A guest post at Spiritual Sounding Board reprises something I’ve said repeatedly through the years: Christianity’s indispensable metaphysical claim is … You’re no damn good.
Free will is meaningless, because each and every instinct we have is sinful anyway, and should NOT be validated. Besides, what difference does free will make when God chose the “elect” before the foundations of the earth?
The law is our SCHOOLMASTER, but we will never “graduate” this side of heaven. We will NEVER be “sanctified” until we are “glorified” in death, in heaven.
Total depravity — nothing in us is innately good. We are putrid, vile, worthless, helpless sinners, and can ONLY be loved perfectly by a perfect GOD, and ONLY by His “mercy,” since we are all undeserving. Mercy is NOT something man can ever possess in the “flesh,” because the flesh is sinful. And we shouldn’t expect ANYONE to ever truly love us since we aren’t worthy of it, so we shouldn’t complain or be at all surprised when we are treated like shit, especially by our loved ones, and especially by authority figures, since God appoints them over us for our sanctification.
I know, I know … My church doesn’t teach that!
Listen more carefully; Original Sin is part and parcel of every sermon ever preached, and it’s your willing participation in your own degradation that sustains the entire rickety edifice.