Jesus was somewhat pessimistic about human nature. To his own followers, he said stuff like, “if you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask?” That’s Matthew 7.
The word evil here is jarring in modern ears, we usually reserve it for the Hitlers of the world. But it’s pretty common in Jesus’ teaching, where it basically means immoral or wicked – If you then who are wicked – he’s saying. And he uses it everywhere of everyone, whether his opponents or his closest friends. This quotation comes from the famous Sermon on the Mount, which opens with the words, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5).
So, we’re evil and we’re morally bankrupt.
The loftiest ethic ever uttered, begins with a call for us to recognise our fallenness, our lack of moral credit. Now Jesus didn’t say that we’re hopeless failures destined only to be immoral, but he did insist that recognising our flawed humanity is the first step towards seeing the kingdom. This is because, as Augustine would emphasise again and again, this kingdom is all about God’s love and grace toward us, not our capacity to be good.
I had a really interesting conversation about all of this stuff with a thoughtful journalist from the ABC, Australia’s national broadcaster. He said he liked some of the ethical teachings of Jesus, all the bits about, you know, love and peace. But he was wary of any of that talk about human guilt and the need for divine mercy. He worried this would crush the human spirit and especially children. He and his wife were about to have their first child. Kids would grow up, he feared, in a cloud of guilt that obscured their abilities and intrinsic value. He preferred the notion that we all have within us everything we need to live honourable lives now. He wasn’t a Christian, but he was sounding like a good Pelagian.
I explained that I reckoned things are the other way around. Imagine growing up in a family where the expectation is that you are good through and through. You’ll make the first fifteen (that’s a rugby reference, by the way), always stay out of trouble, get straight As at school, and quickly repair any personal failures. I suggested to him that this was the true recipe for crushing a child’s spirit.
This performance-based mentality where worth is tied to achievement, cannot prepare us for the inevitable failures of life. Much better, it seems to me, is to raise our children in the full knowledge of both their gifts and their flaws, all in the knowledge that they are loved regardless of performance.
That’s what Jesus taught, and that’s what Augustine championed a few centuries later. The longer I live, the more attached I am to the biblical truth that I am fallen. I don’t like my foibles and frailties, I’m not excusing them, but I love the way the Bible prepares me not to be shocked at my own inability to live up to my own standards, let alone God’s standards. The Bible prepares me not to be shocked that other people, even seemingly good people, will let me down.
So my trust isn’t in my flawed self or in any other human leader, but in the mercy of God. Who entered this corrupted and corrupting world of ours, lived the perfect life none of us could live, then gave up that perfect life on my behalf on the cross. So I could know forgiveness and restoration, and eventually share in his resurrection.
There is rest in this knowledge, knowledge of our fallenness, knowledge of God’s graciousness. And I think that’s what Augustine meant when he famously said in the opening lines of his confessions:
Thou Lord hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.
By John Dickson
On Augustine
Want to hear the rest of the episode?
Check out episode 130: “On Augustine”
