There is None Who Seeks God (Rom. 3:11)?
“There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside” (Rom. 3:11-12).
Calvinists often cite this passage in support of their doctrine of totally depravity, which asserts that because of the Fall, people are born unwilling and unable to seek God. God must first change one’s nature (aka “regeneration”) before he is able to seek God. It’s all God’s doing. People have no meaningful choice in the matter of their salvation, according to Calvinism.[1]
But does Romans 3:11 really support this view, or is Paul (the author) making a much more nuanced point about a certain group of people, namely, the Jews in his day?
Biblical Examples of God Seekers
To start with, the Bible is filled with examples of God seekers:
“O God, you are my God; early will I seek you” (Ps. 63:1).
“Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah” (2 Chron. 20:3).
These are two examples of men who sought the Lord—and they are commended for doing so.
Calvinists would likely respond by saying that God had already regenerated these men, so they cannot be used as examples of people “freely” seeking God.
My response to Calvinists would be: If God were solely responsible for this, then why would these men be commended for being godly? If these men had no meaningful say in the matter, then there would be nothing praiseworthy about them. They would merely be doing what God “programmed” them to do. Yet these men are commended as if they were the ones who acted wisely.
Furthermore, the Bible teaches that it is each person’s responsibility—not God’s—to set his heart to seek the Lord:
“And after the Levites left, those from all the tribes of Israel, such as set their heart to seek the Lord God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord God of their fathers” (2 Chron. 11:16).
“And he did evil, for he did not prepare his heart to seek the Lord” (2 Chron. 12:14).
These passages show that people are responsible for setting/not setting their hearts to seek the Lord. The ones who do are lauded, and those who don’t are blamed. Why praise or criticize people for their actions if they have no meaningful choice in the matter?
The Bible even describes pagans seeking God! Here’s a really telling passage by Paul himself. Keep in mind, this is the same Paul who said, “nobody seeks God.” However, in this passage, Paul describes pagans “seeking the Lord in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27).
This passage shows that people were created to seek God, in the hopes that they might find him. In other words, God is close enough to be found by any true seeker, Jew or Gentile.
In another passage, Isaiah exhorts people to seek the Lord, as if all people were capable of doing just that:
“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts” (Isaiah 55:6-7).
Isaiah clearly believed that all people—even the wicked—were fully able to seek the Lord.
Jesus likewise said:
“Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7).
These kinds of passages clearly show that people are able to seek God. It’s true we are born with sinful inclinations, but nobody is born unable to seek God.
In fact, if God were commanding people to do something they were unable to do—and then punishing them for it—it would be like the Egyptian Pharoah requiring the Hebrews to make bricks without providing enough straw…which the Bible portrays as evil (see Exodus 5).
The Context of Romans 3:11
These kinds of passages show that Paul could not have been making a universal statement when he said, “nobody seeks the Lord” (Rom. 3:11). Instead, Paul was making a much more nuanced point about the Jews of his day. Although these Jews claimed to be God’s chosen people, they had turned aside from God. In fact, Jesus called them an adulterous, faithless, perverse generation (Matt 12:39, 17:17). And let’s not forget they crucified their long-awaited Messiah. (Technically, the Romans killed Jesus, but they did it at the behest of the Jews—see Luke 23:21).
This is why Paul said, “There is none who seeks God. They have all turned aside.” Paul’s point was that the Jews in his day—who often viewed Gentiles as godless sinners—had themselves turned away from God and become godless sinners.
Notice the immediate context:
“9 What then? Are we [Jews] better than they [Gentiles]? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. 10 As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside” (Rom. 3:9-12).
Paul’s point was that despite claiming to be God’s chosen people, the Jews in that day (as a whole) were no more righteous than the “godless” Gentiles. “None” were seeking God.
But Paul didn’t literally mean nobody seeks God. Paul was at least one exception, as were Jesus’ other apostles and disciples. Moreover, as a biblically literate Pharisee, Paul certainly would have known about all the Old Testament passages about God seekers (see above). Paul himself even talked about people seeking God (see above)! Therefore, Paul could not have literally meant nobody seeks after God.
Paul’s point was that his Jewish brethren (as a whole) had turned aside from God and have become no different than the godless Gentles they so often snubbed their noses at. In fact, that’s exactly what Paul said:
“There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside” (Rom. 3:11-12).
These Jews were not born estranged from God; they had turned from God. These Jews were not born unfaithful; they had chosen to be unfaithful. These Jews were not born totally depraved; they had become totally depraved because of their repeated bad decisions. In other words, they were no different than the “godless” Gentiles they so frequently looked down upon—and that was Paul’s point!
Paul was Quoting from Psalms 14
Keep in mind, also, that when Paul made those comments in Romans 3:9-11, he was actually quoting from Psalms 14:3, where King David had said about the people of his day:
“They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one” (Ps. 14:3).
Like Paul, David was living in a wicked generation. But David didn’t literally mean there were no righteous people. We can be 100% sure of this because David described himself as righteous:
“For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his rules were before me, and from his statutes I did not turn aside. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt. And the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight” (2 Sam 22:21-25).
David clearly saw himself as righteous. Was David a sinner? Of course. Even righteous people sin. Nevertheless, David was righteous—that is, although he slipped up from time to time, he got back up, dusted himself off, and went back to following God. That’s the biblical definition of a righteous person (aka saint).
So when David said, “There is none who does good” (Ps. 14:3), he was not making a universal statement. He was merely describing his own generation. In fact, David went on—a mere two verses later!—to talk about righteous people:
“For God is with the generation of the righteous” (Ps. 14:5).
Since David talked about righteous generations in verse 5, he obviously was not making a universal statement about total depravity in verse 3. He was simply describing his own wicked generation.
And the reason Paul quoted this passage (in Romans 3:11) is because he found himself in a similar situation.
One More Revealing Passage
Here’s one more telling passage worth looking at, this time from John the Baptist:
“And what He [Jesus] has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony” (John 3:32-33).
John said, “no one receives Jesus’ testimony”—which sounds an awful lot like Paul saying, “no one seeks God.” But notice what John says in the very next sentence:
“32 And what He [Jesus] has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. 33 He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true” (John 3:32-33).
Right after saying “nobody receives Jesus’ testimony” (v. 32), John talks about people “receiving Jesus’ testimony” (v. 33). Either John completely contradicted himself in back-to-back sentences, or John was using hyperbole when he said, “no one receives his testimony.” It’s obviously the latter. After all, John received Jesus’ testimony. And Jesus’ other apostles and disciples received Jesus’ testimony. Even Gentiles such as Cornelius received Jesus’ testimony—and sought the Lord, I might add (see Acts 10).
John was clearly using hyperbole when he said “nobody receives Jesus’ testimony”—and this is exactly what Paul was doing, too, in Romans 3.
Conclusion
Romans 3:11 does not support the Calvinist view of total depravity. Calvinists are ripping the passage out of context and ignoring all those other passages—if they are even aware of them—which talk about people seeking God…even from Paul himself!
For further study about this passage, see my article “None Righteous, No Not One (Rom. 3:10)?“
By Alex Polyak, founder of Answering Calvinism, 6/23/26
[1] In addition to claiming that people are unable to seek God unless God first regenerates them, five-point Calvinists also believe that once God decides to save someone, God’s calling cannot be resisted or rejected. So people have no meaningful say in their salvation, according to such Calvinism.