Our Innate Spiritual Condition and Default Destination

Not all individuals and cultures have the same belief about our innate spiritual condition. Some say we are born good; some say bad; some say neutral. A few decades ago, the belief about this didn’t seem to be much in dispute, at least not in American churches. However, that has changed, at least judging by things that I have read and heard over the past 30 years or so. This matter is not academic; there are consequences for what we believe about it.

We will look at what the Bible has to say about our condition, but I want to start by asking you to think about it from experience. For those of you who are parents, think back with me to when your children were babies. My wife and I went to a Third World country to teach English when we were still newlyweds. The following year, our son was born in a city where the conditions were not the most comfortable, at least not by American standards. Our apartment floor was made of wood, and it wasn’t exactly what you would call a very smooth surface; in fact, between some wooden planks, there were small gaps. On the other hand, we had a rug covering a large portion of the floor. When our son began to crawl at nine months, we confined that activity to the carpeted area in the main room. He understood very well that we did not want him to crawl off the carpet, as evidenced by the fact that one day, he crawled up to the edge, looked back at us and smiled, and then literally came back from the edge. We picked him up, hugged him, and told him what a good boy he was! Naturally, he wanted to crawl some more. A bit later, he crawled again to the edge, looked at us and grinned (rather mischievously), and went “over” the edge. My wife quickly picked him up and gave him his first spanking. We wanted to make sure he understood that he needed to obey us!

In that same Third World country, I got into a discussion one day after class with some of my students. They had the belief that children are essentially born neutral, a tabula rasa (clean slate). I posed the following situation to them: Suppose that you have two very young children but only one cookie; what’s going to happen? Most of them started to smile. Then I asked if they thought the kids would share the cookie, and they all started laughing. One of them conceded that the kids would not share it, but that was because they had already been affected (infected?!) by society. I replied that actually, the kids would share if they had been taught or encouraged to do so, especially by example.

I think it has always been true, but especially in our current age, it’s usually not hard to see which kids are being taught to be “good.” Just look around you the next time you’re in a public place with kids around! When parents have the right understanding of their kids’ innate condition, they are better equipped to raise them.

The Bible speaks very clearly to this question of our innate spiritual condition, including in Psalm 51:5: “Surely I [King David] was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Notice that: sinful even before birth! And here is a portion of Genesis 8:21: “Never again will I [the Lord] curse the ground because of man, for every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.” Notice “from childhood.” There are plenty of other verses in the Bible that speak to our spiritual condition as well. For example, Romans 3:10-11 says, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.”

One thing I want to add is this: even though both experience and Scripture tell us what our innate spiritual condition is, I believe that children who die before they are old enough to understand spiritual truth will go to heaven. The Bible gives an example of this; after King David committed adultery and murder, the baby that was born out of that adultery died. Here’s what King David said in 2 Samuel 12:23: “But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.” Notice “I will go to him.” In other words, King David would one day join his infant son in heaven. What a comfort to those believers who have lost a young child!

As I mentioned at the outset, I don’t think that the belief about our innate spiritual condition is academic; let me explain. When another believer tells me that a loved one has died, I always express my empathy; I have certainly had my own share of grief over the past three years, especially, having lost three siblings. However, I usually ask if that loved one was a believer. Many times, the answer is a very firm yes; in fact, the believer enjoys talking about evidence for it in that person’s life. Other times, however, I have gotten an answer something like, “Well, I think so; they lived a moral life, worked hard, and went to church occasionally.” I don’t argue with the believer, but my heart sinks; I’m not saying I know where that deceased person will spend eternity, but there is a tendency among some to believe that our default destination is heaven. I had a related experience with someone in my extended family who believed that her husband was a Christian because a few decades ago, he had asked her for prayer in a time of crisis; however, over the ensuing decades, he had often said that he believed Jesus was a good moral teacher, but not the Son of God. One consequence of his wife’s belief (hope?) about him is that she didn’t feel the need to talk to him about the Lord. However, thankfully, someone else did; that man came to saving faith at the age of 91 and is now with the Lord.

Here’s another example of this tendency among some to believe that our default eternal destination is heaven. Several years ago, a brother in Christ told the rest of us in our men’s group about a young guy who had accidentally killed himself while engaging in autoerotic asphyxiation. (I’d rather not try to describe that, but you can google it.) More than one man in our group said something indicating that they thought that young guy was probably now in heaven; I think one reason is because his parents were Christians. Given the strong emotions of some in the room, I remained silent. However, I think that the reaction of some who spoke is another indication of the desire to believe that our default destination is heaven; that young man died while committing a sinful, dangerous act, and there didn’t seem to be anything in particular about his life up to that point indicating he was a Christian. My response would have been, and now is: we don’t know where he is now, so let’s not be so quick to jump to that conclusion. And much more importantly, while our loved ones are still alive, let’s not be hesitant to talk with them about the Lord.

Given that our innate spiritual condition is sinful, it means our default destination is not heaven, but the other place, which people don’t like to talk about: hell. Thanks be to God, when we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, our eternal destination changes from hell to heaven. If you have not yet done that, I pray that this will be the day!