The Human Sinful Nature
The concept of a human sinful nature was not the only thing that brought me to faith in Christ, but it was also influential in my approach to human relationships post salvation.
To start off, my understanding of the human sinful nature entails perceiving the nature of humanity to have an inclination to sin, and this is demonstrated by the production of sinful desires within us. Because these desires seek to be gratified, it becomes natural to do what is wrong whereas it takes effort on our part to go against our natural desires to do what is right. Thus in my understanding, I see a distinction between human free will and the human sinful nature. We can in our will want to do good but then it might not necessarily translate to manifestation in action due to our sinful desires incapacitating us. Romans 7:14–25 illustrates this reality really well. While our will is in our control, humanly speaking, we have limited control to our nature and its desires. That being said, our sinful nature does influence our free will choices, for instance our love for power/money might influence us to willfully pursue a materialistic life
Of course that is not to say that there is 0 goodness in humanity. The bible teaches that we all naturally have a conscience though of course it can be seared if we repeatedly go against it. Romans 1:31 also describes that human beings have “natural affection” suggesting that there is some goodness in humanity. However, in considering both aspects to human nature, I felt human nature is still summed up in one word, self centeredness. Reason being, a lot of human behavior, whether good or evil seems to be reactive, stemming to gratify whatever emotions or desires we are feeling. That’s why you have “common sins” like greed, pride, anger and jealousy because all these are motivated by inner desires. In contrast to “greater evils” like murder, torture etc which most individuals would not commit because most people do not have sadistic desires to motivate them. Our sins thus tend to be reactive to whatever we are feeling rather than it being active in the sense of “I wake up today and aim to achieve 10 evil deeds” sort of thing.
Likewise in doing good, our benevolent actions many times are motivated by our emotions. There has a be an impetus like sympathy or friendship/familial/romantic affection that prompts us to do good to someone. Other times, it is selfish gain, like trying to be closer to a friend that motivates us to do good. That is why we don’t really do good to strangers, simply because there is no inner desire that prompts us to do so. Thus, regardless of good or evil actions, what is consistent is self centeredness where we are primarily focused on fulfilling our inner gratification and desires. Our nature is not altruistic where we find ourselves naturally seeking the good of others even when not motivated by desire/ emotions. Rather, altruism has to be intentional, using our will as a pushing force.
How then such an understanding affects my interpersonal relationships is manifold. First, we should not be judgmental when other individuals have sin struggles that is different from ours because we are motivated by different sinful desires. Take an eg, it seems that men are more prone to lust and aggression, likely due to the testosterone hormone (according to scientific studies). The hormones produce heightened desires in these areas as compared to women who have lower amounts of testosterone in their body. In contrast, it is also often said that women tend to have erratic emotional tendencies during their period which might incline them to certain other sins. To me such an understanding is really important to be empathetic and non judgmental to groups like pedophiles or the LGBT community.
Secondly, understanding that human nature is selfish adjusts our expectations of human relationships. Growing up, our exposure to many forms of media tend to portray certain individuals who are altruistic to an unrealistic extent (probably for the writers to escape from cruel reality). Being exposed to such material at an impressionable young age can lead to us adopting unrealistic expectations of people with subsequent disillusionment. Having an awareness that other individuals, like us who have tendencies to focus on their own lives can help us not only to be gracious to others, but also be mindful to intentionally act in altruistic ways in the midst of being fixated in pursuing our selfish ambitions. This empathetic understanding of sin struggles can likewise be transferred over to other sin areas. Taking into consideration the pull of sin on our behavior can help us to forgive more easily as well
This adjustments to my perspectives in interpersonal relationships lie not only towards non Christians, but also Christians. Perhaps due to bible verses that speak of how Christians are the children of light, disciples of love etc we tend to have high moral expectations of believers. While that should be the case, note that the bible is portraying what Christians should be working towards. However, because Christians also still have the sinful nature within them, reality unfortunately is often different from the expected. We should thus also hold on to more realistic expectations to the behavior of our brethren even as we understand our sinful tendencies despite being Christian.
