Genesis 6:5 says, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Those who teach the doctrine of Total Hereditary Depravity cite several Bible passages which they allege support their doctrine. The purpose of this article is to review one such passage—Genesis 6:5—to determine if it supports the notion of Total Hereditary Depravity.

To begin, we should clarify what the doctrine itself teaches.  “Total” means “complete, whole, or entire”; “Hereditary” means “transmitted genetically from parent to offspring”; “Depravity” means “moral corruption or degradation” (American Heritage Dictionary, 4^th ed. 2004). These words are understood by the doctrine’s advocates to mean that sin’s guilt and condemnation are inherited from Adam and passed on throughout all generations.

Accordingly, the revered creeds of Christendom boldly affirm this teaching. The Philadelphia Confession of Faith (the first creed adopted by the Baptist churches in the United States) says, “Our first parents, by this sin (Adam’s sin, dg), fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and we in them, whereby death came upon all, all becoming dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body” (italics mine, dg). The Presbyterian Westminster Confession of Faith, the Belgic Confession, The Methodist Discipline, and others affirm essentially the same.

Genesis 6:5 is commonly cited as Biblical proof of the above doctrine: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” The context of this verse concerns God’s decision to destroy all mankind from the earth by the Great Flood. We shall now consider whether this passage teaches the doctrine in question.

First, the doctrine of Total Hereditary Depravity teaches that all men, without exception, are “wholly defiled in all the faculties of soul and body.” That is, depravity is both universal and comprehensive, for 1) all are depraved, and 2) all are totally depraved. If this assessment is true, not a single man or woman, child or infant can escape hell’s condemnation while in the state of wickedness as defined by the creeds and commonly preached by the ministers of this doctrine. Also, since all are totally depraved, no one of any age or moral station is any better than even the Devil himself, for not even the Devil can be more than totally depraved!

However, only four verses later in Genesis six, the record says, “Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.” How can this be, if all men are at birth fallen “from…righteousness and communion with God” and are “wholly defiled in all the faculties of soul and body”? Can there be any who “walk with God” who are at the same time totally hereditarily depraved? Noah was indeed part of the human family, “wholly corrupt” by the sin of Adam (if the creeds are correct), yet he was also “just” and “perfect” and “walked with God.” This presents an absurdity!

Second, the creeds teach that this total hereditary moral corruption and its attending condemnation is the result of Adam eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden hundreds of years prior to Noah’s generation. In other words, as soon as the first generation of man was born from Adam and Eve, that generation inherited “total depravity” and passed it on to all future generations, including Noah’s generation. And if the first generation inherited total depravity, then no subsequent generation could ever become any worse than the first, for all are totally depraved from the moment Adam sinned! Every generation from Adam forward can and must lay the blame for its total corruption at the feet of Adam.

However, only seven verses after verse five, Genesis 6:12 provides God’s assessment of the spiritual condition of Noah’s generation like this: “And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (italics added).

Two questions immediately occur to the candid reader of this verse.

1. If the entire human race is “wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body” as a result of Adam’s sin, why does the author of Genesis blame Noah’s generation for corrupting his own way rather than laying the blame at its true source—Adam?
2. If the first generation after Adam and Eve were wholly corrupt and they genetically passed this total corruption to future generations, how could Noah’s generation make their own corruption any worse than what they had inherited, or worse than any previous generation? Yet that is just what the Bible indicates. When Genesis 6:12 says that “all flesh had corrupted his way,” the obvious inference is that multiple generations leading up to and including Noah’s generation had moved along a continuum of increasing corruption. How is it possible to increase corruption that is already “wholly” corrupt when it was inherited?

No one who believes the Bible doubts that the human race is corrupted by sin and will be condemned as a result. But their condemnation will be for their own sins, not Adam’s. Thus, it is evident that if the doctrine of Total Hereditary Depravity is true, it must look to some other passage than Genesis 6:5 for its proof.

We will consider other such passages in future articles.

Article by: David Griffin