The Gospel According to Matt

A couple of weeks ago, when we told our boys that we were having another baby, our oldest boy was giddy.  At first he just laughed for about 15 minutes.  Then he started giggling, which went on for another half an hour.  Then he started jumping on the bed, giving me high-fives (as if I had accomplished a major feat), and creating various cheers—which continued for another hour or so.  (About this time we realized that we shouldn’t have shared the news just before bedtime).

Later that night, as my wife and I were discussing the new baby, the oldest son excused himself from bed and joined us in the living room, crying.  First, he wanted to know if it was okay to cry when we’re happy.  Then, he wanted us to know that he would die, if necessary, to protect this new baby from harm (“robbers,” actually).  This sense of joy and responsibilty that he felt to an unknown baby was very impressive and I remember thinking, “Kid’s got character!”

I know I’m a doting Dad but that kid does have character.  And loads of it.  And everybody knows it.  And sometimes I wonder: Where does it come from?  Is it nature or is it nurture?  Can I take credit or is it part of one of God’s grand designs?  Was he genetically predisposed to his character or did he learn it from me (Ha!)?  And what does it matter anyway?

I have to confess something about my nature.  It is in my predisposition to look at women lustfully.  That’s right: “My name’s Matt and I’m a man.”  And if I wasn’t a Christian, and if I wasn’t worried about the consequences, and if I wasn’t so (not) tall, dark and handsome, I might have had numerous sexual encounters with numerous women.  But I haven’t even though it is in my nature!

Meanwhile, I was nurtured to be a one-woman-man.  My Dad was married to one woman all of her life and both of my grandpas are married to the “wives of their youth.”  So my upbringing encouraged and led me to become a one-woman-man (which I am in every way).

My nurture says “one-woman-man,” and my nature says “as many as possible;” and so there is a little nurture vs. nature battle that takes place inside me (and I’m neither a chauvinist nor a pervert).

Our post-modern, post-Christian society says: If it’s in my nature then it must be okay because I was born that way.  (Ah, now you see where I am going with this, right?).

If I accept this hedonistic philosophy I can say: “If it’s in my nature to sleep with lots of women then by golly I’ll sleep with lots of women.  Consequences to my wife and kids be damned.  God’s standards be damned.  I was born this way and I deserve to be happy!”  Certainly any reasonable person can see the many fallacies of such a philosophy.

So here’s what I think about the whole Nature vs. Nurture debate as it pertains to who we are and our moral standards…

First: who we are is determined by four things in no particular order: (1) nature; (2) nurture; (3) the choices we make; and (4) the will of God.

Second: just because something is part of our nature doesn’t mean that it’s morally acceptable (in fact, most of our natural/base tendencies are morally reprehensible; see New Testament discussion on flesh/sinful nature). 

Third: neither nature nor nurture have any authority or bearing on determining what is right and wrong (the moral equivalence of natural selection is genocide).

Fourth: only a Being with creative authority over human experience has the right to determine what is right and wrong (for romance, for marriage, for society, for faith, etc.).

So the next person who tells me that what they are doing is “okay because they were born that way;” well, I’m just going to slap them because that’s my natural inclination.