[Music] Genesis 3:6 says so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took of its fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate from this we got what's called Original Sin which is the deprivation of God's friendship when we are born and a damage human nature I wanted to start this miniseries in my channel on predestination and I thought there's no better
way to start than on total depravity total depravity is usually a title that comes from the acronym of tulip which is basically a summary of Reform predestination uh it was the fin of descendant of dor in response to the Armenians in the 17th century total depravity usually has very bad or negative connotation in Catholic circles but there's no need for that and I hope that this video shows so the senat of dor in chapter 3 and 4 article 3 actually name it total inability they say therefore all people are conceived in sin and are born
children of Wrath unfit for any saving good inclined to Evil Dead in their sins and slaves to sin without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit they are neither willing nor able to return to God to reform their disordered nature or even to dispose themselves to such reform Article 4 says there is to be sure a certain light of nature remaining in all people after the fall by virtue of which they retain some Notions about God natural things and the difference between what is moral and immoral later on it says but this light of nature
is far from enabling humans to come to a saving knowledge of God and conversion to him what this is basically saying is that after the fall Grace is absolutely necessary if man ever wishes to return to God and be saved but what would a Catholic think about this I thought that as Catholics we still believed in free will after the fall well actually the reformed don't deny this either in total depravity Free Will is absolutely still present however it is unable to choose Supernatural good in other words Man's Free Will is not enough to save
himself the Council of Trent in session 6 Canon 5 said that since Adam's sin the Free Will of man is lost and extinguished or that it is a thing with only a name let him be anathema hence we must be careful if a reformed or Protestant Theologian mean that Free Will is absolutely destroyed then we are just puppets then that must be rejected but most serious reformed Scholars and theologians don't actually mean this and we actually agree with them on Free Will in other words we agree that Free Will cannot save man and must be
aided and guided by Grace scripture talks about this very clearly Romans 3 9-12 says for we have already charged that all both Jews and Greeks are under sin as it is written none is righteous no not one no one understands no one seeks for God all have turned aside together they have become worthless no one does good not even one it's also written in John 6:44 no man can come to me except the father who hath sent me draw him St Thomas aquinus says that if a man could prepare himself he would not need to
be drawn by another hence man cannot prepare himself without the help of Grace it's important to note that one should never think that man by his own free will first comes to God and then only after God AIDS him with Grace this would be the heresy of semipelagianism which says that man does not need Grace to come to God but to be saved then God gives him Grace St Thomas of quin's response to this by saying man's turning to God Is by Free Will although he doesn't mean by Free Will alone and thus man is
bidden to turn himself to God but free will can only be turned to God when God turn turns it according to Jeremiah 31:18 which says convert me and I shall be converted for thou art the Lord my God and Lamentations 5:21 convert US O Lord to thee and we shall be converted St Augustine also says that quote without Grace men do nothing good when they either think or wish or love or act end quote he further says whoever denies that we ought to say the prayer lead us not into temptation and they deny it who
who maintain that the help of God's grace is not necessary to man for salvation but that the gift of the law is enough for the human will ought without doubt to be removed beyond all hearing and to be anathematized by the tongues of all the second Senate of orange in 529 which was approved by Pope bonface II 2 years later says in Canon 18 no merits precede Grace rewards are due for good works if they are performed but Grace which is not owed proceeds so that they will be performed can 20 says that a man
can do no good without God God does much that is good in a man that the man does not do but a man does nothing good for which God is not responsible so as to let him do it the Council of Trent decree of justification Canon 3 condemned that quote without the predisposing inspiration of the Holy Ghost and without his help man can believe hope love or be repentant as he ought so that the grace of justification may be bestowed upon Him end quote so the Council of Trent condemned that view in the catechism in
1998 it says that this vocation to eternal life is Supernatural it depends entirely on God's gratuitous Initiative for he alone can reveal and give himself it surpasses the power of human intellect and will as that of every other creature basically you need Grace so yes we agree with Protestants we agree with the reformed on total depravity that after the fall man needs Grace to be saved but I want to point out a very important part of our theology differences Catholic theology has taught and teaches that even before the fall of Adam man still needed Grace
to be saved and enter into eternal life St Augustine says that quote as soon as they disobeyed the Divine command and forfeited divine grace they were ashamed of their nakedness for they felt the impulse of disobedience in the flesh as though it were a punishment corresponding to their own Disobedience end quote so they forfeited their Grace the Council of orange in Canon 19 also says no one is saved without God's mercy human nature even had it remained in the Integrity in which it was created could by no means have saved itself without the assistance of
its creator thus since without God's grace it could not retain the Salvation it had received without God's grace how would it be able to gain the Salvation it has lost but the problem is that in reformed theology when you talk about the Covenant of works the Covenant of Works in reformed theology is that man had he not fallen in the garden would have attained eternal life if he would have met or performed basically the Commandments the law and this is all without Grace So reform theology formally teaches that man without grace before the fall could
achieve eternal life and this is basically plagi ISM because it's basically saying that man by nature is able to achieve beatitude and eternal beatitude by himself without Grace uh for example the reform Theologian Lewis buroff says in Systematic Theology man was by Nature endowed with that original righteousness which is the crowning glory of the image of God so while we agree with the reformed we agree with Protestants that after the fall we are totally depraved we are totally unable to come to God to save ourselves by our free will we have free will but that
Free Will can only perform natural good such as you know build a society uh and it can perform evil of course our Free Will does not perform Supernatural Goods any salitary any salvific acts we need Grace and we agree with the reform we agree with on that but we disagree actually and this isn't really part of total depravity but I just want to make an important point we actually disagree on Grace because Catholic theology teaches that even before the fall man still needed the assistance of its Divine Creator to reach eternal beatitude [Music]
