Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People

by Catharine Esther Beecher

Theological Dogma of a Depraved Mental Constitution.

In the preceding pages we have seen the evidence that the mind of man is perfect in its constitutional powers, and is thus the chief and highest evidence of the wisdom, justice, and benevolence of its Creator.

But the systems of theology in all the Christian sects, excepting a small fraction, teach that the mind of man comes into existence in this world with "a depraved nature;" meaning by this a mental constitution more or less depraved.

That this is the ordinary dogma of theological teachings is clear from this statement of the case. A thing can be wrong in only two conceivable ways: one is by its nature or original construction, and the other is by its action. The mind of man, therefore, if it is not perfect every way, is either wrong in construction or wrong in action. Now no person ever claimed that the mind of man was not depraved in action, and therefore all who teach that it is depraved any other way must teach that it is depraved in its constitution, or in that nature it received from its Maker, for there are only these two modes of depravity conceivable.

It being granted, then, that the mind of our race is depraved in its nature, of course the Author of this nature is responsible for this inconceivable and wholesale wrong. This forces us to the inevitable conclusion that the Creator of mind is a being guilty of the highest conceivable folly, injustice, and malignity. For reason and common sense teach that "the nature of a contrivance is proof of the character and intention of its author." Therefore, if mind is depraved in construction, the Author of it is a depraved being, and totally unworthy of our trust, respect, or love.

This is the argument which, in all ages, has been pressed on those theologians who maintain the dogma of the depraved nature of man, and there have been these various methods by which this difficulty has been evaded:

One class openly avow that the Creator had power to make the mind of man perfect in all respects, and that he has proved that he has this power by making the minds of angels and of our first parents thus perfect. But, in consequence of our first parents eating the forbidden fruit, every mind created since that time has been ruined in the making, so as to be totally depraved. This, it is maintained, it was right for God to do. How it was right we have no business to inquire. It is an awful mystery; but it was so done that God "is in no way the author of sin."

This amounts simply to a denial of the principle of reason, "that the nature of a contrivance is proof of the intention and character of the contriver." It is saying that the author of sin is not the author of sin.

This will be still farther apparent if we refer to page 158, where is exhibited the only conceivable modes in which one being can be the cause of sin or of wrong action in others. God is undisputably the author of all the outward circumstances that surround us. If, then, he has made our susceptibilities wrong, or combined them wrong, he is the author of sin in every conceivable sense.

Whoever, therefore, affirms that God is the author of a depraved mental organization of the human mind, affirms that he is "the author of sin" in every conceivable sense. To assert such a fact, and then deny that God is the author of sin, is simply a contradiction in terms.