A bent in our hearts

It has been said that the Fall of Man is the one doctrine of Christianity which is evidently true. It is certainly important and foundational to Christian theology. Yet I think it is misused by some believers to imply that all actions are intrinsically evil.

Jeremiah tells us the heart is deceitful

The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

And Jesus called his interlocutors evil (Luk 11:13). Yet I have seen this used to argue that people do not seek the best for others, or look for the best in others.

I once said to an unbelieving friend that I think people are intrinsically evil, yet I look for the best in them; and that she thought people were intrinsically good, yet looks for the worse in them. She affirmed this assessment. This illustrates an important distinction that is often missed.

This distinction may be described as the difference between ontic-evil and praxic-evil. The Fall established a bent in our hearts. We desire wrong things, our motives are mixed, we reason incorrectly at times, we rationalise, we justify ourselves. The essence of being is broken and evil dwells there. Ontic-evil.

Yet we are also made in God's image. This image remains—though marred. So while we struggle against base desires not everything we do is intrinsically evil. Men do righteous acts. Moreover, some men are called righteous by their constant choice to do good.

Even the passages in Jeremiah and Luke establish this. Jeremiah says,

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind [lit. arm],
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.” (Jeremiah 17:7-10)

Despite having an evil heart a man can trust the Lord. God tests our mind to see if we act rightly; literally "arm" which may suggest God looks at what we do. Jesus specifically says that evil men can do good actions, indicating how much more will a good God do good things.

What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:11-13)

It is false to claim that all our actions are evil because we are intrinsically evil. We can wish for the best for others, we can act selflessly at times; and to assume that our friend or spouse wishes the best for us is not a denial of the fallen state of man.

Some may argue that we are saved by faith not works thus our acts are not truly righteous. And what are we to make of Isaiah's declaration?

We are all like one who is unclean,
all our righteous acts are like a menstrual rag. (Isaiah 64:6)

Taking Isaiah first, it is likely he is talking to the unrighteous, or those who are doing unrighteous things. Even this man's "righteous" acts are not righteous. Compare God's disposition to the righteous man earlier in this passage,

You meet him who joyfully works righteousness,
those who remember you in your ways. (Isaiah 64:5)

As to salvation by faith, this is true. Belief is righteousness

Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. (Romans 4:3)

A man who trusts God is indeed righteous. We have faith in God and God saves us. We still do works of righteousness, the issue is not that we don't work, it is that we don't earn (Eph 2:10; Tit 3:5). Remembering the distinction between ontic-evil and praxic-evil, we do good works but our nature remains fallen. As such, no amount of good works (praxic-good) are able to remove the sinful nature (ontic-evil). The core of our being needs to be made righteous.

People, believers and unbelievers alike, do all manner of righteous and unrighteous acts. It is false to claim that humans never do right things, even when viewed from God's perspective. But we are all sinful at the centre of of being, we all need a saviour.

Determinism and the existence of sin

Arminians frequently argue that (exhaustive) determinism implies that God is the author of sin. The argument being that if God causes every event including the actions of sinful men the God is behind such actions and is culpable. Although the reasoning that the instigator of an action is responsible for such action is sound, note David murdering Uriah the Hittite; that God is the author of sin is less immediately apparent.

Moral restrictions that apply to man do not automatically apply to God. God is allowed to remove the life of men at his discretion, for man to do so is considered murder. Therefore one could argue that causing other men to sin would be sinful for man, but not for God. In fact one could argue that it is impossible for God to sin because by definition God actions are not sinful.

I agree with the proposition that everything God does is good. Not that it is good because God does it, but because it is in the nature of God to be righteous and everything he does is consistent with this nature. But I wish to approach this problem from a different perspective.

Let us accepting that God cannot sin (for whatever reason). The issue with determinism is that it makes God the cause and source of every action including those actions we term sin. But determinism also makes the intermediate agents non-culpable. Man can hardly be responsible, let alone guilty for that which he does at the exhaustive, non-resistible control of another. A gun is hardly to blame for the actions of the soldier. I don't see how this is changes if the gun is given consciousness.

This leaves us with God being the author of all activity, man the author of none.

But the Bible states that there is such a thing as sin. It frequently warns us to reject sinful actions. That sin is real is not in doubt for those who agree with Scripture. But if God cannot sin, and determinism means that man is not culpable then we cannot resolve the dilemma.

1. The Bible says that sin exists.
2. God cannot sin
3. Therefore men must sin
4. The Bible teaches determinism
5. But determinism implies that man is not culpable for sin

These cannot all be true. The question is which statement should we reject? Arminians would argue #4, as they do not think this is the case. Calvinists would argue #5 but this is logically and biblically untenable.

If we grant that God can and is permitted to do some things that man cannot and is not, this does not resolve the problem. Even accepting the Calvinist claim that God can cause evil and not sin still leaves the determinism problem unresolved.

A father's goodness

Nearly 2 weeks ago evangelist Greg Laurie lost his son who was involved in a car accident. His recent column about his son is worth a read. In between talking of his own grief and his son's ministry Greg shares an insightful method of teaching his son about the goodness of a father, and hence the goodness of God.

There is a story I have often told about a time I took Topher shopping for Star Wars figures in the late '70s. I had told him to pick out one he wanted. He thought about it a long time and finally decided on one of the small figurines from the bottom shelf, which as I recall, was the Han Solo one.

Meanwhile, I had been looking three shelves up at Solo's spacecraft, the Millennium Falcon. I said, "Well, why don't we get this to go with your new figure?"

His little eyes lit up. "Dad! Thank you!" And he gave me a big hug.

We would come home from the toy store with some big new prize like this, and sometimes my wife would roll her eyes, because we really couldn't afford it. But then Topher and I would run upstairs to his room, plop on the floor, open up the toys and play with them together.

Looking back now, I don't regret any of it. Nor does my wife.

After a while, Christopher learned that when we were in a toy store and I asked him what he wanted, his best bet was to say, "You choose, Dad!" And I would always get him something better than he would have chosen for himself.