Is It Every Person's Nature To Hate Jesus Christ?
The following paragraph is from a blog article called 10 Things You Should Know About Total Depravity by prominent Calvinist Christian and pastor, Sam Storms.
“Whoever comes to me,” declares Jesus, “I will never cast out” (John 6:37b). The problem, however, as Jesus goes on to say, is that “no one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44a; emphasis mine). Why is it that no man can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him?... The reason no man can come is because it is not our nature to come. It is our nature, and therefore our will, to flee from Christ, not come to him. The fact is that we do not want to come. We are delighted not to come. We willingly and freely and voluntarily choose to stay in our sin and unbelief, because we find nothing at all in Jesus that is alluring, appealing, truthful, or in any way an improvement on what we already are and have on our own. Were we ever to come to the point of wanting to come to Christ for life, we may. Indeed, Jesus says we most assuredly will (John 6:37)! [Here, Dr. Storms cites a Bible reference, but omits the Calvinist spin on it. I guess he expects the reader to already be well-versed in Calvinist spin.] But such “wanting,” such “coming,” is not of our own making. It is of God. It is of the Father who in eternity past “gave” us to the Son and now in time “draws” us to faith. Simply put, no one, of himself or herself, wants to be saved. But whoever, by God’s power, is made willing shall be saved!
In Calvinism, this is the "doctrine of Total Depravity," (or Total Inability), also referred to as the "doctrine of Original Sin," which *Augustine introduced to Christianity around AD 412 in the time surrounding his famous debates with Pelagius.
So, Reformed Christianity says that "It is our nature, and therefore our will, to flee from Christ, not come to him." I just want to know-- How in the world can anyone say this with such certainty about every human being without exception WHEN THIS IS SAID NOWHERE IN SCRIPTURE? (Because, believe me, Calvinists DO make a point of insisting that every person's is naturally unable to respond in any positive way to Christ and to the Gospel until God "sovereignly enables" him to. And, by "sovereignly," they mean forcibly, by His action alone.) But I'm willing to bet that there ARE and always have been some dear Christians who did NOT flee from Christ the very first time they heard the gospel but in fact, did the opposite: they fled TO Christ at His invitation.
Actually, I can think of one off the top of my head who did just this: the Ethiopian man in Acts 8! And even the Philippian jailer in Acts 16.
Of course, the Calvinist has an answer which supposedly explains those men's **miraculous willingness to come to Christ. But their answer doesn't come from Scripture; it comes from pagan philosophy, cited by Augustine, from whom their system came.
This is not to say that I believe that millions of people are flocking to Jesus Christ on their own initiative out of a natural desire to please Him. No human being--- not even one--- has the capacity to save himself. When it comes to merit before God, man is bankrupt! "God must save, and God alone."
••••••••••••••••••••
*Much has changed beginning with Augustine's teachings on the nature of man and the "sovereignty" of God, by which he meant God's exhaustive pre-determinism of every attitude and action of man... all of which is surprisingly similar to his prior gnostic religion of Manichaeism. A thousand years later, John Calvin came on the scene, immersed himself in Augustine's teachings of divine determinism and "original sin," and penned the voluminous "Institutes of the Christian Religion" at age 26, which became a basis for the spread of Augustinian philosophy into Reformed protestantism
**They call it "compatibilism," a teaching not found in the Bible.