C.S. Lewis once observed that there are two main reasons to believe in democracy. One is because you have confidence in human nature. The other is because you don’t. Lewis explained his point this way: On the one hand, you may think that humans are naturally so good and wise that they “deserve a share in the government” and the government “needs their advice.” On the other hand, you may deem men and women so naturally selfish that no one of them, no small group of them, can be trusted with unchecked power over their neighbors. The former, Lewis maintained, was the “false, romantic doctrine of democracy.” The “true ground of democracy” was the latter.[i]

Lewis’s dichotomy oversimplified the case—intentionally so, I think—but embedded in his provocative assertion were two fundamental truths. First, our thinking about democracy is inextricably intertwined, consciously or unconsciously, with our understanding of human nature. Second, our understanding of human nature has political consequences, and when it is “false” and “romantic,” it can weaken democracy instead of helping it flourish.

The men who framed the United States Constitution in 1787 understood this. They believed that the key to forming “a more perfect Union” was to understand human nature rightly, to “take human nature as we find it,” in the word of George Washington.^[ii] The Constitutional framework they constructed rested on the belief that, on the one hand, human beings naturally possess a moral sense that gives them the potential for moral discernment, but on the other hand, the default human motive is self-interest and “self-love” is “sown into the nature of man,” in James Madison’s words.[iii] The genius of the Constitution lay in how it held in tension two seemingly incompatible beliefs: first, that in a republic the majority must ultimately prevail; and second, that the majority is predisposed to seek personal advantage above the common good.

Within two generations Americans had resolved this tension by largely denying the second premise. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States during the 1830s, he recognized two fundamental “beliefs” among Americans. The first was faith in democracy, the second was “faith in man’s good sense and wisdom” and “in the doctrine of human perfectibility.”[iv] Nearly two centuries later, that faith still predominates in the United States. A slew of opinion polls in recent decades show repeatedly that two thirds to three fourths of U.S. respondents agree that “most people are good by nature.”[v]

One way to conceptualize this transformation is with reference to two fundamental Christian doctrines. The doctrine of imago Dei teaches that human beings bear the image of God in that we possess an eternal soul, the faculty of reason, and a capacity for moral goodness. The doctrine of “original sin” teaches that our rejection of God’s rule has defaced the divine image, so that we each enter the world with two overarching propensities, what Augustine labeled as recalcitrance (resistance to rightful authority) and concupiscence (illicit desire).^[vi]

Although the Framers of the Constitution didn’t speak in terms of imago Dei or “original sin,” and they drew from many intellectual streams in forging their understanding of human nature, the framework that they constructed was compatible with both of those doctrines, holding in tension both humans’ “capacity for justice” and “inclination to injustice.”[vii] In less than half a century, Americans had largely abandoned that complex conception of human nature by jettisoning—at least at the popular level[viii]—an acknowledgment of the effects of original sin.

When we sidelined the doctrine of original sin, however, we didn’t deny the existence of evil. We externalized it. Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn famously observed that “the line separating good and evil” doesn’t run between nations or political parties but passes “right through every human heart.”[ix] That’s not the view that Americans have heard in the public square for most of the last two centuries. Instead, vote-seekers routinely pay tribute to the wisdom of the people and impute an intrinsic moral authority to their preferences. Americans are told relentlessly that “we the people” are innately good (or great). At the heart of this populist democratic gospel is the subliminal message that the line separating good and evil doesn’t pass through our hearts. On the contrary, it runs outside of us, neatly separating “We the People” from all who would threaten our liberty, imperil our prosperity, or undermine our values.

In more optimistic and consensual times, Americans conceive of these sinister groups as comparatively small and confined to the extremes of the political continuum. They assure themselves that the great majority of Americans inhabit a vast middle ground in which loyal citizens can vote for either of the two main parties while remaining unified in their most fundamental commitments. At other times, like the profoundly polarized present—they view the other party as at war with “core American values and goals” and as “a threat to the nation’s well-being.”[x] What has not changed is the deeply embedded conviction that we are good.

This inversion of Solzhenitsyn’s insight weakens American democracy in at least three senses. First, Americans’ over-optimistic appraisal of their own righteousness contributes substantially to the white-hot partisanship that now paralyzes the U.S. Congress and poisons national elections. When the line that separates good and evil is the boundary between the major parties, the bipartisan cooperation needed to break the gridlock in Washington becomes a form of moral compromise, even of moral cowardice. To the degree that we frame our elections in such stark dichotomies, we imply that the other party isn’t merely to be defeated but shamed and dismantled, that its views are not merely unintelligent but fundamentally illegitimate. Such a position may be principled and sincere, but it’s incompatible with a free, pluralistic society.

Second, our inversion of Solzhenitsyn’s dictum helps to transform the prospect of electoral defeat from a disappointing but temporary setback into an existential crisis, not only for the nation, but for faith in democracy itself. If the line between good and evil runs not within each individual heart but between political parties, then the failure of the good to triumph calls into question modern American democracy’s cardinal conviction: that “the People” are basically good, and their collective decisions bear intrinsic moral authority. In such instances, Americans must either jettison that belief or find evidence of illegalities and corruption that prevented the voice of the “true” majority from being heard. In sum, a people confident in the righteousness of “We the People” will be disinclined to accept the legitimacy of electoral defeat at the hand of those they view as “enemies.”

Finally, an overly optimistic understanding of human nature also makes us more susceptible to authoritarianism. Over the last decade, opinion polls have found that a fourth to as much as two fifths of Americans are open to accepting a political system featuring “a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress or elections.”[xi] This surely reflects, in part, a mounting frustration with an unresponsive government. But there’s more than frustration at work here, I’m convinced, for a naive and simplistic view of human nature can also convince us that unrestricted power need not be dangerous. Since most people are “basically good,” it follows that a “strong leader” unhindered by constitutional constraints might improve our quality of life—provided that he or she is one of “Us.”

Thanks to their healthy awareness of human selfishness, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution insisted that power is always a threat to liberty, regardless of who wields it or who benefits in the short run. But their warnings only make sense if the line separating good and evil passes “right through every human heart,” a dictum that unfortunately most Americans don’t truly believe. Too much power may be dangerous in the hands of the people’s enemies, but they remain confident that their own party, as well as its designated champion, can be trusted. That’s a dangerous place to be.

____________________________________________

Note: This essay is derived from Dr. McKenzie’s June 13, 2026 plenary address at “American Independence and Identity at 250: Examining Democracy in the United States and Globally,” a conference hosted by Gordon College and co-sponsored by the Lilly Network, Christians in Political Science, The Review of Faith & International Affairs, the Center for Faith & Inquiry, and the Center for Public Justice. Video of all plenary addresses is available here.

[i] C. S. Lewis, “Membership,” in Leslie Walmsley, ed., C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), pp. 336-37.

[ii] Washington to John Jay, 15 August 1786, Founders Online.

[iii] James Madison, Federalist #10, in Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, The Federalist, ed. J. R. Pole (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2005), p. 49.

[iv] Tocqueville to Louis de Kergorlay, 29 June 1831, in Alexis de Tocqueville, Letters from America, ed. by Frederick Brown (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 87-88.

[v] Mark Ellingsen, Blessed Are the Cynical: How Original Sin Can Make America a Better Place (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2003), pp. 132, 181.

[vi] St. Augustine, City of God, book XIII, chap. 3.

[vii] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of Its Traditional Defense (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944), p. xxxii.

[viii] Among some foreign policy elites an appreciation for the doctrine of original sin persisted in the realist school of thought on international relations.

[ix] Quoted in Alan Jacobs, Original Sin: A Cultural History (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 224.

[x] Ezra Klein, Why We’re Polarized (New York: Avid Reader Press, 2020), p. 17.

[xi] Lee Drutman, Larry Diamond, and Joe Goldman, “Follow the Leader: Exploring American Support for Democracy and Authoritarianism” (Washington, DC: Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, 2018), p. 3; Laura Silver and Janell Fetterolf, “Who Likes Authoritarianism, and How Do They Want to Change their Government?” (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2024), p. 1.