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The paradox of man's freedom and finiteness is common to all great religions. But the Christian approach to the problem is unique, for it asserts that the crux of the problem is not man's finiteness—the qualities that make him one with the brute creation—but man's sin. It is not from the paradox that Christianity seeks to redeem man; it is from, the sin that arises from the paradox. It is man who seeks to redeem himself from the paradox. His efforts are the stuff of history. Hence history, despite man's goals of goodness, proliferates sin.
Juncture of Nature & Spirit. For man stands at the juncture of nature and spirit. Like the animals, he is involved in the necessities and contingencies of nature. Unlike the animals, "he sees this situation and anticipates its perils." As man tries to protect himself against the vicissitudes of nature, he falls into the sin of seeking security at the expense of other life. "The perils of nature are thereby transmuted into the more grievous perils of human history."
There are other perils—a dissolving perspective of paradox. Man's knowledge is limited, but not completely limited, since he has some sense of the limits—and, to that degree, transcends them. And, as he transcends them, he seeks to understand his immediate situation in terms of a total situation—i.e., God's will. But man is unable to understand the total situation except in the finite terms of his immediate situation. "The realization of the relativity of his knowledge subjects him to the peril of skepticism. The abyss of meaninglessness yawns on the brink of all his mighty spiritual endeavors. Therefore man is tempted to deny the limited character of his knowledge, and the finiteness of his perspectives. He pretends to have achieved a degree of knowledge which is beyond the limit of finite life. This is the 'ideological taint' in which all human knowledge is involved and which is always something more than mere human ignorance. It is always partly an effort to hide that ignorance by pretension." This is pre-eminently the sin of the 20th Century.
Creative Temptation. But man's sin is more than a simple sin of pride under the guise of pretension. Man's anxiety is also the source of "all human creativity." Man is anxious because his life is limited and he senses his limitations. But "he is also anxious because he does not know the limits of his possibilities."
He achieves, but he knows no peace, because higher possibilities are revealed in each achievement. In all his anxious acts man faces the temptation of illimitable possibility. "There is therefore no limit of achievement in any sphere of activity in which human history can rest with equanimity." History cannot pause. Its evil and its good are inextricably interwoven. Says Niebuhr: the creative and the destructive elements in anxiety are so mixed that to purge even moral achievement of sin is not so easy as moralists imagine.