33. Christian Beliefs I’ve Moved Away From - Belief 7
Belief: That we, as humans, are sinful by nature.
Buckle up. This is one of my favorites.
If you grew up in church, you likely learned about human nature in a way similar to this: In the beginning of time, God created the world. God created the heavens and the earth, the light and darkness, the land and waters, animals and plants, and humankind. Everything God made was good and perfect.
And then sin entered the world. You may have been raised to believe sin entered in the form of a satanic figure disguised as a talking serpent, or maybe you were simply raised with the understanding that God allowed humankind to have free will and therefore sin inevitably became part of the picture. Regardless, you may have been taught that it was our fault that sin entered our world - “our” meaning the collective humanity. And that, to this day, we are still sinful. That we are born with a natural inclination towards sin, and that in God’s infinite grace we are saved from getting what we deserve, which is eternal separation from God to atone for our bad thoughts and deeds.
Where to even begin?
I grew up with a fairly literal understanding of this story of a man, woman, and serpent. I believed that these were the first humans ever created, that everything about their world was perfect, and that God blessed them with everything they needed - plus one thing they didn’t. I believed there was a tree with “bad” fruit in this perfect garden in which they lived, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I believed that a serpent came to the woman and told her that the fruit actually wouldn’t harm her at all, but would make her more like God. The woman then gave into temptation and ate the forbidden fruit, and she also gave some to her husband to eat too. And then the man and woman’s eyes were opened to the fact that they were naked and ashamed, and they hid from God. But God knew exactly what had happened, and God banned them from ever returning to this perfect paradise again. But the grace of God in this story is that God kept them alive. God made it infinitely painful for this woman and all women to bear children from then forward, but the woman was still blessed with many descendants.
As I retell this story, it feels clear as day to me that this is a legend handed down from generation to generation as a way of making sense of why things are the way they are. As humans, our brains are naturally inclined to make sense of things that don’t make sense. We piece together bits of a story to make a whole, even if we have to make up certain parts to make it make sense. We don’t do this on purpose; it’s just how our brains work. Over time, we can’t even remember what’s true and what’s invented; our brains are so incredible that they weave everything together so seamlessly. It makes so much sense that our ancestors would want to come up for an explanation of why there’s evil in the world, or how the world even began. And that this story was told so many times that it eventually became an accepted “truth” about our history. However, it’s not a literal story and has never been meant to be a literal story. It’s always been metaphorical and poetic.
For most of my upbringing, it seemed that people referred to this story as “the Fall” of humanity and the reason why we are all born with the inclination to sin. So, I’ll start there. What is sin? I truly don’t even know how to define it. Growing up, I generally understood “sin” to mean anything bad I did, whether it was talking back to my parents, or hitting my brother, or fighting with my sister, or lying, or saying something mean to someone. Back then, I could understand that when I “sinned’ it was something wrong that I did that I could try to correct.
But as I got older, I really didn’t think I “sinned” all that often. Sure, I would sometimes gossip, or think a prideful thought, or say something I didn’t mean when I got tired or frustrated. But in general, I really felt like I did pretty well. I always tried to be kind, honest, hardworking, and do what I was supposed to do in terms of drinking, substance use, premarital sex, modest dress, and language. I knew I wasn’t perfect, but I also knew I wasn’t expected to be. And yet, our church’s continual messages about how we were sinners and in need of God’s grace, became more and more frustrating to me. What was the point, I wondered? What was the point of these same messages over and over, about how we’re so sinful and in need of God’s grace, yet I’m out here every single day always trying to do the best that I can, and yet still always being told it’s not enough? These messages began to feel more and more shallow and unhelpful.
As I learned more about mental health, I came to understand that these behaviors that I had always understood as “sinful” were actually just ways of protecting our natural human needs. They were ways people learned to act in response to how they had been treated. For example, my “prideful thoughts”? When you’re always trying to do the absolute best you can yet are still absorbing this message that it’s not enough, of course I would want to amp up the things I did well so I could feel some sense of being good enough. Gossiping - if you have felt a sense of being excluded in the past, gossiping could be your way of bonding with someone and feeling accepted by a group of people. As humans, we have a natural instinct to fit in and be accepted by a crowd. It’s how our ancestors survived. Sometimes “sinful” behaviors are just our ways of trying to fit in and be accepted. Sometimes they’re our ways of standing up for ourselves and advocating for our needs. We may not know how to communicate ourselves in the most productive ways - which is why we might say hurtful or passive aggressive things - but those actions are always a way of attempting to get some need met.
As a counselor, I learned that there is always, always, always a human being beneath every action. And it’s always a human being who’s experienced some kind of woundedness. If we believe that God loves us for who we are, then of course we should believe that God loves us for the person beneath the action. God sees beyond the “sin” and knows and understands the person and all of their wounds underneath. That is what God cares about. Far more than God cares about “sins” being repented of and corrected.
Once a person feels seen, heard, and unconditionally loved and accepted, then the self-protecting behavior - the “sin” - will no longer have a need to exist. The person’s defenses will be lowered and they will be able to simply act as their authentic self, without any need for self-protection. And yes, sometimes those self-protecting tendencies will get triggered again even with no danger present. That’s how our nervous systems work. They remember past danger and alert us so we can keep ourselves safe in whatever ways we need. We just need to be able to see that in one another. And let each other know that that’s okay and we won’t stop loving each other even when our self-protective modes become active.
We are responsible for doing the best we can do to correct our wrongs. We are responsible for apologizing and making things right when we’ve hurt someone. We owe it to ourselves to heal our wounds through therapy, self-reflection, medication, rehab, love and relationships, fun, sense of purpose, and taking care of our physical bodies. When we intentionally ignore these needs, we keep ourselves stuck in destructive cycles. But we don’t get into these cycles out of nowhere. We get into them because of wounds we’ve experienced, usually wounds that have been ripped open again and again.
We are not born sinful, but we are born into a world with pain. If we do not feel safe, we will do what we need to do to create a sense of safety for ourselves. As an infant, this might look like crying until our needs our satisfied. As a toddler, it might look like throwing a tantrum when we don’t get what we want because we don’t have words to express ourselves. As we grow older, it may look like lying, cheating, gossiping, fighting, numbing with food or alcohol or substances or gambling or excessive shopping or exercising - anything that helps us feel a sense of safety.
When we feel safe, we can be free to be our authentic selves. This is the self that laughs, loves, and creates freely. We can’t “will” ourselves into this - we have to become self-aware of what patterns we’re getting stuck in and make the necessary changes in ourselves and/or our environments.
Human friend, may you have grace to understand that you aren’t sinning - you are doing what you need to help yourself feel safe. May you recognize this and do what you need to help yourself live freely and authentically. And may you know that God loves you freely for every part of you.
