Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2007, Page 47

history, nor can it be totally defeated. It is instructive to remember that the
one person who did live fully out of agape love ended on a cross, crucified by
the best and brightest of the time.
The Paradox ofHuman Nature and History
“Whatever your heart fastens to, that is your god,” said Luther. From the
paradoxical vision’s perspective, humans are irretrievably committed to find-
ing something other than God to which to fasten their hearts. This analysis of
inescapable sin, however, is not so simple. We do not fasten to the unalluring
and worthless things of the world. On the contrary, we fasten to the things
that really tempt. Highest among our temptations is devotion to ourselves.
We are obsessed with ourselves and make ourselves the center of the universe.
Our attention to ourselves crowds out everything else except those things we
want in order to feed the image of ourselves we have concocted. This obses-
sion may be one of willful assertion or self-pitying negation, but in either case
it makes a mockery of the divine command “to love the Lord your God with
all you heart, mind and soul.” We love ourselves, or those things that can lend
ourselves some semblance of importance and immortality.
Thus, none are good. All human actions are tainted with the eífect of our
sin, even those performed by Christian. We can never be completely free of
the Old Adam in this life. This Augustinian view of human nature extends
to human action in society. Human sin is particularly magnified and unre-
strained in the life and action of groups. It is especially expressed in collective
situations.
Yet, humans are not dirt. Even in their fallen state they possess qualities
of their creation in the image of God. There is an essential self that longs for
wholeness and completion, though it cannot heal or complete itself. This es-
sential self has capacities for moral reason, for what Luther called “civil right-
eousness.” Humans have capacities for justice.
Moreover, humans never lose their dignity in God’s eyes. They are beloved
for what God has made them to be, not what they have made of themselves.
They are infinitely valuable because they have been given a destiny in their
creation and have been redeemed by the work of Christ. They can refuse that