***Man can experience a general, temporal happiness on earth. Just like Cypher who wanted to return to the Matrix in order to experience the earthly pleasures of a good steak.***
To me that would be more representitive of the carnal man - definitley not something God would praise and quite different from the selfless actions of the widow.
*** Left to our own devices, we will always fail and we will always deserve damnation for that failure.***
I assume you mean in the global sense, because Jesus did not see the widow's action as a failure or something that demanded damnation.
There's the contradiction, some theologies represent every act of pre-regenerate man as something utterly vile and repulsive to God. I don's see that in the Bible. Think of the pre-regenerate Cornelius...
"At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, "Cornelius." And he stared at him in terror and said, "What is it, Lord?" And he said to him, "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God."
"...Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God."
Now that will mess with some folk's theology.
"That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." -- Matthew 5:45
All the world benefits from God's generous bounty, and all the world is instructed to sing His praises.
But saving grace, faith in Jesus Christ who took upon Himself the sins of the elect, was ordained by God from before the foundation of the world. None of the sheep whom Christ came to gather will be lost.