L. Scott Ekstrom – Writer

A recent sitcom episode featured a debate about the essence of humankind:  good or evil?  I liked the show more for the comedy than the situation and usually think, when half-hour scripted programs try to teach something, they’ve misunderstood their assignment.  Just give me 22 minutes of fluff, some ridiculous scenario providing an excuse for a comedian and some character actors to deliver well-timed irony carefully constructed by a roomful of over-educated writers.  Throw in a little double entendre, and I am a fully satisfied man.  But, in the case of this series that gleefully jumped the shark seasons ago, the didactic storyline in question was, nonetheless, compelling:  what is the nature of human nature?

Not an easy question to answer.  At present the world, at least the Western portion, seems to come down on the side of good.  I don’t mean that we are good (spoiler alert!), but that we seem to think we are.  Entire institutions—of higher education, cultural engagement, charitable cause—are based on the premise that we could solve all our ills, or at least other people’s ills, if we could just guard our natal innocence from the evil forces of society, apparently something other than a group of individual humans.

I get the appeal.  Back in college, I once told a professor, “I’m not sure why, but something in me believes, if we just had enough time to discuss our problems, humans could solve any challenge.”  “Oh I know what that is,” he deadpanned; “it’s the tower of Babel.”  And then, because he was the Socratic type who liked to let students figure things out for themselves, he walked away without explanation, leaving me, for the last decade and a half, to wonder what he meant.

I knew the Genesitic allusion, believed there was a moment in history, or prehistory, if you like, when earthlings became so inspired by their potential they decided to build a ziggurat in their own honor, a stairway of human achievement reaching into the heavens.  An impressive demonstration of distinctiveness, as is the collective résumé of homosapien accomplishment to this day.  People wisely identify their talents, study hard, work long, and leverage all that sweat equity into a better future for their own children and, in the grandest of cases, the children of the world.  Since I’m a passive type who often forgets action can change situations and may yield increased happiness for myself and others, these examples serve to remind me that I must, from time to time, get off the couch.  I understand the exclamation of another sitcom character:  “People are awesome!”  (I watch too much TV.)

Given that the children of Adam can reach such heights, why, in the Babel account, does God come down and put a stop to the project?  Misotheists, those who believe there is a God who is not good (and that, to varying degrees, describes most of us at one time or another), might say He felt threatened by our progress, worried that if we reached past the clouds of self-doubt, we might find where He kept the thunder and steal it for ourselves.  But the biblical God, though always thinking of His own glory, and appropriately so, is also always thinking of our good.  And He seems to think it’s not always best for us to accomplish our goals, even good ones.

Born in the 1970’s, I am a Gen X poster child—delivered by Dr. Spock, suckled by Sesame Street, come to age on “Free to Be You and Me.”  Twentieth century America, I’ve heard it said, was the first culture to decide that man’s chief problem is thinking too little of himself.  And I’ve often wanted to believe this is true.  Wanted to believe, as a new teacher not much older than my students, that my own contagious positivity would soon transform apparent miscreants into budding Wordsworths.  That is, after all, the theme of every teacher movie made in the last forty years.  But by seventh period of my first day of actual teaching, I had shed, not only my 38 Regular sport coat, but also my belief in the innate goodness of humans, be they 15 or 23.  Funny how idols melt in the heat of reality.

The allure of self-actualization, however, was a siren song I couldn’t, or didn’t, resist; I soon took up the gauntlet again—in other lessons, other classes, other years, and then grad school, and, later, through a couple career changes; all the time, I guess, trying to prove something to someone—that, despite a growing record of false starts and mediocre results, I could still be successful if circumstances altered.  Being better than others would prove to them that I was great; their forced praise would make me feel good; and goodness would make me forget my need for God.

A horrible train of thought, when you say it out loud, but there it is.  This is the heart of evil in me:  I hate myself but would do anything to be worshiped.  That may be the posture of neurosis, the particular plight of the artsy-fartsy, or even the classic profile of a future addict.  It’s also, I’m pretty sure, the human condition.

The Word uses strong language to describe sin.  But some of the most offensive phrases in the scriptures of Old and New are about the futility of trying to please God through our own efforts—human righteousness is compared to menstrual rags and excrement.  I guess that’s why the Reformers talked about our need to repent of, not only our worst deeds, but also our best.  A holy God cannot be reached by anyone who has ever even thought about committing the slightest whit of the mildest sin.  There is goodness in us, yes.  God put it there, and it is real.  But, given that there is also something else in us, to assume good wins out or will ever grow into something good enough to earn a heavenly reward is a gamble the bible does not recommend.

So, are we just damned if we do and damned if we don’t–literally?  Should we, as one professing existentialist friend determined to do (before he eventually became a Christian), live for pleasure alone, and, then, as another pledged to expect, just take our hell when it comes?  Actually, I’m not saying we should try to do bad.  Or that we shouldn’t try our best at all times.  I would like science and technology to advance beyond imagination to make life longer and better for more people than we ever dreamed possible.  I hope all peace talks succeed, freedom covers the earth, education empties every jail cell, and people help people in every conceivable way.  But, God knows, when things get better and we think we alone have made it so, we start to believe that maybe we’re not so bad after all, that everything would be fine if we just continued to work our hardest at being our best, to the glory of us.  Then, and only then, when we have made a name for ourselves through the shedding of our own blood and tears, will the Almighty receive us.  Blessed be our names.

Sometimes, however, one of God’s children does something so unspeakably inhuman, the only word to describe the action is evil.  We name it so, rightly.  But just as quickly as we judge the evil in a few, our philosophical waters are muddied again:  we see heroes and helpers everywhere, running to save, staying to help, raising support for the long haul.  “Evil did not win utterly; most people are still good,” we say.  And those good people demand justice.

To be sure, justice will be done, if not in the here and now, then in the hereafter.  But there’s the rub.  While I can take comfort in the fact that God is the judge of my enemies, I must also wonder, whose enemy am I?  If, as atrocities make clear, some people are evil, how do we know we will never be so ourselves, or that we aren’t already worse?  Innocent victims looking forward to others’ judgment seek solace in knowing there is a fixed culmination of history in which all misunderstandings will be cleared up, all paradoxes reconciled, all good and secret motives made known.  It’s wondrous, actually, to consider how tears might turn to laughter, cold shoulders melt into warm embrace, burdens disappear.

But reverie quickly gives way to panic if we think about what it would mean, when all is revealed, for every person who’s ever lived to see every thing we’ve ever done, thought, and felt.  Of course, if everyone’s a moral toad, it’s basically a wash.  Unless, come the end of days, our cosmic evaluation is not a comparative study.  What if, though judged in front of everybody, the standard by which we are measured is not the values du jour of our moment under the sun?  How will the cultivation of our inner nobility fare when God replaces the sun with Himself, vanishing time and temporal standards with it, and we are confronted with, not a jury of our peers, but the most beautiful and terrifying sight of all—a Judge who is sinless perfection become sin for us? What Rock will we hide under then?

Maybe, when I was trying to pretend greatness by teaching great books, if I had better understood what Hawthorne and Golding, O’Connor and Greene, were all trying to say about me and you, that pessimism has a point, that if we did some honest spelunking into our own souls we may not like what we see, and, worse yet, we may not have much power to change it; perhaps then, I would have forfeited the contest for greatest human ever, realizing that frenetically trying to climb the podium toward personal best may actually place us in the loser’s circle.  What if, instead of the daily battle for self-promotion, I had rested more deeply in Another’s greatness, already proved at Golgotha when, in historical literature’s finest moment, the Incarnation enacted a loophole:  Him for us.  If, as a young buck, I’d believed that more deeply, it might have moved me more frequently to a counter offer:  me for Him.  Then maybe I could have been more useful an instructor to my fellow students of grace.

Questions remain.  How will God judge His enemies, whoever they may be?  How will He handle my friends who don’t accept His free exchange program or strangers who’ve never heard of it?  Frankly, though not flippantly, I don’t know.  I’m not exactly sure what perfect justice and mercy will turn out to mean for those who don’t believe in it.  As for me, I imagine I could still waste a lot of time in this life, perhaps be a little embarrassed about blind spots when He returns, and maybe, when it’s time for rewards or the lack thereof, I could, for a moment, wish I’d given Him more sooner.  But, ultimately, however my work may be judged, I know my soul won’t be, because long before my academic days, actually, I made the initial step of giving up on myself.  Decided, instead, to trust the One who, even longer ago, chose to be judged on my behalf.  Remembering that decision, His more than mine, frees me, like nothing else I know, to admit my worst and try my best.

@LScottEkstrom is a freelance writer living in New York.

 Article and photo credit:  Copyright, 2013.  L. Scott Ekstrom.  All Rights Reserved.