Are we naturally bad?

[Walter16]

Hi I am Lutheran and so I desire to answer as a whole and this specifically.

Luther was wrong, and Paul says so in Romans 1. Calvin took Luther’s error about the nature of man, which was informed by Platonism as well as the prevailing philosophies of his day which were the foundations of humanism, and ran with that error and ended up by teaching that the fall destroyed the Imago Dei. I think Luther was right about a great many thing (obviously) but he was wrong about this.

Furthermore, Calvin, working from Luther’s bad assumption about human nature, devised a system by which no man anywhere can have any knowledge of God at all, which the Bible flatly contradicts, and that no man can do anything pleasing to God in any fashion apart from Christ, which the Bible contradicts (for example the OT Saints and their praise.)

Luther’s teaching came from Augustine but he misunderstood Augustine. Augustine argued that man is fallen from birth, but that fallenness is not inborn guilt but rather an inborn bent that gives us a false appetite that would rather worship self than God. Augustine taught (On Teaching Christianity is the book btw) that we are born with affections that instead of being focused on God, as we should be, are focused on ourselves, as our father Adam’s were when he chose to eat in spite of his knowledge of the Law given him by God to not do so. Therefore Augustine argues that our love is real, but it consumes that which is loved rather than upholding and helping it. Our passions are real, but they consume that about which we are passionate rather than upbuilding and bettering that thing. Does that make sense?

In this manner, we are born with a tendency to sin but not an actual guilt of sin. The notion that we are guilty of Adam’s sin because we were in Adam when he fell is Platonic.

But doesn’t the Church teach that we are in Christ on the Cross?

Yes, but that is different.

The reason why is that Christ took on the flesh of man and when He did so the infinite communicated itself to the finite, and so the death of Christ is not the death of one man, but an infinite death of infinite value, and so His resurrection is an infinite resurrection rather than that of one man as well.

These are difficult distinctions to understand but they are very important because if we do not make them then we will become man centered rather than God centered. Remember Calvin begins his systematic theology with a study of man and Thomas begins his with God. That is no accident. Calvin, and here he parted from Luther radically, constructs a theology of an infinite fall with a finite atonement rather than the Thomist or Augustinian understanding of an infinite atonement and finite fall. That is why Calvin did not believe that Christ was present in the Eucharist; because he could not accept that the infinite could communicate to the finite.

But Augustine taught that the infinite did communicate to the finite, as did Thomas, and furthermore Augustine, unlike Luther, taught that our nature is good but our appetites are bent, and it is by the corrupted affections that we sin and become guilty before God rather than being born guilty without choice or chance as Calvin believed.

God Bless.

So you are saying that we are Essientially Good but we are wounded by Original Sin. Right? And so we are “naturally Good”

 

[Walter16]

Shakespeare explains the catholic position best in many of his stories.

Not just the main character, but EVERY human is the tragic hero in his own story. Basically good in nature, but having a tragic, fatal flaw that will be our eternal undoing without the assistance of Grace. That’s a big difference from having a “sinful nature.”

It’s also why Shakesperean tales are timeless. They are about human nature, not just a particular culture.

So Shakespeare is on my side and the Church and I have two biblical references the one in Genesis and the one from Matthew.

Quoted from della (I really like this one)

“Jesus commanded us to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Mt. 5:48) Evil beings could not and cannot do this.”

Thanks

 

[christosdavid]

How about:

Jer. 17:9 The heart is decitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Eph. 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were **by nature **the children of wrath, even as others.

 

[christosdavid]

How about:

Jer. 17:9 The heart is decitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Eph. 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were **by nature **the children of wrath, even as others.

should this be in the Scripture section perhaps?

 

[Della]

How about:

Jer. 17:9 The heart is decitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

The RSV translates this as: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt;
who can understand it?”

Corrupt is probably the better way of putting this, for something can only be corrupted if first it was whole and unstained.

Eph. 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were **by nature **the children of wrath, even as others.

“Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

Without Christ our bodies and our minds were not properly connected to God, and so we were under the just wrath of God. This was a consequence of the Fall, but we were not made so by God. If nature were evil, then it would mean that God had created us as evil and we know that isn’t true.

 

[bogeydogg]

So you are saying that we are Essientially Good but we are wounded by Original Sin. Right? And so we are “naturally Good”

Yes. We are created by God and God creates nothing evil, not even Satan was created evil. Each and every child is a special creation by God and as such is not created wicked.

We may be born with a tendency toward sin, but that is not the same thing as guilt.

God Bless

 

[Stilldreamn]

Perhaps I have misunderstood the question - but as it was taught to me, mankind inherited a sinful nature reaching back to our first parents, due to their sin in the garden. This sinful man is buried in baptism, making us a new creature in Christ (Baptism changes us, the sooner, the better!).

So I would say that God created man good, as was all his creation - but after the fall, mankind had a sinful nature from birth.

 

[yellowbird]

This was on of the hardest things to switch over in my brain when I went from Evangelical → Catholic. I was taught that we were miserable sinners deserving of hell who would chose evil over goodness every time, were it not for Christ in us. Although I admit, it never really made sense to me because how do we then explain the goodness in non-Christians? Why would a non-Christian rush into a burning building to save a child… or care about the needs of the poor/hungry/persecuted?

IMHO, the Catholic thinking lines up with what I know to be true… there is goodness in everyone because we are all His children. We are good, but sometimes chose to do what is bad.

Regardless, it’s because of Jesus, we are forgiven, and it’s through His grace, that we are made holy.

 

[Contarini]

A friend of mine made the statement “…we are all sinners by nature…” and I took exception. I said to him that we are all essentially good but are stained by Original Sin and then he replied that the bible says numerous times that we are filthy beings. This person is non-catholic. I then gave him the “created in God’s Image” quotation from Genesis and was further rebuffed. Are there other biblical references to the essential goodness of human nature?

The “naturally bad” language comes from the Reformers, but I think it’s come to be taken out of context.

Calvin explains carefully that when he says humans are sinful “by nature” he doesn’t mean this in the technical sense–he’s not disagreeing with Augustine and the entirety of the previous Christian tradition, which had taught that “every nature is good”–but only in contrast to the view that humans somehow “acquire” evil in the course of their lives. In other words, “naturally bad” simply means “suffering the effects of the Fall from the first moment of our existence.” But nature, in itself, is always good.

Edwin

 

[mercytruth]

Ecclesiastes 7:29
English Standard Version (ESV)

" See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes."

James 3:8-9
English Standard Version (ESV)

"but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.

Romans 7:21-25
English Standard Version (ESV)

" So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."

According to the Apostle Paul, our **inner being **is apparently created in the image of God and desires that which is good. while our outward being has the proclivity to sin.

 

[bogeydogg]

Perhaps I have misunderstood the question - but as it was taught to me, mankind inherited a sinful nature reaching back to our first parents, due to their sin in the garden. This sinful man is buried in baptism, making us a new creature in Christ (Baptism changes us, the sooner, the better!).

So I would say that God created man good, as was all his creation - but after the fall, mankind had a sinful nature from birth.

The difference Augustine and Thomas drew which Luther failed draw (and hey I am Lutheran) is that we are born with affections which tend toward sin and away from God because we desire to worship ourselves first above all things, but that is not the same thing as inborn guilt of sin. To say we have inherited our father Adam’s nature means that we have inherited his desire to choose for ourselves what is right and wrong verses trusting the true inborn nature of right and wrong given to us by God, which is the conscience.

Remember in Romans 1 Paul says…

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Now there are many who argue that there is natural knowledge and there is saving knowledge but there are two problems with this.

1. In verse 21 Paul says “they knew God” and the word knew in the Greek is γνόντες (g’notes) which comes from the word γινώσκω (g’nosko) which means to know, but it does not mean to just have common cognitive knowledge of a fact but it means to experience as in Adam knew his wife and she bore him a son. In other words this knowledge of God goes far beyond a simple cognition that the trees did not make themselves it is an actual experiential knowledge of God which man is born with, and the text says so because Paul says “they became futile in their thinking…” So this is not how man was born it what man becomes.
2. Those who argue this knowledge is merely cognition and not salvific in nature have a problem. How can such knowledge be sufficient to damn once refused, which Paul plainly says it is, verse 24 “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts…” and verse 28 “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” if it is not also sufficient to save if it is obeyed?

But then comes the problem that Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and those after them tried to cut through with a Platonic doctrine of the universal inborn corruption of man, how does a man born with an experiential knowledge of God and without guilt of sin choose to sin when it is so bad for him to do so?

That is where Augustine and Thomas come in. In the Garden Adam did not choose to sin because he thought it would be bad for him, seeing that the woman had eaten and had not died (and remember Paul says she was deceived it was Adam who committed the grievous sin and in Adam we are fallen not Eve) Adam chose to disbelieve God in spite of God’s word to him because he believed he would be like God. Adam took the fruit because he thought it was good. He believed the serpent over God and chose for himself what is right and wrong.

It is that tendency that Augustine says we are born with; that we desire to choose for ourselves what is good and bad and we do not listen to our consciences and we deliberately choose the wicked for its temporal pleasure over the blessed goodness which endures but for which we must wait. The reason why is that we desire to worship ourselves. That is what all sin really is. It is the decision within the human heart to lift up the temporary to the place of the eternal for the sake of its passing pleasure because we want to be god in God’s place.

But God will not allow anyone to take His place and that is why the Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” because all men act upon this tendency within their hearts that they have inherited from Adam.

But such a tendency is not of itself actual sin and neither is it actual guilt. And so we are not born guilty before God but we make ourselves that way because we are idolaters of the self above all things, even above our knowledge of God. But God in His mercy has put forth Christ to die for us while we were yet sinners, and so no man may boast before God because no man has not sinned, save one, and so we cling to Gospel of our Lord because it is life and all blessedness is found therein.

God Bless

 

[christosdavid]

The difference Augustine and Thomas drew which Luther failed draw (and hey I am Lutheran) is that we are born with affections which tend toward sin and away from God because we desire to worship ourselves first above all things, but that is not the same thing as inborn guilt of sin. To say we have inherited our father Adam’s nature means that we have inherited his desire to choose for ourselves what is right and wrong verses trusting the true inborn nature of right and wrong given to us by God, which is the conscience.

Remember in Romans 1 Paul says…

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Now there are many who argue that there is natural knowledge and there is saving knowledge but there are two problems with this.

1. In verse 21 Paul says “they knew God” and the word knew in the Greek is γνόντες (g’notes) which comes from the word γινώσκω (g’nosko) which means to know, but it does not mean to just have common cognitive knowledge of a fact but it means to experience as in Adam knew his wife and she bore him a son. In other words this knowledge of God goes far beyond a simple cognition that the trees did not make themselves it is an actual experiential knowledge of God which man is born with, and the text says so because Paul says “they became futile in their thinking…” So this is not how man was born it what man becomes.
2. Those who argue this knowledge is merely cognition and not salvific in nature have a problem. How can such knowledge be sufficient to damn once refused, which Paul plainly says it is, verse 24 “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts…” and verse 28 “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” if it is not also sufficient to save if it is obeyed?

But then comes the problem that Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and those after them tried to cut through with a Platonic doctrine of the universal inborn corruption of man, how does a man born with an experiential knowledge of God and without guilt of sin choose to sin when it is so bad for him to do so?

That is where Augustine and Thomas come in. In the Garden Adam did not choose to sin because he thought it would be bad for him, seeing that the woman had eaten and had not died (and remember Paul says she was deceived it was Adam who committed the grievous sin and in Adam we are fallen not Eve) Adam chose to disbelieve God in spite of God’s word to him because he believed he would be like God. Adam took the fruit because he thought it was good. He believed the serpent over God and chose for himself what is right and wrong.

It is that tendency that Augustine says we are born with; that we desire to choose for ourselves what is good and bad and we do not listen to our consciences and we deliberately choose the wicked for its temporal pleasure over the blessed goodness which endures but for which we must wait. The reason why is that we desire to worship ourselves. That is what all sin really is. It is the decision within the human heart to lift up the temporary to the place of the eternal for the sake of its passing pleasure because we want to be god in God’s place.

But God will not allow anyone to take His place and that is why the Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” because all men act upon this tendency within their hearts that they have inherited from Adam.

But such a tendency is not of itself actual sin and neither is it actual guilt. And so we are not born guilty before God but we make ourselves that way because we are idolaters of the self above all things, even above our knowledge of God. But God in His mercy has put forth Christ to die for us while we were yet sinners, and so no man may boast before God because no man has not sinned, save one, and so we cling to Gospel of our Lord because it is life and all blessedness is found therein.

God Bless

I dont think Aquinas was working from any platonic construction, sorry, Luther, Calvin and Augustine? Ok, but even then Augustine as a neoplatonist was critiquing his thoughts and adapting them to the revelation he found in the scriptures and was therefore less platonic and more philosphical Christian…

We were innocent but now we are as guilty as pedophiles execpt with a different sin, James says if we break one law we break faith with the lawgiver who gave them all…

 

[janpeterotto]

Why do you call me good? says Jesus at one instant. Only God is good. This is the primary thing.

Now, of course, in the eyes of God you and me are extremely valuable, good, lovable - whatever we do. So there you are. You can allow calvinists and lutherans the low estimation of man and still ask them to turn to God for the REAL opinion about us.

Main thing is: can you allow for Gods extremely high opinion of yourself? Most people feed on pain and poor me. They love to dwell on what next to confess to their favourite confessor.

 

[christosdavid]

The RSV translates this as: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt;
who can understand it?”

Corrupt is probably the better way of putting this, for something can only be corrupted if first it was whole and unstained.

“Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

Without Christ our bodies and our minds were not properly connected to God, and so we were under the just wrath of God. This was a consequence of the Fall, but we were not made so by God. If nature were evil, then it would mean that God had created us as evil and we know that isn’t true.

The translation makes the same dynamic equivelant of the greek…

it still says,moreover, that, we were **by nature **(physis) children of wrath so, what difference are you trying to differentiate?

 

[Della]

The translation makes the same dynamic equivelant of the greek…

it still says,moreover, that, we were **by nature **(physis) children of wrath so, what difference are you trying to differentiate?

By nature here doesn’t mean “by creation” but by the fact that we are fallen and cannot do what we would want to do even after baptismal regeneration. St. Paul wrote about his struggles–that he did what would not do and didn’t do what he should. We aren’t naturally bad, we’re naturally fallen and one can only have fallen if one were upright in the first place.

 

[PumpkinSeed]

Well, if we weren’t naturally bad why would we need a savior? So obviously we are.

 

[Della]

Well, if we weren’t naturally bad why would we need a savior? So obviously we are.

The point is that God did not create us bad. The human race lost saving grace/our connection with God when Adam and Eve fell. That’s why we need a savior, not because we are naturally bad. Because of the fall we tend towards evil but we are free to choose the good. Totally bad creatures could not even choose the good they would always and at all times choose the bad, and we know that isn’t true of human beings regardless of their beliefs/what sacraments they have received.

 

[bogeydogg]

I dont think Aquinas was working from any platonic construction, sorry, Luther, Calvin and Augustine? Ok, but even then Augustine as a neoplatonist was critiquing his thoughts and adapting them to the revelation he found in the scriptures and was therefore less platonic and more philosphical Christian…

We were innocent but now we are as guilty as pedophiles execpt with a different sin, James says if we break one law we break faith with the lawgiver who gave them all…

I never said Augustine or Thomas were working from Platonic constructions, in fact I said exactly the opposite.

God Bless

 

[bogeydogg]

Well, if we weren’t naturally bad why would we need a savior? So obviously we are.

We need a Savior because we sin, nit because we were constituted evil.

God Bless

 

[bogeydogg]

The translation makes the same dynamic equivelant of the greek…

it still says,moreover, that, we were **by nature **(physis) children of wrath so, what difference are you trying to differentiate?

We are children born under wrath. We are born under the curse God placed upon Adam, but nowhere does God say that Adam’s sin is such that all his children will be born guilty of it, that is not part of the curse, but that the world is fallen and creation ruined by sin is cause of God’s wrath because holiness resists wickedness always. Thus it is that everyone born of Adam is born under the wrath of God because we are in this fallen world and we love it oh so much. It is our very love for the temporal that causes us to sin because the temporal feeds our selfish nature.

But having a nature which tends toward sin and being born actually guilty of a sin which we did not commit are two very different things.

God Bless