There is a lacuna in the Christian language about nature that requires a lot more attention than it has received. Modern science, by understanding the human body through evolutionary biology, tells us quite clearly that there is no such thing as one perfect human nature that is free of defects. Yet, faith tells us that human nature is good. So why is it, and why has it always been, full of defects?

There is a shared human nature, and it is in all of us, but part of this nature is that it is individuated in a very diverse way. But there is no perfect ideal more or less imperfectly realized. All individual human natures, in the variability that we see as a mix of abilities and disabilities, are equally human by being part of the human family.

Don’t evade the problem by drawing attention to what works well in an individual and calling this their personal perfection. This could be quite condescending when a defect requires a person to live with a serious disability who envies those who have it easier. Such language just brings perfection back into the discussion and distracts from the task at hand: to find goodness in the fact that human nature is full of defects.

Science rules out the possibility that there were ever humans whose bodies were perfect. But this is not to deny the Fall. The Fall is about the loss of the initial closeness of the human relationship with God. I find it easy to believe that the first human being who was able to know that he was a child of God and could think of God as Father would have had a relationship with God so close that it made our experience of suffering impossible. But they would have been healed not in the sense of a defective machine being repaired, but they would have been healed by knowing God’s ongoing personal care for them.

Maybe it helps to think of a fine meal. You wouldn’t be able to experience the full meaning of it if your body were such that you didn’t need food. Being hungry and not being able to eat is suffering, but being hungry and having food available turns a need into joy.

I wonder whether this is how we should look at dysfunction in human nature and what this means for humanity before or after the Fall, or in the original blessedness and then with the stain of the sin at the origins. I wonder whether this is how we can make sense of our duties toward our neighbours now that we are redeemed in Christ.

Affirming the goodness of our dysfunction affirms the original goodness of nature and recovers what it is that sets humans apart from other creatures. It is our ability to grasp meaning and act meaningfully. As creation, nature is not just a brute fact but a meaningful expression. As the image of God in creation, we are meant to add meaning to what is already there.

We might think that it would be better if we were perfect and thereby self-sufficient and not in need of anybody. We might seem to be more god-like in such a perfect state. I suppose that the Greeks may have imagined their gods in this way. But of course, the Christian view of God is very different, and the Christian view of the image of God in us should also be different. When we look at evolutionary biology, we should not be surprised. We were meant to be both in need of care and willing to offer it. The place of science in all this is to help us to come to terms with our own disabilities and know how to put our abilities to good use.