The mannishness of man

What is man? One thing is certain, man is a creature who wants to know what kind of creature he is, even if he does not always like or fully understand the answers he uncovers.

Much has been written about what we are and what we are like, with many opposing and contradictory answers being provided by figures as diverse as Friedrich Nietzsche and Blaise Paschal.

Of all that has been said by poets, philosophers, scientists and novelists (to name a few), some of the most striking revelations come not from these fields, but from history, upon which much of the best things said by poets, philosophers, scientists et. al., rests.

Let’s begin on the bright side of history. We have accomplished some truly remarkable feats. Take a moment and look around you. Look at what we have designed and built and how we’re using it. The resourcefulness, the ingenuity, the brilliance, the creativity! Genuinely astonishing. Not to mention the fact we have travelled a quarter of a million miles above the surface of the earth and sent highly sophisticated equipment some 15 billion miles away. Our collective capacity for imagination, vision, creativity and problem-solving are staggering.

We have also done some very good things. History (told and untold) is replete with stories of self-sacrifice, heroism, courage and philanthropy. According to some, we are following an upward moral arc, making progress toward becoming more and more virtuous— more tolerant, loving, kind, and compassionate and therefore less tribal, vicious, and cruel.

Unfortunately, as you may know, this is not the full story. At best, it is a half-truth.

In the 20th Century alone some 100 million people were killed through wars, genocide and manmade famine. It was the bloodiest century in human history. Before we pat ourselves on the back as progressives in the further-enlightened 21st century, we should remember there are still 3 quarters left in which we can compete with the 20th for this detestable record.

If there is anything that outstrips man’s capacity for good, surely it is his capacity for evil; for unspeakable cruelty. The point-blank murder of babies in their mother’s arms, done first so that the screaming mother is forced to witness it before she too is executed. The lining up of men and executing them front to back so that they are covered in the fragments of flesh, blood and bone from the friend who stood in front of them moments before.

You may protest, “yes there are people who are that evil, but they are the exception.”

History will reply: “You are wrong. The regimes that carried out these evils did not have to search far and wide for the 1-2% of their population with strong sociopathic tendencies. In most cases, everyday man did the job just fine.” In fact if you read the works of those studying incidents of human genocide, you will invariably uncover a startling fact. Mankind is genocidal. Everyday people have, throughout history, committed genocide against their fellow man. Men who love their children, sons who would die for a friend. These are the same people who have ruthlessly murdered their fellow man throughout history.

I realize this may be difficult to hear, but it is the truth.

Herein lies man’s great frustration. He has conquered every beast but himself. He has conquered much of nature, but very little of his own nature.

We know to a large degree what is wrong, yet we still do it, and if we had the opportunity to do it with certain impunity, we would doubtless do much more of it. That is another lesson we learn from history.

In sum, man is beautiful, but deeply broken.

Far greater than the most magnificent animal found in nature, yet at the same time far worse than nature’s deadliest parasites.

“Man is nothing but contradiction; the less he knows it the more dupe he is.” - Henri Amiel

"What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty... and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” - William Shakespeare

What are we to make of all this?

On Christianity, the basic explanation goes something like this. God created man as a great and wonderful creature made in God’s own likeness, including a freedom of the will, and man exercised his freedom of choice in an attempt to participate in both good and evil; to have it both ways, so to speak. By nature, good and evil cannot exist in harmony and so out of order man brought chaos; disharmony; brokenness. That is why, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it, “The line separating good and evil passes… right through every human heart— and through all human hearts.”

As I discovered as a broken young man, the Gospel of Jesus provides an explanation— but even more importantly a solution— to this great, perplexing and perennial problem of mankind.