XX.    MORAL DEPRAVITY - Part 1

A     The word depravity is derived from the Latin ‘de’ and ‘pravus’.  Pravus means ‘crooked.’  De is intensive.  Depravatus literally means ‘very crooked,’ not in the sense of an original or constitutional crookedness, but in the sense of having become crooked.  This word does not imply an original mal‑conformation, but a conformation that has lapsed, fallen, departed from right or straight.  It always implies a deterioration or a fall from a former state of moral or physical perfection.  

B     Depravity always implies a departure from a state of original integrity, or from conforming to the original laws of his existence.  Thus, we should not consider any one who remains in a state of confor­mity to the original laws of his existence, physical and moral, as being depraved.  But we justly call anyone who has departed from conforming to those laws, whether those laws are physical or moral, depraved.

C    What is the difference between physical and moral depravity?  

1     Physical depravity is a constitutional depravity as opposed to a depravity of free moral action.  It may reside in our body or in our mind.  We usually call the physical depravity that resides in our body, disease.  It consists in a physical departure from the laws of health, a lapsed, or fallen state in which organic health is not maintained.  When physical depravity affects our mind, then the powers of our mind can become diseased, lapsed, or fallen so that our thoughts and perhaps our behavior becomes adversely affected.  

2     Because physical depravity is a depravity of substance rather than a depravity of the actions of free will, it can have no moral character.  Physical depravity may be caused by moral depravity; and we may be guilty of having rendered ourselves physically depraved, either in body or mind.  But physical depravity, whether it is of our body or of mind, can have no moral character all by itself because it is involuntary, and, by nature, it is disease, and not sin.  Please remember this.

3     Moral depravity is the depravity of free will, not of the faculty of free will itself but its free action.  Moral depravity consists in violating moral law.  Depravity of our will, if it resides in our mind, would be a physical and not a moral depravity.  That would be a depravity of substance and not a depravity of free, responsible choice.  Moral depravity is a depravity of choice.  It is choosing in opposition to moral law or moral right.  It is the same thing as sin or sinfulness.  It is moral depravity because it consists in violating moral law, and because it has moral character.

D    What can physical depravity affect?

1     Physical depravity can affect any organic substance.  That is, any organic substance can become depraved.  Depravity is a possible state of every organic body or substance in existence.

2     Physical depravity can affect our mind because our mind is organic.  Since our mind manifests itself through our body, it is obvious that if our body becomes diseased, or physically depraved, our body must affect our mind because our mind acts through our body.  In such situations, we cannot reasonably expect normal manifestations of our mind. 
     Physical depravity may affect any or all of the involuntary states of our mind and emotions.  That is, our mind may become disordered, depraved, deranged, or our mind may fall from a healthy state.  Every one knows this through daily experience and observation.  Whether physical depravity must always be the result of a depraved state of the brain and nervous system, it is impossible for us to know.  In some situations, it may be a depravity of the mind itself.  

3     Sadly, physical depravity can also affect our emotions.  This is commonly experi­enced.  Our appetites and passions, our desires and cravings, our aversions and feelings fall into great disorder and anarchy.  We generate many artificial appetites, and our emotions become a wilderness, a chaos of conflicting and clamorous desires and passions.  That this emotional state is often the result of the state of our nervous system; there can be little doubt.  But whether this is always and necessarily true no one can tell.  We know that physical depravity can greatly affect our emotional state.  Whether this depravity belongs exclusively to our body, or to our mind, or to both, I cannot say.  Our human body is certainly in a state of physical depravity.  Our human mind also certainly manifests physical depravity.  But observe, physical depravity never has any moral character, because physical depravity is involuntary.

E     What can moral depravity affect? 

1     Certainly moral depravity cannot affect substances, because moral law does not directly legislate over involuntary substances. 

2     Moral depravity cannot affect involuntary acts or involuntary states of our mind.  These surely cannot be violations of moral law for moral law only legislates directly over free, intelligent choices.

3     Moral depravity cannot affect unintelligent acts of our will, that is, things that we willfully choose to do while we are mentally insane, deranged, or even sleeping.  Moral depravity requires moral obligation; moral obligation requires a moral agent; and a moral agent requires knowledge of moral relationships.  A moral agent is one who knows moral law.  He has within him the idea of duty and knowledge of what that duty is.

4     Moral depravity can only be the result of willfully and constantly violating the moral law.  Moral law requires love, and only love, to God and man, or to God and the universe.  This love, as we have seen, is goodwill.  This love is choosing the highest good of God, and of the universe. 
     Moral depravity is sin.  Sin is a violation of moral law.  We have seen that sin must consist in choosing self‑indulgence or self‑gratification as your goal in life.  

5     Moral depravity cannot consist in any attribute of our nature or constitution, nor in any lapsed and fallen state of nature; for this is physical and not moral depravity. 

6     It cannot consist in anything that is an original and essential part of our mind, or body; nor can it consist in any involuntary action or state of our mind or body. 

7     Moral depravity cannot consist in anything that causes a choice.  Whatever lies behind a choice is outside the light of legislation.  The law of God requires good willing only; and only acts of our will can constitute a violation of moral law.  Physical actions, and involuntary thoughts and feelings, may be said in a certain sense, to possess moral character simply because they are produced by our will.  But, strictly speaking, moral character belongs only to our choice, or intention.                                                    

8     Sin cannot consist in malevolence, properly speaking, or in choosing sin or misery as an end, or for its own sake.  It was shown, that all sin consists in selfishness, or in choosing self‑gratification as a final goal.  Strictly speaking, moral depravity can only be the result of a selfish ultimate intention.         

9     Moral depravity does not consist in a sinful nature, in the sense that the substance of the human soul is sinful.  Moral depravity is not a constitutional sinfulness.  It is not any kind of involuntary sinfulness.  Moral depravity consists in selfishness, in a continuous state of voluntarily committing our will to self‑gratification.  It is a spirit of self‑seeking, a voluntary and complete consecration to gratifying self.  Moral depravity is a selfish ultimate intention; it is choosing the wrong goal in life.  This is moral depravity, because it is violating moral law.  It refuses to consecrate our whole being to the highest good of God and the universe.  It refuses to obey God’s moral law, and it consecrat­es our lives to gratifying self.  This selfish intention makes efforts to secure its goal, and these efforts make up the selfish man’s lifestyle.  Moral depravity is sinful, not naturally sinful, but voluntarily sinful.  It is the will sinfully committed to self‑indulgence.  It is not a sinful nature; it is a sinful heart.  It is a sinful ultimate aim or intention.  The Greek term ‘amartia’, rendered sin in our English Bible, means ‘to miss the mark, to aim at the wrong end’.  Sin is a wrong aim; it is a wrong intention.  It is aiming at, or intending self‑gratification as our ultimate and supreme purpose in life, instead of aiming at what the moral law requires which is the highest good of everything that exists in the universe, as our purpose in life.  

F     The human race, both physically and morally, is depraved.

1     There are very few, if any people today, who are in perfect health.  Physically, our whole human race is impaired, and such things as injuries, disease, drugs, and alcohol have greatly contrib­uted to numerous health problems in spite of tremendous medical advances.  This is also illustrated by how short human life is in third world nations.  This is a physiological fact.

2     Since our human mind depends on our body to do everything, and since our body is always in some state of physical depravity or sick, it follows that,  in order to do anything, we must depend on our physically depraved bodies to produce physically depraved manifestations.  This is especially true of human emotions.  Our appetites, passions, and tendencies are in a very unhealthy state of development.  This is too obvious to need any proof.  Every person, who has thought about this, has noticed that the human mind is greatly out of balance because of the abnormal development of our emotions.  Mankind constantly indulges in their appetites, passions, and tendencies, and their intelligence and consciences have been seared by selfish­ness.  Please remember that selfishness consists in a gratifying one’s tendencies, desires, and feelings.  This must produce the unhealthy and abnormal developments which we see daily: Sometimes one ruling passion or appetite will take over a person’s mind, or will, and over all their other appetites and passions, crushing and sacrificing all of them on the altar of their own gratification.  See that bloated wretch, the drunk!  His appetite for strong drink has ruined his life.  His whole mind and body, reputation, family, friends, health, time, eternity, all, all are laid, by him, upon its filthy altar.  There is the pervert, the glutton, the gambler, the miser, and a host of others, each in his turn giving striking proof of the physical depravity of the human soul.

3     That men are morally depraved is one of the most notorious facts of human experience, observa­tion, and history.  Most people know that moral depravity consists in selfishness.  The Bible everywhere declares and assumes that the human race is morally depraved, and so universal is the fact of human selfishness, that should any one call it into question, he would be considered crazy.  There is not one fact in the world more common and undeniable than this.  Human moral depravity is as obvious as human existence.  It is a fact everywhere assumed in all governments, in all societies, and it has impressed its image, and written its name, on everything human. 
     After one reaches the age of reason, but before regeneration, the moral depravity of the human race is universal even though it is possible for the Spirit of God to enlighten ones mind in order to secure his conformity to moral law from his first moral act.  This may or may not have been true in the lives of such people as Enoch, Job, and John the Baptist.  But, my purpose in these lectures is not to argue whether or not this is a possibility or a fact.

G    Except for those possible situations, every moral agent of our race is, from the time he reaches the age of reason to the moment he is reborn by the Holy Spirit, morally depraved.  The Bible presents proof of it:

1     First, in those passages that represents unregenerate humanity as possessing one common wicked heart or character.  The word ‘unregenerate’ means not renewed in heart; remaining or being at enmity with God.  “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  (Gen. 6:5)  “This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: that one thing happens to all.  Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.”  (Eccl. 9:3)  “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”  (Jer. 17:9)  “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.”  (Romans 8:7)   

2     Secondly, in those passages that declares the universal need for regeneration.  “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”  (John 3:3)

3     Finally, in those passages that affirm the universal moral depravity of all the unregenerate moral agents of our race.  “What then?  Are we better than they?  Not at all.  For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that, they are all under sin.  As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.  They have all gone out of the way; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.’  ‘Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit’;  ‘the poison of asps is under their lips’;  ‘whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.’  ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known.’  ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’  Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and the entire world may become guilty before God.  Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”  (Romans 3:9‑20) 

4     History proves that moral depravity is universal.  What is this world’s history but the shameless chronicle of human wickedness?

5     Observation verifies it.  Who ever saw one unsaved human being who was not selfish?  Who ever saw one unsaved human being who did not obey his feelings rather than reason and common sense, who was not, in some way, living to please self?  Such an unregenerate human being has never been seen since the fall of Adam.

6     I can also appeal to the universal consciousness of the unsaved.  They know that they are selfish.  They know that they are aiming to please themselves, and they cannot honestly deny it.

H    The moral depravity of unsaved moral agents is total. 

1     The moral depravity of the unregenerate is not a mixture of virtue and vice.  As long as they remain unregenerate, they never, in any instance, nor in any degree, exercise true love to God and to man.  I am not saying that they don’t do many deeds, and have many feelings, that are just like the deeds that are performed and experienced by those who have been born again; deeds that those who place virtue in one’s outward actions view as virtuous.  But, virtue does not consist either in our involuntary feelings or in our outward actions, but only in the entire consecra­tion of our heart and life to God and the good of others.  No unsaved sinner before regeneration is or can be, for one moment, in a virtuous state. 

2     When we clearly see that virtue consists in our heart’s entire, which is our consecration to God and the good of others, we must see that the unregenerate are not for one moment in this state.  It is amazing, that some philosophers and theologians maintain that the unregenerate sometimes do virtuous things.  But in order to make this kind of statement, they assume a false philosophy, and overlook the fact that in which all virtue consists in our supreme ultimate intention.  They speak of virtuous actions and of virtuous feelings as if virtue consisted in outward actions only, and not in our intention.

3     Henry P. Tappan, for example, for the most part an able, truthful, and beautiful writer affirms that one may willfully perform deeds that are inconsistent with, and contrary to his present choice of an end, and that as a result, unsaved sinners, whom he admits live to serve self, sometimes perform virtuous acts.  But, let us examine this subject.  We have seen that every choice and every willful act must be either an end or a means to that end, in other words, everything that we will or choose, we will or choose for some reason.  To deny this, is essentially saying that whatever we will or choose, we choose because our ultimate reason for that choice and what we choose are com­pletely different.  This makes no sense.  Our will cannot embrace at the same time, two opposite ends; and that while we choose one end, our will cannot decide to secure some other end which we have not chosen.  In other words, it is absurd to say that our will, while maintaining choosing one end, can use the means to accomplish another opposite end.      

     When we choose one goal, that choice confines all the acts of our will to acts that accomplish that goal, and for the time being, and until we choose another goal and relinquish the first one, our will cannot put forth any conscious decisions that are inconsistent with our present goal.  Therefore, it follows that as long as sinners are selfish, or unregenerate, it is impossible for them to put forth holy conscious decisions.  They must first change their hearts, or their choice of their goal in life, before they can engage their will to secure anything other than a selfish end.  And this is the philosophy of the Bible that uniformly represents the unregenerate as totally depraved, and calls on them to repent, to make themselves a new heart.  The Bible never admits that they can do anything good or acceptable to God while exercising a wicked or selfish heart.