Total Depravity: What Does It Mean That We're 'Dead in Sin'?

Dead men cannot decide. That is not a metaphor. It is the starting point of total depravity in Reformed theology — the T in TULIP — and if you get this wrong, you will get the gospel wrong. You will preach to people as though they are sick when they are dead. You will offer medicine when they need resurrection. You will appeal to a will that is in chains and wonder why no one responds.

Total depravity is not a popular doctrine. It is an essential one. And everything else in Reformed soteriology — unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints — depends on understanding it correctly.

So what does it actually mean?

What Is Total Depravity?

Total depravity does not mean that every person is as wicked as they could possibly be. It does not mean that unbelievers are incapable of kindness, creativity, or civic virtue. It does not mean that the image of God has been obliterated in humanity.

It means something far more devastating.

Total depravity means that every faculty of the human person — mind, will, affections, body — has been corrupted by sin. No part is untouched. No island of righteousness remains where a person might, by their own effort, reach toward God and take hold of salvation.

John Calvin put it plainly in his Institutes of the Christian Religion: “The whole man is overwhelmed — as by a deluge — from head to foot, so that no part is immune from sin and all that proceeds from him is to be imputed to sin.” The word total does not refer to the degree of depravity but to its extent. Sin has not made us as bad as possible. It has reached as far as possible.

R.C. Sproul, in Chosen by God, preferred the term radical corruption to avoid the very misunderstanding that plagues this doctrine. The Latin radix means “root.” Sin has corrupted us at the root — not merely at the surface, not merely in our behavior, but in our nature.

Here is the question that separates Reformed theology from every other system: Is the sinner sick, or is the sinner dead?

Scripture answers that question directly.

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What Does “Dead in Sin” Mean?

Paul does not begin Ephesians 2 with a diagnosis of spiritual illness. He begins with a death certificate.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (Ephesians 2:1–3, ESV)

Notice the language. Not weakened by trespasses. Not hindered by sins. Dead. The Greek word is nekrous — the same word used for a corpse. Paul is not using a metaphor loosely. He is drawing a precise analogy: what physical death does to the body, spiritual death does to the soul.

A dead man does not cooperate with his own resuscitation. He does not reach for the defibrillator. He does not “make a decision” to come back to life. He lies there — inert, unresponsive, unable.

But it gets worse.

Paul does not describe the spiritually dead as merely passive. They are active — in the wrong direction. They walk in trespasses. They follow the prince of the power of the air. They carry out the desires of the body and the mind. They are dead to God and alive to sin. Their wills are not neutral. Their wills are enslaved.

And the phrase “by nature children of wrath” demolishes the idea that this is merely a behavioral problem. The corruption is not just in what we do. It is in what we are. By nature. Not by circumstance. Not by bad parenting. Not by environment. By nature.

This is what the Reformed doctrine of the bondage of the will addresses. The will is not free in the sense that most people imagine. It is free in the sense that it does what it wants — and what it wants, apart from grace, is never God.

The Biblical Evidence

Ephesians 2 is not an isolated text. The doctrine of total depravity runs through Scripture like rebar through concrete. Pull it out and the whole structure collapses.

Consider Paul’s devastating catena in Romans 3:

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10–18, ESV)

Paul is quoting the Old Testament — Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah. He is building a case from the whole counsel of God. And the verdict is unanimous: no one seeks for God. Not “few people seek God.” Not “seeking God is difficult.” No one. The search party is not looking for God. There is no search party.

This is not hyperbole. It is anthropology.

Go back further. Before the flood, God looked at the human race and rendered this judgment:

“The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5, ESV)

Every intention. Only evil. Continually. Three absolute qualifiers stacked on top of each other. God is not describing occasional moral failure. He is describing a nature that produces evil the way a spring produces water — inevitably, continuously, from the source.

Jeremiah confirmed it centuries later:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, ESV)

Above all things. The heart is not one deceiver among many. It is the chief deceiver. And the person it deceives most thoroughly is its owner. This is why the unregenerate person does not perceive their own spiritual death. The dead do not know they are dead.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, drawing on these texts, summarized the condition with surgical precision: “From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions” (WCF 6.4). A.A. Hodge, in his commentary on the Confession, noted that this “total” corruption extends to every faculty — the understanding is darkened, the will is perverted, and the affections are disordered.

Key Insight: Total depravity does not mean we are as bad as we could be. It means we are as helpless as we could be. The problem is not that sinners lack options. The problem is that sinners lack life.

Common Misunderstandings

“Total depravity means people are totally wicked.”

This is the most common distortion. Unbelievers are capable of remarkable acts of kindness, loyalty, courage, and creativity. They build hospitals. They love their children. They compose symphonies. Reformed theology does not deny this. What it denies is that any of these acts constitute righteousness before God.

Theologians call this common grace — the unmerited restraint of sin and bestowal of general blessings that God gives to all people, believer and unbeliever alike. Common grace explains why the world is not as bad as it could be. Total depravity explains why the world cannot save itself.

“Total depravity means the image of God is destroyed.”

No. The image of God in humanity is defaced, not erased. Genesis 9:6 bases the prohibition against murder on the fact that humans still bear God’s image after the Fall. James 3:9 warns against cursing people made in the likeness of God. The image persists — but it is cracked, distorted, and incapable of producing the righteousness that God requires.

“If people are totally depraved, there’s no point in evangelism.”

The opposite is true. Total depravity is the reason evangelism depends on the sovereign power of God rather than the persuasive techniques of the evangelist. We preach the gospel not because people have the inherent ability to respond, but because God has the power to raise the dead. The same God who said “Let there be light” says, through the proclamation of the gospel, “Let there be life.”

John Owen, in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, argued that the efficacy of redemption rests not on the capacity of the sinner but on the purpose of the Redeemer. If salvation depended on the dead choosing life, no one would be saved. That it depends on the living God choosing the dead — that is why anyone is saved at all.

Why This Matters

Total depravity is not an abstract theological category. It reshapes how you understand everything.

It changes how you understand the gospel. If people are merely sick, the gospel is medicine — helpful but optional, effective only if the patient cooperates. If people are dead, the gospel is resurrection power. It does not assist. It creates. It does not improve. It regenerates. This is why Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again — not improved, not educated, not morally reformed, but born from above by the Spirit of God.

It changes how you pray. You stop praying that unbelievers will “make a decision” and start praying that God will raise the dead. You stop praying as though the outcome depends on human willpower and start praying as though it depends on divine power — because it does. Your prayers become less anxious and more urgent at the same time.

It changes how you evangelize. You stop manipulating emotions and start proclaiming truth. You stop engineering “altar calls” designed to produce decisions and start trusting the Holy Spirit to produce new birth. You preach with boldness because the power is not in your eloquence — it is in the word of God, which is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.

It changes how you worship. If you were dead and God made you alive, worship is not an obligation. It is the only sane response. You did not find God. He found you. You did not choose Him. He chose you. You were not drowning and grabbed His hand. You were a corpse and He breathed life into your lungs.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4–5, ESV)

Those two words — But God — are the hinge on which all of eternity swings. We were dead. But God. We were children of wrath. But God. We were enslaved to the passions of our flesh. But God, being rich in mercy, made us alive.

That is grace. Not assistance for the willing. Resurrection for the dead.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does total depravity mean people are as evil as possible?

No. Total depravity means sin has affected every part of the human person — mind, will, emotions, body — not that every person expresses sin to the maximum possible degree. Common grace restrains sin so that unregenerate people are capable of civic good, natural affection, and moral virtue in human terms. But no unregenerate act, however admirable, constitutes saving righteousness before God. The “total” refers to the extent of corruption (every faculty is affected), not the degree (every person is as bad as possible).

Can a totally depraved person do good things?

In a civil and external sense, yes. Unbelievers love their families, build communities, create art, and perform acts of genuine kindness. Reformed theology attributes this to common grace — God’s restraint of sin in the world. However, because these acts are not done from faith, for the glory of God, and in obedience to His revealed will, they do not meet the standard of true righteousness that God requires. As Isaiah wrote, “All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isaiah 64:6). The deeds may be outwardly good. The root is still corrupt.

What is the difference between total depravity and total inability?

Total depravity describes the condition: sin has corrupted every part of human nature. Total inability describes the consequence: fallen humans are unable, by their own power, to repent, believe, or turn to God for salvation. Total inability flows from total depravity. Because every faculty is corrupted, the person cannot generate saving faith from within themselves. As Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44). The will is not merely weakened. It is enslaved. Regeneration — the sovereign, monergistic work of the Holy Spirit — must precede faith.