Theological and Philosophical Foundations
![handle is hein.journals/jchlet1 and id is 9 raw text is: J JiURNAL OF CIRISTIAN LEGAL TiOUGT SIR
STHEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS
Reinhold Niebuhr on Human Nature,
Sin, and Justice
or Christians to think soundly about civil
law, they must have a sound anthropology, or
account of human nature. God ordains the
institution of law, but human beings are the subjects
of its regulation, and human beings administer
it. If we misunderstand human beings, we will
misunderstand the purposes and effects of law.
Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr set forth a
powerful Christian account of human nature
and applied it to problems of society and politics.
Niebuhr was a Protestant liberal and social activist
who nevertheless reacted against the optimistic view
of humanity held by many liberals. He recovered
and restated classic Christian concepts that, he
argued, offered a more realistic basis for pursuing
justice-especially the concept of original sin, the
pervasiveness of human self-interest.
Many of Niebuhr's writings have relevance for
law and lawyers, but I recommend Human Nature,
volume 1 of his two-volume magnum opus, The
Nature and Destiny of Mani' It argues at length that
Christianity gives the most convincing account
of human nature, especially of what Pascal called
humans' greatness and wretchedness. Compared
with other theories, Niebuhr says, Christianity
claim[s] a higher stature for man but also take[s]
a more serious view of his evil (HN, at 18).
Niebuhr describes sin as humans' response to the
anxiety they feel over being both free and dependent.
We either seek to avoid finitude and dependence by
asserting absolute value for some status or idea of
ours-thus committing sins of pride-or we seek to
avoid freedom by losing ourselves in partial goods
such as sex or material things-thus committing
sins of sensuality.
Niebuhr's hard teaching, however, is that the
very freedom that is the occasion for sin also calls us,
through conscience, to achieve ever greater justice
and brotherhood. The freedom of man sets every
1 The Nature and Destiny of Man: Human Nature (Scribner's 1941)
(hereinafter HN'). Other crucial passages in Niebuhr's work
are collected in Reinhold Niebuhr: Theologian of Public Life (Larry
Rasmussen ed., Fortress Press 1991).
standard of justice under higher possibilities;' but
the sin of man perennially insinuates contingent
and relative elements into efforts to realize those
possibilities (281). Moreover, it is not possible to
make a simple separation between the creative and
destructive elements; thus it is not possible to
purge moral achievements of sin as easily as moralists
suppose (184). He applied this insight not only to
political movements but to other human behavior,
such as the parent who makes a will partly out of
love to provide for her children after her death,
but partly to continue exercising parental power
through the bequest.
That human actions reflect profoundly mixed,
tangled motives should not surprise lawyers. But
Niebuhr places this fact in a theological framework
by which Christian lawyers, activists, or statesmen
can see matters realistically and still maintain hope.
His theology has its faults and omissions, and it does
not produce determinate rules. Instead it provides a
disposition for those who struggle to achieve justice
in a fallen world. It requires constant self-criticism:
Am I pursuing all appropriate options for increased
harmony among persons, or for stronger legal
protection for those in need? Am I also mindful of
the ways in which my chosen moral cause, or my
client's case, may do injustice to others? The tension,
the risk of sinning, is real but, in Niebuhr's view,
not paralyzing: for the final classic Christian insight
is that God offers forgiveness and mercy when we
acknowledge the sin in our striving.
By Thomas C. Berg, James L. Oberstar Professor
of Law and Public Policy and Associate Dean for
Academic Affairs, University of St. Thomas School
of Law.
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