17. The Demand for Freedom from Testin

• Jul, 14 2025

In Genesis 3:12, Adam blames both Eve and God for his sin, illustrating a core truth: fallen man resents moral testing and responsibility. This resentment fuels his pursuit of a problem-free paradise where guilt, judgment, and consequences are absent. But Scripture and reality affirm otherwise—God made the world morally accountable, and human attempts to escape that fact only increase guilt and disorder.Modern society, echoing Adam's rebellion, desires freedom without responsibility. Rollo May points out that as people gain control over reproduction through birth control, they also increase their psychological burden of guilt, refusing to accept responsibility for their choices. This guilt, especially among modern parents, leads to child-worship and overprotection, turning children into tyrants and crippling their development. As Jane O’Reilly illustrates, parents raise children into dependence and paralysis, all while trying to erase their own guilt by over-caring and over-catering.This longing for a guilt-free existence extends beyond family life into politics, education, and medicine. Efforts like the "war on poverty" or the dream of vaccines against venereal diseases aren't simply practical—they reflect a messianic desire to eradicate all consequences of sin. Humanism, in this vision, seeks Eden without the tree of testing, and ultimately, a world without God.Psychiatry reflects the same theological evasion. Karl Menninger, for example, redefines guilt in psychoanalytic terms, refusing to associate it with sin against God. Incredibly, he describes psychoanalysts feeling guilt over Freud’s death, despite having no responsibility for it. This displaced guilt—a guilt not rooted in actual sin—is a symptom of deeper rebellion. Without atonement, such guilt morphs into either aggression or self-destruction. Loyalty or self-esteem cannot replace reconciliation with God.Ultimately, man prefers imagined offenses over real sin, because it allows him to control the narrative and avoid repentance. Like Adam, modern man blames others—society, parents, God—but refuses to face his own responsibility. Yet without acknowledging sin and seeking atonement in Christ, guilt remains unresolved, festering into greater moral decay.

Author

R.J. Rushdoony

Chalcedon Founder

Narrated by

Nathan F. Conkey

Narrator, teacher, missionary