Dallas Willard--- Divine Conspiracy 02: Human Nature
… if you hear a line from C.S. Lewis again. “If man is made
ultimate, causal force will eventually rule and thereby abolish humanity by
making everything subject to the thrust of desire. The desire of some few who
are able to gain the upper hand by force” (Abolition of man).
… that it meant to abolish human beings as free people
devoted to good through love, and replaced them with people who are under the
domination of people--- other people who live only in terms of their own
desires.
The current battle over human nature--- and really the extreme
form it takes, is: Is there human nature? You can say that the official point
of view on this is now, there is none.
There is no human nature
And you want to understand that that’s an outcome of the
drive to total liberty that was developed in the twentieth century, into the
twentieth century. And this drive to total liberty is the essential mark of the
Babel orientation in human life. The drive to total liberty.
Democracy as a political system has come to essentially mean
the exaltation of the human will. Everyone should be able to do what they want
to do. And that’s a perversion of human liberty, in fact, but that’s how it is…
That’s what it’s been taken to mean.
Nature versus Liberty
Now that can only be true if you have no nature, because if
you have a nature it’s going to put a limit on what you can do. And that’s true
of everything--- a wristwatch, a podium. Everything has a nature that limits
what it’s good for. You can’t pick your teeth with a podium, can you? It would
be awkward and you’d have to have a very big mouth. So you see how nature limits
freedom--- if by freedom you mean doing what you want to do. You might want to
be a movie star or something of that sort, but your looks and your talents
would limit that.
And I’ve put the name John Dewey down here because he’s the
most famous twentieth century American to reject the idea of human nature. But
of course many people have followed after him. Nature versus public opinion.
Now the swing against nature is seen all around us. For example, natural law
cannot be invoked as a basis for law. And now I don’t know to what extent I,
you are into this kind of discussion or not, but if the idea has been
traditionally that there is a natural law--- that is, there are things, there
are ways things should be that are natural--- and that these are laws in
nature, and that law in the legal system should be based on laws in nature. OK.
And now that has been rejected.
So for example, Justice Kennedy in his--- when he wrote up
the decision on the sodomy case in Texas, the basis for the decision that he
cited was the change in public sentiment. So the public sentiment then is put
in the place of natural law. Public sentiment means: What does the public like?
What does the public want to do? Now then someone might say, Well gee, the
public, what they want, that’s wrong. You see the difference there? And they
might say that’s wrong because there is a natural law and they might also say
God has declared what the natural law is in certain interesting cases.
And so we’ve now moved in the last century to where what is
wanted or desired or felt to be right by the public would be the basis for law.
Now of course you don’t have to be told where that could lead, but that’s--- I’m
just saying that’s--- what has changed here on this issue of nature. Nature can’t
be invoked to support hetero-sexuality… It can’t be invoked to support
man-woman marriage and so on. So what, what did Massachusetts’ court say in
that case? They cited public sentiment, the change of sentiment.
Now if you were to say, Well, but, you know, what about Nazi
sentiment? Suppose you had a whole society that agreed with Nazi sentiment,
would that make it right? They would hastily say no.
But when asked how could they support that they wouldn’t
have a leg to stand on. Right? Because they have already abandoned nature and
the way things are as a basis for law. You see, denying human nature takes care
of all the issues where desire wants free play at one fell swoop and turns it
in at most to a social issue.
So if you desire what society does not desire then you can
be told that you are wrong and you can be controlled on the basis of that. But it’s
only because you have group desire. Now that’s why political correctness
becomes so important in our time. Struggle of self-will and desire.
See, the underlying issue here is the difference between
what is desired and what is good. What is desired and what is good. And then
that defines the meaning of love… Desire can be for what is not good. You can
desire what is not good. So you can’t define good in terms of desire. You can’t
define good in terms of desire because you can desire what is not good. If you
define good in terms of desire then automatically if you desire something, it
is good. But most people can’t quite push beyond that because they know they
often desire things that are not good. That’s one of the meanings of regret.
Most everyone knows what regret is. Love desires good. Now to love someone
means that you will what is good for them. If you love someone you will what is
good for them. That’s the meaning of the word be-ne-vo-lence, benevolence,
be-ne-vo-lence, will the good.
God said certain things about sexuality. But they do not
conform with what people may want in the area of sexuality. So when you cut
loose from the teachings that God has given about it--- I don’t mean to say
that there are no difficulties, in that human beings being what they are, there
are difficulties--- but when you just cut that loose and say anything goes. As
long as you have consenting adults anything goes. Right?
Well, then you have stepped into an area where things are
going to have a nature and results will be there regardless of what you like
because you can choose the action but you can’t choose the consequences.
So now we have a situation if you want to see the insanity
of sin, we have a situation where millions and indeed hundreds of millions of
people are going to die of a disease that is fundamentally tied to wrong
sexuality. And no one can say a word about that. The Frenchman who was head of
the health organization that first came into Africa to deal with A.I.D.S. made
the suggestion that it was related to sexual practices, and he was immediately
fired. Immediately fired. Why? Because will, human will and desire, has
institutionalized itself in the culture that rejects truth and goes for desire.
… Now you see, when you start to deny the reality of God
then everything comes loose. And it’s now left up to the human capacities to
discern and to act and live within the boundaries of reality…
“Professing themselves to be wise they become fools and
exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of
corruptible man.”
This is the issue of what you worship, what you take to be
ultimate; and when you turn from God you take man to be ultimate.
So why is sex and violence so prominent in a society that is
devoted to desire? Because that is what can be fulfilled through the body. The
body is what is under control of the will. And when the mind no longer governs
the will through truth, then the will turns to the body and says: I will
squeeze out of you all the good--- and now good means desired. I will fulfill
my desires with reference to the body. And so then John says in 1 John 2, there
are three things that are in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes and the pride of life.
Desire is not self-limiting.
Once you turn to desire then you have no way of limiting it.
Desire is not self-limiting.
And it will push farther and farther trying to get satisfaction
from desire when there is no satisfaction in desire. Desire only leads you on
to more desire. If your life is built around desire you will never be
satisfied. And that will push you increasingly into the perversion of desire.
Thanks to:
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