J. Gresham Machen, founder of Westminster Seminary in the early 1900's, wrote a book entitled Christianity and Liberalism. For those wrestling with how to understand and answer the liberalism that is so rampant in many of our Protestant churches, this is a good and helpful read. In this particular section, Machen outlines the difference between a pagan understanding of man and the Christian understanding.
Paganism is that view of life which finds the highest goal of human existence in the healthy and harmonious and joyous development of existing human faculties. Very different is the Christian ideal. Paganism is optimistic with regard to unaided human nature' whereas Christianity is the religion of the broken heart.
In saying that Christianity is the religion of the broken heart, we do not mean that Christianity ends with the broken heart; we do not mean that the characteristic Christian attitude is a continual beating on the breast or a continual crying of "Woe is me." Nothing could be further from the fact. On the contrary, Christianity means that sin is faced once for all, and then is cast, by the grace of God, forever into the depths of the sea. The trouble with the paganism of ancient Greece, as with the paganism of modern times, was not in the superstructure, which was glorious, but in the foundation, which was rotten. There was always something to be covered up; the enthusiasm of the architect was maintained only by ignoring the disturbing fact of sin. In Christianity, on the other hand, nothing needs to be covered up. The fact of sin is faced squarely once for all, and is dealt with by the grace of God. But then, after sin has been removed by the grace of God, the Christian can proceed to develop joyously every faculty that God has given him. Such is the higher Christian humanism--a humanism founded not upon human pride but upon divine grace.
But although Christianity does not end with the broken heart, it does begin with the broken heart; it begins with the consciousness of sin. Without the consciousness of sin, the whole of the gospel will seem to be an idle tale.
I especially appreciate the thought that in Christianity, "nothing needs to be covered up." This is the glorious freedom of the Gospel. Christ has dealt so fully and completely with our sin that we don't need to hide any more. We can come clean and open before a holy God with full assurance because Christ has died for our sins and has risen in absolute victory over sin and death!
If you'd like to read the entire book from Machen go here.