Humanity is a paradox: at once “noble in reason” and “infinite in faculty”, as Shakespeare famously wrote, but also capable of so much evil, corruption, and exploitation. Life and Faith considers the contradictions within human nature in light of the Christian claim that people are made in the “image of God”, and the notorious Christian idea of original sin. James Boyce, author of Born Bad: Original Sin and the Making of the Western World, joins Simon and Natasha by phone to discuss the meaning of the doctrine of original sin, and the unexpected ways in which it continues to influence secular thinking in the modern West.
