subject: Mankind—Doomed From Birth or Hope in life: Essay [print this page] MankindDoomed From Birth or Hope in life: Essay
Sample Essay
Words 2,870
Man[1] is a born sinner, there is a fundamental evil in man that makes him stand up to God, and try to mimic Him and His omnipresence. It is this desire to rise and reach the heights that man sins. To sin is to do something forbidden, something evil and unjust which needs salvation, in Christian text there is a very clear black and white fight between good and evil, good being God and man being the essential sinner. This is an enduring war and Luther asks the question unequivocally in his book Bondage of will:
Since [God and the world] are at war with each other, how can there be anything else throughout the whole world but uproar.(94)
He cites Jesus who said:
I am come not to send peace but a sword" (cited in Luther, 94 (Matthew 10:34))
To Luther salvation of mankind was the most important issue and to him Jesus did not come in peace but to wage a war, to save the mankind from their own collective moral degradation, corruptness and ignoble presence. Luther believed that no one had appreciated Jesus' words and instead were interested in peace rather than waging war against forces of evil embodied in man himself. Luther's belief in the original evilness of mankind is a fact rather than a conjecture, to him it stands out as something so evident that sacrificing lives of individuals is insignificant compared to eternal salvationthe ultimate aim of any Christian.
[1] This paper uses man and masculine reference as universal without limiting the essay to one single gender or ignoring female sex.
