The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

The Global Argument Continued 87
constantly before their minds a representation of perfect love in the
Beatific Vision. In the state of separation from God, and conjoined
with rationality, they formed the genetic substrate of what is called
original or birth sin: an inborn tendency to do evil against which all
human efforts are vain. We, or most of us, have some sort of perception
of the distinction between good and evil, but, however we struggle,
in the end we give in and do evil. In all cultures there are moral codes
(more similar than some would have us believe), and the members
of every tribe and nation stand condemned not only by alien moral
codes but by their own. The only human beings who consistently do
right in their own eyes, whose consciences are always clear, are those
who, like the Nazis, have given themselves over entirely to evil, those
who say, in some twisted and self-deceptive way, what Milton has his
Satan say explicitly and clearly: ‘‘Evil, be thou my Good.’’
When human beings had become like this, God looked out over a
ruined world. (‘‘And God saw that the wickedness of man was great
in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually’’ (Gen. 6.5).) It would have been just of him
to leave human beings in the ruin they had made of themselves and
their world. But God is more than a God of justice. He is, indeed,
more than a God of mercy—a God who was merely merciful might
simply have brought the story of humanity to an end at that point,
like a man who shoots a horse with a broken leg. But God is more
than a God of mercy: he is a God of love. He therefore neither left our
species to its own devices nor mercifully destroyed it. Rather, he set in
motion a rescue operation. He put into operation a plan designed to
restore separated humanity to union with himself. This defense will
not specify the nature of this plan of atonement. The three Abrahamic
religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, tell three different stories
about the nature of this plan, and I do not propose to favor one of them
over another in telling a story that, after all, I do not maintain is true.
This much must be said, however: the plan has the following feature,
and any plan with the object of restoring separated humanity to union
with God would have to have this feature: its object is to bring it about
that human beings once more love God. And, since love essentially
involves free will, love is not something that can be imposed from the
outside, by an act of sheer power. Human beings must choose freely
to be reunited with God and to love him, and this is something they
are unable to do by their own efforts. They must therefore cooperate