500, Part 5: The Doctrine of Sin is So Ten Years Ago

I grew up in an abusive religious tradition.

What abuse you ask?

They taught that I was a broken human being in need of salvation!

Let me be so bold as to suggest that the teaching about human sinfulness, sometimes referred to as the "doctrine of original sin" or "total depravity" is a doctrine now so foreign to secular ears that it provides the dividing line between the secular and the Christian. I have elsewhere discussed the presuppositional concept of antithesis, which is simply the idea that Christianity is fundamentally incompatible with other views. And this is the heart of that antithesis. Christians believe in the doctrine of sin. Everybody else knows a couple of things about chemistry, so they are too evolved to believe in such a thing.

The other day I had an interesting exchange with some students in my class at the Christian high school. It went something like this:

Student: Why would God allow bad things to happen to good people?
Me: Which good people?
Student: Well, there are lots of people who suffer and don't deserve it.
Me: What if we invert the question? Why does any good thing at all happen to bad people?
Student: *Staring… *Blinking…

The question I raised came from a dear friend of mine who died from an aggressive form of cancer at the age of 34. Unlike my students, he didn't make the assumption of human innocence in the world. And the doctrine of sin was no mere abstraction for him either. He didn't assume that most of us are blind sheep, moved about by all the evil that is external to us. He didn't think of us as mere victims of the evils of the world. He knew he contributed directly and consistently to the various ways in which the world is broken. And he knew that it was not owed to him to continue living in the world. Why should any of us be permitted another day to contribute to the destruction of God's good world?

One would expect unbelievers to make the assumption of our naive innocence. But I'm struck by how many self-professing Christians make the same assumption. Why don't they see things as my friend saw them? Increasing numbers of people who identify as Christians have a low view of human sinfulness indeed. They think we are well meaning, but ignorant and vaguely "imperfect" people. By this, I think they mean that we just need a few minor adjustments, like faith, and then we will be just fine. We need Jesus as a moral exemplar. Add a few drops of cleanser to the poisoned well and it will be pure again.

It shows up in the students in my classes. And surely their views are coming from their parents and their churches, which is all the more troubling. Because they don't understand about human sinfulness, they fail to grasp many Christian doctrines. In the absence of a Christianity that is doctrinally rich, they compensate by embracing the esoteric life of faith and the pragmatic life of faith. They become mystics or pragmatists. They don't know their faith so they feel it and act on it, but only as directed by their pastors, who are themselves rather unimpressed with the doctrine of sin. One can find the ranks of cults swollen with similarly minded people.

Doctrines they don't understand because of their low view of sin:

1. The Problem of Evil - What if the world is not to be seen as a place where God's anger runs rampant, but where rebel people are given leave to consider their rebellion and repent of it? If in fact the moment after Adam and Eve sinned, they were given the abundant mercies of God to survive, then it seems clear that any moment after that is also an expression of mercy for their progeny. The whole human race, spreading out through history in all its beauty and complexity, is a monument to mercy, a tribute to the long-suffering tolerance of God. The real puzzle is not why there is so much evil, but why there is so much good that can still be enjoyed by so many evil people. The astounding truth of redemption reverberating through history is the wonder that should stupefy all of us. Instead modern Christians wonder why they don't have a better position in this damned and fallen world!

2. The deaths of the Caananites - If we are to see history as a monument to mercy, then surely that changes everything when it comes to the deaths of the Canaanites, including their children. So often the critic of the Old Testament stands in judgment of the "arbitrary" killing of the innocents. But is it so arbitrary? Again, did God owe it to a rebel race to come into existence? Give these innocents enough time and they will lay waste the world just as all of us have done! And lest you think I'm being inconsistent: I don't think God owes it to me or to my children to continue to exist. Every day I praise him for his extravagant mercies that I get to draw breath another day in this world!

Here I want to introduce a concept that I hope will push this idea further. I call this concept the "boundaries of mercy." What I mean by it is that we must begin with the assumption of deep depravity and thus the patient mercies of God with the rebel race of man. But it is up to his discretion to control how much mercy is given; in other words, how wide the "boundaries of mercy" will be. If he widens the boundaries of mercy during one age and constricts them in another age, we cannot complain about injustice. The last thing we want from God is unremitting justice! Neither are we in any position to demand that the boundaries of mercy in one generation be wider. We are like inmates on death row. If one of us is granted clemency, the rest have no basis to complain about fairness.

The God who is perfectly just and perfectly merciful has every right to determine the recipients of mercy and the quality of the mercy they will receive. No human being, fully deserving of death, has a right to demand that the boundaries of God's mercy be wider.

Now, just because God is granting mercy--and any person at any time in any culture deserves death--it certainly does not follow that I may independently kill whom I want. I think God can directly communicate the boundaries of mercy to men, who may then enforce his directives. I take it that this kind of phenomenon happened with Moses and the law. God gave them a particular set of legal directives regarding capital punishment, for example. In such a state of affairs, it is appropriate for them to constrict the boundaries of mercy, because they were directed by God to do so. And in the current age, God has provided no less clear instruction through His Son.

3. The doctrine of hell - With the doctrine of sin, we also see the doctrine of hell going merely out of fashion. God, who is loving, will clearly not send people to an eternity of torture for understandable unbelief or understandable mistakes. And so we see in Christian ranks a growing number of annihilationists and universalists. Perhaps people need to learn some lessons in the afterlife, but everyone will be admitted eventually or their suffering will end.

Of course if one loses the doctrine of sin, one loses the doctrine of hell. But what if the doctrine of sin involves a deep irremediable rebellion against God and his goodness? Two ideas are often neglected by those who question the doctrine of hell.

First, if sin involves a stubborn hatred of God, then of course it is perfectly acceptable for God to give the sinner what he wants. In short, he wants hell! Why is there an assumption that if the sinner is shown the beauty and glory of heaven that he will naturally choose it? Could it be that if he is shown the glory of heaven, he will continue to choose his own sin over it? For those who prize their freedoms above all, think of hell as a place where God grants the freedom to be oneself apart from Him forever.

Second, God has the right to be just (strange that anyone would have to defend God's right to be just). God will determine the punishments for those whose rebellion against him empowered acts that destroyed God's good world. I take it that not all sinners and not all sins carry the same weight. Some sins and sinners will be punished more severely than others, according to the calculus that God would apply for this. God, who is just, will not apply some arbitrary or capricious standards of punishment. God's justice will provide just punishments. Can the sinner really stand before the judgment bar of the holy God and complain about penalties disproportionate to the crimes he committed?

And so the curious paradox of hell is this: Those condemned to punishment in hell prefer their punishments to loving faithfulness to God. It is a price for freedom that they are willing to pay.

4. The Atonement

If sin is not rightly understood, then how can Christ's work on the cross be rightly understood? For many Christians, the cross is little more than an inspiring story of sacrifice for the sake of love. We are back to Pierre Abelard! The only saving we need is the inspiration to summon our own moral strength in overcoming hatred and bigotry and poverty in the world. Jesus saves in the same way a motivational speaker saves.

But what if sin is the serious matter I've suggested that it is? What if I am fundamentally flawed, without hope of being better? What if the actions that flow from me have contributed significantly to making the world a wasteland? What if there is a ledger of crimes against the high king that he must punish? What if I am morally bankrupt, an enemy of God through wicked works, darkened in my understanding, helpless, hopeless and condemned already?

Perhaps what I need is not mere improvement, but some righteous person to represent me, to provide what is legally required of me before God. Perhaps I need someone who can rub out the ledger of my sins by his willingness to endure the punishments justice requires of me. Perhaps I need a new source of humanity.