Potter's Freedom

In short, depravity involves the corruption of life but not its destruction. The image of God in fallen humans is effaced but not erased. Even unsaved people are said to be in God’s image (Gen. 9:6). The image is marred by not eradicated by sin (cf. James 3:9).30
This is reiteration, not exegesis. This is what Dr. Geisler believes, and even though it again misrepresents the Reformed position (i.e., the assertion that the Calvinist believes the image of God is “eradicated”), it does not provide any kind of positive evidence or discussion of the meaning of Ephesians 2 and the phrase “dead in sin.” Calvinists often refer to “radical corruption” as a synonym for “total depravity.” Surely man is corrupted in the fall. But the issue is, what does it mean that he is “dead in sin” as described in Ephesians 2:1? Quite simply, Geisler doesn’t deal with the passage. Instead, the misrepresentation of the Reformed position is pressed forward:

, CBF not only misrepresents the Reformed understanding of the will, but it makes no attempt to establish its own view through the use of meaningful exegesis. The careful student will note that the book begins with the assertion of the necessity of “free will” and “human freedom,” and only after establishing these necessities via philosophical argument do we encounter any biblical discussion. This is exactly backwards from the proper methodology: we begin with God’s revelation concerning the nature of man and then move from revelation to reason. CBF barely makes it three pages into its critique of the “extreme” viewpoint before the conclusion of the entire book is reached, and it is said it must be “rejected.”4 No biblical examination has taken place to this point: the position is rejected on the basis of philosophical assumptions, not exegesis of the biblical text.