Thing My Calvinist Pastor Said #3: Even Babies are Wicked
(Updated January 2, 2026. This "Things My Calvinist Pastor Said" series is a breakdown on this much longer post: "We Left Our Church Because of Calvinism," which was written last year but updated July 2020. All memes were created with imgflip.)
3. "We all, even babies and small children, are depraved and wicked to the core, deserving of death, and we can never come to God on our own."
I think that Calvinists feel like they're being extra-humble to embrace wretched "hard truths" like "we are born incredibly depraved to the core" and "babies are more depraved than rats," as if they are putting God's "truth" and "glory" above their own feelings, above their own sense of disgust and what's right and what's wrong, but the rest of us are too prideful and man-worshipping to accept these "truths" that supposedly bring God so much glory.
Calvinists love to remind us of how desperately wicked and depraved everyone is, including children and babies:
From my ex-pastor's January 2016 sermon on the wrath of God: "Truth-suppression begins very early in life. Children have no interest in truth…zero. Babies, toddlers, cute little kids, my cute grandkids, they have no interest in the truth. What is a child’s primary interest in life? ME! It’s the All-Great Universe of ME! They don’t want to know the truth. Frankly, I think if they were big enough, sometimes they would vaporize us. If you look at the rage in a child, toddler, baby that is screaming because you’re imposing truth on them… Why am I born such a good truth-suppressor? Because I’m born sinful. Not just a little bit, we are born incredibly depraved to our core… desperately wicked. We are slaves to sin… We are born rebellious, and we don’t want authority over us… the heart is desperately wicked… deceitful above all things… We can’t handle the truth and so we suppress it.”
Oh, those awful, horrible babies! Nasty little evil things!
R.C. Sproul (from Idol Killer's video Evil and Depraved - the Reformed View of Children): "Calvin was once talking about babies and said that babies are as depraved as rats. And I said that's the one time I really really oppose the teaching of John Calvin...because that's terribly insulting to the rat."
R.C. Sproul Jr. (in The Church Split's video: "Calvinism's Most DISTURBING claim yet: This Is Monstrous Theology") said that God ordained the kidnapping, torture, rape, and strangulation-to-death of a 10-year-old girl, and that the little girl "received the judgment from God she had earned." According to Sproul Jr, this was justice, something she "deserved" for her sins.
Another Calvinist (in a clip in an Idol Killer video "Why Calvinist Apologetics FAIL") responds to an atheist's comment about God not feeding starving children with "Yes, thanks for pointing out the obvious. We also recognize that those children don't deserve any food. They deserve much worse for their sins. They should repent and believe the gospel." So children "deserve" to starve - and much worse than that - for their sins: Calvi-justice! [Watch from 4:40 to 5:21 to see this and the Sproul Jr. comment above.]
John MacArthur (from The Distinctive Qualities of the True Christian, Part 1): "Nowhere, or at no point, is a man's depravity more manifest than in the procreative act... How do we know man is a sinner at the base of his character? How do we know man is a sinner at the root of his existence? The answer: by what he creates. Whatever comes from the loins of man is wicked because man is wicked. So I say to you that nowhere then in the anatomy of man or in the activity of man is depravity more manifest than in the procreative act... because it is at precisely that point which he demonstrates the depth of his sinfulness because he produces a sinner." [And yet, contradictorily, MacArthur claims that he believes that babies - the wicked, depraved, sinful fruit of vile human procreation - go to heaven if they die. How does he square that circle!?!😕]
But the Bible does not support this view of depravity, nor does it support the idea of "evil babies." That's going above and beyond the Bible's view of depravity. (Just like a Calvinist's view of sovereignty does, and almost everything else.)
And, no, contrary to what Calvinists think, Genesis 6:5 does not support the Calvinist view of depravity: "And 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." When you read this in context, you see that it's talking about the people of Noah's day, a mixed human-demon hybrid of people who were so wicked that God had to flood the earth to start over. That is a verse about the people of that day, not about mankind in general.
And Romans 3:10-18 doesn't support their definition of total depravity either ("There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God..."). Because, as I pointed out in #1, it doesn't say that no one can seek God. And it doesn't say that we are born evil to the core. It's not about "total depravity/total inability."
Instead, Romans 3 is about how we are all separated from God by sin and need a Savior, how no one can earn heaven just by following laws or by being born into a certain bloodline (Jewish), and how God offers salvation to all, that we can all believe in Jesus and be saved. And, as we saw about Romans 3:11-18 specifically, if you look back at the Old Testament Psalms it's quoting, it's about how people who reject God, who choose their wickedness instead of Him, will not seek God - because they have turned away from Him, as Romans 3:12 says.
And yet, Romans 3:10-18 is one of the biggest traps Calvinism uses to ensnare people into their doctrine of total depravity, convincing us that "See, we're so depraved from birth that we can't seek God unless He makes us do it." And if we bite onto the worm of their doctrine of total depravity, we swallow the hook of Calvinism. (See "TULIP's Totally-Depraved Doctrine" and this good post on Romans 3 from Soteriology 101: "No One Can Do Good?")
The thing is, you have to be taught to read Calvinism into the Bible. Because if you read the Bible without Calvinist glasses on, you'll find barely any support for it. And the little you do find will have other explanations that don't support Calvinism, and you'll find far more support for free-will (that we make our own real decisions, even about whether or not we obey God and believe in God) than for Calvinism.
Speaking of free-will, my ex-pastor once said that the Bible never teaches free-will (Really!?! Then what's a "free-will offering" in Numbers 15:3 and Ezra 7:16 and other verses?), but that it teaches that man has a "fallen will that makes real choices."
Okay, I can agree with the "fallen will" part, if he meant that our wills are now tainted by evil and sin. But that's not what Calvinists mean when they say this. When they say we have a "fallen will," they mean "total depravity/total inability." And so when they say we make "real choices," they don't mean that we make truly voluntary choices on our own. They mean that we make "real" choices according to our nature, that we make "real" choices to sin according to our fallen nature. And this is a huge difference!
In Calvinism, there are only two natures: the unregenerated/fallen-sinner nature that the non-Calv-elect get, and the regenerated/repentant nature that Calvi-god gives the Calv-elect. And so if Calvi-god's determined for you to have the unregenerated one, it comes only with the desire to sin and reject God, and so you can and will only and always want to sin and reject God, and so you can and will only and always choose to sin and reject God. The unregenerated person can only desire/choose to sin and can never desire/choose to do good or to be obedient to God, because it's not in their Calvi-god-determined nature. This is what Calvinism's "according to their nature" means.
But Calvinists still call this "making 'real' choices," even though fallen, unregenerated people can only desire/choose evil, by Calvi-god's decree and doing.
How in the world can they sincerely call this "real choices"?
They call it "real choices" because they say that the unregenerated person wanted to make those sinful choices (even though Calvi-god made sure they had those sinful desires in the first place, that it's all they could want to do) and because their choices created consequences (even though it was all predestined/caused by Calvi-god)... and so, says the Calvinist, people can be held "responsible" for their sin, punished for it, even though the sinful desires were built-into their natures by Calvi-god so that they would inevitably and irresistibly do what he predestined them to do.
Insane!!!
[If that's real, I wonder what fake looks like.]
Anyway, back to the Bible's view of depravity. Biblically, as I said in a previous point, depravity is more along the lines of being fallen, sinful, separated from God and unable to save ourselves.
But the Calvinist's over-extend it to mean that we are "totally depraved" (the "T" in their TULIP theology, look at this post under the heading of "Some Refutations of TULIP" for more on this), that from birth we are so fallen that there's nothing good in us to make us want to do good or seek God. And so God has to be the one to regenerate us (well, the Calv-elect only) to make us want Him and seek Him and do good.
But let's look at one example to see what the Bible says. Look at Matthew 19:16-26, about the rich, young ruler. (Read it yourself, never trust anyone else to tell you how to read it. Calvinists will tell you what they think the Bible "teaches." But you tell them, "No, I want to know what the Bible actually says," and ask for the verses they are using and look them up yourself. But stay away from the ESV, a Calvinist translation.)
In this passage, a rich, young ruler comes to Jesus and asks, "What good must I do to have eternal life?" And Jesus tells him to keep the commandments. And the man says he has kept all these. Then Jesus tells him he lacks one thing, giving away everything he owns to follow Him. And the man goes away sad because he doesn't want to give up his wealth. And then Jesus utters that famous line about how it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven.
I don't think Jesus is saying we can earn our way into heaven by doing good things, but He is pointing out that sometimes earthly things keep us from Him, that sometimes we choose other things over Him. And Jesus was getting to the heart of what was keeping this man from salvation, that he wanted his wealth more than eternal life.
I don't think Jesus is saying we can earn our way into heaven by doing good things, but He is pointing out that sometimes earthly things keep us from Him, that sometimes we choose other things over Him. And Jesus was getting to the heart of what was keeping this man from salvation, that he wanted his wealth more than eternal life.
But my point here is that this man missed out on eternal life because of his wealth. He wasn't saved. And yet this man had kept the commandments. And what did Jesus say about keeping the commandments? That it was "good." This unsaved man was doing "good things," keeping God's commandments, according to Jesus.
And yet Calvinists insist that unsaved people cannot think/want/do anything good or be obedient to God unless God has chosen them and regenerates their hearts first.
Yet this unsaved man did good and kept commandments. (This did not "earn" him heaven, of course, because getting to heaven is a "heart thing." But it's still an unregenerated person doing good, seeking God, trying to obey Him.)
This story alone blasts the "T" (totally depravity) right out of the water. And if the "T" falls then the whole Calvinist theology falls, because it's all built on the "T," on their wrong definition of depravity.
[In fact, the Bible also contradicts Calvinism's "total depravity" in Romans 2:14-16 (emphasis is mine): "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them." This clearly says that we can - by nature - do the good things the law requires of us, that our consciences and thoughts guide us, convicting us or defending us. And we do this because God wrote the law on our hearts, on the hearts of sinful, fallen men. Where is the "total depravity" in that!?! That is the opposite of Calvinism's "total depravity"!]
And so if man is not so totally depraved, not so unable to think about/want/seek God unless God makes him do it ... then man does indeed have the ability, on his own, to think good things, do good things (not to earn salvation, but to at least do things we and God consider good), to think about/want/seek God ... and so then man doesn't need God to regenerate him first before he can find God (that destroys the "I" in TULIP, Irresistible Grace, that God has to draw the elect to Him, that He has to regenerate them first so they can want/seek Him).
[In fact, the Bible also contradicts Calvinism's "total depravity" in Romans 2:14-16 (emphasis is mine): "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them." This clearly says that we can - by nature - do the good things the law requires of us, that our consciences and thoughts guide us, convicting us or defending us. And we do this because God wrote the law on our hearts, on the hearts of sinful, fallen men. Where is the "total depravity" in that!?! That is the opposite of Calvinism's "total depravity"!]
And if we can want/seek God on our own then it's part of being human and anyone can do it, so that means that anyone can find God and be saved, which means that there are no specially-chosen "elect" people that God causes to believe in Him (that destroys the "U," Unconditional Election, that God chose a group of people to save, the elect).
And if there's no specially-chosen group of people - if anyone can be saved - that destroys the "L", Limited Atonement, which says that Jesus died only for the elect. If there are no Calv-elect people, then Jesus died for all people.
And of course, if there are no Calv-elect people then there are no Calv-elect people for God to cause to "persevere," which destroys the "P," Perseverance of the Saints, which says that God causes the Calv-elect to be faithful till the end. (For the record, I do agree with Calvinists that we can't lose our salvation, but just not in the way they believe it.)
[And just to warn you, Calvinists have many verses to "back up" their theology. They will verse-bomb you with verse after verse to support their views, making it seem like they must really know what they are talking about and like they have overwhelming biblical support, and so they must really be right. Right? But always go back to the original verses and read them in context to see what it says. Read the chapter it's in, to see what it's about, who it's for, if there are other ways to read it than what Calvinists teach, etc. They do not have as much support as they think they do - when you keep the verses in context and read them without Calvinist glasses on.]
Here is a post I wrote - "12 Tips on How to Think Critically About Calvinism" - to help people be discerning about Calvinist theology and what the Bible says.
And finally, to get back to the "babies are wicked" thing, to give you a correct idea of how God views children, look for a moment at Jeremiah 19:4: "For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned sacrifices in it to gods ... and have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as an offering to Baal - something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind."
Calvinists call children "wicked, morally-depraved, in rebellion against God, and completely cut off from Him," meaning that if they die too early then they die as wicked sinners who are cut off from God. They call babies "vipers in diapers," saying that if babies had the chance, they'd kill their parents in their sleep.
But what does God call them?
Innocent.
(Yes, this video is cute and funny, but don't overlook the theology he's teaching here, that children are depraved "born sinners" who deserve hell.)
Even though babies grow up and "naturally" develop sinful attitudes and behaviors, God does NOT hold this against those who are too young to know better, too young to make their own choices. God does not count our sins against us until we are old enough to know right from wrong, to choose the truth and reject the lies, to accept Jesus or reject Him.
Deuteronomy 1:39 makes a distinction between those who know better and "children who do not yet know good from bad."
Isaiah 7:16 refers to an age when a child is old enough to "reject the wrong and choose the right."
In 2 Samuel 12:23, King David said that when he dies, he will go to where his deceased baby is. And unless you want to claim David went to hell, then you have to say he went to heaven, which would mean his baby also went to heaven after he died.
And God calls those who died too early "innocent."
Yet Calvinists insist on defining babies as "totally depraved, wicked-to-the-core sinners who are in rebellion against God and hopelessly lost unless they repent," meaning that if they die then they were predestined to die separated from God, as wicked, unrepentant, hell-bound sinners.
And so I ask, who is right? God or Calvinists?
[Update: Calvinists quote verses like these from the Psalms to prove that babies are as wicked as everyone else: "Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies" (Psalm 58:3) and "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5). David wrote the first one against unjust men and the second one after Nathan confronted him about his affair with Bathsheba. Neither are necessarily meant to be a theological point that "babies are wicked."
But Calvinists use these to "prove" their idea of total depravity, that even babies are wicked, unrepentant, rebellious-against-God sinners.
But I just found a verse that shares what God - not David - says about this: "... for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth ..." (Genesis 8:21, KJV). God doesn't say that people are wicked from birth, but from their "youth." And "youth" doesn't necessarily mean "infancy/childhood" because this word is also used in Psalm 127:4 which talks about "children of the youth," children from one's youth. Babies and small children cannot have children. Grown people have children. Therefore, "youth" in these verses is more about being older, grown, beyond adolescence.
My point is that God says not that we are wicked from birth, as Calvinists say, but from our youth. (He doesn't hold sins against infants and children, those He calls "innocent." His grace covers them before they are old enough to know right from wrong, to consciously decide between right and wrong.)
In addition, the KJV - the more reliable translation, see this post - translates Psalm 51:5 differently: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." It does not say that David was sinful from birth but that he was conceived in sin. It is not a comment about the depravity of babies but about the sin-filled world that babies are born into, or about David's mother's sin which led to his conception (or at least his belief that she sinned). Big difference!
God Himself repeatedly contradicts Calvinism's idea of total depravity and wicked babies.
I'm just sayin'.
(My husband read of an old belief people used to have back in the day, which was that people were born on the same day of the week that they were conceived. And so if a baby was born on the Sabbath, it meant the parents conceived the baby on a Sabbath, which meant they would have violated Sabbath rules about not having sex on the Sabbath. Who knows, but maybe David is referring to a "sin" along those lines. It's an interesting thought.)]
(Ah, I crack myself up!)
