We must always supplement any doctrine of the Fall with a doctrine of
human responsibility. The Bible is most explicit in this insistence. Its
pages are crowded with the moral imperative for man. The thorn and the
brier are on the earth; but they are not blamed, because they wait for the
era of the good people. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth
together in pain; but the creation is not blamed, because it waits for the
revealing of the sons of God. The lion and the lamb do not lie down
together; but they are not blamed, because they wait for the age of peace
that can issue only from the hearts of men. The coin rolls into dust and
shadow and is lost; we do not blame the coin. The sheep wanders into
desert and darkness and is lost; we do not blame the sheep. The son goes
off into the swine field and is lost; and we do blame the son. The coin
and the sheep have no communings with self, no sense of guilt, no road of
repentant return; but the son has all these. The Bible does utter its
vigorous charge against man's sin; it is the ever-open court room into
which the human conscience is summoned for judgment. The Book does not
treat man as a machine whose cogs and wheels are moved only by outside
force; nor does it treat him as a manikin, jerked hither and yon by
irresponsible sensations; it rather dignifies him with personal
responsibility. The Fall does not prevent climbing, if only man will take
advantage of those gracious powers that are offered for his help. Emerson
saw the meaning of this when he wrote his tribute to mankind based on its
ability to respond to the moral order:
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, "Thou must,"
The youth replies, "I can!"
Words like "ought" and "should" and "must" have gone forth from the Bible
and have fairly penetrated the moral consciousness of the race. No other
book so honors human nature with a sublime call to responsibility.
We now leave these general considerations and take up the several portions
of the Scriptures with a view to ascertaining their contributions to a
doctrine of man. The foundation of that doctrine is seen in the account of
the creation. Whether that account be poem, parable, allegory, or history,
its meaning for this special point is the same. The climax of the creation
is man. God is represented as changing chaos into cosmos, separating
waters and land, fixing sun and moon in their places, bringing verdure to
the surface of the earth, assigning birds and beasts and fishes to their
spheres, and then as giving to man a wide rulership. "God made man to have
dominion"--that is the biblical word; and the ages have been telling how
true that word is. The Bible theory and the facts of life join in a
coronation of man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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