A third option

"These are two common directions in our culture. The first, common in fundamentalist circles, crushes the soul under the weight of academic truth and proud obedience. The second, popular among church renewal advocates, creates an illusion of life that honours the deadly virus of selfishness by calling it a different name.  Neither addresses us as thoroughly fallen creatures. The first approach seems to imply that we can pick ourselves up from where we have fallen by a mere act of will. The second defines our helpless condition as morally excusable and therefore values God's help above his mercy.

But there is a third option-an approach that equips us to dive into the cesspool of the human heart, find hidden treasure and come up laughing. The third option comes to grips with a reality that the other two either trivialize or ignore- an utterly false way of thinking about God, ourselves and others that I call the fallen structure of the human personality. This third option requires that we face the fallen structure in all its loathsome, stubborn, wicked power and submit to a painful process of dismantling"

Finding God, P. 63