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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Does humankind have a "sinful nature"?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I have read people talking about us having a "sinful nature" but that doesn't seem right to me. We have a human nature. But we don't have some second nature called the "sinful nature."
IIRC the NIV translates σαρξ as "sinful nature" but that's the NIV. Another reason not to use it.
So where does this idea of a "sinful nature" come from? Can it be placed in the Scriptures? the Fathers? the Traditions of the Church?
[ 01. December 2012, 10:45: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
I can tell you're not a protestant... or you wouldn't ask this question. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
IIRC the doctrine of Original sin is generally ascribed to St Francis of Assisi.
The concept of human sinfulness being innate runs through much of scripture.
Off the top of my head:
Psalm 51
Romans 3
Romans 7
Galatians 5
James 1
I'm not saying that it's the only way to understand scripture or even these specific verses, but it's not just a random idea, it's a well developed theology.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I'm not asking if we're sinful. One look at the Romney campaign confirms that. I'm asking if we have a sinful nature.
PS I think "original sin" is ascribed to Augustine.
[ 23. September 2012, 04:45: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
PS I think "original sin" is ascribed to Augustine.
Ooops, yep. Sorry ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) That's what I meant to say - I knew there was an "A" in there somewhere.
I agree that the sinfulness of humans is self-evident; what I'm saying is that many who read these verses (and many many others) conclude that the bible is stating that we are sinful by nature. I'm not saying that's the only understanding of these scriptures, I'm saying this is where it comes from.
Recently there was another go-round on the Immaculate conception. For most protestants this is a weird argument (but that's coz of a different view of church tradition) and for me Mary was a sinner in need of salvation like the rest of us. Yet clearly a Godly and righteous woman worthy or our respect. Reading that thread, though I noted a strong need by some to see Mary as set-apart and Holy in order that Jesus might be Holy; surely that kind of thinking only makes sense if you believe the human nature is sinful?
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I guess I need to distinguish between our having a sinful nature in addition to our human nature -- two natures warring in us -- or our having a human nature which happens to be sinful. I guess when I posed the question I was thinking of the former. Probably because of the way the NIV uses "sinful nature."
You put this two different ways, and I'm not sure if they're equivalent: Are we sinful by nature? Is human nature sinful? But I can't tease them apart this late at night so I'm going to proceed as if they're the same thing.
Well, we were not made sinful. So if our nature is now sinful, that would mean our nature -- the very core of our being -- has changed. And I don't really see the justification for that. We are still image-bearers of the divine Creator. At the core of our being is the image of God. That is our nature. Sin stains us, but it doesn't define us. It isn't who we are at base.
If human nature were sinful at the core, what does it mean to say that Christ became human? That would be impossible, because we know he was without sin. It seems one of two things are possible:
1. It's false to say that human nature is sinful,
or
2. It was sinful, but when Christ took on our nature, he made it no longer sinful.
You can't say he took on all of our nature except the sinful part -- does our nature have constituent parts? That makes no sense.
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
I would say that our nature at birth is only the potential to become something. Our real nature in its essence is the ability to think and choose, but until we develop these innate abilities and use them, they exist only in potential.
We were created to use them to follow God and accept him making us an actual image and likeness of him, each of us in our unique, individual way. But we as a species have acquired the inclination to abuse those two abilities and use them only for the sake of ourselves. That inclination is counter-balanced in each of us by the influence of God to draw us away from it, but to begin with, we are neither an image and likeness of God nor sinful. Both exist as potential from the start and only become actualities to varying degrees according to our choices.
That's how I see it.
[ 23. September 2012, 06:07: Message edited by: W Hyatt ]
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
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Zacchaeus
Shipmate
# 14454
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Posted
Human beings are made in God’s image as thinking, sentient beings, born with free will.
Sin comes when we try to use that free will for our own wishes and not God’s. Our sinful human nature is that we are incapable of not following our own will and desires, the only human who ever only followed the will of God was Jesus.
Yes he was fully human but he was sinless because his focus was the Father’s will in a way that the rest of us humans are incapable of doing.
Apologies if I don’t make proper sense, I am rushing to reply before going out to church..
Posts: 1905 | From: the back of beyond | Registered: Jan 2009
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I have read people talking about us having a "sinful nature" but that doesn't seem right to me. We have a human nature. But we don't have some second nature called the "sinful nature."
I agree.
We have a human nature (made by God) that can by occluded by sin.
My Greek New Testament dictionary says σαρξ literally means flesh or body but in Paul's thought is often the "willing instrument of sin".
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm not asking if we're sinful. One look at the Romney campaign confirms that. I'm asking if we have a sinful nature.
That just went in the quotes file. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I generally try to avoid this terminology. In my thinking, we're that point where God has drawn forth from nature, via agapastic evolution, a creature capable of bearing God's image.
I like the way my late mentor developed Irenaeus' thought. He argues that innocence is not an ignorance or pristine purity to be lost, but rather a virtue to be gained (epitomized by the Risen Christ who bears scars).
So we're hairless apes that bear the image of God. It's really quite steampunk if you think of it. We, as individuals and as a species learned to do sinful behaviors (many of which furthered our ancestors' and our survival fitness) before we could know right from wrong in a moral sense. While I wouldn't want to reduce the Incarnation to a software patch or a bit of "jiggery-pokery," as the tenth Doctor might say, the Incarnation does wed our nature with the Divine nature so that human nature, and all creation with it, has been drawn into the inner life of the Trinity (! - where's the mind-blown smilie?) in the Person of Christ, and that's the ultimate milieu for the working out of evolutionary love.
The "sinful nature" talk, IMO, is metaphor. I think it tends to get reified too much, and mixed with other similarly reified metaphors. But it's worth keeping in mind that many Christians use the term "fallen nature" synonymously - that is, they would say something like that "sinful" or "fallen" nature refers to the fact that our nature has been damaged or tarnished or something. Like software that's been degraded and so doesn't quite work right. I'll leave it up to them if they want to say that salvation is like a reinstall.
[ 23. September 2012, 08:14: Message edited by: churchgeek ]
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
I think if you take 'sinful' to work in the same way as 'damaged' then it is an acceptable thing to say. Yes, we have a damaged nature. What we don't have is a nature that is sinful while functioning properly.
I've just been reading a book on Julian of Norwich's theology that argues that for Julian the division of our nature into sinful and pure is how we genuinely experience ourselves as sinners, but is not how things are from a non-sinful point of view.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
I think that it is easy to view the body and its needs as inherently sinful - but only if we follow its promptings instead of vice versa.
That is, if we are driven by, or give free reign to, our physical appetites for food, rest, sex, etc. we will do things that people call sin. Yet these appetites are all normal, necessary and healthy. We would die without them.
So the "sinful nature" is nothing more than our inclination to listen to these voices and let them rule, as opposed to the voice of God.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
I hate the very idea of people being born sinful, and cannot accept that we have a 'sinful nature' in the sense that we're naturally corrupt. Observing the attempts to squeeze this idea into the shape of a humankind made in the image of God is excruciating.
Our human nature is ideal for our adaptation into the environments of the world, and its element of consciousness enables us to adapt into the environment of the Kingdom of God too. We have the best of both worlds, but that doesn't make it easy. Tendencies developed from the former must be set aside for our adaptation into the latter.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Our human nature is ideal for our adaptation into the environments of the world, and its element of consciousness enables us to adapt into the environment of the Kingdom of God too. We have the best of both worlds, but that doesn't make it easy. Tendencies developed from the former must be set aside for our adaptation into the latter.
I don't think that's the right way to think about it at all. It is really quite hard to fall into sin by following the promptings of the body or our adaptation into the environments of the world (assuming that by 'world' you mean what our human nature adapts us for rather than the sinful social structures that the Bible calls the world). If we followed the promptings of the body exclusively we'd perhaps be a bit lazier than we ought, and perhaps a bit more sexually active but I think less so than we're inclined to imagine. Sin is mostly a function of consciousness.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Sin is mostly a function of consciousness.
Oh boy oh boy oh boy.
That jumps out at me.
Makes sense on a first impression basis too - we don't think animals are sinful do we?
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a theological scrapbook
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
I would say that human nature is not necessarily sinful - Jesus had/has a human nature and yet was without sin. What we have done is to make human nature sinful. And that is what we need sanctification for - to cleanse the heart of sin.
One day when we see him face to face 'we shall be like him.' Our human nature will no longer be sinful.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Talitha
Shipmate
# 5085
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Posted
BTW, the NIV 2011 has gone back to "flesh" rather than "sinful nature".
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
Article IX. Of Original or Birth Sin
quote:
Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is:
- very far gone from original righteousness, and is
- of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit;
and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation.
And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in Greek phronema sarkos (which some do expound as: - the wisdom,
- the sensuality,
- the affection,
- the desire, of the flesh)
is not subject to the Law of God.
And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized; yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.
So, it would seem that the traditional Anglican position is that the flesh or 'sinful nature' is "an infection of nature whereby human beings are 1) very far gone from original righteousness, 2) naturally inclined to evil, and 3) not subject to the Law of God. This infection of nature affects human beings at the level of our 1) thoughts, 2) physical appetites, 3) emotional responses, and 4) will."
The flesh or sinful nature is a way of saying that sin, to some degree, affects every aspect of what it is to be human. Or, to put it another way, the flesh is human nature in which the image of God is in every respect fatally marred and in need of healing.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Talitha:
BTW, the NIV 2011 has gone back to "flesh" rather than "sinful nature".
I think that's a positive move because it requires the preacher to explain clearly, indeed perhaps even 'translate', the concept as he or she preaches.
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by alienfromzog:
IIRC the doctrine of Original sin is generally ascribed to St Francis of Assisi.
Irenaeus? Augustine?
See above.... I mean Augustine. Brain-malfunction
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
We are born in to an alienated, lost, broken, ignorant, world. That'll do it. No sin gene necessary. Which would make us all blameless robots.
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Love wins
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
We are born in to an alienated, lost, broken, ignorant, world. That'll do it. No sin gene necessary. Which would make us all blameless robots.
That's the Orthodox position as I understand it.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I think this question starts to move into the areas that biology, psychology and anthropology probably have at least as much to say, i.e., what is the nature of humanity.
It is quite clear that we are by nature selfish, don't postpone immediate needs and desires well, and we compete with each other and the environment. We have a biological nature that drives us into competition, violence and war, and that also makes us altruistic, kind and tender. From this perspective, we can decide because we have brains, to restrain our basic instincts, or not.
This makes me say that we have only possibility to do wrong and to sin, and also the possibility not to. We have to choose, both broadly in terms of a direction for our lives, and in each situation we find ourselves in. Myself, I have been struggling since very young not to let my temper control some of what I do and say. It is within my genes and social learning growing up to have developed this response, and also to have learned that I should try not to.
quote:
Carl Sagan, "Contact"
You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.”
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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The Undiscovered Country
Shipmate
# 4811
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Posted
As said in the OP, the NIV uniquely and unhelpfully uses the phrase. 'sinful nature'. The use of t phrase 'the flesh' in some other translations isn't ideal either but it gets closer to the biblical concept.
When we become a Christian we then become a new creation. All our sin, past, present and future is forgiven. We do not have two natures in competition with one another. What we do have is a body that is as subject to the effects of the Fall as everything else in creation. That is why in the New Testament the constant exhortation is to stand firm in what Christ has already done by making right choices even if our body and mind is shouting something else.
However its really important to stress that this doesnot mean that bodies are evil. That i a traditional Greek worldview rather than a biblical one. When God restores everything that will includes new bodies, not spirits floating around on clouds
[ 23. September 2012, 18:58: Message edited by: The Undiscovered Country ]
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore all hope of progress rests with the unreasonable man.
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
I like this thread.
Human beings are certainly capable of sin, as we have free will. Is sin inevitable for us? Maybe an analogy is that if you attempted to walk on a very narrow mountain path, you would be likely to slip, sooner or later. Some people could manage it for a long time, but most would slip fairly soon. When you do slip, you can try to catch yourself and recover, or you can fall a long way.
There's a difference between "inevitable" and "very likely". Don't simply hope to defy the odds; accept that you are likely to make mistakes and try to detect your mistakes early and then recover.
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm not asking if we're sinful. One look at the Romney campaign confirms that. I'm asking if we have a sinful nature.
Is this a question about what it objectively the case, like asking if the blood in us circulates, or is a question about how we want to describe human nature, more like whether we want to call our selves Homo sapiens.
If it's the first sort of question I have no idea how you would answer it. If it's the second sort I want to know what difference the options before us make, that is, what's at stake, what would be do differently in either case?
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The Undiscovered Country
Shipmate
# 4811
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Posted
I don't think you can separate it into two questions like that. The issue of whether we have a sinful nature and the issue of how we would describe human nsture surely fundamentally need to flow from the same root answer.
[ 23. September 2012, 19:36: Message edited by: The Undiscovered Country ]
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore all hope of progress rests with the unreasonable man.
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
Well, if you could discover our 'real' nature you would certainly have to describe it according to what you discovered. I suppose my question reveals my belief that it isn't that sort of a thing, that what we are talking about is agreeing (or not) how we are going to describe human nature. Human nature is what it is, and we're all first-hand experts in it, but how are we going to evaluate it?
If children are believed to be essentially wicked, then you might, as people once seem to have done, try to break their spirit with physical violence. If you think children are essentially good, then you would treat them with respectful guidance rather than punishment.
If we agree that human nature is sinful, then I think we are legitimating a certain sort of society. If we agree that human nature is not sinful, though our behaviour may often be, then we're making the case for a different sort of society.
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My crazy theology in novel form
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
I find it astounding that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, people still seem to think that human beings are essentially good. I honestly believe that this unwillingness to truly take responsibility for our radical sinfulness is itself strong evidence of that very sinfulness.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
It is pretty crazy, I agree, but that's faith, in my opinion, it's loving my neighbour, it's seeing Jesus in the prisoner and the beggar, it's John 3:16 and 17.
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My crazy theology in novel form
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
I'm not entirely sure that I see any meaningful difference between saying that we have a sinful nature and saying that we are born into a world that is essentially broken, and our response to that is sinful. From some metaphysical height unavailable to mere mortals, there may be a difference. But ISTM that we choose which we wish to embrace based on our ideological predilictions, not on any evidence that would be open to us.
--Tom Clune
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
It is pretty crazy, I agree, but that's faith, in my opinion, it's loving my neighbour, it's seeing Jesus in the prisoner and the beggar, it's John 3:16 and 17.
I'm sorry but don't understand what you're getting at. Are you suggesting that God is favourably disposed towards the world because it's not really that bad? Are you suggesting that our command to love our neighbour is rooted in the fact that our neighbour somehow deserves to be loved because they are essentially rather good?
[ 23. September 2012, 20:05: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Sin is mostly a function of consciousness.
Oh boy oh boy oh boy.
That jumps out at me.
Makes sense on a first impression basis too - we don't think animals are sinful do we?
No, we don't - but not because we wouldn't consider their behaviors sinful if they were moral agents.
When a subadult male chimp rapes a female chimp because it's his only way to have sex with anyone (the females being attracted to the alpha male), we don't call them sinners, but one would also hope that this is not God's will for chimpanzees.
When a male lion or barnyard domestic cat kills a female's baby (that isn't his) so she'll be open to mating again (and hopefully mate with him), we don't call it sinful, but again, it can't be God's will for God's creatures.
That's what I was getting at when I said we learned as a species to do sinful acts before we were moral agents. Both the above examples enhance the male's chances of passing on his genes, so to the degree that his behavior is affected by genes, that behavior is also more likely to get passed on (if he's successful). Our ancestors didn't survive and beat out competing species (or individuals within the same species) by being saints.
But the same capacity that makes us moral agents (and therefore sinners) also makes us aware that this is not the way we really want to, or ought to, be - at least if we're socialized correctly and have all our faculties intact.
So is the nature we inherited from our pre-human ancestors a sinful nature?
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I find it astounding that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, people still seem to think that human beings are essentially good. I honestly believe that this unwillingness to truly take responsibility for our radical sinfulness is itself strong evidence of that very sinfulness.
I'm back to the Carl Sagan quote I posted above. We're capable of beautiful dreams and terrible nightmares. To further develop this... We must constantly choose between good and evil, and we will 'grow into' either an evil nature or a good nature. The basic 'original sin' idea is at leasr somewhat of a corruption toward considering sin and evil as our nature first. Anyone who has held a newborn must reject this. I think of the basic potentiality that we have is for both. The key bit additionally being that we have not got the capacity to sustain the good, without doing wrong, via independent individual efforts.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I find it astounding that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, people still seem to think that human beings are essentially good. I honestly believe that this unwillingness to truly take responsibility for our radical sinfulness is itself strong evidence of that very sinfulness.
I'm back to the Carl Sagan quote I posted above. We're capable of beautiful dreams and terrible nightmares. To further develop this... We must constantly choose between good and evil, and we will 'grow into' either an evil nature or a good nature. The basic 'original sin' idea is at leasr somewhat of a corruption toward considering sin and evil as our nature first. Anyone who has held a newborn must reject this.
I have held three of my own newborn children and quite a few others and I don't feel any imperative to accept the conclusion you reach.
On the contrary, I have never actively chosen to teach my children to be evil and yet - from time to time - I do see the effects of sin emerging in their characters and behaviour. And, tragically, I have to admit that they have seen the same in me as well.
[ 23. September 2012, 20:52: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I'm sorry but don't understand what you're getting at. Are you suggesting that God is favourably disposed towards the world because it's not really that bad? Are you suggesting that our command to love our neighbour is rooted in the fact that our neighbour somehow deserves to be loved because they are essentially rather good?
God is favourably disposed towards the world because He created it, loves it and sustains it. Our command to love our neighbours is irrespective of their worth in human eyes and derives from their worth as creatures of God, who he created, loves and sustains.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
we don't think animals are sinful do we?
At some point in the evolution of the human brain, we develpoed imagination. That is the ability to step outside ourselves, and imagine what it's like to be the victim. That is the knowledge of good and evil. daronmedway's quote from Article IX, "
and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation " just about encapsulates everything I loathe about this form of Christianity. We are not born deserving wrath and damnation. We are born with choices, in every moment, whether to do right or wrong, which can be discerned, in most cases, by following the golden rule.
Though we don't always live up to that ideal, we can confess our sins privately to God, or sacramentally, and receive the sanctifying power of His Body and Blood in our lives.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Our human nature is ideal for our adaptation into the environments of the world, and its element of consciousness enables us to adapt into the environment of the Kingdom of God too. We have the best of both worlds, but that doesn't make it easy. Tendencies developed from the former must be set aside for our adaptation into the latter.
I don't think that's the right way to think about it at all. It is really quite hard to fall into sin by following the promptings of the body or our adaptation into the environments of the world (assuming that by 'world' you mean what our human nature adapts us for rather than the sinful social structures that the Bible calls the world). If we followed the promptings of the body exclusively we'd perhaps be a bit lazier than we ought, and perhaps a bit more sexually active but I think less so than we're inclined to imagine. Sin is mostly a function of consciousness.
As I have said, consciousness is the essential factor by which we're able to adapt into the Kingdom of God. Without it we wouldn't know sin.
What is sin if not a corruption of those aspects of our human nature there for good reason so that we're able to adapt to the world? We eat to live, but if we overeat we sin. We fight to survive, but if we murder we sin. We have the need to procreate, but if we have sex with everything that moves we sin. We seek comfort, but if we steal to provide it we sin. We desire power, but if we harm others to obtain it we sin....
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
When a subadult male chimp rapes a female chimp because it's his only way to have sex with anyone (the females being attracted to the alpha male), we don't call them sinners, but one would also hope that this is not God's will for chimpanzees.
The lifecycles of many animals feature what looks like non-moral evil as a component - e.g. the way in which many male mammals exhaust themselves in the rutting season. But many of those features are specific to those animal species' biology and instincts.
For example, chimpanzees and bonobos have huge testicles - their males are highly sexed and they're evolved to pump out large quantities of semen to drown out any other semen that might be in the female's reproductive system. Gorillas on the other hand have much smaller testicles and are not nearly so promiscuous. A gorilla male can be relatively sure that all the children of a female he mated with are his.
Humans, for what it's worth, are somewhere in the middle.
In other words, the biological nature human beings have is not the same as that chimpanzees have. What is natural to chimpanzees is not necessarily natural to humans. One case in point: human eyes have whites. Chimpanzee eyes don't. It's much easier for a chimpanzee to conceal what he or she is looking at from another chimpanzee than it is for a human to do the same. It's in our biological nature to share what we're looking at just by looking at it.
The feminist primatologist and anthropologist Hrdy points out that among chimpanzees a baby left unattended would be killed by a male chimpanzee almost immediately. This is true among most primates, except marmosets and humans. Among marmosets males put in a high amount of childcare - that might indicate that it's natural for human males to do the same.
The one big result evolutionary psychology has achieved is to show that human children are far more likely to be killed by stepparents than by natural parents. Hrdy points out that from the perspective of primatology the stunning feature is that stepparents are mostly not a threat to children's survival.
And this is clearly a feature of our biological nature. Chimpanzee mothers can't put their babies down without the baby being killed by a passing male, but they don't need to carry them in their arms because their babies cling on to their hair. Human mothers have no hair to cling to, so they have to be able to put their babies down. Humans couldn't have largely hairless bodies if our children weren't safe from passing males.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
I was taught, as an Anglican, that we are sinful by nature. I still, as Orthodox, believe this. We now call it "Ancestral Sin", but it is the same thing.
Two points:
- Ancestral Sin is removed at baptism. We still are "sinful by nature", but it is no longer "Ancestral Sin", it is "sin after Baptism."
- I don't (and never have) believe in "original guilt" - that is that we are born guilty of our forefathers' sins.
It is interesting that Roman Catholics now teach prettymuch the same thing in their catechism, although it has changed since the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I find it astounding that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, people still seem to think that human beings are essentially good. I honestly believe that this unwillingness to truly take responsibility for our radical sinfulness is itself strong evidence of that very sinfulness.
I've known people who are, notwithstanding occasional lapses, indeed not essentially good. I've known others who, notwithstanding occasional lapses, pretty much are.
And the vast majority who can amaze you with their kindness one day and be caught with their hands in someone else's pants the next.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
'Scuse the double post, but there's one more thing I need to add:
If we were not "sinfull by nature", why would it be necessary for Christ to be unique? That is to say, without sin?
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
It is pretty crazy, I agree, but that's faith, in my opinion, it's loving my neighbour, it's seeing Jesus in the prisoner and the beggar, it's John 3:16 and 17.
I'm sorry but don't understand what you're getting at. Are you suggesting that God is favourably disposed towards the world because it's not really that bad? Are you suggesting that our command to love our neighbour is rooted in the fact that our neighbour somehow deserves to be loved because they are essentially rather good?
Well, you said
quote:
I find it astounding that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, people still seem to think that human beings are essentially good.
You're saying that there is overwhelming and growing evidence that people are far from good, that people are very bad. It's not what I see, but the implication I draw, perhaps wrongly, from your evaluation of human nature is that people are therefore not lovable. Perhaps you are able to love those you think are wicked. I find that hard. I generally find I need to appreciate good things in people in order to love them. Those I find hard to love, I have to get to know better and learn to empathise with in order to love them.
But I'm clear that the gospel does tell me to love my neighbour. Part of this, I think, is finding the good in them.
As it happens I am repeatedly staggered by the actions and lives of loyalty, love, imagination, commitment and courage that I see around me, and I'm heartened that people still find acts of violence hard to come to terms with.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Undiscovered Country:
As said in the OP, the NIV uniquely and unhelpfully uses the phrase. 'sinful nature'.
Haha, yes I'd forgotten that my Anglican church used the NIV when I did my confirmation classes!
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
If Christ could have human nature and not be sinful then it ain't the nature that's sinful.
Of course this begs the question, "Where did the sin come from?"
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm not asking if we're sinful. One look at the Romney campaign confirms that. I'm asking if we have a sinful nature.
Is this a question about what it objectively the case, like asking if the blood in us circulates, or is a question about how we want to describe human nature, more like whether we want to call our selves Homo sapiens.
The former. In specific, if we reify something called a "human nature" -- which theologians sometimes do -- is it a sinful nature? Or alternately do we have two natures, one of which is our "human nature" and one of which our "sinful nature"?
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I find it astounding that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, people still seem to think that human beings are essentially good. I honestly believe that this unwillingness to truly take responsibility for our radical sinfulness is itself strong evidence of that very sinfulness.
You could call this the "Life of Brian Paradox." If you say you're the messiah, you're the messiah. If you deny that you're the messiah, you're showing the type of humility that proves you're the messiah. So here, if you deny that we're essentially evil, that proves we're essentially evil. It's a bit on the circular side as arguments go.
Because the truth of the matter is, you can find evidence that will point in either direction. Which is to say, you can find abundant evidence of human evil, and also abundant evidence of human good. I think you have to have an a priori dedication to the "human nature is essentially evil" viewpoint to miss the evidence for human goodness. Neither selection of evidence is "overwhelming" merely due to the existence and scope of the evidence for the other side.
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
If we were not "sinful by nature", why would it be necessary for Christ to be unique? That is to say, without sin?
Because we were sinful, but not by nature.
It wasn't necessary for Christ to be unique in the sense that God had a checklist of things that Christ needed to be, and that was one of the points on it. Christ is uniquely sinless because he is God-made-Man and God is sinless.
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
If Christ could have human nature and not be sinful then it ain't the nature that's sinful.
Yes! Exactly my point! Thank you!
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
Human beings are made in God’s image as thinking, sentient beings, born with free will. Sorry if this is tangental, but do you actually think that your god has, always has, free will?
Sin comes when we try to use that free will for our own wishes and not God’s.
Two points
1 - then why doesn't god make it clear what his wishes are, and
2 - presumably you accept that those who are incapable of knowing god's will are also incapable of sin.
Our sinful human nature is that we are incapable of not following our own will and desires, the only human who ever only followed the will of God was Jesus. So if we
a) don’t know that we are following our own will and
b) don’t know what god’s will for us is
or just follow god's will as we understand it because that's the understanding we have been taught (suicide bombers?)
???
Seems like a rigged deck to me
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
So is the nature we inherited from our pre-human ancestors a sinful nature?
Is evolutionary biology sinful?
Is it not God's will that nature operates as it does? If not, why not? Did nature "fall" too like human beings?
I suspect that's the wrong question.
Nature just is. It only isn't if there is choice involved I suppose.
And consciousness provides that choice in humans?
*shrug*.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
If I commit one sinful act I'm defined as a sinner. But if I commit one righteous act, I'm not defined as righteous. Why is that?
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
If we were not "sinful by nature", why would it be necessary for Christ to be unique? That is to say, without sin?
Because we were sinful, but not by nature.
OK mousethief - let me ask you a straightforward Orthodox question - what do we mean by "Ancestral Sin?"
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
I dislike the Protestant expression of Original Sin because it implies everyone is doomed because of something Adam did. Which seems to feed into Calvinism by giving a reason for everyone to be damned.
My view is that people are generally ambivalent. Most people are not particularly bad, not particularly good. Most people have to make a spectacular amount of effort to be really bad or good.
But then I guess I'd say that we're flawed - so our ambivalence is actually a failure, a death-by-a-thousand-cuts, a curve which tends towards bad things.
I don't really believe that it can be shown that our brokenness is all pervasive, in that we are capable of doing amazing things, both individually and corporately. But somehow this greatness is tempered by a rotten core, somehow even in the midst of great accomplishment we fail to live up to our own ideals of humanity.
And another thing whilst I'm here - when we talk about Jesus being perfect, what actually do we mean? Inability to get things wrong is not the same as being sinless.
Imagine the scene: Jesus in a school classroom. His teacher is testing the children on their times tables. He asks Jesus a difficult question - is he able to get it wrong? Or is he unable to because he is perfect?
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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