Isaiah 1:2-8) "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. {3} The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. {4} Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. {5} Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. {6} From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. {7} Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. {8} And the daughter of Zion is justify as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city."

(Isaiah 40:6-8) "The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: {7} The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. {8} The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."

(Isaiah 64:6) "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."

(Jeremiah 13:23) "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil."

(Jeremiah 17:9) "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

(Matthew 11:25) "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."

(John 3:3) "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

(John 3:19) "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."

(John 8:19) "Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also."

(John 14:16) "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;"

(Romans 3:10-12) "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: {11} There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. {12} They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one."

(Romans 5:12) "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:"

(1 Corinthians 1:18) "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God."

(1 Corinthians 2:14) "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

(2 Corinthians 1:9) "But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:"

(Ephesians 2:1-3) "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins: {2} Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: {3} Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others."

(Ephesians 2:12) "That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world"