A false dichotomy is used by one philosopher to justify his assent to Christian doctrine. Who am I to call him out but here I am? This philosopher with mighty credentials and literary accomplishments, makes an elemental mistake. In defense of doctrine, he posits a false choice for the reader, a choice between the 300 year old Enlightenment understanding of human nature or a choice for the 1700 year old traditional Church doctrine. Enlightenment says that we humans are essentially good and Christian doctrine says that we are essentially evil (original sin).
After quite
thoroughly tearing down the “man is good” extremism, this thinker seems
to assume that we should choose Church doctrine for want of a better
alternative. Could it be that the “man is evil” understanding is also an
extremist view of human nature (forgive me dear St. Augustine)? Extremes are rarely
consistent. Could there be a middle ground?
Who are we? We are the obvious, we are all obviously and hopelessly self-centered, no more, no less. Like the rest of creation, we are all momentary survivors. We can do “good” by mitigating our self-involvement or do “evil” by nurturing our selfishness. All of us do both, there are no good guys but we are freely choosing one or the other, that is good.
G. Goslaw
Landers, Ca.
