Basic Christian Beliefs: Human Nature

This is the second sermon in a series on Basic Christian Beliefs. In this sermon I want to look at the Christian view and the Biblical view of “man” or human nature. What are we as human beings? Are we good? Bad? Something in between? What can we realistically expect from human nature?

This may sound theoretical and abstract but it has implications for life. It raises some important questions. Can I trust myself and those around me to be sensible and rational?

Is humankind getting better and better, on an inevitable journey towards progress, or are we evil and in need of limitations and controls on our behavior? If I’m dating or thinking of marriage, is this person I’m in love with a special angel, or someone who gets moody and selfish like so many other people I know? Can we expect a pleasant turnabout if the Republicans oust the Democrats (or vice versa); or was Studdert-Kennedy right when he quipped: “When you change the Government, do remember that you only take one lot of sinners out and put another lot of sinners in”? What can I realistically expect of my children, of my friends?

What is man? More specifically, what is the Christian view about human nature? Before we look at what the Bible says about human nature, I want to briefly comment on several of the prevailing views in our culture.

There is the Rationalistic (or Idealistic) view of man. This view exalts our capacity to think and to reason. It suggests that we can be trusted to act with reason and good sense, therefore we can create a world that will steadily improve.

There is some truth in this. We humans have produced marvelous inventions and astounding technology. We can think and reason in ways that no other creatures can. For example, it would take a group of chimpanzees a long time to design and manufacture a new minivan! Yet this view overestimates human potential. The events of the last century have demonstrated that man’s reasoning ability is not dependable: World Wars I & II, Korea, Vietnam, Watergate, Communist purges in Russia and China, and more recently the Colombine High School shootings and the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. All of these reinforce doubts about our ability to always act with reason. All of us have stood by while a friend or family member has done something irrational or stupid and said, “What ever got into him?” How often do we ourselves wind up doing the evil our reason rejects!

All of us seem to have an innate tendency to throw common sense to the winds and follow compulsively our desire for food, drink, sex, possessions or power.

Another current view of human nature is the humanistic view of man. Secular humanism has seeped into the fabric of our American culture today. In this view, human beings, not God, are the center of existence. “Man is the measure of all things”, as Protagoras once said. Many who hold to this view believe human nature is basically good and human progress is inevitable. Years ago a group of students at Cambridge University formed the Cambridge Humanist Society. A news clipping said, “The Society’s premise is that human problems can, and must, be faced in terms of human intellectual and moral resources without invoking supernatural authority.”

This is the current thinking of many, that we humans have it within ourselves to solve all of the world’s problems and create a brave new world! But is this the world we are creating? Are we any better now than we were 100 years ago?

I looked at last night’s newspaper. If you get the Lancaster New Era, you know that the Saturday night edition is rather skimpy. There isn’t much news reported on Saturday night! Yet, the headline in last night’s newspaper was about a family in Lancaster County running a “puppy mill”. It recounted a pathetic saga of abused and neglected dogs. Isn’t that a tribute to how good we humans are becoming! Then there is this clip about a Neo-Nazi, White Supremacist group from the mid-west who may want to move their annual convention to Pennsylvania. Wouldn’t that be a great boon for our state! How far along we humans have come!

Here’s another news story. A new adult bookstore is coming right on the edge of Lancaster County. Now that should be a wonderful addition to our part of the country! Moving right along, here is a news clipping that says e-bay, the Internet auction site, is going to stop the bidding on explicit photos of a young murder victim who had been mutilated. Isn’t it good to know that there are people out there who enjoy purchasing these kinds of photographs! My, how far we’ve come in our steady march towards goodness! The rationalist view and the secular humanist view of human nature both fall short of accurately describing who and what we are.

What is the Christian view of human nature? What does the Bible say about us?

According to the Bible, human nature is ambiguous, an explosive mix of good and evil. If there were ever a classic “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” case, it is us! Brimming with courage and nobility, yet pathetically perverse.

On the one hand, we are created in the image of God. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” We are created unique from all other created things. We have potential to relate to God in a way that no other animal can. Psalm 8 describes this exalted view of humanity!

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet” Psalm 8:3-6.

Did you notice this Scripture says we are made a little less than God! We are crowned with glory and honor and given to rule over the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea! Because we are created in God’s image, we have the breathtaking potential to do good, to use our minds and hands to create wonderful things, to be courageous and heroic and to act in self-sacrificing ways.

But the Bible also says that human nature has suffered a catastrophe! I can still remember that fateful day in January, 1986. It was a beautiful but chilly morning in Florida. The space shuttle Challenger lifted off and rose majestically from the earth. Just over a minute later something happened. One of the technicians made an announcement – a classic understatement: “major malfunction”. Of course what had happened was that the shuttle had blown up. There has been a “major malfunction” with human nature. The Bible calls it “sin”. Theologians use phrases like “the Fall” or “original sin”. Unless we take this seriously, I don’t think we can understand human nature.

Two of the landmark documents that helped shape our current United Methodist beliefs are The Articles of Religion of the former Methodist Church and the Confession of Faith of the Evangelical United Brethren Church. The Articles of Religion describes human nature using these phrases: “Original sin…is the corruption of the nature of every” person. “Man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually.” There is a similar statement from the Evangelical United Brethren Church: “We believe man is fallen from righteousness and apart from the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, is destitute of holiness and inclined to evil.”

You may be thinking that this is a dim and pessimistic view of the human condition. However, I think this accurately reflects the Biblical perspective of human nature. Even though we were created in the image of God with a huge potential for noble deeds and heroic action, there is this fatal flaw in human nature that infects everything we do.

In the Bible, sin is not just isolated acts like telling a little lie, or letting fly with a cuss word, or drinking a little bit too much beer. Sin is something much more deep and pervasive. It is our basic self-centeredness, our inclination to want to run our own life and let God out of the picture. Sin is our being chained to self-interest in so much of what we do. It is this inward state of mind and heart that leads to destructive behaviors. We are unable to free ourselves from this evil deep within us. In Romans 3, the Apostle Paul quotes a number of Old Testament Scriptures that refer to man’s sin, and then he says:

“For we have already charged that all…are under the power of sin” Romans 3:9.

For some years a brilliant and renowned surgeon and instructor of surgery attended the church where I was pastor. This man had a very blunt way of telling me from time to time where he thought I was wrong in my preaching and ministry. (In spite of this, we had a good relationship with each other). One day he told me that I was coming down too hard on man’s sinfulness. He said that he sees people under pressure in emergency situations act with bravery and unselfishness. I agreed with what he said and thanked him for reminding me of this truth. But I went on to say that I knew of situations where extreme circumstances can bring out the worst in people. Our conversation took place around the time Hurricane Agnes flooded Wilkes-Barre. Some of my wife’s relatives had been flooded and I saw firsthand some of the horror of that situation. I also remembered reading in the newspapers how people took advantage of others after the flood. A number of persons became self-appointed carpenters, charged people very high fees, and did shoddy work on home repairs. I thought too of instances where people loot merchandise from stores during a fire, or take wallets from dead bodies following a plane crash.

Some time ago I came across this anonymous poem, commenting on the idea that man is descended from apes:

“Three moneys sat in a cocoanut tree, discussing things as they’re said to be.

Said one to the other, ‘Now listen you two; there’s a certain rumor that can’t be true.

That man descends from our noble race! The very idea’s a disgrace.

No monk ever deserted his wife, starved her babies and ruined her life.

And you’ve never known the mother monk to leave her babies with others to bunk.

And another thing you’ll never see, a monk build a fence around a cocoanut tree,

And let the cocoanuts go to waste, forbidding all other monks a taste.

Here’s another thing a monk won’t do; go out at night and get in a stew,

Or use a gun or club or knife, to take another monkey’s life.

Yes, man descends, the ornery cuss – but brother, he didn’t descend from us!”

The Biblical view of human nature is that we are Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – we have this tremendous capacity for good, yet we are chained to evil and that colors so much of what we do and who we are. Are there any of us who can say we are not that mix of good and evil? That’s me!

The Bible says that the root cause of this catastrophe in human nature is our rebellion against God and our alienation from our Creator. We need to be rescued from the perversity deep within us. We need divine help. God addressed this human predicament by sending His own Son to set us free!

The late Dr. Wallace Fisher, noted pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Lancaster, wrote in one of his books: “Sin despoils (our) motives, warps (our) best-intentioned deeds, lures (us) into blind alleys. But that is not the destiny God planned for (us). (We humans are) created for life with God and (one another). Since Christ won that massive victory over sin, there is imperishable hope (for us all).”

The starting point is for us to recognize the evil deep within us, and that we need divine forgiveness and help. We need to change.

There has been much hype in the last few days over the firing of Bobby Knight after 29 years as basketball coach at Indiana. After years of controversy over his temper tantrums

and his verbal and physical abuse, he was finally let go. Having been put on “zero tolerance” after grabbing a student by the neck, the final straw was when he grabbed a freshman student by the arm to lecture him about manners.

ESPN did a one-hour interview with Bobby Knight. One of things he said was, “I’ve always felt I’ve got to be me, I can’t be something that someone’s trying to construct…I try to be fair, try to be honest. My philosophy and approach to things is just different than some people and situations.”

The interviewer was Jeremy Schaap, son of famed newsman Dick Schaap. During the interview Knight chided the young interviewer. At one point Knight said to him, “You got a long way to go to be as good as your dad, you better keep that in mind.”

I do not know this man’s heart, but it seems to me that he exemplifies the type of people who won’t look inside and own up to the evil that’s there, people who won’t recognize our part in isolating ourselves from God and one another, and won’t allow God to change us.

To those of us willing to recognize the evil within us and our need for forgiveness and divine help, God forgives us and gives us new beginnings!

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