Senior 43: History and Human Nature

This is a peculiar blog reflection. I keep on trying to revise it and revise it and it's not really working out. So I'm posting it anyway. Part of its scatter-brain-ed-ness may have to do with the fact that its been put together during the most hectic time of the year. It also bears the distinction of having been originally authored in Southern California, and finally posted in Forest Grove, Oregon.

Yep, I'm in Oregon this weekend at Pacific University, presenting a paper at the school's Eleventh Annual Undergraduate Philosophy Conference. So I'm scatter-brained and seeking diversions and musing and generally running around like a chicken with its head cut off. (Maybe not quite that bad.) Anyhow, here's a reflection on history and human nature.

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History is fascinating. Philosophy can seem like a pointless endeavor that spins arguments in circles and gets trapped in miniscule debates, (admittedly, sometimes it is and does)--until you look at it in the context of history. Other disciplines like art, literature, and even science can get lost in the minutiae (the trees) if they are not viewed within a larger context (the forest). History is not the only relevant larger context, but I have found that it helps a great deal.

People in our modern era have a tendency to think that ours is a unique age, a novel and radical departure from the past. This has led many to disregard the lessons of history as irrelevant or inapplicable to current questions and problems. Now there are significant ways in which these times are distinctive and our troubles unique, but does that mean that history has nothing to teach us about them? I think not; in fact, I think that careful reflection reveals that basic human nature and the basic human problem have remained unchanged through the ages up to and including the present time.

Understanding history, then, is indispensable for understanding the present. (What else do we have to go on?) How is it that things have come to be as they are (either good or bad)? Here is one example--a point in ethics about which I have been thinking lately.

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I suppose that nobody likes being told that they are wrong, being reproved or corrected or rebuked. (Though Solomon suggests that the wise person appreciates all these things--Proverbs 9:8) But there is something curious about the character of the responses that are voiced these days; like, "You can't expect me to change. This is who I am," or "Why are you attacking me?" or "You just don't understand me." If the person is a Christian, he may say something like, "This is how God created me to be," or, "If God didn't want me to do this, then He wouldn't have given me that desire." And if these sorts of remarks are not stated explicitly, they are often in the background of people's thinking and reasoning.

The principle that seems to underly these statements is this: "The way I am is the way I'm supposed to be," or, "That which is natural to me is appropriate (or right) for me."

But what an odd way of thinking that is. And how unique in the history of humanity. Plato and Aristotle would have never accepted such notions. According to Plato's anthropology, the natural "passions" are ever threatening to overthrow the individual and must be strictly controlled by reason. Following the passions leads only to enslavement by them and reduction to the level of a brute beast. Any natural appetite--hunger, thirst, desire for love or community--can turn into a monster if it is not kept under control. And isn't this confirmed by experience? Don't we "naturally" desire the way of least resistance, and yet, what is there of virtue in that?

In Christianity, there is the concept of "total depravity"--that human beings have a broken nature, that they are out of phase with the rest of creation. Since humanity's natural desires have been corrupted (or been set off balance), just following one's instincts is the worst possible course one can take. And this is not to say that human beings have no good in them whatsoever; but just as a hunger for food--intended for the nourishment and sustenance of the body--can turn into voracious gluttony if unregulated, so the other appetites and tendencies in us, that are good when placed in proper order, become dangerous when not properly controlled.

Somehow we got the idea that being human ought to be easy--and this is true. (Are you surprised that I say that?) I doubt that a cat has difficulty being cat-like or a plant plant-like. And yet human beings are in this awkward place of having to fight to maintain our humanity--having to fight or else slip into craven animality. For the Christian, this is a sign, of the brokenness of humanity, and we look forward to a time when true human nature will be restored and we no longer have to fight to do what is right or good. So there is something right about this intuition that being a human being ought to be easy. But in accepting our present state as "the way we are" and, therefore, "the way we ought to be," we have erred critically.

How did we come to this point? Perhaps we can find a clue in the late seventeenth, early eighteenth centuries, in the philosophy of John Locke. (Now I realize that I have a tendency to rail against the seventeenth/eighteenth centuries, and against Locke in particular. I do not mean to place blame wholly on his shoulders, but his philosophy is useful for understanding the changing times; that is why I use him as my example.) Locke developed an epistemological model that rejected the traditionally held concept of innate ideas. He believed that no one naturally possesses knowledge of any truths. Instead, human beings enter the world as tabula rasae (blank slates). The implication of this would seem to be that human beings enter the world, in some way, neutral. They have no natural dispositions or tendencies but are perfectly malleable. The leap from denying innate knowledge to denying human nature is a relatively short one. As culture embraces naturalism, any objective criterion for evaluating acquired tendencies fades. And in Christian circles where an absolute denial of human nature may be a bit too hard to swallow, the practical consequences of its relativization can still be felt.

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There are few who would deny that present humanity is beset with myriad problems--social, psychological, political, mental, institutional, corporate, personal. And many seem to be looking for a new solution. But without a proper appreciation of history, of the ways in which our contemporary problems have emerged over the centuries as natural consequences of certain modes of thought, how can we expect to come to anything approaching a worthwhile solution? And by the way, I am not saying, naively, that the past is better than the present so that we should model our lives on the past. Past humanity had its own problems, but without history, all we will do is rehearse the same problems (and mistakenly think that they are new).

The examination of history is just the type of rational exercise, I think, that could contribute to the reining in of rampant carnality. Think about it.

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I'll say more about the philosophy conference later. By the way, Oregon is beautiful. The Pacific Northwest, generally, is beautiful. This is a very welcome break from hectic school.

Blessings all,

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God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.