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is there such thing as total depravity in the Bible???


6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
Gen 4:6-7

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Hear, O Israel: The Lord our G-d, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

While I'm completely uncertain as to your choice of Scripture text for the discussion of the doctrine you are asking about I would actually refer you to the excellent brief article on "Total Depravity" by Pastor John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church found HERE. In summary, his four points are as follows:

(1) Our rebellion against God is total. Apart from the grace of God there is no delight in the holiness of God, and there is no glad submission to the sovereign authority of God.
(2) In his total rebellion everything man does is sin.
(3) Man's inability to submit to God and do good is total.
(4) Our rebellion is totally deserving of eternal punishment.

One must always bear in mind that "total depravity" DOES NOT mean that people are as bad as they possibly could be. No. They are still restrained by the grace of God and certainly do more evil than they are currently doing, but they are not capable of saving themselves by any means and all of mankind's 'goodness' is nothing but unrighteousness before a Holy and Just God. I hope that this clarifies a bit...though I have some question as to whether you are looking for a conversation or a dispute (given the nature of your several other recently started threads...let's just see if you can allow this to be the former and not the latter ). Blessings.

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ooh man , i chose hard one for my self

Gen. 6:5
Ecclesiastes 7:20
Jeremiah 5:1
Jeremiah. 13:23
Jeremiah. 17:9
Ezek. 22:30–31
Isaiah 53:6


Ezekiel 18:31

and

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
Romans 7:14–21

i need to think abt it

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Hear, O Israel: The Lord our G-d, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

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The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.

lol i think "roman catholic" church since 1500s after reformation doesnt believe in original sin and possibly rejects total depravity as i know

i think this defines it!

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Hear, O Israel: The Lord our G-d, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

i guess it depends how one views the fall of Adam!! and how far ?? consciousness??

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Hear, O Israel: The Lord our G-d, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

i like this explanation

When we observe people, what do we see—good or evil?
After having observed the experiment called humanity for ten generations, God concluded: “… the devisings of man’s mind are evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). People are, by nature, wicked. To punish them for being true to their inclinations seemed both unfair and futile, so God swore not to destroy humankind again by means of a catastrophic flood.
After having observed eight human beings hiding from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic for two years, Anne Frank concluded:
It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. (diary entry, July 15, 1944)
Who was right—God or Anne? God understood the human heart only too well. It wasn’t necessary for God to “ever again destroy every living being …”; humankind in the twentieth century proved quite capable of doing the job, murdering tens of millions in the most horrible of ways.
But Anne wasn’t just a naïve fifteen-year-old when she wrote her startlingly optimistic words. She knew very well what human beings were capable of in the world outside her hiding place. But she also knew that human beings were risking torture and death every day trying to keep her and seven others alive in a hidden room, behind an upstairs bookcase.
So who was right … God or Anne Frank? In typical Rabbinic fashion, the Midrash responds: They’re both right. There is within every human being the possibility of evil, and there is within every human being the possibility of righteousness. The heart, if left uncontrolled, will create much wickedness. But the heart can be controlled, and if it is, much goodness will result.
What is most fascinating is that the difference between righteousness and evil, between a person who is a צַדִּיק/tzaddik, and a person who is a רָשָׁע/rasha, is minute. The Rabbis point this out by focusing on a minor grammatical point. The single Hebrew letter בּ/bet, attached as a prefix to the Hebrew word for “heart,” signals a human being who has been grabbed and taken over by another entity, another power.
Conversely, the Hebrew prepositions אֶל/el and עַל/al, made up of just two Hebrew letters each, are separate words, not prefixes; they remain independent of the “heart.” They remind us that when people stand on their own and remain apart from negative influences, they can control their own destinies. A difference of one single letter, set one step apart, changes everything. The Rabbis took note of these small choices of grammatical usage. And they taught us that the same rules apply to the realm of morality. It’s the small choices we make in life that determine whether the heart controls us or whether we control the heart … whether we become like those who hunted down the innocent, or become like those who hid them.

Katz, Michael ; Schwartz, Gershon: Searching for Meaning in Midrash: Lessons for Everyday Living. Philadelphia, PA : The Jewish Publication Society, 2002, S. 46

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Hear, O Israel: The Lord our G-d, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

ill post question abt what is original sin?????!!!!!

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Hear, O Israel: The Lord our G-d, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

good pt

& neither is "Trinity" -- so your pt is irrelevant

this thread seems to have moved to the orininal sin 1 but i thought the above 2 pts merited comment

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The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.

DB, outside of the grace of God, can man perform meritorious works? If not, why not?

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Στηθι εδραιος, ως ακμων τυπτομενος. - Ignatius |II Timothy 4:2| All Scripture is NKJV, unless a translation from the Greek text or otherwise noted.
M.A. Theological Studies (New Testament), Faith Seminary, Tacoma WA
Member, Evangelical Theological Society, North American Patristics Society.
Assistant Editor and contributing author of several published and forthcoming publications.

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The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.

Great DB then you ought to easily answer the question rather than causing all to go to some obscure documents. Now, will you?

BTW I hold easily to the Westminster Confession in regards to Total Depravity.
Blessings,
Randy

DB -- w/o trying to "pile on" nor divert the thread,...is there a cool verse that describes what is a mortal sin vs. a venial? -- i never understood this distinction as the Word States if you sin, you die (Rom. 6:23) -- there's no distinction made as far as i can see -- plus, "venial" isn't found in any English version of the Bible

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The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.