The Bible Teaches Total Depravity

Thanks again for taking this. I'm going to go right down your argument. Established premises: 1) We both agree that G-d created man perfect, and that the verses in Genesis are valid premises. What this means is that we both understand that man came about as a perfect being, but we differ how man was affected by sin. He says that man was "completely and utterly seperated from God". And for a period of time, known as the Old Testament, we were. But the current state of Christianity, after the entire time of Jesus is contrary to that. Before, man could not "see the face of G-d and live." Man could not "speak the name of G-d" and live. There was a 40 foot curtain surrounding the holy temple, and no man except for the Levites, who were a tribe of priests bread to be pure of heart and mind, could enter the inner temple where G-d resided. Any man who did, was struck dead by G-d himself, because according to Habakkuk 1:13, "[G-d's] eyes are too pure to look on evil; [He] cannot tolerate wrong." If this was the current state of man in relation to G-d, my opponent should and would win this debate. However, everything changed in Matthew 27:50-54 when Jesus broke the barrier that had existed between man and G-d. " 50And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. 51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. 52 The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. 54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, "Surely he was the Son of God!" " After Jesus' death, the veil of the temple, which had symbolized man's separation from G-d, was destroyed by G-d Himself. Remember; this is the same G-d who cannot look upon, or tolerate evil. This is the same G-d who looked away from His own Son Jesus the Christ when he took the sins of the world! This same G-d, who so abhorred sin, allowed man to now come close to Him. If man was completely depraved, and there was no good in him, G-d could not have allowed man near him. But G-d allowed man to come. Jesus took away the sins and left the original beings that G-d had created. The perfect beings, with the sins removed by Jesus, as if they had never sinned. This ties in to my other argument. My opponent misses that if man were rotten to the core, there would be nothing left for Jesus to redeem. Here's an example. I have two clods of dirt. One clod has a rock at the center. The other rock is just a bunch of sand, compacted together. I submerge both of them in a running river. The river quickly strips the dirt away. My first hand has a rock remaining. My second hand has nothing. Because there was nothing good at the core of the second clod, it was all washed away, leaving me with nothing. But the first clod had something solid at the core, which is why something was left over. Similarly, man is good at the core. Covered completely in sin? Yes. Degraded exponentially from the original state? Yes. Rotten to the core? Impossible. The fact that G-d can redeem us shows that there was SOMETHING good in us for him to redeem in us. The fact that Jesus could, like the river and clods, wash away all our sins and have something left to redeem indicates that there MUST have been something in us to redeem! I go back to what I said before. Jesus didn't "scrap humans and start over." He didn't say "screw it, this sucks." He washed away our sins, and cleansed us. And once we were cleansed (not recreated) from our sins, we came to be who we were initially, and were now permitted to enter the presence and Kingdom of G-d. We are not depraved. We are enslaved by sin, and made clean through Jesus the Christ.