Who's to Blame for the Human Condition?

The very fact that there is a human condition - pain, turmoil, poverty, oppression, and so on - is baffling. Made in the image of God, we threw it away and brought the whirlwind down upon ourselves. At least, that's the Bible's explanation. Alternatively, we have these options:

1. We were made somewhat broken, so that some of us are good and some are bad. Let's blame God for not making us perfect.
2. We were made somewhat broken, but we have to pay the price for getting our freedom from God. If that means some pain and suffering, then it's better than being a slave of some deity.
3. God made us all wrong, and the blame for who we are rests solely with him.

Problem with all 3 of these options is that they present us as naturally flawed, broken before we begin. The Bible says we were made glorious, and through the plan God made to bring us back, we can be glorious again.

So, if we were made perfect, how did we end up in the human condition?

Maybe the question itself is flawed. The fact of human misery is as sure as anything we experience. The Bible says we started there and made a choice to cut ourselves loose from God, which put us here. To ask, "How is that possible?" does very little good. The Bible doesn't answer a lot of those kinds of questions, because the answer will do nothing to help us. The fact is that we are here now. The question we need to ask is, "How do we find meaning within the human condition?"

The Judging God

Judaism, Islam and Christianity have all come under criticism for proposing a God who judges the earth, condemning all sinners to varying degrees of punishment. To be sure, if you read the Hebrew Scriptures ("Old Testament") in a certain way, you can find an angry God who seems to delight in sticking it to anyone who steps out of line.

I've pondered that accusation quite a bit. On the one hand, if we believe God made us, then presumably he can set the rules and mete out whatever punishment he thinks we deserve. Yet he has made us with a desire to set our own destinies using whatever free will we have. We're not pet dogs or puppets. We're people. If he made us with minds of our own and let us wander into every sort of lifestyle we desired, then it seems somewhat contradictory that he would judge us for making choices he didn't approve of.

Of course, it cuts both ways. We want freedom without judgment, but we don't want Hitlers or BTK killers running around unjudged. We'd prefer that God would stop the monsters around us cold, remove them from the scene. I seem to recall families of BTK victims hoping the killer would "burn in hell." And most of us would give a rousing "rah, rah, rah" for that.

So we want our freedom, but we want God to eliminate the freedom of people who are more evil than we are. Remember, though that the Bible is right in saying that none of us are without fault. We all know we've done things, or thought things, that run counter to our moral convictions. We all bear degrees of guilt.

But why should God judge us? We're not monsters. Even if we are, he gave us the freedom to be what we are. It really isn't fair to punish us for exercising the freedom he gave us.

Stay tuned. We need to puzzle this one through.