I was looking through the archives of the San Francisco Chronicle for religious pieces, when I stumbled on an interview with Jacob Needleman, professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University. His emphasis on religious and moral philosophy is reflected in his latest book, Why Can’t We Be Good? (Tarcher, 2007). In the book, Needleman asks why man fails to act according to common sense, and his soul’s deepest desires.
Needleman is no Christian, and yet his understanding of why humans act the way they do is strikingly Christian. This is particularly remarkable given the distinct nature of the Christian perspective on our moral nature among the world’s religions. While the entire interview was good reading, these are some of the more notable sections:
We have a sense in ourselves of what’s right and wrong and we constantly, or, I should say, often betray it. This disconnect is an intrinsic part of the human condition, one that every religious and spiritual leader has tried to address and in some way repair. It’s as though there’s one part of us that knows one thing, and yet it’s another part of us that acts. And the two parts don’t speak to each other very well. … One part has a tendency toward the good — to what is noble, to what is related to the sacred, to what wishes to love – and the other part is in the service of desires that are socially conditioned into us by the illusion that just getting what we like or want will make us happy.
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Personally, I think we do know what is good, but it’s in the deep part of ourselves that’s very deep down in us and is all covered over by self-deceptions. We don’t know it in a way that enables it to touch our feelings, our reactions, our muscles, our nerves. … We say, “I know I shouldn’t smoke, but …” or “I know I shouldn’t eat all this stuff,” or whatever it is. Put the pastry in front of me, put the cigarette in front of me, and there I go.
This screams out Paul’s teaching on man’s moral condition in Romans. Consider the following Biblical parallels:
We Have an Internal Sense of Right and Wrong
For whenever the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things required by the law, these who do not have the law are a law to themselves. They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or else defend them. (Romans 2:14-15)
We Suppress What We Know to Be Right So We Can Act Selfishly
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness, because what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. (Romans 1:18-19)
The Human Struggle: Knowing and Wanting to Do Good, but Consistently Failing to Do So
For we know that the law is spiritual – but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin. For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate. But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me. So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. (Romans 7:14-23).
When asked where the universal human sense of right and wrong come from, Needleman explains, “It comes from our essence as human beings, and sometimes it also comes from our influence and environment, from education. And, in a sense, it comes from who knows where. It defines a human being that we have this potential, this power. We don’t have the awareness of it or the ability to articulate what it is, but down in our essential nature there is something called conscience, which is not necessarily just a socially conditioned ego.”
When asked if he believed humans are basically good, Needleman responded, “Yes, basically. We are built to be able to care and to love as part of our essential nature.” This was the one seemingly non-Christian statement. Christianity, and Christianity alone teaches that man is basically evil. Given all he had said about man’s deplorable condition previously, I wondered how he could possibly answer the question the way he did. But as I thought about Needleman’s answer, I don’t think what he means by “basically good” is at odds with Biblical teaching, or contradicts his previous assessment of the human condition.
The answer to the question if man is essentially good or essentially evil depends on what one means by the question. Are they speaking quantitatively, or qualitatively? Most people perceive the question to be about quantities: Does mankind commit more evils than goods? Understood in that fashion I can see how Needleman might say man is basically good. On average it seems we spend most of our day doing morally good, or at least morally neutral things. Committing moral wrongs are the exception. Of course, it could be argued that this assessment depends on what we define as moral wrongs. If we include the subtle sins of anger, jealousy, covetousness, worldliness, and the like, along with the “big sins,” our bad deeds probably do outweigh our good deeds.
If, however, we are speaking of our qualitative sense, then the Christian is right to say man is basically evil. Humankind is bent toward evil, not the good. Our natural propensity is to do what’s wrong, not what’s right. It takes little effort to do something bad, but much effort and discipline to do what is right. This doesn’t mean we are necessarily as evil as we could be. But one thing is for certain, if you put a human being in a difficult circumstance, our true nature usually shows, and it’s not good!
Thinking to Believe 