To begin with the passage where He says that He is come to ‘to seek and to save that which is lost.’ What do you suppose that to be which is lost? Man, undoubtedly. The entire man, or only a part of him? The whole man, of course. In fact, since the transgression which caused man's ruin was committed quite as much by the instigation of the soul from concupiscence as by the action of the flesh from actual fruition, it has marked the entire man with the sentence of transgression, and has therefore made him deservedly amenable to perdition.
Tertullian, Res. Carn.
Well, there you have it: Total Depravity, by any other name, is still totally depraved. I'd like to save this quote to show the next Catholic who insists Calvin "came up with" the Doctrines of Grace.
ReplyDeleteJust recently learned, btw, that Tertullian was also the one who coined the term "Trinity".