Hoarding & Total Depravity

Maple Ridge and the Fraser River

March 21, 2020

John Calvin explains in the Bondage and Liberation of the Will that purity is spoiled by a tiny blemish and implies that sin is included in every good work (in this present realm). Calvin (1543)(1996: 27).

For me, the recent and present local hoarding at many major grocery stores, and other stores with basic supplies, throughout Maple Ridge and elsewhere on the planet related to the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrates the theological concepts of human total depravity and taint in very practical terms.

This hoarding shows the depraved, tainted, nature of certain persons. While acknowledging that hoarding often flows from love and concern for self and family; this hoarding demonstrates human selfishness and a lack of love for fellow residents and citizens and a lack of concern for the material needs of others.

This type of hoarding, at least, is a sign of total depravity, but as not all people hoard. It is not a universal sin.

Is hoarding something always a sin? Is hoarding cats a sin? Well, I will opine that the human hoarding taking place in stores is significantly tainted by sin.

But universal sin does theologically exist according to the New Testament:

Romans, for example, presents that all human beings are sinful and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3: 23) and this leads to death in the temporal realm, but there is eternal (technically everlasting) life available through Jesus Christ (Romans 6: 23). In other words, human beings, in spirit and body, can be eventually, post-mortem, purged of total depravity and taint through resurrection (1 Corinthians 15, Revelation 20-22) by having the atoning and resurrection work of Jesus Christ, God the Son, applied to them.

MPhil 2003

2003 The Problem of Evil: Anglican and Baptist Perspectives: MPhil thesis, Bangor University

Edited from my MPhil thesis

Total Depravity

I would think since humanity is totally depraved that no true human, perfect good is possible. If true goodness is found in perfection, as is God, then we cannot obtain that good.

Even as Christians that attempt to perform the will of God with the help of the Holy Spirit, would there not be just a little taint of sin in all our actions? It is my view that human good is likely an absence of a complete maximization of our total depravity. I, for example, may appear to be humanly good compared to a serial murderer; however, that is because the murderer has been found out as someone who has committed heinous crimes.

C.C. Ryrie

The concept of total depravity does not mean (1) that depraved people cannot or do not perform actions that are good in either man’s or God’s sight. But no such action can gain favor with God for salvation. Neither does it mean (2) that fallen man has no conscience which judges between good and evil for him. But that conscience has been effected by the fall so that it cannot be a safe and reliable guide. Neither does it mean (3) that people indulge in every form of sin or in any sin to the greatest extent possible. Positively total depravity means that the corruption has extended to all aspects of man’s nature, to his being: and total depravity means that because of that corruption there is nothing man can do to merit saving favour with God. Ryrie (1996: 312).

I appreciate Ryrie's reasonable theology and explanation. I opine that God can see human good, but that it is not perfect human good.

CALVIN, JOHN (1543)(1996) The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, Translated by G.I. Davies, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House.

RYRIE, C.C. (1996) Total Depravity, in Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Books.