October 5, 2025
This question has grown more important to me in recent years.
John Calvin (1509–1564) was a highly influential French theologian, pastor, and reformer during the Protestant Reformation. For much of my life, I’ve wrestled with the Calvinist idea of Total Depravity—the claim that we are born corrupt and incapable of good on our own.
It never sat right with me. Total Depravity, the “T” in Calvinism’s five-point TULIP, seemed to contradict something deeper and truer in the human story.
In my own searching, I’ve come to a different conviction:
I am created by God, made in His image and likeness, and called “very good.”
Yes, I recognize that this goodness is distorted by our choices, our situations, our traumas—what Scripture calls sin. But our capacity for both good and evil mean we still have the freedom to choose the good. There is always room for redemption, for turning back toward wholeness.
This year, I’ve been exploring that truth through books like Who God Says You Are (Klyne Snodgrass) and Escaping the Matrix (Greg Boyd & Al Larson). Both invite me to know myself more deeply—not as the world defines me, but as God does.
Still, I worry about becoming too self-focused, slipping into another “ism.” In America, individualism often feels like the real religion—wrapped in the sacred language of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But doesn’t that version of individualism become its own idol, cutting us off from one another?
My hope is that knowing myself more truly will not lead to self-absorption, but to deeper love—for others, for creation, and for God. And yes, that includes learning how to love myself rightly and healthily.
If I can grow in that kind of love, maybe I can become a more whole participant in the life of the community—and a more faithful citizen of God’s Kingdom.
So, here we go.
SeePhas 