Mike Downey: Total depravity is not teaching that God made a bunch of junk or that because we sin God is only junk to deal with now. He says recovering a doctrine of sin leads to the recovery and emphasis on the good news of response. Downey: From your tradition, Justin Bishop Fitzsimmons-Allison has this great line where he's thinking primarily of liberal version of Pelagianism which is a happy, cheerful view of human beings. But you see why it's there fully here in Genesis 3.Downey: Showing the good intention behind this over correction.
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.