Human nature is a curious mix. On the one hand, we’re better than we think and this beauty and goodness doesn’t just come because, deep down, we’re made in the image and likeness of God or because, as Plato and Aristotle say, we’re metaphysically good. That’s true, but our loveliness is also less abstract. We’re beautiful too, at least most of the time, in our human and moral qualities.
But generally, we are blind to our real faults. As Jesus says, we too easily see the speck on our neighbour’s eye and miss the plank in our own. There’s a real contradiction here: Where we think we’re sinners is usually not the place where others struggle the most with us and where our real faults lie. Conversely it’s in those areas where we think we’re virtuous and righteous that, most often, our real sin lies and where others struggle with us.
So where does that leave us? In better and worse shape than we think! Recognizing that we’re more lovely than we imagine and at the same time more sinful than we suppose can be helpful, both for our self-understanding and for how we understand God’s love and grace in our lives.
Aristotle used to say that “two contraries cannot exist within the same subject”. He’s right metaphysically, but two contraries do exist inside of us morally. We’re both good and bad, generous and selfish, big- hearted and petty, gracious and bitter, forgiving and resentful, hospitable and cold, full of grace and full of sin, all at the same time. Moreover we’re dangerously blind to both, too unaware of our loveliness as well as our nastiness.
To recognize this is both humbling and freeing. In essence, we’re, “loved sinners”. Both goodness and sin constitute our real identity. Not to recognize the truth of either leaves us either unhealthily depressed or dangerously inflated, too hard on ourselves or too easy on ourselves. The truth will set us free and the truth about ourselves is that we’re both better and worse than we picture ourselves to be. [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “On Being Loved Sinners” December 2002]
