11 John Locke represents a crucial transitional figure here. While acknowledging the existence of sin, Locke nonetheless thought of the individual as a “blank slate,” or rather, as he actually wrote, “a white paper” or “empty cabinet.” For him, the knowledge of sin is not innate, nor is the mind preprogrammed with “innate Principles.”4 Rather, men come to know what is sinful in the same manner that they attain knowledge: through experience of the natural world. Not completely secular, Locke argued that God’s divine law is still the measure of right and wrong, yet according to him, this law is capable of being known through the correct use of reason alone — apart from Scripture — because its content is revealed “in nature” and the natural man is rationally able to apprehend and assent to it. Thus, he rejects the traditional Augustinian and Calvinist idea about human nature — especially moral depravity. Locke’s “blank slate” psychology has continued to play a crucial role in the “nature versus nurture” debate in the social sciences. He must be seen as teaching both a measure of nature (the moral condition we are born into) as well as a measure of nurture (upbringing and social environment), with nurture taking the lead for him. Yet even this represents a major departure from orthodox Christianity. Even though the Church has always understood that humans are shaped in various ways by their environment, this “nurture” was normally in terms of bad influences operating on an already sinful nature. Humans were then not fundamentally better with nurture, except perhaps externally. They could not be made better internally, for only God’s grace could achieve that transformation — a fact Locke neglected. In doing so, he represents yet another subtle but important shift in our understanding about human nature. The lines of philosophical thought from this point on would only further undermine the Christian view. The 18th and 19th centuries saw yet further deviations from the Augustinian view of human nature. Marquis de Condorcet, like many of his Enlightenment colleagues, advocated a very optimistic view of human nature, even more so than Locke. He wrote a work titledOutlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind in 1795, in which he attempts to show how humans have continually progressed over time, resulting in a genuine advancement of the human person, particularly the mind. It is clear Condorcet has broken with the Christian tradition, 4 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1700), 2 vols, edited by Peter H. Nidditch. Clarendon, 1979, Vol. 1, 55, 79.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=