We find a great contradiction in every person. Within the self-same individual are two opposing inclinations: the original mind that desires goodness and the evil mind that desires wickedness. They are engaged in a fierce battle, striving to accomplish two conflicting purposes.
Any being possessing such a contradiction within itself is doomed to perish. Human beings, having acquired this contradiction, live on the brink of destruction. Can it be that human life originated with such a contradiction? How could beings with a self-contradictory nature come into existence?
If burdened by such a contradiction from its inception, human life would not have been able to arise. The contradiction, therefore, must have developed after the birth of the human race. Christianity sees this state of destruction as the result of the human Fall. |