*Before I jump in here, I want to make clear it is not my intention to deny the doctrine of Total Depravity. Rather, I want to show that this verse (Genesis 6:5) does not, itself, touch of on the subject of Total Depravity.*
Genesis 6:5:
The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
From John Wesley to John Calvin to John Stott, Genesis 6:5 has been used to argue for the doctrine of Total Depravity. Total Depravity affirms human persons are, because of the Fall, totally corrupt in our entire nature. Sin has touched every one of our faculties – spiritual, emotional, psychological, and physical – and because we are totally corrupted in our sin, we cannot, in our own will, make a decision for God without his prior actions of grace toward us.
It’s easy to see how this doctrine can be derived from Genesis 6:5. It’s easy.
But easy doesn’t make it right.
The larger context of Genesis 6:5 demonstrates why utilizing Genesis 6:5 out to prove the doctrine of Total Depravity is a mis-use of the text.
Genesis 6:5 is concerned with a special, extensive, particular form of wickedness directly tied to the Nephalim (6:4) – offspring of the Son’s of God (evil angelic beings?) having sexual relations with the daughters of men (human women).
In other words, according to Genesis 6, itself, we’re not talking about normal, run-of-the-mill human sin(fulness). We’re talking about an extreme (and odd!) form of sin(fulness).
Indeed, the passage claims that humanity’s wickedness had become great, not that it always was great. And then later the passage describes God’s grief for having created humanity because of how wicked they had become.
Furthermore, the Nephalim wickedness was so extreme in form that Genesis 6:5 posits it is the direct, causal factor for the subsequent flood narrative. In other words, we have an extreme form of judgment (the flood) because of an extreme form of sin (Nephalim wickedness). And if this wickedness is extreme, then we’re not talking about normative, universal human nature existing in all times, all places, and within every human heart.
In fact, if the words of Genesis 6:5 were universal to humanity, and therefore relevant to the doctrine of Total Depravity, then God would have destroyed the world long before Genesis 6.
But since God doesn’t, this leads me to the conclude that Genesis 6:5 is an irrelevant text in the Total Depravity discussion, except insofar as it illustrates how far human sinfulness can go. But let’s be clear that it cannot prove the Total Depravity of non-Nephalim peoples.
Again, I am not challenging the doctrine of Total Depravity here. That’s another discussion altogether. But I want to argue that we shouldn’t be using this passage.
What do you think? Have I completely missed the boat? Have any of you ever wondered about the use of this passage to prove Total Depravity?
Your strongest point is that the text explicitly says humanity BECAME more wicked. There’s progression between Gen 3 and Gen 6.
Not sure that the wickedness is exclusive to the Nephilim. Could be a representation of the wickedness of humanity as a whole. Otherwise, why would only Noah be spared?
Thanks for the comment. A couple of thoughts…
1) Yes, the progression of sin between Genesis 3 and 6 is structurally significant. Good point.
2) Could it be that Noah is the only one spared because he and his family are the only ones left who are not tainted in some way or another by the Nephalim wickedness? This allows Noah to be a sinner (which obviously he was), but still allows for the particular Nephalim defilement to be emphasized (as it seems to be by the text, anyway).
Or there’s always the option of sovereign, unconditional election
In response to 2)
I suppose you could say that, but you’re going way beyond the text at this point. Humanity’s wickedness has been getting progressively worse since Gen 3. First lying. Then murder (4 – Cain). Then lots of murder (4 – Laban). Humanity is spreading out and keeps trying to be their own gods (5).
Now in 6, gods and humanity are mixing to create Nephilim. That’s all progression. All humans are caught up in it.
So you have Noah, the only righteous man left (or the most righteous option God has, as some Jewish scholars have read it).
Taken in the larger Gen 1-11 contest, I don’t think the Nephalim emphasis is strong enough to warrant assumptions about Noah. But I’m open to being wrong!
If you were teaching a college course on doctrine and you came to the doctrine of Total Depravity, would this be a verse you’d be comfortable citing?
As a denier of popular expressions (and maybe formal theological expressions) of total depravity, I read this verse as a mythic culmination of the story of humanity’s continual and ever-widening rebellion from God.
I’ll echo JR’s outlining of the story and say that it is about collective rebellion, not that every person is totally depraved on an individual level. I’d say the Nephalim’s mixing with humanity was the last straw, but it wasn’t just about that.
So the flood, in the story, could be more about stopping humanity’s rise to godhood (completion of the rebellion) (scattering didn’t work).
If the Flood is a response to total depravity in humanity (meaning the passage significantly engages the topic of total depravity as currently understood), then God didn’t do a good or wise job of dealing with it. It is like killing a bunch of ants but leaving the colony. Noah is still messed up and so is his family. God never addresses the “heart” of the problem as people since Luther/Calvin (Augustine) have set up the problem.
So I read Noah as the next Adam in the sense that God reboots humanity’s rebellion and Noah isn’t rebelling (as bad) against God.
Those are some scattered thoughts about the passage and the doctrine. If I were teaching a class on Doctrine, I’d address it because it needs to be addressed, but I’d say it does not directly support the constructed doctrine of Total Depravity, though people often appeal to the passage.
Great points. Great points.
I agree with your assessment of Noah’s family line being the only line not tainted by the Nephalim wickedness. When the scriptures describe him as being “perfect in his generations” it seems to be speaking directly to his lineage, and not his behavior. It does describe Noah as having a relationship with God, but it does not describe the relationship as perfect but “his generations.” Combine this with chapter 5 and you see not just a connecting point along the way for the 2nd Adam, but a demonstration of the pure, male line leading up to Noah. No Nephalim here!
Have you heard the “Bible Answer Man’s” offended response to this take on Genesis chapter 6? He gets testy about it! He says it is an example of believers tainting the text with a pagan-mythological theology. But I wonder…instead of seeing the presence of pagan mythologies in the Biblical text, maybe we are seeing a correct account of the original source for the pagan mythologies!
JR, I agree that there is no reason to read any inerrant holiness into Noah’s every day character here. The sense in which he was righteous would rightly be described in the same sense that Abram was righteous. They both believed God, and it was accounted to them for righteousness.
Good addition to the discussion, TomT, regarding Noah’s lineage.
And sorry I just now am responding – I didn’t see that you had commented.