It's quite obvious that we have somehow fallen in the mud from which we were created. It suffices to admit that a natural law exists to appreciate to what extent is the human kind fulfilling it without coaction -fear or hope- in general terms. We can find this law in the common ground of the main religions of the world. My wife, an ex-Buddhist and a Christian nowadays, explained me about the five precepts that every normal man has to observe in her previous creed: 1) don't kill life, 2) don't steal, 3) don't fornicate, 4) don't lie and 5) don't get drunk. The first four points depend on the last one, understood in a wide sense as keeping your consciousness against passion's attack. This and infinite more, that is to say, every natural moral rule -she added- can be summarized in Christian love.
However, if we redefine the first precept as "don't kill without a fair reason" (for instance, protecting an equal good that we cannot otherwise save), none of them is violated by beasts in most cases. That's admirable and should move us to reflection: they are not rational, but they can satisfy a rational law. Never the less, we do it backwards from them, since we break the moral law continuously, and we would do it more often if there was no law or no custom forcing us to reconsider the benefits of being wicked.
Certainly, the stupid creatures slavered by us never make a war, and by the way not usually a war to death, but only for defending themselves from imminent dangers, fight with other predators in order to survive or rival with members of the same species when trying to get a female for later reproduction. They don't love any food not coming from their work. There is no hypocrisy in their kind. They avoid vague sex and waste of energy produced by it. They despise every superfluous pleasure.
Thus, we can deduce that, knowing the existence of this eternal law that even beasts are experts with, and being aware of the man, the most rational creature walking on the Earth, infringing it as he was totally ignorant; in regard of the everlasting rule written in our heart that everyone can read, I say, we can infer that something obnubilates our intelligence and moral sense in a permanent way, preventing us of being faithful to it and naturally perfect.
We can find, I don't deny it, animals whose behaviour -regular or sporadic- seem to break natural principles. But they are just the exception confirming the rule, while a good man is an exception for the whole human race. If crime was something unusual and extraordinary, laws wouldn't be needed at all, because law -Latins said- doesn't care about the insignificant.
What is, then, ruining our understanding and making us be beneath wild animals? Might it be our free will? This is similar to blaming knife for the slash. It is not for the sake of our consciousness that we are falling in the sin, but despite of it. Our oppression, then, isn't in the will, as buddhist think; more likely it's previous to its stimulus. Theologians referred to the original sin when designating this shameful prostration. Islam rejects it, and this should be enough to prove this religion wrong.
Daniel.
Theological Miscellany (in Spanish):http://www.miscelaneateologica.tk
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