Examples of Total Depravity in Personal and Public Life

Sources

1. Romans “being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers, -- Romans 1:29”
2. Galatians “Galatians 5:19 (BSB) — The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery;”
3. Jeremiah “Jeremiah 10:8 (Rotherham) — But at once, do they become brutish and stupid,—An example of utmost vanity, is, a tree!”
4. Ecclesiastes “Ecclesiastes 7:15 (NASB) — I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness.”
5. CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, section 50: certain facts of experience. Second Argument from the Entire Sinfulness of Men. This universal depravity of men is no slight evil. The whole human race, by their apostasy from God, are totally depraved. By total depravity, is not meant that all men are equally wicked; nor that any man is as thoroughly corrupt as it is possible for a man to be; nor that men are destitute of all moral virtues. The Scriptures recognize the fact, which experience abundantly confirms, that men, to a greater or less degree, are honest in dealings, kind in their”
6. Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP, 26.--THAT THE DEMONS GAVE IN SECRET CERTAIN OBSCURE INSTRUCTIONS IN MORALS, WHILE IN PUBLIC THEIR OWN SOLEMNITIES INCULCATED ALL WICKEDNESS. (part 1): Seeing that this is so,--seeing that the filthy and cruel deeds, the disgraceful and criminal actions of the gods, whether real or reigned, were at their own request published, and were consecrated, and dedicated in their honor as sacred and stated solemnities; seeing they vowed vengeance on those who refused to exhibit them to the eyes of all, that they might be proposed as deeds ”
7. Proverbs (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Proverbs 5:14: I was almost in all evil,.... Scarce a sin but he was guilty of; contempt of private and public instructions, the instructions of parents and ministers of the Gospel, and following lewd women, commonly lead to the commission of all other sins, even the most atrocious. Some understand this, not of the evil of sin, but of the evil of punishment; and that the sense is, that there is scarce any calamity, distress, or misery, that a man can be in, but his profaneness and lewdness had brought him into; and he was just upon the brink of hell itself: and so Jarchi paraphras”
8. Leviticus (Presbyterian) “Jamieson, Fausset & Brown on Leviticus 18:24: Defile not yourselves in any of these things--In the preceding verses seventeen express cases of incest are enumerated; comprehending eleven of affinity [Lev 18:7-16], and six of consanguinity [Lev 18:17-20], together with some criminal enormities of an aggravated and unnatural character. In such prohibitions it was necessary for the instruction of a people low in the scale of moral perception, that the enumeration should be very specific as well as minute; and then, on completing it, the divine lawgiver announces his own views of these crimes, wit”
9. Hosea (Lutheran) “Keil & Delitzsch on Hosea 4 (introduction): II. The Ungodliness of Israel. Its Punishment, and Final Deliverance - Hosea 4-14 The spiritual adultery of Israel, with its consequences, which the prophet has exposed in the first part, and chiefly in a symbolical mode, is more elaborately detailed here, not only with regard to its true nature, viz., the religious apostasy and moral depravity which prevailed throughout the ten tribes, but also in its inevitable consequences, viz., the destruction of the kingdom and rejection of the people; and this is done with a repeated side-glance at Judah. To t”
10. Matthew (Protestant academic) “Tyndale House on Matthew 17:17: 17:17 faithless and corrupt people: The expression is often used for moral depravity (see Deut 32:5, 19-22). Normally, this exclamation of Jesus was directed at the unbelieving Jewish crowds or leaders who refuse to acknowledge God’s presence in him (see Matt 12:39). Here, however, it was a sharp criticism of his disciples’ failure to trust Jesus and his saving, healing power.”
11. Mishneh Torah (Maimonides) (Jewish (Rabbinic)) “Mishneh Torah (Maimonides), Mishneh Torah%2C Repentance 4:3: Among these [24] are five [transgressions] for which it is impossible for the person who commits them to repent completely. They are sins between man and man, concerning which it is impossible to know the person whom one sinned against in order to return [what is owed him] or ask for his forgiveness. They are: a) One who curses the many without cursing a specific individual from whom he can request forgiveness; b) One who takes a share of a thief's [gain], for he does not know to whom the stolen article belongs. The thief steals from”
12. theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part of the Second Part (Prima Secundae), Of the Cause of Sin, on the Part of the Sensitive Appetite, Art. 5: Article: Whether concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and pride of life are fittingly described as causes of sin? I answer that, As stated above (Article [4]), inordinate self-love is the cause of every sin. Now self-love includes inordinate desire of good: for a man desires good for the one he loves. Hence it is evident that inordinate desire of good is the cause of every sin. Now good is, in two ways, the object of the sensitive appe”
13. Genesis (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on Genesis 6:11: The wickedness of that generation is here again spoken of, either as a foil to Noah's piety - he was just and perfect, when all the earth was corrupt; or as a further justification of God's resolution to destroy the world, which he was now about to communicate to his servant Noah. 1. All kinds of sin was found among them, for it is said (Gen 6:11) that the earth was, (1.) Corrupt before God, that is, in the matters of God's worship; either they had other gods before him, or they worshipped him by images, or they were corrupt and wicked in despite and contempt of ”
14. Sefaria (Jewish (Rationalist)) “Abraham Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 23:10: FROM EVERY EVIL THING. Spiritually 28 Evil thoughts. or physically, such as ejaculations. 29 Or other acts which defile the body.”
15. Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 2: Hermas, Tatian, Theophilus, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria — CHAP. III.--AGAINST MEN WHO EMBELLISH THEMSELVES. (part 5): all things; it has disgraced man. A luxurious niceness seeks everything, attempts everything, forces everything, coerces nature. Men play the part of women, and women that of men, contrary to nature; women are at once wives and husbands: no passage is closed against libidinousness; and their promiscuous lechery is a public institution, and luxury is domesticated. O miserable spectacle! horrible conduct! Such are the trophies of your social licentiousness which”
16. CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 69: describes all the sons of Adam by such terms as these: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man that they are vanity.” “They are all gone aside: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that does good, no, not one.” In short, that they are flesh , under which name are comprehended all those works which are enumerated by Paul; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness idolatry witchcraft, hatred, ”