Inevitable Immorality

I've heard several pastors in previous sermons make the point that immoral, unethical behavior is rather unlearned in human beings. We are never really taught how to lie or steal or be selfish. These all come quite without effort or exertion. The point these preachers make is simply that the Christian doctrine of original sin is one that can be readily seen in everyday life. One needs no fancy philosophical arguments or theological insights to realize that something dreadful infects humankind.

But, as one interested in Christian apologetics, I'd take this point a bit further. For not only does the everyday behavior of those around us, and, indeed, our very selves point to the phenomenon of original sin, it also points to the deficiency of rival worldviews to explain it.

Take naturalism, as an example. This perspective states that there is no God, no transcendent, no supernatural. Humans (like the entire universe) are the result of blind evolutionary developments -- we are but intelligent beasts. But given naturalism, why is it that humans have a propensity for immorality or doing the wrong thing? Why didn't we simply evolve into kind beings? Why isn't the world such that "only the kind and virtuous survive"? All the naturalist can appeal to is chance: the world just happen to come to be this way. But to appeal to happenstance is simply to state that you have no actual explanation.

Christianity, though, does have an explanation of why mankind engages in seemingly inevitable immorality. Christians believe that humans are sinful; sin has stained all of us down to our very nature such that we cannot escape it. Their explanation, of course, is that the first humans (Adam and Eve) chose to sin against God when they disobeyed Him in the Garden. Mankind tasted sin and it began to crave it. They have struggled in fighting against it ever since. Ultimately, man could not save himself from sins demands; God had to save them through His Son Jesus -- on the Cross.

Thus, our thought experiment reveals Christianity to be superior to naturalism in explaining why humans are depraved. Interestingly, comparing the Christian worldview to various other competing perspectives provides the same result. For instance, many Eastern religions disbelieve that there are such things as good and bad. Thus, humans never do bad or wrong anyone. But this is so clearly false, that Christianity is easily seen to be the better viewpoint. Lesson learned: only Christianity can explain the problems of mankind, and only Christianity provides their solution.