Blaise Pascal was a brilliant 17th century mathematician, physicist, logician, inventor, and Christian thinker. In his incomplete work Pensées (thoughts), Pascal pondered the paradox that people (individually and collectively) are both unimaginably good and staggeringly evil. History provides countless examples of people sacrificing to alleviate suffering and struggling to secure the freedom of others. But we also find terrible examples of cruelty and oppression. When we study the history of science, we find tremendous advances in medicine, public health, and using natural resources to better mankind. But we also find more efficient ways for people to oppress or kill one another and pollute our planet. As Pascal said, “The more enlightened we are the more greatness and vileness we discover in man.” What can explain these extremes of goodness and wickedness co-existing within our hearts?
Many have tried to explain away either man’s goodness or man’s wickedness. For example, some believe we are merely evolved animals “red in tooth and claw”, and we should expect to be savage and merciless as we strive to survive. Any apparent goodness is just the animal within us looking for some selfish advantage in a world where only the fittest survive. In contrast others believe we are all inherently good, and any wickedness or evil we do is because we are victims; enslaved by the chains of our society and oppressed by the culture around us. They cry, “restore justice” and “set us free” so we can live in peace and harmony with one another. Pascal said, “It is dangerous to explain too clearly to man how like he is to the animals without pointing out his greatness. It is also dangerous to make too much of his greatness without his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both, but it is most valuable to represent both to him.”
Are man’s divine aspirations and animal malevolence mutually exclusive? If not, how could both natures with their opposing thoughts, desires, and actions be true about us? Pascal concluded that, “true religion must necessarily teach us that there is in man some great principle of greatness and some great principle of wretchedness!” The Apostle Paul described his own battle with his desire to do good while actually acting wickedly. “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. … For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. … Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7 ESV)
The Bible and the Christian faith provide the best explanation for the seemingly paradoxical condition of human greatness and wretchedness that we observe in ourselves and others. First, we are created in the image and likeness of God including the understanding of right and wrong, the ability to love and sacrifice, the capacity to think and create, the power to design and build, the foresight to plan and prepare for the future, and many more attributes not found elsewhere in creation. So, what is the source of our wickedness? Because second, we have been corrupted, tarnished and distorted by our rebellion against God. All of our capacity and capability for greatness has been turned in the direction of evil and wickedness, though it may not seem that way to us. God’s grace opens our eyes to see that the sin in others is no different that the sin in our own hearts, minds, and bodies. And when we cry to be free from our rotten condition, Jesus rescues us, sets us free, rebuilds our relationship with God, and renews us to live a life without hatred, cruelty, pride, selfishness, anger, or anything else that separates us from God.