There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
(Rom 3:11; cf. vv. 19, 23)
This text
is often cited as evidence of the doctrine of “Total Depravity,” the “T” of the
Calvinistic “TULIP.” However, what is often overlooked in a lot of “proof-texting”
by various groups from the New Testament is the use of the Old Testament in
such texts. In this case, Paul is using Psa 14.
The
unrighteous in Psa 14 (Psa 13, LXX) become
corrupted (Heb: אלח LXX:
αχρειοω) due to their inactions and disbelief (v. 4). Indeed, in vv.4-6, there
is a contrast between the unrighteous who do not respond to God’s grace, and a
righteous remnant of people, a segment of the population who do respond to God:
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? Who eat
up my people as they eat bread and call not upon the Lord. There were they in
the great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous. Ye have shamed
the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge.
Only by
accusing the apostle Paul of the grossest form of eisegesis can one absolutise
Rom 3:11ff as “proof” of Total Depravity and/or many of the popular
formulations of “original sin.”
Furthermore,
it should be noted that Paul is speaing of those “under the law [of Moses]”
wherein one transgression resulted in condemnation (cf. Jas 2:10) not under the
“law of liberty” brought about by Christ (Jas 2:12).
