18 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge’? 3 As I live, declares the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. 4 Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.
The principle of corporate, collective responsibility, as unfolded in the proverb in these verses is, of course, a valid biblical idea, and it is true to say that many of the social evils that we are suffering from in our day are the fruit of the convulsions of the early years of the 20th century. This can hardly be controverted: we are living in a disturbed age, and the disturbance and the moral breakdown that we see in our time are the fruit and consequence of what happened decades ago. To give a specific illustration of the point, the children that were born in the turbulent and convulsive war years of 1939-45 constitute the age group that experienced so many problems of disturbance and breakdown in the 80s, and there can be little doubt that there is a link between the circumstances of these earlier years and the present malaise. But we cannot, from that position, go on to say, 'It is not our fault, we cannot be expected to assume responsibility'. There is more than a little tendency today to hide behind our psychological history of disorder and disturbance and excuse our behaviour on that account, refusing to assume responsibility for it: 'It is not my fault that I am as I am, it is the fault of other people and other circumstances, 20, 30 years ago, and I am not to be held responsible'. But God says, 'Not so, responsibility lies fairly and squarely upon every man'. To be sure, it is not a simple equation that is involved here. The psychological interpretation of the situation is valid, and please God it will give us a great deal of compassion for people who are disturbed and bent, and twisted and broken in their lives. But that is one thing; it is quite another, and something quite inadmissible, to go from that position and say 'Therefore they are not responsible for their actions'. The psychological interpretation must not be made an excuse for absolving any one from responsibility, and it is all too possible to be too sold on such an attitude.