Niebuhr’s anthropological discourse is most commonly explained in his view of human nature and human destiny.35 To explain this simply, human nature describes people before salvation. Human destiny refers to the “possibilities for humanity as a result of salvation” (De Gruchy
34 “The minimal answer is that a moral and theological realism of the sort that Reinhold Niebuhr elaborates demonstrates that religious thinking need not be dogmatic or divisive and that when it is not, it can be admitted to the public discussion along with all the other participants” (Lovin 1995:55).
35 Gilkey discusses Niebuhr’s view on human nature and destiny and points out how intricately they are intertwined with his thoughts on justice: “In Niebuhr’s earlier political writing two
‘theological’ subjects steadily seemed to gain prominence: the nature of human being on the one hand and the character and meaning of history on the other. These two questions are for him deeply intertwined: if we would undergird the hope for justice in an unjust world, we must understand the sources for the pervasive patterns of human social behaviour in the structure of human being... The questions of social justice (Niebuhr’s abiding passion) – immediately involves the questions of the nature of human being and the nature of history; in the context of justice, neither can be explored without the other” (2001:142-43).
1992:25). Real, lived life (human nature) is continually contrasted with the ideal life (human destiny) in The Nature and Destiny of Man. Niebuhr is possibly best remembered for his emphasis on sin and human nature.
Sin is not a mistake. It is, rather, a “deliberate misuse of the freedom that is our image of God in an effort to deny the reality of our human limitation” (Lovin 2007:xii). This abuse of freedom and freewill forms an important part of Niebuhr’s call to responsibility and is inseparable from his view of human destiny.36 Although much of his theological anthropology is concerned with human nature, his conviction of the responsibility of each individual is born out of his commitment to human destiny. Because of the cross of Christ, Niebuhr believed we are called to live in an ethically responsible manner:
A very good case could be made, I think, for claiming that Reinhold Niebuhr was driven to his abiding vocational concern for Christian ethics because his understanding of the nature of salvation was what it was. Niebuhr understood the work of God in Christ as God’s decisive participation in the historical process. This is not however the participation of a divine omnipotence which sets aside every obstacle. It is the participation of a suffering love which alters the world, not through power but through solidarity with suffering humility (Hall 1986:198 my italics).
Human nature admits what a person is; human destiny recognizes what a person can become. The fact that humanity is created in the image of God sets the Christian view of humanity apart from all alternative views because it insists on recognising and accepting our weakness, dependence and finiteness and that evil prevents us from this:
it emphasizes the height of self-transcendence in man’s spiritual stature... it insists on man’s weakness, dependence, and finiteness, on his involvement in the necessities and contingencies of the natural world, without, however, regarding this finiteness as, of itself, a source of evil in man... It affirms that the evil in man is a consequence of his inevitable though not necessary unwillingness to acknowledge his dependence, to accept his finiteness and to
36 Niebuhr’s views of human nature and human destiny are often separately discussed. However, they are closely related and should not really be studied separately and one should not be given precedence over the other, since they are closely intertwined. See Robin Lovin’s Reinhold Niebuhr for a rich discussion resulting from examining nature and destiny together.
admit his insecurity, an unwillingness which involves him in the vicious circle of accentuating the insecurity from which he seeks to escape (Niebuhr 1941:150 my italics).
For Niebuhr, history culminates and ends in the Cross (1941:164). It is here that the perfect love of Christ ends. It is here that the finite attempts to understand the transcendental, for the only way we can know infinite is from the recognition of the “finiteness of the self and of its involvement in all the relativities and contingencies of nature and history” (1941:170).
Death is what ultimately distinguishes the “majesty of God and the weakness and dependence of man as creature” (1941:174). It is the expectation of Christ in human history that sets a religious view apart from other philosophies. “Prophetic faith finds meaning within history, because history is where people encounter God and find direction for their lives and actions. That is what Niebuhr means by ‘destiny’” (Lovin 2007:25).
The fact that Jesus, the Christ, was the suffering servant and not the majestic king who freed his people from bondage is crucial to Niebuhr’s development of human destiny. If anything, the crucifixion and resurrection point to the meaninglessness that is found, unchangeable, within history and the transcendence of the final justice and love. The answer to the problems of sin and injustice are found neither in history nor in our actions, but beyond history, in a prophetic religion and it is this expectation of a Messiah which sets Christianity apart from other philosophies and religions.37 Niebuhr later says that “the wisdom and the
37 “Historic religions are by their very nature prophetic-Messianic. They look forward at first to a point in history and finally towards an eschaton (end) which is also the end of history, where the full meaning of life and history will be disclosed and fulfilled… The basic distinction between historical and non-historical religions and cultures may thus be succinctly defined as the difference between those which expect and those which do not expect a Christ. A Christ is expected wherever history is regarded as potentially meaningful but as still awaiting the full disclosure and fulfillment of its meaning” (Niebuhr 1943:4).
Niebuhr compares the different religious views (where a Christ is expected to where a Christ is not expected) in great detail in the first chapter of the second volume of The Nature and Destiny of Man.
On the one hand, the weakness of humanity is accepted, on the other, life is a continual denial and rejection of the incompleteness of life on this earthy. “The real problem of history is the proud
power in Christ is what gives life its meaning and guarantees the fulfilment of that meaning” (1943:55). It is in the Cross that the divine involvement in history is portrayed, where the divine transcendence over the structures of history becomes a part of history (Niebuhr 1943:71).
Thus it is here that the paradox of history and the eternal is revealed, the paradox which we, in our finiteness, are constantly trying to understand and which in our sinfulness we are constantly trying to overcome. 38
But the sin which results from attempts to overcome our finiteness is not the only option and is not the way it has to be. “In his major works, Niebuhr’s purpose is always to give Christians a way of thinking that will enable responsible moral choices” (Lovin 2007:23). Despite the hopelessness of the human condition and inevitability of sin, it is still possible to choose differently. Without being idealistic (we need to always be realistic about our limitations) and without thinking that we can change the world by “asking what Jesus would do,” thinking we can do nothing is just as harmful. Sometimes the responsibility we bear is making a decision between greater and lesser evils.
It is Christ’s love which reveals to us how good and evil are mixed up in society. Judgment does not stand at the end of history or within it.
“Judgment reveals the reality of human nature, with its mixture of divine image and human sin, at every point within history” (Lovin 2007:27).
There is always a contradiction between goodness and false completions;
striving and achievement, virtue and wisdom are always seeking for something more than they have, but this will always be beyond our reach.
pretension of all human endeavors, which seeks to obscure their finite and partial character and thereby involves history in evil and sin” (25). The differing views of the destiny of man affect the sinfulness of life (cf. the nature of man and the sins of pride and sensuality).
38 Niebuhr describes this paradox by reference to the agape of God: “The agape of God is thus at once the expression of both the final majesty of God and of His relation to history” and later “…it can neither be reduced to the limits of history, nor yet dismissed as irrelevant because it transcends history… it is the final norm of a human nature which has no final norm in history because it is not completely contained in history” (Niebuhr 1943:71-75).