Depravity Compared

Interestingly, the old Calvinist – Arminian question of God’s Sovereignty versus Freedom of Choice is rearing its ugly head again in my life. Not least in this argument is the idea of Total Depravity. I was thinking about that and thought of people I knew of that showed a clear difference in their level of depravity.


So, when looking at the concept of total depravity I thought some of the extreme secular socialists of history like Lenin, Stalin and Mao. When thinking of people who behaved more like Christians but who weren’t I could name a large number who lived around the area that I grew up. Namely, Te Poi, Eastern Waikato in the North Island of New Zealand.

Generally speaking, our neighbors were of the same generation as my parents. Those my parents grew up with and who were brought up in a quasi-Christian environment. Who may have attended Church but in many cases didn’t and who might have been said to have, “Adhered in a form of Godliness but denied the power?” There were definitely genuine Christians among them but certainly not all of them by any means.

Now, looking at the three communist dictators. Lenin was responsible for the deaths of eight to twelve million people and started the Russian Civil War. Numerous others perished subsequent to his establishment of Soviet Union. Lenin and his comrades were obviously brutal dictators. Stalin succeeded Lenin and was responsible for the death of in excess of forty million people Most of those opposed communism and were sent to the gulag (work camps) where they worked as slaves and eventually died of exhaustion. Mao was the Chinese leader who defeated the nationalists in 1949. He then founded the Peoples Republic of China.

Through communist policies he killed as many as eighty million people. He killed intellectual dissidents, put people in labor camps and condoned beating them and stoning them in struggle sessions. His great leap forward campaign in the late 1950’s led to between fifteen and forty-five million people dying of starvation.

These leaders believed in secular humanism and that as there is no God and no morality. They believed the “End always justifies the means.” This ethos holds that. humanity and all of the species on the Earth and in the Galaxy / Universe are developed over millions / billions of years through a process of genetic mutation and a process of competition through predation of the vulnerable and survival of the fittest. Those who hold to this philosophy believe there is no sin, no righteousness and no consequences. Therefore, to kill millions of humans is nothing in the greater scheme of the evolution of species. There is no right and wrong and nothing to stop you doing whatever you want providing you have the power to do so. Might has right. In other words, these men were verifiably Totally Depraved.

By comparison, the people who were contemporaries of my mother and father were exceptionally moral. In the way that you would expect of people who were Christians to be. They were kind, caring, loving and capable of resisting sin themselves while encouraging others to resist sin at the same time.

The time in which they lived was by comparison to today a very safe, peaceful and moral time. Children were brought up to be disciplined, respectful and to care about other people. To be quite honest these people were by no means totally depraved and quite often behaved in a manner that was exemplary and even exceeded the behavior of many Christians in that era of New Zealand in the 1960’s.

Now I know that the first thing many Christian’s would say is that salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ and by God’s grace alone. So, righteous good works are as filthy rags before the Lord. Only the blood of Jesus can wash away our sins and I would agree with them but this is not what I am discussing in this article. What I’m saying here is that there is a discernable difference between the behavior of individuals and that some are definitely more depraved than others.

Therefore, each man’s level of depravity depends on the behavior of the man concerned. Hence, the idea that a person is incapable of choosing to follow Jesus due to total depravity is at the very least a moot point.

So, is it to be total depravity of Calvinism or radical depravity of Arminianism? Are we completely depraved in God’s sight or not completely depraved but actually badly damaged by sin, though still able to choose Christ Jesus by ourselves? Perhaps it doesn’t really matter and one way or another. Perhaps God sees to it that those who would follow him in Christ Jesus find the way whether by his enabling or their choice. Depending on the circumstances Hmmm, sounds a bit like Molinism?