The Consequences of Humanity's Defection

Wickedness leads to all kinds of disaster, the natural consequence of ignoring our manufacturer's instructions.

It leads to culture that is stunted, fragmentary and distorted. It leads to a sense of futility and distress. Many wrongdoers hide their distress under a cloak of optimism, but it is always there.

It leads to loss of harmony with nature and therefore to disease and natural disasters.

It has brought death as we know it into the world. In God's original plan selves who had fully played their proper part in the human task might in due course have expired to await fulfillment through resurrection. Death is a corrupt form of such expiry, always involving disease of some kind, brought about by our wickedness.

These disasters can be mitigated by trying to follow natural standards, but the only way to avert them altogether is by godliness, for which man has, by nature, no will. Neither remorse nor ceremony nor moral effort nor anything else we do, whether individually or as groups, can save us.

Comedy. Man's defection is the ultimate object of comedy, which in its original and proper function is a form of humility. It has been said that comedy, which is one form of humour, is based on "the discrepancy between human aspiration and human achievement", and this is true, but the discrepancy in question is not the one that arises from the mere process of learning by trial and error, which is an inherent part of humanity as such, and is not funny. It is the failure to learn from our mistakes that is funny, as well as being tragic.

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