HUMAN NATURE, A BLANK SLATE, AND GOD

It should be obvious that we do have a human nature, and the knowledge of our human nature instructs us how to best care for it. Fish have their own nature. When we understand this, we will not set our fish at the dining room table to eat pizza with the rest of the family. Instead, their nature requires that they remain in water where they can breathe. Because of our nature, we too thrive in certain lifestyles and languish in others. For instance, our necks can’t be turned 360 degrees as can an owl’s neck. Consequently, to train our necks to turn like an owl’s is to create harm.

We also have a moral and psychological nature. This means that we cannot be treated in certain ways. Babies need to be held or they will suffer psychologically. They need milk and cannot eat dead animals as can a vulture.

However, not everyone will concede that humanity has a human nature. Instead, they have chosen to believe that the human is completely malleable and can be reshaped into any form. The late psychologist, Eric Fromm, observed:

·       Marx did not believe, as do many contemporary sociologists and psychologists, that there is no such thing as the nature of man; that man at birth is like a blank sheet of paper, on which the culture writes its text. https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch04.htm

Consequently, because Marxism was not able to address our human needs, it failed wherever it was tried and could only be held together by coercion and genocide.

In The God that did not Fail, Historian Robert Royal made a similar observation:

·       The materialist view of the person – combined with the notion that humans, as material beings, can be reshaped into the New Man of the Communist dream merely by a change of their social conditions, a view still widespread today – is a falsehood that inevitably leads to awful consequences…By most credible estimates, Communist countries killed about a hundred million people in the twentieth century. (247)

Consequently, Stalin had his showcase city, Nowa Huta, constructed with thin separating walls so that everyone could hear everyone else’s business. Why? They wrongly supposed that thin walls would create brotherhood. Of course, the secret police would report any non-conformity to their utopian ideal. Instead, of their enforced conformity creating oneness, it created suspicion and distance.

If human nature is like water, it can conform to any container without much effort. However, because it is not fully malleable, it cannot easily be made to conform to any idealistic dream. Instead, human nature has its limitations. As a result, we cannot devote our lives to hurting or sexually exploiting others without consequences, both to those we abuse and even to ourselves, the abusers.

In order to maximize our lives, wisdom constrains us to lead the “Virtuous Life,” which accords with our moral nature, unlike the mosquito or the angler who eats its mate. Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) remarked that self-serving behavior will not feed our nature as would other-centered behavior: “If you want to lift yourself up, lift someone else up.”  

Augustine also realized that kindness was the highway to psychological freedom: “He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.” How does evil enslave? Evil is not only at war with God; it is also at war against its own God-given nature. Our conscience afflicts us when we abuse another. Rather than confessing our sins and receiving healing and forgiveness, evil foments turmoil and confusion. It denies, suppresses, and justifies its evil actions, thereby killing heart and soul in the process.  

James commented that the ways of evil are in opposition to the wisdom of God:

·       Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:13-18)

Our nature delights in the things of our Maker, in whose likeness we are created (Genesis 1:26-27), in holiness and righteousness (Ephesians 4:24). Consequently, to serve God is to best serve our own nature. To rebel against God, in favor of our short term pleasures, is to hate ourselves.