Okay, this is a big issue in my mind and a difficult one in general, and it probably won't elicit any comments besides a smiley-face from Megan, but I would really like to hear people's input.
As you got if you read the last post on Soka Gakkai Buddhism, I was thoroughly unimpressed with such a set of "beliefs," mainly because it didn't sound like anything besides one big ego trip set to the tune of religion. It is so self-centered and me-based.
Which leads to the response: why is that so wrong?
As long as I've been conscious I've subscribed to a largely pessimistic anthropology. That is to say: man is inherently evil.
Which leads to the response: but why would God make man so? And how does this doctrine (even taken to the extreme of being named "Total Depravity" by Calvinists) take into account God reacting to man's creation with the poignant "It is good"?
Is there room for a positive anthropology in theology? Maybe not the point of Pelagianism (which states that man can practically achieve or earn salvation on his own), but at least not knocking man's nature so much that we can excuse our mistakes as "human nature"? I feel that this perceived characteristic in our nature makes room for a lot of expectations to fail and displaced blame.
Hmm. . .what do you think?
6 years ago
