Total depravity

[11] Contrary to all prior early church fathers, Augustine of Hippo argued that, since the Fall, all humanity is in a self-imposed bondage to sin.

[13] Thomas Aquinas also taught that people are not able to avoid sin after the Fall, and that this entailed a loss of original righteousness or sinlessness, as well as concupiscence or selfish desire.

Martin Luther, John Calvin and other Reformers used the term "total depravity" to articulate what they claimed to be the Augustinian view that sin corrupts the entire human nature.

The only theologian who argued that the imago Dei itself was taken away and that the very substance of fallen humanity was sin was Matthias Flacius Illyricus, and this view was repudiated in the Formula of Concord.

The atonement has not only secured grace for him, but a measure in him, by virtue of which he not only has moral light, but is often incited to good desires, and well-intended efforts to do what is perceived to be the divine will.

[10]Some Reformed theologians have mistakenly used the term "Arminianism" to include some who hold the Semipelagian doctrine of limited depravity, which allows for an "island of righteousness" in human hearts that is uncorrupted by sin and able to accept God's offer of salvation without a special dispensation of grace.

[18] Although Arminius and Wesley both vehemently rejected this view, it has sometimes inaccurately been lumped together with theirs (particularly by Calvinists) because of other similarities between their respective systems such as conditional election, unlimited atonement, and prevenient grace.

Therefore, in Reformed theology, if God is to save anyone, he must predestine, elect, regenerate and call individuals to salvation since fallen humanity does not want to, and is indeed incapable of, choosing him.

Rather, it means that even the good which a person may intend is faulty in its premise, false in its motive, and weak in its implementation; and there is no mere refinement of natural capacities that can correct this condition.

[26] Accordingly, the Council of Trent, at its sixth session (January 1547), condemned as heresy any doctrine asserting "since Adam's sin, the free will of man is lost and extinguished".

The Eastern Orthodox Church embraces the "semi-Augustinian" position of John Cassian and also defends Augustine of Hippo relating to this doctrine.