This is the Question: What’s your theological anthropology? Who/what are we as human beings, things with bodies? Good, bad, some mixture of both?
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The arch of the universe bends toward justice. Probably, because the arch of human nature bends towards love–the spark of God in humans.
As human beings we are co-creators with God, in that our nature is to play, to build, to create, and to love. I know this is true, because I have met children who, by all accounts, ought to have the spirit beaten out of them by the time they could speak. In fact, I have met children who had the desire to speak beaten out of them. It takes much more than that to take away their ability to laugh, to create, to play, and to love, though. The resilience of a child to be a loving, playful creature is proof that human nature is basically good.
But, as human beings we are always grasping for more control over the lives that we lead. We are finite creatures, but very few things about our experiences are indeed finite. They are experiences that others have across the globe and generations: love is infinite, and can be experienced infinitely. But, we grasp onto it because we believe that we are our finite selves. And so that is what we become, and then we struggle for more control, for more power, for more possession of our lives. This is the part of human nature that is bad. Children can also be hateful little buggers, as they learn to test power and control over relationships and reality. As we grow, we learn to balance the desire for possession and control with the experience of play and love. It is our nature to try and even these things out, so that we can be both fully human and fully godlike.
