With A Capital T
'About this time,' Edwards writes, 'began the great noise, in this part of the country, about Arminianism, which seemed to appear with a very threatening aspect upon the interest of religion here.'
It is quite interesting to note that one of the battles Jonathan Edwards' fought most fiercely was on the doctrinal grounds of the nature of man. His discourse, On the Freedom of the Will is his main defense for the biblical doctrine of Total Depravity. While I haven't taken up to reading this great work, God has been opening my eyes as I have approached this question: What does Total Depravity mean for desire, especially when we desire good things?-Iain H. Murray, Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography, pg. 109
My evangelical spiritual upbringing over the past few years has answered this question. In essence, evangelical teaching goes something like this: You're lonely. You desire a friend. Jesus wants to be your best friend. Receive Him as your best friend and you won't be lonely anymore. (I know it's simple, but most of evangelicalism can be summarized by the teaching found on a youth group retreat.) Now, of course, everyone desires friendship; it's not a bad thing. Evangelicalism teaches that Jesus should fill that friend-shaped hole in your heart, just like He should the God-shaped one too. This kind of makes sense, right? I mean, Augustine did say our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him. But the problem is we go about getting what we want, friendship, in the wrong way. Sure, looking for love in all the wrong places. I would agree that we go about getting what we want wrongly, but I would also say that what we want is wrong. Hear me out on this. They wouldn't have called it Total Depravity if our desires were good and we just dropped the ball on how to fulfill them.
John Calvin, the man himself, put it this way: We teach that all human desires are evil, and charge them with sin - not in that they are natural, but because they are inordinate. David Powlison comments on this statement that "the evil in our desires often lies not in what we want but in the fact that we want it too much" (David Powlison, Seeing With New Eyes, pg. 149). Applying this to our lonesome friend we find that his loneliness is lust. His desire for comradery rules him, causing jealousy, control, and hatred towards those who might befriend him. Now, can Jesus fulfill his bottomless lust? And is this the Gospel? No and no. The Gospel is your loneliness is lust, and turn from your sin by being forgiven and freed of it through Jesus Christ, your Savior and Lord. Now some might argue you that I've simplified evangelicalism's gospel too much, but isn't this what you hear? You're depressed, come to Jesus. He'll make you happy. You've had a bad day, come to Jesus. He'll give you comfort. You're poor, come to Jesus. He'll make you rich. You're single, come to Jesus. He'll be your boyfriend. In other words, Jesus will fulfill your natural desires. What you don't hear is you're dead, come to Jesus. He'll make you alive. Or you're an enemy of God, but he'll make you a son. So those who might have being saying to yourselves earlier, "But isn't God our portion forever?" can now see how He is and how He is not.
Here I would like to explain how this was my view for so long. I saw that we all have desires for things here on earth that should be sought in God. For instance, we are greedy for money because God has control of all resources. We fight for control of our lives because God is sovereign over all things. We want to be famous or heroic because God deserves all glory and honor. Essentially, we covet what is God's. So my desire for certain things was good, but that I should seek it in God, not in earthly things. But really this was just taking a natural, sinful desire and trying to redirect and fulfill it in God. This is a deadly approach. Trust me that this is what we try to do. Just take a glance at your prayers and hear James 4:3.
"You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions."Scripture in every place testifies that we are to die to sin, kill sin, and flee from it, not redirect our natural lusts. The second chapter of Calvin's Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life's describes self-denial as "the very excellent key principle" to direct men. Actions verbs like neglect, flee, surrender, discard, forget, die, leave, exclude, banish, and subject are used in the first few pages towards "the self". It is clear that our desires, be they for good things or evil, cannot be simply fulfilled in God. Our lusts must be mortified.
Let God give you a new heart that longs for obedience and the coming of His kingdom. What is the litmus test for this? Loving God makes you an enemy of the world (James 4:4). Do you hate the world? There is no check box for passivity. So what does this look like? Death. Death from lust, or wanting too much. This is Calvin's theology. And Edwards'. And Jesus' teaching. So unless your desires are in accord with God's will and you do them, kill them. This is the doctrine of Total Depravity.
-Stephen Baker (Comment this)