ARTICLE X.
HUMANITY

§ 37. Unitarians respect and value all life, but believe that the noblest creature of God on the earth is the human being. In all persons there are religious capacities, by which they may come into communion with God. These are reason, conscience, freedom, love of truth, of beauty, of goodness, the sense of the infinite, the capability of principled love, and the kindred sentiments of veneration, awe, aspiration, etc. These are found, more or less developed, in all people, and, where properly educated and unfolded, demonstrate the true dignity and worth of human nature (Rom. 2:14-15).

§ 38. Unitarians believe that all virtue derives from the human moral nature, that is, from conscience, and from the power to mold one’s disposition and life according to conscience (1 Tim. 1:18-19). This God-given moral faculty distinguishes human nature from animal nature, and its very existence assumes an ability to choose between good and bad. Unitarians therefore reject the notion that all of our actions are predetermined by God. We are commanded to be virtuous, and virtue cannot exist without free will, any more than it can exist in the instinct of lower life forms.

§ 39. When Unitarians speak of “the dignity of human nature,” they do not mean the dignity of human nature in its actual condition, but as God means it to be and can make it become. No one can say about him- or herself that she or he has committed no sin, because in spite of the resistance of our spirits, we frequently do bad instead of good (1 John 1:8). We break the laws of God because we are weak, that is, we are children of God in development. Besides our virtues, we have failings as well, which are a constant danger to our humanity because they obscure our understanding, they destroy the quietude of our hearts, and disturb the peace among us (James 1:13-15). But we find in all people powers and faculties which unite them with eternity, no less than with time. We have within us reason, which is capable of seeking and finding the noblest truths. We have conscience, which shows us the difference between right and wrong. We have the power of freedom, by which we can choose good and refuse evil. We have the sense of the beautiful, the true, and the good, and a longing for what is unchanging and eternal. These powers, which are in all people, constitute the dignity of human nature and make it capable of perpetual progress.

§ 40. Unitarians reject the Calvinistic doctrines of original sin and total depravity, the responsibility of the human race for Adam's fall, and the belief that, until converted, man is under the wrath of God. They maintain, on the contrary, that God, being just, punishes no one for the crimes of others, and that evils committed by our forefathers may inflict misery, but not guilt. They maintain that the Bible does not teach that human nature was corrupted by Adam and passed down hereditarily to all. When Paul says that “through one man sin entered into the world” (Rom. 5:12) and “by one man’s trespass, many died” (Rom. 5:15), he means that Adam was the one who introduced sin and who set a poor example that others followed. But Paul is very clear that “death spread to all men because they had all sinned” (Rom. 5:12), and not because someone else had sinned. When Paul speaks of involuntary wrong-doing (“sin that dwells in me” [Rom. 7:17, 20]), he is not referring to a something he inherited, but to a selfish habit, which became ingrained when he personally allowed sin to take residence inside of him.

§ 41. Unitarian Christians agree with the apostle Peter, who said that anyone that fears God and works righteousness is acceptable to God (Acts 10:34). Jesus accepted people who were supportive of him, even if they were not directly associated with him and his movement (Mark 9:38-40). In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37), he commends the good qualities of an “outsider.” And the account of the Day of Judgment indicates that those who treat Christ’s family well, even if they do not embrace Christ himself, will be placed among his sheep (Matt. 25:31-40).

§ 42. Unitarians therefore reject the doctrine, taught in some Christian denominations, that God selects a limited number (the elect) to be saved from the corrupt mass of the people of this world and retrieves them by a special influence from the common ruin. Some of them may condemn other religions and assert that God is revealed to one group and to one group only, and that the rest of humankind must affiliate with that group and accept its doctrines of theology (which people by nature may be disposed to reject) or suffer penalty from the Almighty. Nature, conscience, common sense, the general message of the Bible, which includes the mild example of Christ and the numerous positive statements of God’s universal kindness and equity, stand in direct contradiction to these positions. The remonstrances of such groups do not produce all the effects on character that might be anticipated. They tend to discourage the timid, to feed the egotism of the fanatical, and to give excuses to the bad. By portraying a severe and partial Deity, this religious system tends to corrupt and pervert the human moral sense and to create a religion that is ominous, proscriptive, and servile. Instead of moving people to tender and impartial charity, it leads them into censoriousness, bitterness, and prejudice. This system, which begins by degrading human nature, may indeed promote humility at the start, but may be expected to end in pride; for pride grows out of an awareness of distinctions, and no distinction is greater than that between the elected and rejected of God.