Depravity

I'm not sure whether I like how the word "depraved" is loaded, but I do think the question of "how naturally or fundamentally evil are people?" is an important one, and I guess "depravity" is how that's talked about in Christian theology.

How "depraved" are people?

I don't think reality makes a lot of sense if people have zero moral agency, no ability to make choices morally. (Moral free will is why there is unbearable suffering, as far as I can tell.) So I don't think people can be 100% predisposed to evil, otherwise they wouldn't be the evil ones, but rather that predisposition, or, originally, the being or beings that predisposed them so. I guess it's possible for it to be the case that suffering is permitted for the sake of other beings who have free will, other than humans. Then, perhaps, humans could be 100% predisposed toward evil -- but I think really humans just wouldn't exist as persons, and only as appendages of the body of the being that used them for evil.

On some level, I know myself, and can't be wrong about myself, having privileged access to myself, and I make decisions sometimes. They may be constrained by the options available, but I choose. I know that I affirm the good, and chafe at evil. Sometimes I fail to deeply oppose evil, or perhaps even like it, and that comes from the real me. Perhaps I am not in touch with decisions I have made (and likely will make) that go against my affirmation or chafing in the moment, and my whole person is not as affirming of the good, or inclined to chafe against evil, as I feel, but in the moment, with that little piece of me that is alive right then, I do affirm, or chafe, out of the I that is saying "I affirm good" or "I chafe at evil". My will is free, most of my waking life, though it may have limited options and efficacy.

In some moments I find myself doing things that I don't want to do, automatically, and being tempted by forces that I didn't choose to put into my thought-life, which put me in positions where my behavior is relatively far from what I would do if I were left in the most favorable situations. Part of my human nature is my body, the flesh of my brain, and it paints a picture of me to others and even myself which is not always accurate, through my behavior. It distorts the signal I'm really trying to send to others, and I can even take it to be who I am when it is a distortion, and not a trustworthy image of my real intentions.

Human behavior is somewhat naturally depraved, because our brains are programmed to sometimes be aggressive, hypersexual, manipulative, controlling, etc. But humans are not exactly the same as their behavior. Human behavior is often naturally whatever we would call the opposite of "depraved". And again, humans are not exactly the same as their behavior.

Where does this extra-human depravity come from? We don't choose it. Does God choose it? Why would God choose it? I don't think God could choose it. So who chose it? Presumably it came through the power of Satan. Satan wills that we have these aggressive, hypersexual, manipulative, controlling, etc. psychological natures. If Satan's will no longer prevails, then they go away. Psychopathy seemingly follows from genes. If these genes, and their phenotypes, are healed, then those who seem to be, from a behavioral point of view, moral monsters, may turn out to be merely humanly depraved. It's possible for someone to freely choose to be a psychopath, but perhaps in many or even most cases, people are psychopathic apart from any decision they made.

What do humanly depraved people look like? Someone like Tim Keller (whom I am using here as a name for a sincere, thoughtful, and kind Calvinist) would say "like me -- at my best". These are the horrific depths of human depravity, apart from the interference of Satan. It may sound like I'm making a joke at the expense of Calvinism, but I see an important truth in that view, which is that it's dangerous to assume you are no longer evil in any significant way, like your evil side could be rounded down to zero in your eyes, even if you are as mild-mannered as Tim Keller. We are tempted to view human nature through the lens of how bad Satan makes us, and how good God makes us, the behavior and outward appearance of us, and not our hearts which really choose.

I think that people are programmed or possessed both to be good and to be evil, and in their freedom, really are both good and evil, until they (we?) finish fully choosing the good. (Or choose to be evil sufficiently firmly to prevent them (us?) from fully choosing the good.)