Total Depravity is Total Whoredom

There is a bit of housekeeping that needs to follow reading of the Eden story, although it might be said to be the starting point of any understanding of Jesus' ministry: the nature of sin's relationship to humanity's redemptive fortunes.  In short, people need to stay out of the progressing cycle of falling into sin.

This consideration is to be seen as distinct from the two prevailing notions of Christian salvation: either that salvation is effected through sacraments, or that salvation is effected through "faith alone" in the redemption offered by Jesus.  There is no point in describing either of these notions as being lacking, since neither is really to the point; it is no necessary impediment to the true nature of salvation for the believer to harbor the (as I would maintain) superfluous ideas of theology.  Most of the time the important junctures in life consist of moral challenges such that the person so engaged has little in the times of crisis to say about theology other than "Whatever."

But back to the fact that people need to stay out of the progressing cycle of falling into sin.  Cain resented his brother's successful sacrifice to God.  Cain was upset that his own sacrifice was not accepted.

It does not seem that God attached much importance to Cain's failure; the story does not describe Cain as being in trouble over that point.  The problem was that Cain was upset and angry.  "Why art thou wroth?"

And then, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?"  That, of course, is the chief element of salvation--"If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?"--not all that silly Christianity stuff.  Then again, the premise "If thou doest well" does not provide a context for a person's ongoing struggle for salvation, which we are naturally going to view as a journey toward a desired goal.

God provides the simple answer: "...if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.  And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him" (Genesis 4:7, KJV).  Modern translations attach the element of divine command to "thou shalt rule."  Wisdom, modern and ancient, has always held it to be prudent to refrain from accusing God of being so perverse as to command something that is not achievable.

So that is the substance of it.  If we struggle to stay out of the downward, accelerating cycle of sin, then we can be saved.   We are not judged by our righteousness in itself, but rather by our attachment to doing the will of God, however imperfectly.  In such a mindset resides true humility, not in the horrid Christian presumption of assigning essential depravity to ourselves--or to any of God's creatures--and then trying to hide that arrogant presumption by claiming fealty to some contrived mechanism by which our worthless selves might be saved.

Or to put it another way: we might well be worthless, and we might feel ourselves to be worthless, but for us to tell God that we are worthless does not constitute any attempt--however feeble--to demonstrate humility.  Speaking so to God is arrogance, and it makes our religion a whoredom--selling the most precious elements of our desire for God's mercy as the commodities of a transactional salvation economy.