(Post) Election Day Hope

Amy Mantravadi’s Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation is now available for pre-order!

Like so many Americans, I’ve spent 2024 limiting my exposure to politics, whereas the politicians have made a concerted effort to bombard me with their vitriol. How fortunate that I did not choose to engage in a drinking game this year based on each utterance of the word “democracy”! As I have been subjected to panicked campaign advertisements and online rantings of varying coherence, one message has come through loud and clear: there is a group of seriously wicked Americans, and they are a grave danger to us all.

Of course, people do not agree on which Americans belong to this group of ne’er-do-wells. One person’s wannabe Hitler is another’s sacred vessel. But if there is a sentiment that can bring together Americans of both parties or none, it is this: people really need to get it together and behave themselves! In a country that venerates self-help, we expect our fellow citizens to make something of themselves, specifically something that will benefit society.

One group believes we can fix the present situation with better education, having presumably never set foot in a middle school classroom. Others think a return to traditional values will cure the body politic, though they cannot agree how many children a woman must birth and whether she is allowed a pet. Sadly, it falls to me to give you the bad news. There is nothing we can do that will cause wickedness to cease within our borders.

Forget those Ten Commandments people want to display in courtrooms. I just broke number eleven, that most precious of American precepts! I questioned whether we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Indeed, I am questioning whether we could have done so back when people wore bootstraps.

Ours is a land of limitless options. We believe people are free to the extent that they are not compelled. We hold nothing more sacred than the right of the individual to decide. Though we may utter it sarcastically, it is our true motto nonetheless: “Make better choices!”

There is nothing the average American holds dearer than his or her free will. So, we often say someone did something “of their own volition” or “of their own free will.” This is not to say that we do not believe people can be influenced by addictions, mental health issues, or more powerful individuals, but we see these difficulties as abnormalities. If we can simply get people the therapy to overcome their difficulties or free them from oppressive structures, they will have their free will restored, or so we believe. They will be able to make good choices.

But what if this most sacrosanct belief at the heart of American life is false? What if we are drawn toward wickedness? What if it doesn’t matter how many good points you provide to Uncle Bob over Thanksgiving dinner, because he’s just going to keep voting for the same awful person?

The rules of social convention ensure that we behave in a reasonable, courteous manner most of the time. But certain situations bring our baser instincts to the fore, and we discover we were not actually seeking the common good, but our own — that is, if we are even capable of that degree of self-reflection. This present moment in American history, like so many before it, is an hour of revelation, a moment of truth in which our real nature is displayed.

The current situation in America is not what I would expect from a group of people empowered to make good choices. It is what I would expect from people whose wills are bent — constantly drawn toward an evil they profess to reject. Such people are likely to demonize their opponents and engage in all sorts of unethical shenanigans to maintain power, and this is precisely what has occurred. We have also seen the uselessness of reasoned argument with our fellow voters, for humans do not act by cool reason. We are creatures of desires.

No, there is nothing we can do to bring this wickedness to an end. But there is something that can be done.

The first step, they say, is admitting you have a problem, and ours has been identified by David Zahl in his book Low Anthropology: we have far too positive a view of human nature. Believing someone can succeed if they just make the right choices seems hopeful, but it is a recipe for despair. Our confidence in humanity’s inherent goodness causes us to return continually to ineffective methods of treatment, expecting patients to heal themselves. “Do more. Try harder. Stop being an idiot.” It is neither kind nor uplifting to tell a person they are well when they are desperately sick. Imagine telling a normal human being they can nail a triple-double on the floor exercise like trained superhuman Simone Biles!

No mere medicine will cure what ails us. We are not slightly sick people, but dead men and women in need of resurrection. For that, we must move on to the next step, belief in a higher power.

Half a millennium ago, the debate over free will was taken up by the humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus and the theologian Martin Luther. Erasmus had a high anthropology. He was confident that the recovery of ancient manuscripts, the improvement of education, and the application of human reason could create a golden age. He turned to the sacred scriptures of the Christians — the Old and New Testaments — and noticed how often God called humans to repent, turn from their wicked ways, and pursue the good.

“What would be the point of such an exhortation, to turn and come, if those who are in question have no such power in themselves?” Erasmus asked Luther in his famous tract On Free Will. “Would it not be like saying to one bound in chains which he would not break: ‘Bestir yourself and come and follow me’?”[1]

For Luther, this was exactly the point. The commands were given to prove we could not keep them — could not make ourselves into righteous persons. Humans were bound in chains and needed to be set free by something greater than themselves.

Many years later, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rosseau stated, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”[2] A generation of Frenchmen were so convinced by this maxim, they set out to create a perfect society in France. Instead, they created a sea of blood as they strove unsuccessfully to purge wicked elements from their midst. They would have done better to read Luther and realize that man is born in chains, and only God can set him free.

That is the hope to which we can cling even when the world descends into wickedness. Evil should never surprise us. Rather, it is goodness and freedom that are precious gifts, the very substance of grace on planet earth. To the extent that we are not wicked, it is because of grace. That is what it means to have a bound will, and it is why, despite his low view of human nature, Luther could still have great hope for the future. For while he believed in the bondage of the will, he also believed in the resurrection of the dead.

It is also the hope for our society now. Not new methods and therapies, but miracles. For the greatest miracle God ever performed was to set captives free, and he performs it still today.

Amy Mantravadi lives in Dayton, Ohio with her husband, Jai, and their son, Thomas. She holds a B.A. in biblical literature and political science from Taylor University and received her M.A. in international security from King’s College London. Her book, Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation is now available for pre-order.

[1] Erasmus, Desiderius. De Libero Arbitrio in Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, Library of Christian Classics – Ichthus edition, trans. and ed. E. Gordon Rupp and A.N. Marlow (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1969), 55.

[2] Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract, Book I, Section One, trans. Jonathan Bennett. https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/rousseau1762.pdf