If it's utter depravity instead of total depravity, no one can actually be considered guilty for anything. If you have your scum as the starting point, God tolerates you at best. And so we lose out on our identity with God when we do the utter depravity thing. We were created to be a particular way and we have rebelled against that willfully. Our will and our mind and our intellect and our intentions are now in rebellion against God. That's what we need saving from.
Many churches preach that your biggest problem is that you’re not living your best life now. Rather than calling people to repentance, they call them to “try harder, do better” so that they can be fulfilled, healthy, and happy. Reformed theology provides a doctrine to help counter this wrong diagnosis of our true problem: total depravity. But sometimes, this doctrine sounds much more like “utter depravity,” leaving nothing good or redeemable about humanity. In this episode of White Horse Inn, hosts Michael Horton, Justin Holcomb, and Bob Hiller consider how we hold total depravity in tension with the goodness of humanity.