As we read the first three chapters of Genesis, several things become clear quite quickly. Among them are the following things:

1. The world was made entirely by the God who transcends it
2. The world, as originally made, was very good
3. When Adam sinned, sin ruined and marred that very good creation

In fact, the way things are presented up until near the end of Genesis 3 is that everything has been utterly ruined and there is no real hope of restoration. That is until the protoevangelium, but even this offers future hope, not anything to resolve matters immediately. From here, we get our doctrine of Original Sin and some significant input into Total Depravity.

Nevertheless, read in isolation, we are left with an issue. How do we uphold Original Sin and Total Depravity on the one hand – and we can easily point to much of its effects in the world – whilst also maintaining that we can still see much good in the world. The original “very good” world God made hasn’t lost all of its goodness. How does that tally with Total Depravity?

I suspect one of the issue with Total Depravity is its misleading name. The less punchy, but nevertheless more accurate, pervasiveness of sin captures the doctrine more helpfully. Total Depravity does not teach that everything is as bad as it might be. Rather, it teaches that sin has pervaded everything so that nothing is totally pure any longer. Everything has become radically corrupted, even though it is not necessarily as utterly evil as it might be. Though the creation has now become distorted, and nothing is utterly good any longer, vestiges of the very good remain.

The other factor is common grace. God still acts in the world and causes good to occur in the world. The sun and the rain still falls on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. Further, the Reformers distinguished between civil good and spiritual good. Though because of Total Depravity nobody can do ultimate, untarnished spiritual good, because of common grace people can do relative, civil good. We can recognise that people, though radically corrupted by sin that pervades everything, can still do genuine good, even though it may have no ultimate spiritual value. They may do objectively good things that reflect God’s moral character and we can call these things actual and real goods. At the same time, because none of us have any righteousness in ourselves, apart from Christ, those objective civil goods have not spiritual goods; they have no ultimate spiritual value in and of themselves.

So, on the one hand, we can recognise that God’s good creation has been radically corrupted by sin so that the world does not function as it was originally intended to do. Human beings have, likewise, become radically corrupted by sin so that we no longer function as we were originally intended to do. It means there is no inherent spiritual good in us and no righteousness in us by nature.

At the same time, whilst creation has been marred by sin, its goodness has not been utterly destroyed. Sin may pervade everything, it may distort everything, but there is still good to be found and enjoyed. Likewise, God’s common grace is still at work. His goodness is seen in the world and can be reflected in the goodness and kindness of people. Those goods do not equate to spiritual good or ultimate good, they do not equate to righteousness or overcome the weight of sin, but they are nevertheless objectively good, really good and can be recognised as such.

We need to hold these things together. The world as originally made was very good, but sin has radically corrupted it. Nevertheless, though sin pervades everything so that nothing is left untouched or remains completely pure, things may be distorted, but they are not as bad as they might ever be. The vestiges of the very good creation remain and common grace is still at work. Good exists in the world, even if it is never untouched by the corrupting nature of sin.