The Human Condition

by Evan Stewart, July 15, 2004

"A recovery of the old sense of pain is essential to Christianity. Christ takes it for granted that men are bad. Until we really feel this assumption of His to be true, though we are part of the world that He came to save, we are not part of the audience to whom His words are addressed. We lack the first condition for understanding what He is talking about...When we merely say that we are bad, the “wrath” of God seems a barbarous doctrine; as soon as we perceive our badness, it appears inevitable, a mere corollary from God’s goodness...According to that doctrine (the doctrine of the Fall), man is now a horror to God and to himself and a creature ill-adapted to the universe not because God made him so but because he has made himself so by the abuse of his free will...the free will of rational creatures by its very nature included the possibility of evil; and that creatures, availing themselves of this possibility, have become evil.”
-C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’”
-Romans 3:9-12 (NIV)

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.”
-Romans 5:12 (NIV)

We can see from the outset of human history that only one time in the story of man has he ever been perfect, and this realization only comes by believing that the Biblical account of Paradise is true. If one does not accept this account, then one is forced to look at secular human history and believe that man has never been perfect, except in the most personal relative sense, assuming that what is viewed as bad by the majority is viewed as good by the individual. Human history never fails to show accounts of theft, murder, deceit and alike; which any sane reasoning will claim to be bad. I have heard of the argument that murder is acceptable and deemed as good in some sane and reasonable societies. This may be true in the sense that some cultures do favor organized forms of life taking, but I will not agree that some sane and reasonable cultures prefer the random acts of violence that lead to death, this is just incredible. From an understood Biblical standpoint it is clear that man has fallen far away from a status of moral perfection to our current state of wickedness. According to our relative perception of wickedness and evil we do not, of course, consider all men to be wicked and truly evil. We would never compare an average child to some one such as Charles Manson and claim that they are morally exact. However, what must be understood is that we all are initially wicked and evil in the sight of God. This by no means supports the idea that God is looking down from His mighty throne waiting to call down fire and brimstone and complete mass destruction, if this were true then we would not be here today. God is love and therefore unconditionally loves all of us. We can do nothing to rid ourselves from this eternal love. But no matter how much love God displays, unconditional love does not change the fact that we are wicked and separated from God because of our wickedness. This concept is present during the very first act of wickedness in human history, Adam’s sin.

Before I go on, I feel that some people may accuse the Christian of trying to fool the world into the thinking that a simple act of disobedience is a true act of pure wickedness. I do believe that Adam’s disobedience was a true act of evil. Our relative perception of evil and wickedness would define these to be any act that goes against and tries to over power good. We may not perceive one act of disobedience as going against good because we would never charge a child with an act of evil if said child were to go outside the home when the parent tells the child to stay indoors and not go out. One might argue that although the child should listen to the parent, in order that authority and discipline may be instilled thus building character, that he does not hurt himself or anyone else by going out to explore and that he may learn a more valuable lesson by exploring. Similarly, one may argue that although it may be better, in social terms, for the child to obey the parent, for the child would not be put in danger by staying indoors and respect of authority and discipline would be instilled, the parent is not perfect wisdom or perfect good and so the parent may be making a mistake by ordering the child indoors and thus preventing the child to explore and discover things that would build his character even more still. Although these arguments may be applied to a human parent and human child relationship, these arguments do not apply to an Omnipotent parent and human child relationship, as what we read in Eden. One, the child, Adam in this case, does hurt himself and others by disobeying. Adam is introduced, immediately, to a world of pain and death and he is cast out of an infinitely protective home, Eden. He also, by his disobedience, causes all of mankind to be born into a painful and finitely protected world. It is perfectly logical to assume that Adam was aware of his role as chief protector of the human future. This being true, reason and logic automatically labels Adam a very wicked and evil man. He had the ability to protect his children or harm them. Moreover, he chose to harm them for a selfish act of curiosity and pride. I do not, however, wish to bring slander or ill contempt against Adam, to be honest I and the rest of us would probably do the same thing given that kind of responsibility. Second, we cannot argue that the parent in this scenario, God, made an unwise or imperfect decision when He told Adam not to eat from the forbidden tree. If God told Adam not to eat from the tree, then Adam again is at fault and therefore labeled wicked because he challenged and went against supreme and absolute goodness and wisdom. So in either case, we must see that this act of disobedience was in fact a most horrible and vile disobedience. Furthermore, if we are to accuse Adam, a man that in my opinion deserves most respect because of the position he held, of wickedness and utmost betrayal, then we must lay the same blame across our shoulders. Every single act of sin that we perform is comparable to Adam’s. No matter how small we tell ourselves our sins are, a tactic only used to quite the guilt that is screaming at us from inside, each act of sin is an act of challenge and contempt towards ultimate goodness and wisdom. Every time we disobey, we tell God that we are right and that He is wrong. And every time we disobey, we are continuing the practice, and thus somehow instilling it into our children, of turning from God and promoting a world of pain and finite protection.

Now back to the concept of God’s unconditional love, of which we cannot rid ourselves from, and our ability to be separated from Him. In Eden, Adam was loved by God and walked with God. When Adam disobeyed, however, he was separated from God, but the love still remained. The argument will no doubt arise as to if God still loved Adam after the Fall, then why did and how could a loving God make Eve suffer the pains of child birth, curse the ground that they walked on, and make them go through painful toil just to survive one day. I cannot give a solid and sure answer to this because I do not fully understand why God did what He did. I do know that God did what He did out of pure love, but I can only assume how His acts were in fact love. I assume that the pain of child birth and overall pain of life was given as a reminder to Adam, Eve, and us of what we once had. I do not believe that God uses our pain as a way of “rubbing it in our faces” that we messed up and is on His throne laughing at our misfortunes and unbelievable stupidity. I assume that He never wants us to forget that we once lived in a place of complete joy and love and that we may come back to it one day. But as I have repeated, this is what I assume, take it or leave it.

Another lesson that we can take from Eden is that man cannot maintain the level of supreme and absolute goodness on his own. Until the Fall, we can assume that Adam did only as God preferred, we can also assume that both Adam and Eve found joy in pleasing God. A mutual partnership, if you will, existed between God and man. God was pleased and filled with joy by man worshiping and serving Him and by man fellowshipping with Him. Likewise, man found true life and joy by worshiping and serving God and fellowshipping with Him. However, the very moment that Adam chose to try to live life by his own limited wisdom and knowledge, he stumbled and fell. The moment Adam forsook God’s infinite knowledge and wisdom, his whole world came crashing down. The irony of this lessoned learned, however, is that it is not much of a learned lesson. We all can see that man is vulnerable when he relies on himself for good and truthful knowledge and wisdom, yet all of us continue to try and prove the Genesis account wrong by attempting to pilot and direct our own lives. Sure, God has given us the ability to think and make rational choices, but part, a large part, of this ability comes from being connected and obedient to God. Once we decide to push God aside and use our own mind to decide what is best for our lives, we find ourselves on a dark and pathless road. We can easily turn around and ask God to make a path and shine a light on the path, but we choose to be prideful and continue to stumble down a path that we choose, a path that in all reality is not even there.

Paul writes in his letter to the Romans that all have sinned and all do sin and fall short of the glory of God. He also writes that no one seeks God and no one understands and that no one is righteous. Now the Christian may promptly argue, as I did, that he understands and that he seeks God and that he is righteous. This argument, if offered by a true Christian, would be correct. And if one is to think that Paul is stating that this argument is false, I believe that one is mistaken. I think that what Paul is stating here is that by our own ambition and motivation we do not seek God and do not understand God. I do not think that all of us, although some may, lack a want to seek and understand God, but we can and will not make any move towards Him on our own. For example, I would like to visit the moon and outer space before I die, but I do not foresee myself taking any serious steps to achieve such a goal. Therefore, Paul is not writing about the condition of both the restored and unrestored man, he is writing about the initial state of man, a state without grace and redemption; the state in which man finds himself after the Fall.

Paul goes on to write that death comes to all men because all sinned and that the wages of sin is death. Paul is clearly explaining that we all have and we all will sin and that because of this sin we deserve and will receive death. I think that Paul does speak about two forms of death here, one being that of physical death and one being that of spiritual death. I will focus on the spiritual death because I think that this one is most often overlooked and/or misunderstood. When Paul speaks of spiritual death, it is imperative that we understand exactly what is meant by spiritual death. Some may say that they understand spiritual death and that it is simply Hell, a place of suffering and pain; a place of fire and brimstone. You would be quiet right in knowing this, but I would ask if you truly understand and grasp the true horror of such a place as Hell. I believe that one reason so many people over look Christianity and the wages of sin, is because although most may know what Christianity says about Hell, they do not or have not ever truly considered such a place. I want you to imagine the most horrible situation that you can mentally place yourself in and just dwell on that for a few moments. If you seriously considered such a place, something that some people may not be able to do because the fear is so great, you know that it is a place where you do not want to be, especially for any extended period of time. I would just like to point out that although the imagined place is horrible, it is still a place that at any moment something good may be found in it to ease the pain and that at any moment something good can come and rescue you from the pain. Although the scenario is still full of horror, the point that I am trying to get across is that good can still be found in this moment of terror. Spiritual death, however, is this imagined place multiplied to the nth power and void of everything good. Nothing good can be found and nothing good will ever come to the rescue. You will be trapped in torture and terror for an endless amount of time. As a matter of fact, the concept of time does not even exist in such a place; only eternal suffering. I have been told by people that if this kind of place awaits one who doesn’t surrender their life to God, then they will gladly accept such an eternity. I of course do not believe that they are serious because no person in their right mind would ever wish for themselves to be in such a place. We may acknowledge that we are all deserving of such an eternity, but we all hope that we will be spared. What is really going on in the mind of some one who says they will gladly accept Hell, if it means being god of one’s own life, is that they truly do not accept the idea of Hell to be true. We all know it to be true, according to Romans 1:20, but we all do not accept it to be true for one reason or another.

I know that an argument against God’s love is bound to arise from such a description of Hell. Something along the lines of, “If God is love, then how can or why would He send us to such a place?”. I do not know why Hell must to exist, but the fact remains that it does. For what ever reason, a good and true reason, such a place does exist, such a place does exist and there is nothing that we can do about it. However, I do believe that the question of why God sends us to Hell can be answered. Again I must warn that my own thoughts are not be the only thoughts on the subject, however I do believe that God has provided this answer to me in order to ease my own concerns about such a question. So if this reason does not suit one’s own uneasiness, then don’t bother with it. With that stated, we choose Hell out of our own free will. Again, why is Hell the only alternative to Heaven, I cannot answer, I can only say that for whatever reason it is the only good and just place for us to live if we reject Heaven. And that is the key to my own understanding of Hell, we reject Heaven. If we know from the start that only two options await us in the after world, and if we have been given clear instructions on how to end up in either one, then it is absolutely absurd that we offer such an offensive argument to God. If we do not choose Heaven, then Hell is the only thing that we have left to choose. We all can only get to Heaven with an invitation, and the beauty of the matter is that God has sent an invitation out to every single one of us; every single person on the face of the planet Earth. We all, of course, do not receive the invite at the same time, but be assured that we all receive one before we die. Since we have free will, we have the privilege to accept the invitation or reject the invitation. God has clearly said, that if we want to take and accept the invitation to come back to the place from which we fell, then we are more than welcome to do so. In fact, He has even said that He will rejoice with us at our return. However, He has also said that if we do not wish to live in Heaven with Him, the only place that we can find any kind or degree of peace, joy, and goodness, that we are welcome to spend our eternal afterlife outside the gates of Heaven; outside where absolutely no kind or degree of peace, joy, and goodness can or ever will be found. So to argue that God is unloving because He sends us to Hell is absurd! He is completely loving because He first offers a way out of Hell, an invitation to join Him in Heaven, and second He makes our two options clearly known and makes them known to us in advance. Furthermore, He only “sends us”, if you still think in such a way, to Hell because we tell Him that we would rather live outside His city and He respectfully grants our leave. You cannot blame anyone but yourself if you end up in Hell, the choice is completely yours!

And finally, we cannot blame anyone but ourselves for our current state. I do not over look the role that Satan plays in keeping us here, but time and time again, lesson after lesson, invitation after invitation, we continue to think that our plan is better than God’s. We have fallen and we cannot get up by our own efforts. When we will learn that on our own, we fail?