Quite possibly evil predominates in this mixture, but that may not be apparent to us. A whole body of scientific and psychological scholarship shows that beneath the motives that we admit to ourselves, there are often less admirable motives at work. Even our good motives, such as pity and compassion, may be derived from feelings of superiority and condescension we are reluctant to acknowledge. Evolutionary psychology shows that apparent acts of generosity may in fact be propelled by selfish motives of self- aggrandizement and self-perpetuation. I am not saying that human nature is bereft of virtue. The propensity for good is certainly there, but so is the propensity for vice and evil. The question for secular morality is, in seeking the inner self, which self are you seeking? What principle do you have that distinguishes the good inner self from the bad inner self?
To these questions secular morality has no answer. It refuses to admit the ancient truth of Christianity: there is corruption at the core of human nature. Human nature is, in Christian terms, “fallen:’ I am not making a religious argument here, nor am I appealing to the Adam and Eve story in Genesis. I am simply making an observation about human motivation, derived both from experience and from art. However morality is defined, there seems to be a universal human tendency to fall short of it. So there is a natural propensity in human beings to evil, and that is the significance of the events that transpired in the Garden of Eden. In this sense “original sin” is not a theological proposition but one to which all rational people can give assent. A realistic assessment of human malevolence should convince even secular people that secular morality is based on an inadequate anthropology.
