*How Human Nature Came to Be

Just this month, a longtime California politician, State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), who is charged with gun trafficking and corruption for allegedly accepting bribes, suggested that money for political campaigns should come from state coffers because "money just simply corrupts." He went on to explain: "I think there's that old adage, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's just human nature. After a while, you kind of feel that you deserve, you know, all the perks of office, because you've suffered so much, you've given up so much. You should have all of those kinds of trappings." So much for ethics.

In one sense, he is correct: Human nature—the fundamental dispositions and characteristics of human beings—is highly susceptible to corruption. We tend to be selfish, self-centered, and self-aggrandizing. We habitually follow behaviors and opportunities that promote or benefit us without thought to how they may affect others. Everyone covets what others have. Most will lie to deflect hurt or blame. Some will steal to line their pockets. A few will take another person's life to protect their self-interests. As David writes in Psalm 14:3, speaking of "the children of men," humanity, "They have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one."

Why is human nature so corrupt? Why is it so widespread? How did it come to be? Did God create it this way?

God did indeed create mankind, forming Adam "of the dust of the ground, and breath[ing] into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being" (Genesis 2:7). Job 32:8 informs us that "the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding," meaning that, not only did God give us life, but He also gave us intellect and faculties for language, logic, creativity, forethought, and many other cognitive abilities. However, the Creation account also records, "God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). The nature God created in man was originally, not just "good," but "very good." It was not corrupt.

When they were created, then, Adam and his wife Eve had pure minds. Certainly, as fleshly beings, they had physical drives that tend to pull in a selfish direction—drives to feed themselves, protect themselves, etc. They were innocent, however, in their pursuit to satisfy these drives. While in this state, God gave them a couple of very specific commands: to tend and keep the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15), but not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil upon pain of death (verse 17).

Their idyllic, innocent life ended with the temptation of Eve by the cunning serpent (Genesis 3:1-5), who was God's—and now humanity's—great adversary, Satan the Devil, in disguise (Revelation 12:9). God reveals the Devil's origin in Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:12-17: He was created as a marvelous and powerful angel, a cherub who covered God's throne with his wings, yet whose ambition and pride "corrupted his wisdom" and led him to attempt to attack God's throne and usurp His authority over all creation. As mighty as this archangel was, no mere creature can defeat God, so the Almighty cast this now-fallen angel down to earth in ruin, along with one-third of his fellows whom he had persuaded to his cause (Revelation 12:4). It was this being, speaking through a serpent, who was "in Eden, the garden of God" (Ezekiel 28:13), intent on corrupting God's newest creatures before they could even begin following God‘s way of life.

The serpent immediately sowed doubt and confusion in Eve's mind by questioning God's command. As she fumbled through her reply, he accused God of deceit, saying, "You will not surely die" (Genesis 3:4), if she ate the forbidden fruit. Then he threw his ace, as it were, contradicting God, urging her that just the opposite would happen: ". . . in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (verse 5).

Satan played the oldest trick in the book, stroking her vanity to desire to be equal with God through disobedience, and she ate of the fruit. Though not deceived (I Timothy 2:14), Adam weakly followed his wife's lead into sin. In this moment, carnal human nature—what all human beings now possess—was created.

Human nature generally follows the course that it took with Eve, as explained in Genesis 3:7: The fruit of the forbidden tree looked good, she desired to eat it, and she saw how it could benefit her, so she partook of it despite God's command. The apostle John calls this "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" in I John 2:16, commenting that it is "not of the Father but is of the world." The apostle Paul reminds us of sin's penalty: "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), just as God had warned them.

The deed was done; they could not "unbite" the fruit. They had chosen to follow the lies of Satan rather than the commands of God, and the course of this world was set. God sent them out of Eden, blocking their way back should they ever desire to return to take of the Tree of Life and live eternally in sin (Genesis 3:22-24). Because of their rebellion, God let humanity go its own way, as Paul explains in Romans 1:28: "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting."

Now all of humanity, except for those few whom God calls to redeem (John 6:44), are open to the selfish and rebellious attitudes of Satan the Devil, "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others" (Ephesians 2:2-3). Because human beings have a spirit, they are able to "tune in" to the spirit broadcast by the Adversary, and without the resistance that only God's Holy Spirit can offer, all fall under its influence without exception. As they continue to listen to it as they grow up, it becomes their nature, a miniature copy of Satan's.

However, if we have been called, accepted Jesus Christ as Savior, and pledged ourselves to Him for His use through baptism, Paul writes, "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God" (I Corinthians 2:12). Redemption through Christ is the only cure for corrupt human nature, and even then it takes a lifetime to learn to resist the pulls of that nature and instead do God's will (Galatians 5:16-25; James 4:7-10). It can be done, for Jesus Himself said, "With God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).

Christianity's "War on Women"?

Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced on January 20, 2012, that, as part of preventive health services for women, all health plans must provide no-cost coverage—including deductibles and co-payments—for all contraceptives and sterilization procedures approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Her announcement ignited an immediate furor from conservatives and Catholic groups complaining that this regulation—part of Obamacare—impinged on their first amendment right to religious freedom.

Besides the fact that it is against Catholic teaching, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops argued that contraception is not basic healthcare but "an elective intervention that stops the healthy functioning of healthy women's reproductive systems." Conservative commentators railed that requiring taxpayers to fund contraception is essentially forcing citizens to pay other people to have sex.

Not long thereafter, the Obama administration granted religious institutions an exception: An employee of such an institution that does not provide reproductive healthcare can seek it directly from the insurance company at no additional cost. On March 1, the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected 51-48 a proposed amendment to the healthcare law extending this exception more broadly.

The absurdity of the contraception mandate was revealed on February 16, when Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University Law Center graduate student, was asked to speak before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee (not a formal Congressional hearing). She argued that religious institutions, even those with moral objections, should provide free contraception in their health insurance. She claimed that birth control could cost $1,000 per year (or as she specifically said, $3,000 over three years), stating that four out of ten of the university's female students suffered financial hardship because the student health insurance plan does not cover it. Many low-income students must go without contraceptives, she averred, because the women's free health clinics cannot meet the need.

Critics like Rush Limbaugh pummeled Fluke on the air, highlighting the ridiculous nature of her claims, especially the cost of contraception. As Cathy Cleaver Ruse, a Georgetown Law graduate, wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal:

But an employee at a Target pharmacy near the university told the Weekly Standard last week that one month's worth of generic oral contraceptives is $9 per month. "That's the price without insurance," the employee said. (It's also $9 per month at Wal-Mart.)

. . . Should Ms. Fluke give up a cup or two of coffee at Starbucks each month to pay for her birth control, or should Georgetown give up its religion? Even a first-year law student should know where the Constitution comes down on that.

Limbaugh ran afoul of the media after he used terms to describe Fluke that he later regretted saying and apologized for. However, his outburst was enough to alter the angle of the debate. Jesse Ferguson, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, complained, "Rush Limbaugh has come to Republicans' defense in their war on women." Fluke herself opined in a statement on March 1, expanding the field of those attacking "all women": 

Unfortunately, numerous commentators have gone far beyond the acceptable bounds of civil discourse. No woman deserves to be disrespected in this manner. This language is an attack on all women, and has been used throughout history to silence our voices. The millions of American women who have and will continue to speak out in support of women's health care and access to contraception prove that we will not be silenced.

That same day, The Washington Post ran a guest editorial by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite titled "All about Eve: The Christian roots of the GOP's war on women." She writes:

This attack on women is, and I am grieved to say it, driven by a particular Christian theological perspective that denigrates women and holds them responsible for sin, particularly sexual sin.

GOP politics today is, in fact, all about Eve.

The GOP war on women will continue precisely because of the conservative Christian theology that drives wedge politics in a campaign season has a fundamental contempt for women and their equal dignity and worth.

We in the church of God realize that it is not all Eve's fault. In I Timothy 2:14, Paul clearly writes that Eve sinned because she was deceived and implies that Adam sinned willingly (see Genesis 3:6). Further, the apostle states in Romans 5:12 that "through one man sin entered the world," and he repeats this in verses 15, 17, 18, and 19, naming Adam as the sinner. Thus, a "Christian" theology that puts women down for "Original Sin" is not based on biblical teaching.

The Bible consistently teaches that it is the man's responsibility to set the moral tone in his marriage and family, which Adam failed to do. This morality in relationships begins even before marriage. A young man looking for a wife must be scrupulous in his courting of a young woman, keeping the seventh commandment firmly in mind (Exodus 20:14).

And this brings us back to the controversy over the contraception mandate. Americans are embroiled in this argument because of promiscuity—illicit premarital sex by both men and women. The sexual revolution has borne more bitter fruit, this time endangering one of the fundamental freedoms granted to citizens by the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It has become evident that a large segment of the American population values their sexual freedom more highly than their religious freedom—to the detriment of those of us who do not.

Jeremiah 13:26-27 confirms this as a sign of the end, as God promises destruction: "Therefore I will uncover your skirts over your face, that your shame may appear. I have seen your adulteries and your lustful neighings, the lewdness of your harlotry, your abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! Will you still not be made clean?"

Unfortunately, at this point, national repentance seems unlikely. Is it not ironic that, in a country that values freedom so much, a kind of liberty—libertinism—could be so instrumental in bringing it down?