by Jason Caywood
This is a bit on the longer side in comparison to others published this year, but I want to keep all of the ideas developed together into one essay.
When I write for others my aim is not to be unnecessarily gloomy or negative. For God knows we all have knowledge of troubles, hardships, injustice and varying reasons for sorrow. However, to shrink back from honestly grappling with what is at the root of our personal moral rottenness, to say nothing of the social degradation and inhuman treatment of one another on display in our news, is characteristic of the emptiness of the Godless modern culture which surrounds us. And so for us who claim the holy Name of Christ this is not an option. Thus I am happy to share with you this reflection on why it is important to understand why it is good to admit to our depravity as human beings.
Perhaps one of the most unpopular spiritual teachings in the world is the depravity of human nature. Not only do secular people reject it but even many devoutly religious persons categorically deny it. I would suggest that this both naïve and unwise.
For example, those who affirm that everyone makes it to the eternal heavenly state, regardless of whether or what was believed and done in this life (“universalism”). These people have to affirm that human beings are not depraved by nature—otherwise they must embrace some version for how God saves people from themselves. There are many today who affirm this and categorically reject the notion that anyone would be eternally lost because of his or her sin.
I respect such persons for their consistency. But to maintain “universalism” one must simultaneously reject human depravity. The evidence for depravity of human nature is overwhelming. The only way around it, as far as I can see, is to redefine evil in psychological terms and classify every problem of human behavior as pathology or mental illness.
Part of the reason why people shy from affirming human depravity has to do with the exclusively negative meaning of the term. People do not want to think of themselves as inherently evil or morally corrupted, and they certainly want to think the best of others. This makes sense and is in a way sensible. For who wants to assume that the person who just served me a cup of coffee is perverse and intends to use others for evil purposes? As the saying goes, “Aren’t most people basically decent and wish the best for themselves and others?”
I grant that this objection does have some force and my assertion that human beings are depraved does not require anyone to deny the obvious: People generally do not want to intentionally inflict harm on their neighbors. Some do to be sure—Jihadi terrorists, murderers, those who have embraced sexual perversions that involve abusing and doing violence to others, government leaders who terrorize their people as a matter of policy. There is a process of moral degeneration and demonic deception that is inherent in the human embrace of such evils.
The simple dodge for admitting to depravity is this: I am not like “those people who do (you fill in blank).” The flaw of this objection is that human depravity is not limited to instances of one person intentionally harming another person for the thrill of inflicting harm or behaviors that top most people’s lists for reprehensible actions. We can all think of and name many instances of specific persons or whole groups who have systematically ridiculed (dehumanized), physically harmed and even tried to kill others simply because of who they are or identity of the group a person belonged to. In the case of groups we call this discrimination, persecution and genocide. In the case of individuals we call this insults, violence and murder.
The modern attempts to explain why one person would hate another person usually focuses on psychological problems, mental disorders and sociological conditions. These certainly are legitimate factors in many cases. However, rather than disproving that humans are depraved they tend to confirm the profoundly broken condition of human nature (which depravity is one expression of). For even the “best” of us when we are honest must admit that we could do harm to others—even if our only motive was to be self-serving and to get something we want.
The Lord’s teaching in Matthew 5, when taken seriously, erodes away all the excuses and self-justifications we can invent to help us think our behavior, thoughts and motives are right. So long as we are ignorant of the God’s highest standards of righteousness or we have found creative ways to dumb down the application of those standards then the illusion of our basic goodness can remain. Thanks be to God that the Holy Spirit does not allow us to live in illusion forever.
This is the truth: We human beings are depraved. Relationships with others are severed by choice, resentment and bitterness grow in us to feed bigotry and anger, which builds to rage; dishonesty characterizes our responses to others and we refuse to squarely take responsibility for our own choices and behavior. When faced with the existential truth about our true motives and the consequences of our actions we instinctively avoid responsibility and try to blame others; more than that we invent and insist upon absurd reasons for why others are to blame for our problems and our reactions to them.
We may even lash out at others with words or violence or turn on ourselves to invest our energy in self-destructive behaviors. And all this is the expression of the human heart (see Matthew 15:1-20).
The question that Godless modern people cannot answer is, “What can be done for us to change us?”
The general answer given by the major philosophic and religious groups comes down to this: Get educated in God’s way (or the “spiritual path to enlightenment”) and learn to be self-disciplined and commit to a group of devoted followers under the teaching of a teacher, guru, or organization. For those who are honest with themselves this search ends in the awareness of one thing—I cannot keep my own high ideals of being a spiritual person and to do good and I am still spiritually “empty”. The answer people often give to this dose of reality is to try harder to improve oneself (utilizing whatever practices are deemed necessary or useful) and then to redefine downwards the stated goal for spiritual enlightenment.
What I would assert is that believing in human depravity is good news. For one need not pretend any longer that the high standards of practicing integrity of goodness and upright behavior is within reach. I cannot attain to my highest and best aspirations to be a good human being with the resources and power of my human nature, my inherited moral understanding and intellect.
The truth that I (or we) need another to enlighten, empower and transform us will either bring offense or bring gratefulness from within. These are the two basic responses to what the Gospel promises. This is why the Lord Jesus will be ultimately repudiated by some or eagerly loved by others. There can be no middle ground on this matter. If anyone thinks so it is either because that person has already decided to ignore what the Lord said (and mold some other more convenient image of him) or is ignorant of the Lord’s teaching.
Yes, we are depraved. We may express that basic depravity differently, based on multiple factors, but depravity is a fact of life for us. The most pressing question is how will that be explained and how will it be remedied.
It seems that our nation, and indeed all the people of earth, are being presented by the Holy Spirit with this choice: Remain as you are and continue to slowly die, rotting in your human nature contaminated by sin and death or turn away from your self-will and satisfaction with the things of this world to God and life that is truly life, in Jesus the Son of the living God.
For this reason I am very much encouraged: We who walk in the faith of Christ have an opportunity to be the living examples of the real answers which are only found in the Lord, and in walking in his ways by the Holy Spirit. And we can bear witness to the good news that, though we are indeed depraved, our Creator has not abandoned us but rather has made a way of salvation for all. And in the process of God’s saving us, we can, in the Holy Spirit, “escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:4, NRSV)
How freeing it is to admit the truth! And how gracious is God the Father to demonstrate his love and truth to us through the Passion and Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ! For bearing up under his immeasurable suffering, for our sake, he has shown us all an image of our depravity and the consequences of our choices to be sinners. Yet God has also in this demonstrated what the path of God is to be changed inwardly and to start down the long road toward what will ultimately lead to transformation of our whole selves in God. Receive God’s rest “in Christ.” We do this by opening our whole selves to His love and power, moment by moment, day by day (see 2 Corinthians 4:16–18).