thread: 2006-09-08 : Salvation, damnation, justification, a la Sydney
On 2006-09-13, Sydney Freedberg wrote:
Joshua, an entirely sensible response. I think we're agreeing, actually, in spite of the semantic static. I spent much of my life fixated on the badness in me and ignoring the goodness, until the fixation itself became the greatest evil in my life. Coming to Christ in 1991 was my first step towards breaking that fixation and learning to focus on the good. Subsequent steps involved meeting my wife and spending a lot of time in therapy, not just in church.
Now, Clinton put an apparent contradiction particularly well, so I want to address it head-on:
Clinton: Christianity is predicated on this sort of attitude; that is, that humans are inherently evil or bad. There's a secondary thing I saw in an earlier post of yours where the world is also considered evil or bad. As someone who thinks that humans are inherently good (and I mean that - good at nature and at heart, beings that will choose the moral action if given the chance to) and that the world is beautiful and wonderful, how can I accept Christianity?
First, to get it out of the way, an area where I think we actually disagree: I don't think humans will invariably do the right thing if given the chance, which is what free will is all about—although since we all live in a world of imperfect options and negative influences, it's possible that no human being has ever really been "given the chance" to make a completely unconstrained choice, and the theoretical question is irresolvable.
Second, more important in this case, the area where I think semantics are getting in the way:
1. I think all people are inherently and essentially good.
2. I think all people are to some degree bad.
3. I do not think anything is perfectly good except God.
4. I don't think anything at all is completely bad, because it's good to exist, so something that is completely bad by definition does not exist.
(See Saint Augustine for fuller explanation).
5. I think the world and everything in it is inherently and essentially good.
6. I think the world is broken, because it is full of suffering, and it did not have to be.
7. I think that while all people, and the world as a whole, are fundamentally good, we have the potential for much greater goodness—a potential of which we as yet fall short, but which we can achieve by the grace of God.
I'm trying to avoid the word "evil" here because our language tends to reserve it for extreme and aberrant malice, and while I see glimmers of evil in the minor cruelties and apathies of everyday life, other people are clearly confused by my use of the term. So I'll just keep saying "bad."
Understand that I'm not using good/saintly and bad/evil to describe some sort of binary either-or. I am speaking of a spectrum, with utter nonexistence at one end and God at the other, and with everything in the universe somewhere in between. There is badness in the greatest saints (just look at poor Saint Paul), and there is goodness in the worst villains (Hitler really did want to be an artist and make beautiful things). We are all a mix of good and bad: The challenge for each of us is to improve the relative proportions.
And, again, Clinton: The assumptions in your statements to Joshua are "humans are not good enough" and "humans can't become good enough on their own."
To be precise, I was trying to set those assumptions aside in that specific response to Joshua (post 62 above), but yes, in general I've been arguing from those assumptions.
But: "not good enough" for what, exactly? Here's what I mean by it, italicizing the necessary additions for clarity:
"Humans are not good enough to avoid causing themselves and one another suffering, and humans can't become good enough to create personal lives without self-inflicted suffering, let alone a world without such suffering, on their own: We have to move beyond the very real but very limited goodness within ourselves, and open ourselves up to the greater goodness in one another, to the even greater goodness in the universe as a whole, and ultimately to the unlimited goodness of God."
Clinton, and company, does this make things clearer, and hopefully a little more hopeful?
