Are people naturally virtuous/vicious or not?

[atheistgirl]

My favorite of the Great St. Paul: “I do the evil I do not want, and I do not do the good that I want!”.

Sounds like a guy not in control of himself.

Not one of my students felt that this sentence was alien to hem/her.

Were I in your class, my hand would have shot up faster than you could say, well, something really fast

Sarah x

 

[HisIsTheCrown]

I do hope you don’t feel that way about yourself.

We were not created evil and we are not intrinsically evil. We are weak and need God’s grace.

I feel that I am evil in myself and that I am far away from what Jesus wants: “Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect!”. As the angels are perfect.
If you want to call “weak”, OK !

 

[HisIsTheCrown]

Sounds like a guy not in control of himself.

Were I in your class, my hand would have shot up faster than you could say, well, something really fast

Sarah x

Would you mind to tell us, were you always, are you always in control of yourself?
Sorry, my English falters, what does it mean this?

my hand would have shot up faster than you could say, well, something really fast

I understood that you would say “Me!”, but me what? You are in control or not.
anyhow, I cannot follow if you are being ironic or not…
sorry.

 

[jmcrae]

Man is intrinsicaly evil.

No, since when God created Man and Woman, He created them in His own image, and He saw that they were good. And all that He had created, He gave to them as a possession, and for food. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.

But when sin entered the world, human beings became inclined to do evil, which is why we needed Jesus to come to us and be our Redeemer.

 

[atheistgirl]

Would you mind to tell us, were you always, are you always in control of yourself?

Not always, no. Like every child ever born, until my nervous system caught up, I was incontinent for example.

As an adolescent and adult, yes, I was always in control of myself. As a young girl setting out in life, I had to be.

I understood that you would say “Me!”, but me what? You are in control or not.

Yes, I’m in control.

Unlike the example of Paul you gave, I do not do bad things when I don’t want to, and I do not fail to do the good things I want to do. He sounds like he has no control over himself in the example you gave.

You said none of your students felt the statement from Paul was alien to them. My hand would go up in your class to say it is alien to me, because I am in control of myself.

Now, sometimes I let go of that control, when I know it is safe to do so, for example when being intimate with my husband, and I will freely confess he knows how to make me lose control. But I see this as a positive healthy thing within a marriage, because control is freely given to another who you know you can trust with your life and who would never ever do anything to you, or force you to do anything, you did not want.

That’s an entirely different thing.

But as to doing evil when I don’t want to, and not doing good, when I want to, no, I am much more aware of myself and much more in control of myself than that.

Sarah x

 

[John_of_Woking]

Not always, no. Like every child ever born, until my nervous system caught up, I was incontinent for example.

As an adolescent and adult, yes, I was always in control of myself. As a young girl setting out in life, I had to be.

Yes, I’m in control.

Unlike the example of Paul you gave, I do not do bad things when I don’t want to, and I do not fail to do the good things I want to do. He sounds like he has no control over himself in the example you gave.

You said none of your students felt the statement from Paul was alien to them. My hand would go up in your class to say it is alien to me, because I am in control of myself.

Now, sometimes I let go of that control, when I know it is safe to do so, for example when being intimate with my husband, and I will freely confess he knows how to make me lose control. But I see this as a positive healthy thing within a marriage, because control is freely given to another who you know you can trust with your life and who would never ever do anything to you, or force you to do anything, you did not want.

That’s an entirely different thing.

But as to doing evil when I don’t want to, and not doing good, when I want to, no, I am much more aware of myself and much more in control of myself than that.

Sarah x

St. Paul step aside we have a winner

In all seriousness you probably do evil when you don’t want to but you just don’t know it or don’t class it as evil. St. Paul was referring to concupiscence or the ‘proclivity to sin’

Peace

 

[HisIsTheCrown]

Not always, no. Like every child ever born, until my nervous system caught up, I was incontinent for example.

As an adolescent and adult, yes, I was always in control of myself. As a young girl setting out in life, I had to be.

Yes, I’m in control.

Unlike the example of Paul you gave, I do not do bad things when I don’t want to, and I do not fail to do the good things I want to do. He sounds like he has no control over himself in the example you gave.

You said none of your students felt the statement from Paul was alien to them. My hand would go up in your class to say it is alien to me, because I am in control of myself.

Now, sometimes I let go of that control, when I know it is safe to do so, for example when being intimate with my husband, and I will freely confess he knows how to make me lose control. But I see this as a positive healthy thing within a marriage, because control is freely given to another who you know you can trust with your life and who would never ever do anything to you, or force you to do anything, you did not want.

That’s an entirely different thing.

But as to doing evil when I don’t want to, and not doing good, when I want to, no, I am much more aware of myself and much more in control of myself than that.

Sarah x

Well, it is difficult to discuss this here, because it is written and written things tend to be difficult to make other people understand the other person’s viewpoint.
Maybe the way St. Paul points out is difficult for you to understand, but if we make things extreme maybe we understand. It is what Jean-Paul Sartre, who lived through WW II called the “breakpoint situations”, where you would have to choose between betraying your friend and being tortured to death.

I put the other recent situation in the Balkans. To one young, very young Serbian soldier the commanders ordered him to shoot men, women and children in front of him. When he refused, he was ordered to go to the execution line to be executed. What would you choose?

The young soldier chose to shoot and was later on tried in the Hague Tribunal. I doubt that he thought he was doing the right thing.

Now, if there was a man in control of things it was St. Paul. Now, I am in the Literature Field and this struggle between the “head” (the idea, the intelligence) and the “heart” (the feelings and the will) appears everywhere, in all literatures of all ages and styles and languages.

 

[stevekehl]

I was told to tell the truth but taught to lie when it suited me.
I was told to be responsible but taught to be lazy because I was tired after a days work.
I was told to share with siblings but never once taught to give to the needy.
I was told to clean my room and was taught this as well. hurray for me!
I was told never to say the “N” word in public but taught it was okay in our home amongst family.
I was told to go to church but was taught that religion stopped at the church exit.

Thanks for making my point for me (post 12). With the added caveat that even people with religious training sometimes continue to do wrong. It’s our nature and must be overcome with God"s presence.

 

[exoflare]

St. Paul step aside we have a winner

In all seriousness you probably do evil when you don’t want to but you just don’t know it or don’t class it as evil. St. Paul was referring to concupiscence or the ‘proclivity to sin’

Bingo.

 

[Credo_ergo_sum]

This quote I always liked, it’s from Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago and is rather relevant here:

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. …] If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

 

[exoflare]

Another interesting quote. It’s a portion of a homily from St. Jean Vianney:

“I said just now, my brethren, that it is the greatest misfortune for a Christian not to be tempted, for we have good reasons for believing that the devil looks upon him as his own property, and that he awaits only the moment of his death to plunge him into hell. Nothing is easier of comprehension. Look at a Christian who works ever so little for the salvation of his soul. Everything that surrounds him incites him to evil. He can not even open his eyes sometimes without being tempted, in spite of all his prayers and works of penance. And an old sinner, who has perhaps been wallowing in sin for twenty years, will tell you that he is not tempted. Well, so much the worse for you, my friend, so much the worse! That fact alone ought to make you pause, that you do not know what it is to be tempted; for to say that you are not tempted is as good as to say there is no longer a devil, or he has lost his power over Christians. "If you have no temptations," says St. Gregory, "then the devil is your friend, your guide, and your shepherd. If he now permits your life to flow on in peace, he will at the end of your life draw you down into the abyss." St. Augustine says that the greatest of all temptations is not to be tempted; for such a one is abandoned by God, and delivered over to his passions, and will be lost.”

 

[atheistgirl]

In all seriousness you probably do evil when you don’t want to but you just don’t know it or don’t class it as evil.

That’s interesting.

What examples would you give, from day to day living, that you would call ‘evil’ that you think I or most people engage in, either unknowingly, or that we wouldn’t call ‘evil’

Sarah x

 

[Contarini]

Look, we are evil by nature.

God created our nature.

That means that on your terms God created evil.

John Calvin clarified the statement that humans are “naturally bad” to mean that we come into the world sinful and don’t “acquire” our sinfulness. In that sense it’s an entirely orthodox claim.

But as Katholish said, the term sounds heretical on the face of it and is best avoided. Calvin has a lot to answer for in popularizing it.

Edwin

 

[HisIsTheCrown]

This quote I always liked, it’s from Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago and is rather relevant here:

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. …] If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

 

[Contarini]

Yes, reason and nature have many meanings and I heartilyaccept your resolution of the problem.

In the same vein, can we say that “nature” is also a potential and not always actual?
Can we say that “reason” is also potential and sometimes actual (as when a brain-dead person is called human but only because he has potential reason whereas a good man with reason is called “rational” in the fully actualized way)?

Yes. And I think that’s often misunderstood in contemporary society.

Hence, for instance, debates over whether homosexuality is “natural” become very confused, because people think that it means something like “occurring in nature.”

Nature, from the Aristotelian perspective, is a job description and not just a statement of how things are. The telos–the purpose–of everything is to become more fully in actuality what it is by nature.

This has been incorporated into mainstream Western Catholic thought (most notably by Aquinas) because it fits a Christian understanding very well. (Luther thought not, but this is one of the basic ways in which Luther was unorthodox.)

Hence, Jesus’ divinity and sinlessness (and, from a Catholic perspective, the Blessed Virgin’s sinlessness) make Him more human, not less. Our calling is to become more like Jesus, and hence more fully human in act (we are already human by nature, that is in potentiality).

Edwin

 

[HisIsTheCrown]

That’s interesting.

What examples would you give, from day to day living, that you would call ‘evil’ that you think I or most people engage in, either unknowingly, or that we wouldn’t call ‘evil’

Sarah x

Objectively it is evil. If you shoot a man thinking it was a rabbit, it is evil.

 

[HisIsTheCrown]

God created our nature.

That means that on your terms God created evil.

John Calvin clarified the statement that humans are “naturally bad” to mean that we come into the world sinful and don’t “acquire” our sinfulness. In that sense it’s an entirely orthodox claim.

But as Katholish said, the term sounds heretical on the face of it and is best avoided. Calvin has a lot to answer for in popularizing it.

Edwin

God created man, so God created the holocaust, slavery, genocide? Is this your reasoning?

 

[atheistgirl]

Objectively it is evil. If you shoot a man thinking it was a rabbit, it is evil.

That would hardly be a day to day occurance would it?

Sarah x

 

[shoe]

What does it mean that human nature is or is not good or evil?

It seems that human nature is good since human nature is reason and reason is prudence and prudence is a virtue. So humans are naturally good.

But it seems that human nature is not good since good is a habit that takes practice and nothing that takes practice is natural. So human nature is not good or bad.

However, reason takes practice so human nature would not be natural which is absurd.

So there must be some way in which reason and good is in one way natural and in another way unnatural.

Can you think of any because I can’t.

I think that human nature can be both “virtuous” and “vicious.” I believe that since God made human beings in His image, which in turn reflects in a limited way some of God’s attributes, then living in God’s image is an intrinsic part of human nature; and being made in God’s image makes it possible for human beings to know and to understand where God is coming from and to make the right choices and to do the right things based on that knowledge and understanding. But since mankind’s intrinsic ability to make the right choices and to do the right things was damaged by Adam and Eve’s rebellion against a Holy God, human beings also now have a sin nature, which can sometimes move them to commit “vicious” acts on their fellow man.

 

[clem456]

But, as rough, semi-inaccurate shorthand, I believe it is best to let our observations of life guide us, and I think they guide us to see that people are naturally vicious. Saints are made, not born.

.

I’ll throw an opinion into the mix. I believe that children, even though selfish by necessity, are born good, and it’s up to parents and environment to mess them up. Taking your life’s lessons to heart, I can see it in my own kids. You can’t pound it into them. Love them and trust their human nature that tends toward the good (God)