All of us have become
like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we
all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. (Isa
64:6, NIV)
Isa 64:6 is a common “proof-text” by Protestants, especially those who
are of the Reformed/Calvinistic persuasion, to teach the doctrine of Total
Depravity (or as R.C. Sproul preferred calling it, “Radical Depravity”), as
well as that good works, even those empowered by God’s grace, cannot be meritorious.
I have addressed this proof-texts and other likes it many times, including my
article:
and
Alphonsus Liguori, a Catholic priest, saint, doctor, and founder of the
Redemptorists, wrote the following against the Protestant Reformers and their
appeal to this verse, one that shows the utter nonsense that results from absolutizing
it in the way that they and modern Protestants are wont do to:
They object from the
words of Isaias. “All our justices are as the rag of a menstruous woman.”
(lxiv. 6.) I answer that there the Prophet spoke not of the works of the just,
but of the iniquities of the Jews, in punishment of which they were all to fall
into the hands of the king of Babylon. This is the exposition which St. Cyril
gives of the preceding text. But that the works of the just are good is clear
from the words of Jesus Christ: “Let your light shine before men, that they may
see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (Mat. v. 16.)
Hence St. Peter has written: “Wherefore brethren, labour the more, that by good
works you may make sure your calling and election.” (2 Peter i. 10.) If all
works were sins the very exercise of faith itself by means of which alone the
adversaries say, man is justified, would be sinful; it would also be a sin to
ask pardon, or to say forgive us our trespasses;
yet man would even be justified by sin itself when by means of that petition
(which because it would be an act of fallen man, should be criminal,) he would
obtain the pardon of his sins. What intolerable absurdities. (Alphonsus
Liguori, An Exposition and Defence of All
the Points of Faith Discussed and Defined By the Sacred Council of Trent; Along
with a Refutation of the Errors of the Pretended Reformers and of the Objections
of Fra Paolo Sarpi [Dublin: James Duffy, 1846], 108)