There are lots of debates regarding human nature. It seems there always have been. Some say we are mostly a product of nature, others say its nurture that makes us who we are, while still others say both play a role. What about one’s unique individuality ask some?
On the other hand, some arguments are based on the goodness or lack of such in human nature. Are people basically good or are we intrinsically bad or evil? Or does it vary from person to person, and we can therefore divide people into categories of good or bad?
John Morley, a mostly 19th Century author, newspaper editor, member of Britain’s Liberal Party and onetime Ambassador to Ireland once wrote, “The belief that human nature is basically good is the key to that secularizes the world.” That is, if humans are basically good, there is no need for God, confession, redemption, and forgiveness.
Yes, at creation God created humanity and said it was good. Yet I had one Hebrew scholar say the word good (tov) in Hebrew meant more that “it works” than it did any moral assessment. And in the creation account this good creation went out on its own and rebelled from any created goodness. This still good creation continues to do so.
We Lutherans tend to have a “both/and” view of many things, including human nature. Calvinists are much more pessimistic about us humans while Unitarians and many others are much more optimistic. We tend to go along with Martin Luther’s “simul Justus et peccator” view, that is, we are simultaneously saint and sinner.
This view of Luther’s means we are not one moment good and another moment bad. It means even when doing good, we are yet sinners. It also means even when sinning we are those yet loved and redeemed by God.
This all means you and I and all those billions around us cannot be boiled down to something as simplistic or clear cut as “good” or “bad”. We are the whole human package. We are very much those of the “simul Justus……” variety. We are those called to love the neighbor and those loved ultimately and best by God.
Perhaps the ultimate place to see human nature is the cross. In the cross we see what humanity tends to do with God’s will for a creation called good. Humanity tends to reject it even at times to the point of violence. In the cross we also see the value God places on humanity. We see the length to which God is willing to go to redeem and remake rebellious humanity into a creation that can yet be called good but only because God makes it so.
We are inching toward Lent. Lent is not to be a morose time or a season to depress us. It is to be a serious time. It is a time to take seriously who we are and who we are not. It is a time to take the grace of God in Jesus seriously….seriously enough to trust that God’s work is to redeem sin, not conquer or subdue those who sin.
So what is human nature after all? It is something God cares for and cares for deeply. It is not ever left to its own. We are free to argue about nature vs nurture and such. We do so under the grace of one who can and does redeem the ills and errors of both.