Total depravity does not mean people are as bad as they could be — it means no human faculty, including reason and will, escaped the fall, so no part of a person is a neutral platform from which to choose God. This is the premise the rest of the system rests on: if the will itself is bent, then grace must be prior and unaided, or nothing happens. Critics from Pelagius onward have argued it makes moral responsibility incoherent.