By Andrea Guachalla
It is easier to blame others for our wickedness than to take responsibility for it.
That identity is a social construct and that our wickedness is a product of our social environment is not a new or innovative idea, but an old way of escaping being accountable for our sin. The philosophy of famous people like Jacque Rousseau and Leo Tolstoy found their foundation in such ideas, as did the philosophy of millions and millions on our little blue planet.
“Man is good by nature,
– J. Rousseau
it is society that corrupts him”
It is a saying of Jacque Rousseau, from the mid-18th century that claims that it is the environment that determines the morality of society, and man is born inherently good. It is, therefore, society that corrupts man, not man who corrupts society.
Leo Tolstoy, 100 years later, expounds the same reasoning in his famous literary work “The Resurrection”. In it, he tells the story of a prince named Dimitri, who reflects the life of Tolstoy himself, who begins to discover his own wickedness and the lowly life of others in light of what society instills in them. In the work, he excuses criminal acts, claiming that their perpetrators are nothing more than the product of a discriminating and evil society, so that they should not only not be judged, but should be supported in some way. Throughout the book, he continues to argue that man is born as a neutral being, or in any case, benevolent, but it is society that corrupted both him and Katusha, a lowly prostitute whom he wishes to marry, as all those who violate any law.
Wickedness does not exist in man, it is the final argument of both Tolstoy and Rousseau. And since wickedness does not exist, neither does justice or absolute truths exist. Why? Because when arguing that man’s wickedness is produced by his context, the logical consequence is that you cannot objectively “judge” someone according to his actions, whether they are good or bad, but one must analyze his context and identify what caused the action committed. The presumptions of this reasoning are, firstly, that man does not have the ability to think, but that he is like an irrational animal that absorbs without filter what society offers him; and, second, that man does not have the ability to decide on his actions, but rather like an automaton robot acts according to his instincts according to previous experiences.
From Genesis to Revelation, there is no verse that supports these ideas and since we live in a world increasingly invaded by secularism and atheism, it is not surprising that ideological trends nowadays defend exactly the same. Critical theory and identity politics teach that people’s identity is defined by their political, ideological, cultural, and/or social affiliation and that they act according to their sectional identity. According to this view, some groups are inherently victims of society, and others are inherently evildoers.
During these years it has been argued that the groups considered victims according to these ideological currents cannot in turn be the criminals. Therefore, any “bad” action that comes from them cannot be judged objectively but must be analyzed according to their social, cultural context, etc.
If this sounds familiar to you, it is because we see it on television and in the news frequently: feminism dictates that women are inherently good and incapable of committing evil, when a case of family violence occurs in which the woman is the one who physically abuses her husband or children, frequently people questions the facts, or gives the woman the benefit of the doubt; Gender ideology dictates that all those who belong to the LGBT community are discriminated against despite the fact that they are “tolerant”, when it is mentioned that the rates of violence and promiscuity are incredibly high in their community, it is attributed to the idea that they suffer a lot of stress by the “discrimination” to which they are subjected; Indigenism and critical race theory dictate that minority ethnicities and non-white races are subject to systemic racism, when it is emphasized that many individuals of indigenous or minority ethnic groups are racist internally or towards external ethnic groups, facts are completely ignored. Nobody seems to care to analyze facts objectively, and there is no objective data that can divide the world between oppressed and oppressors… We are all evildoers.
Relying on a cultural, social, political, or gender identity gives you a free pass to identify yourself as a victim and excuse your bad actions with the “evil” that society does to you, and gives way to others being classified as “oppressors” regardless of their actions.
This completely ignores what the Word of God says about the perversion of man:
“…both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
Romans 3: 9-10, 23, English Standard Version
“None is righteous, no, not one.”
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
“Surely there is not a righteous man on earth
Ecclesiastes 7:20, English Standard Version
who does good and never sins.”
There is no righteous man, not even one. We have all sinned, we have all broken God’s law, and the Bible nowhere teaches that we can blame all of this on our neighbors, our parents, our schools, our bad experiences, or society. Nor does the Bible teach that we are born benevolent men and women without sin:
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
Psalm 51:5, English Standard Version
and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
We were conceived in sin, and from then on we have been slaves of iniquity. This implies that if we have the freedom to make decisions, these are never to do good but to do evil according to the standard that God gives us in His Word, maybe we can do “good” according to our own standard, but never in front of to the perfect law of God. We are incapable of doing good in our own strength, we are mired in our iniquities even though we like to blame others for our bad actions, and if you still do not believe that you are a slave to your sin, try for a single day to stop doing, thinking and speak what is bad and you will see that it is impossible.
None is good on this earth except Christ, the son of God who is our hope in the face of our inability to do good and our tendency to ignore our responsibility for the sins we commit. Yes, it is easier to blame others for our wrongdoing than to hold ourselves responsible for it. And this, although humanly more comfortable, leads to damnation. For how can we approach God in repentance, understanding his law and our deplorable condition, and humbly ask him to save us if we consider ourselves benevolent gods despite our iniquities?
Let your heart understand first, that you are a debtor before a holy God, that debt requires your eternal death under the wrath of God, and that you will never want to go to Christ of your own free will (John 6:44, John 5:40). May this lead you to understand, however, that there is ONE solution. God did not leave us in despair but gave us Christ, his son, who pays for our iniquities if we, by God’s grace, put our faith in him seeking forgiveness and reconciliation with our Creator.
Don’t let them lie to you that your iniquities are the responsibility of others, and they are excusable. They are not. You are responsible for your sins and, believe it or not, you will be judged for them on doomsday. At the same time, you must know that there is hope, and that hope is Christ.
