In the first chapter of Genesis, we read that, among other things, God created us in God’s image and that “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” [Genesis 1:31]. But the idyllic relationship between humans and God, depicted in the Garden of Eden, soon crumbled (call it pride, a lack of faith or trust in God, the temptation of Satan, the consequence of free will, or original sin) and everything went downhill after that.
The rest of the Bible chronicles our up-and-down, off-and-on relationship with God. Different people often choose different emphases on the themes: Some focus on the sinful nature of humans and our need to repent; others focus on God’s persistence in reaching out to us and bringing us back into a relationship that began in Eden. Perhaps illustrating our brokenness, great arguments break out over which emphasis is “doctrinally” correct [as an aside: “doctrine” comes from the French word for “doctor” and refers to a “healing teaching” meant to help us better understand God and not to a means of excluding others based on the “correctness” of our thinking.(1)].
Along comes an event like the recent bombing at the Boston Marathon. Some see it as another sign of how utterly broken and depraved humanity is, while others see for the acts of good that happened in the midst of the chaos. Bryan Berghoef reflects on these reactions on his Pub Theology blog and on the Huffington Post (my emphasis added in italics):
The consensus [among a group of folks who discussed this at a recent Pub Theology gathering] seemed to be that humanity tends toward acts of goodness and heroism more so than toward acts of barbarism and evil. We also discussed the possibility that even an act that on its face appears evil may well be prompted by what the perpetrator senses is toward a just cause or a greater good, and so in his or her mind, must be carried out.
There is also the theological perspective, which various biblical texts support, that despite being made in the image of God, human beings inevitably "fall short" of God's glory, and are created a "little lower" than the heavenly beings. One such approach goes so far as to claim that humanity is totally depraved, and apart from God, the heart of man is inclined toward "only evil, all the time."
“Total depravity” is one of the five points of Calvinism:
Total Depravity (also called Original Sin, but OULIP doesn’t have the same catch)
Unconditional Election (based on God’s will and not on what we do)
Limited Atonement (Jesus died for the elect)
Irresistible Grace (those elected, or called, by God cannot resist God’s grace)
Perseverance of the Saints (also known as Once Saved Always Saved)
This has led to some theological constructs that I have trouble accepting (see, for example, You might have a soterian gospel if you… ), but those may be more reflective of the people promoting them than what Calvin intended. Let’s focus on the concept of “total depravity” for now.
Are we totally depraved? Are humans are inherently incapable of doing good? If so, why do we see so many people tend toward acts of goodness? What exactly did Calvin mean by "total depravity"? For that, I pulled out my handy Calvin for Armchair Theologians. According to Christopher Elwood, Calvin meant pretty much what it sounds like:
Human sin, in [Calvin’s] view, creates a condition whose effects are “diffused into all parts of the soul.” The “total” in “total depravity” means that there is no part of the human personality that is free from sin and its impact. [p. 66]
Calvin (as well as Luther) was countering the idea that humans, on their own, are capable of doing good and making moral progress apart from God [p. 67]. The emphasis is on God’s grace and not on our deeds. There are those who take offense at the idea that humans are inherently evil and incapable of good apart from God. They point to those with no apparent belief in God who strive to do good and help others out because, as one humanist quoted in Berghoef's article said, that’s what makes life worthwhile.
Do you agree that humanity tends more toward acts of goodness and heroism than acts of evil? Is there an inherent goodness in humans that leads us to help others and try to make the world a better place? Or do you think that, apart from God, we’re unable to do good, even if we try? If so, is it possible that God sometimes uses people who don’t explicitly believe in God to accomplish that good?
(1) The concept of doctrine as a healing teaching comes from Diana Butler Bass, quoted in Brian McLaren’s book Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?
First you have to answer the basic question of what is “good” and what makes it so. Philosophers argue over if there are objective moral values and duties, but for us Jews and Christians, God is good and defines good and evil. God’s own nature is the standard of goodness and His commandments are expressions of His nature. BTW, I understand that most philosophers now believe in an objective moral truth. For me, the only other alternative is relative morals, and there really isn’t an effective way to say what makes one moral value valid and other competing ones invalid. God wills something because He is good and something is right because God wills it.
ReplyDeleteFollowing "God’s own nature is the standard of goodness and His commandments are expressions of His nature", then I'd suggest that Jesus shows us what that standard would be like lived out in human form. If we work from there, then what I learn from Jesus is
Delete(a) love for God and, by extension, God's creation,
(b) love for our fellow humans (not just our brothers and sisters but those we might consider to be "other" or the "them" in us vs. them,
(c) forgiveness (we can argue whether this is the same kind of forgiveness that Jesus extended to others),
(d) serving others and putting others before us (to the extent of laying down our lives for others),
(e) living a life in relationship with God in genuineness (from the heart) as opposed to putting on a facade of obedience meant to make ourselves look good (hypocrisy).
More could be added, but that's what jumps out in my mind.
So, using that, I could rephrase the question along the lines of: "Do you think that humanity tends more towards acts of love and selflessness than toward acts of hate and selfishness?"
And as a follow-up: "If we say that God is love (as John does in his first letter) and that Jesus showed us what love is, is it possible to love others without loving God? Or, if we see someone who orients his/her life along the lines of loving service to others, is it possible that they know God and are experiencing a Godly life, even if they don't explicitly acknowledge God's existence?"
I think that we are all a mixture of good and bad. Some of us (and you know who you are) tend to be more bad than good, but none of us are perfect. We even change over time, too. Sometimes it’s just the circumstances we find ourselves in. Some of us have opportunities for good or for bad that others don’t. I think that it’s in our nature to do things that promote our self-interests, but people don’t act that way all the time. Then there are these outliers such as Hitler, Stalin, and Ma Se-Tung who collectively killed more people in the 20th century than the previous 19 combined – some even say in all wars combined – how do they figure in this balance between getting better or getting more evil? I’ve sort of given up worrying about others’ bad behavior and just focus on fixing my own behavior these days.
ReplyDeleteThen, there are some unbelievers who do more good, even by Christian standards, than many believers do.
Finally, you can find several places in the Bible where God uses those of different or no faiths to accomplish His ends. And what about Judas? Pretty evil guy I suppose, and it was certainly evil to betray Christ, but what if he hadn’t? Didn’t he sort of have to do that?
I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
ReplyDelete-Anne Frank