As most of you probably know, I do not consider myself an "evangelical Christian". Nor am I, like the vast majority of protestants in my area, once-saved-always-saved.

I have been reading some great articles on Calvinism, and one of the things that I found interesting was the point that is called "Point One: Total Depravity". At first—and this was confirmed by reading many pages—I thought that Calvinism and Arminianism basically had the same view on this one point. But they don't.

One great way to accurately sum up the Calvinist view on Total Depravity is this:

The Calvinist view of the human condition is one of complete and utter depravity. They do not deny that man sometimes does things that are good. However, his fallen condition makes it utterly impossible for him to live righteously. He inevitably gives in to his fallen nature inherited from Adam. Because of this, he is utterly incapable of producing what is necessary for salvation — faith. Man's apparent free will is guided by his passions, which are corrupt. Yes, he is free to choose. But, he does not have the capacity to choose what is good because the pressure from his fallen nature overpowers his reasoning abilities. Therefore, if man is to be saved, God must do everything necessary, including giving him the faith to believe, regenerating his nature so that he can believe.

From a lot of the Arminian websites I've read, many of them agree with basically everything save the last parts where men are not able to believe on their own. That is where, I believe, Calvinism and Arminianism truly clash: who has the faith? Men having faith in God or God placing faith in man?

But to stick to the point, one of the things brought to my attention was the question what kind of "death" did Adam bring to all mankind: spiritual or physical. The answer will have a big impact on the question of total depravity. Before I would have easily assumed "spiritual", because sin seems more spiritual than physical. But the argument that Arminianists hold is that only physical death came through Adam, thus tainting our flesh, and thus our spirits—which start out innocent—are constantly at war with our flesh. As time goes on, we either overcome via Jesus or we allow our hearts to become hardened and our souls to become dark as well.

Anyway, I thought that was interesting!