Your Depravity Is Showing

There is a common misunderstanding among those that don't agree with the "Calvinists" understanding of "Total Depravity". They believe that we mean "absolute depravity", meaning we are as evil and depraved as we could be. That is not the Reformed position when it comes to Total Depravity. The Reformed position would be better understood as being "dead" or thoroughly infected.

Canons of Dort Head of Doctrine 3, articles 2 & 3 summarize it perfectly

Article 2: The Spread of Corruption
Man brought forth children of the same nature as himself after the fall. That is to say, being corrupt he brought forth corrupt children. The corruption spread, by God’s just judgment, from Adam to all his descendants—except for Christ alone—not by way of imitation (as in former times the Pelagians would have it) but by way of the propagation of his perverted nature.

Article 3: Total Inability
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 distorted nature, or even to dispose themselves to such reform.

What the Reformation Fathers were trying to get at is that sin completely and totally infects our entire human nature and being. There is no part of our being that is left untainted by it. The common analogy is, if I would give you a glass of water and told you there was a very small amount of poison in it, would you still drink it? Of course not, because you know that the poison, while dilute, fills the entire contents of the glass. While it may be possible that you wouldn't consume enough of the poison to kill you, you can't know for sure.

Article 3 talks about the result of that infection. Ephesians 2:1-3 tells us that infections results in death. Death is the utter inability to do anything. If you see a dead body floating in the water and you throw it a life preserver, will it be able to do anything? Of course not! As it pertains to our salvation, we are utterly unable to do anything to satisfy God's requirements. That is the Reformed position.

Now you may be saying, "But I'm not a bad person...I haven't killed anybody." It's always interesting that people jump to extremes when faced with this. God doesn't demand that you are "not a bad person", but that you are a perfect person. You have to consider who/what God is...a perfect holy pure being. If anything gets too close to the sun it burns up. There are some substances that can sustain some closer contact with the sun, but too close or too long and it WILL burn. God is the same way. The Scripture calls God an "all-consuming fire"...any sin in His presence WILL burn and be utterly destroyed.

Since our person is utterly infected with sin, there is no possible way we can come before God with our own righteousness and works and hope to live.