A column in the Wall Street Journal takes note of recent research which finds that the lies of children are evidence of cognitive development — the ability to distinguish between true and false, and to identify the expectations of others.
So far as it goes, I would have thought that’s pretty humdrum stuff; every thoughtful parent already knows that. But Albert the Pious sees something sinister in the research.
“The first occasion of your child telling a lie is not an occasion to be alarmed but an occasion for celebration. It’s a teachable moment,” he told me, “a time to discuss what is a lie, what is the truth and what are the implications for other people.”
Now just consider the worldview that says that the first time your child tells a lie—and one would presume tells a lie pretty well—the parent is not to be alarmed, but rather is to celebrate this as the arrival of a new sign of intelligence. You extend that logic, the first time a child uses profanity, one should supposedly celebrate the fact that the child knows language. But the bigger issue here actually is what’s revealed in this research. What’s revealed is the fact that the modern secular worldview assumes that human beings are born morally good, and as a matter fact, children are morally good. There is no conception here that that child is a sinner just waiting for the opportunity to sin. The one part of Professor Lee’s statement that just about every parent should affirm is where he says the moment a child lies, “It’s a teachable moment.”
No, there is no implicit assumption in that remark that children are born morally good. Generally, most research on childhood development begins with John Locke’s belief that children are tabula rasa — a blank slate with genetic predispositions.
The implications of Mohler’s remark — “There is no conception here that that child is a sinner just waiting for the opportunity to sin.” — are downright scary. Does he actually believe a child lies about who took all the cookies because he is “just waiting for the opportunity to sin?” That a child gets up in the morning and starts patrolling for opportunities to sin? Geez, I’ll bet that made for some creepy bedtime conversations with the kiddies around the Mohler household.
“I lied about it because I was afraid you’d punish me.”
“No, you lied because you’re a putrescent sink of wickedness. You were born that way, you will always be that way, and you deserve to burn for all eternity because you’re no damn good.”
There is a lot of hatred against the whole of humanity embedded in Christian thought.