Human Nature: Inherently Good or Evil?

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My friend and I were having a discussion on this.

Is human nature inherently good or evil?
 
Hello,

Human nature is a creation of God, and God cannot create anything evil - therefore human nature is inherently good. However, due to original sin we have a fallen nature, which is inclined toward evil. We call this concupiscence.
 
JMJ_coder said:
Hello,

Human nature is a creation of God, and God cannot create anything evil - therefore human nature is inherently good. However, due to original sin we have a fallen nature, which is inclined toward evil. We call this concupiscence.
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After Original Sin, though, are humans good or evil, in the end?
 
Man is lost. Therefore, yes – much of the world is very susceptible to evil influences. 👍
 
But how heavy is this influence? Is it so heavy that man is inherently evil, or is it light enough that we are inherently good struggling against evil?
 
Neither good nor evil but able to go either way. The question is not even valid. The way I see it, the original sin was disobedience. And are capable of obedience but we are by nature naughty and disobedient children. Otherwise, our obedience and love would be involuntary and have no more worth to God than the love of a robot would have to us.

And disobedience can lead to evil or just to mediocrity or whatever, but obedience leads to good.
 
Human nature is inherently good, but humans are a) fallen, so predisposed to evil, and b) free, so capable of it anyway. Angelic nature, including that of a certain angel with peacock feathers (traditional symbol of pride), is also inherently good. Technically, better than human. So being “inherently good” doesn’t amount to much, on its own.

Also, to speak in strict ontological terms, nothing can exist that is “inherently evil”. Evil=lack, so “inherently evil” is just a big ol’ chunk of nothin’, a hole where something good ought to be. That’s the real problem with Calvinism’s “Total Depravity”: no such thing can exist. Even Satan’s not inherently evil/totally depraved.

To say that an act is “inherently evil”, which I don’t believe is the phrase (“intrinsically” is the term, I think, but they’re pretty close), means it is an action essentially lacking in goodness, and therefore incapable of being performed in a good way.
 
FuzzyBunny116 said:
After Original Sin, though, are humans good or evil, in the end?
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In what end? Since all humans do not necessarily attain the same end, one can’t give the same answer for all humans. Those who are saved are obviously inherently good in the end. Those who are damned are still good insofar as they continue to exist, but this good is radically warped and twisted.

Human nature, per se, is good, if you must have a short and simple answer. God don’t make no junk.

Edwin
 
I think it depends on the person, and their relationship with God. By grace, a person’s inner being can grow in virtue. Because of original sin, it is not easy for someone who bears it not to sin. However, baptism takes away original sin, except for some of the effects of it. So a person can be a saint. I would not say Saint Francis is inherently evil, naturally. But there are pictures of fallen nature too, such as Hitler.
 
Inherently human.

Capable of more grace than an Angel, capable of more evil than a Daemon, but with one major difference in that choices are made every second of every day of which to be.
 
The fall wounded us so that we are constantly struggling to be good–those of us who are trying, that is. The 3 consequences for humankind from the fall are: a corrupted nature, a darkened intellect, and a weakened will. A corrupted nature is not the same thing as inherently evil nature, nor is a darkened intellect indication of a complete inability to see the truth, nor is a weakened will the same thing as a total inability to do what is right. So no, we humans are not inherently evil.
 
The problem of evil doens’t make any sense. God is able and willing to stop evil. He doesn’t. This is because we have free will and apparently need it for some reason. Yet then we all go to heaven and spend the rest of our lives never ever doing evil.

So either we are free to do evil in heaven, but no one ever does/has/will period because then we know God, or we are not free to do evil in heaven, in which case that freedom is not necessary for us to be perfectly happy for all of eternity.
 
Hello,
IanBoyd57 said:
The problem of evil doens’t make any sense. God is able and willing to stop evil. He doesn’t. This is because we have free will and apparently need it for some reason. Yet then we all go to heaven and spend the rest of our lives never ever doing evil.

So either we are free to do evil in heaven, but no one ever does/has/will period because then we know God, or we are not free to do evil in heaven, in which case that freedom is not necessary for us to be perfectly happy for all of eternity.
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When we die, we have made our choice. In the manner in which we have lived, we have freely chosen God or we have not. At the moment of death we are confirmed in our freely willed choice for all eternity.
 
JMJ_coder said:
Hello,

When we die, we have made our choice. In the manner in which we have lived, we have freely chosen God or we have not. At the moment of death we are confirmed in our freely willed choice for all eternity.
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How can you choose someone you have never met?

Now, I know some of you claim to know God personally, but (at least with the honest christians I’ve talked to and even ones I’ve heard answer this in debates when pressed) you do admit that the way you believe you are talking to God is simply how he speaks to you through your conscience. I did the same thing when I was little and I truly believed I was talking to God.

Unless God has materialized in your living room, though, you haven’t really met him, you just believe you know of him and that he speaks to you.

Yet, the 9/11 hijackers also had consciences, and they believed God was speaking to them through their consciences, and unless God really told them to crash planes into those buildings then… they were wrong.

And they believed that it was God just as surely and fervently as you guys do, and almost certainly more so as they were willing to kill themselves for it.

So then, just hearing our consciences can’t make us truly certain that we have, in fact, found God. I mean, I’m sure you all still consider yourselves special, but ‘suspend your disbelief’ (wow I went full circle on that term, normally it applies to playing along with silly fantastical stories, not playing along with the thought that they aren’t true, interesting) and try to think about this.

How can we really choose this guy who we can’t be sure we’ve met? If you say you’re sure, what do you say to all the other religions whose people say they are as sure? Keep in mind that if you aren’t willing to talk about this with the possibility of you being wrong, and being open to changing, you can’t expect them to be either.

I have never talked with God. How can I choose him?

Now, he could certainly pop up in my living room right now and introduce himself. Then I would have a real being that I could love.

I’m not a bad person. I do good with or without God because I profoundly care about each and every person on this planet, because I know that they hurt just like I do, and want the same things.

Is it just or loving to send me to hell because I don’t believe in a person who is unwilling to even walk up to me and say hello directly with no vague indirect hoopla just to let me know he exists and would like me to love him?

I can speak for most fellow atheists when I say that we have absolutely nothing against God in any way, we just don’t believe he exists. If he were to introduce himself to me tomorrow I would love him.

But then again, I guess if he easily could do all these things and refuses, and then sends me to hell for it, perhaps he is not such a likeable fellow after all.
 
Hello,
IanBoyd57 said:
How can you choose someone you have never met?

Now, I know some of you claim to know God personally, but (at least with the honest christians I’ve talked to and even ones I’ve heard answer this in debates when pressed) you do admit that the way you believe you are talking to God is simply how he speaks to you through your conscience. I did the same thing when I was little and I truly believed I was talking to God.

Unless God has materialized in your living room, though, you haven’t really met him, you just believe you know of him and that he speaks to you.

Yet, the 9/11 hijackers also had consciences, and they believed God was speaking to them through their consciences, and unless God really told them to crash planes into those buildings then… they were wrong.

And they believed that it was God just as surely and fervently as you guys do, and almost certainly more so as they were willing to kill themselves for it.

So then, just hearing our consciences can’t make us truly certain that we have, in fact, found God. I mean, I’m sure you all still consider yourselves special, but ‘suspend your disbelief’ (wow I went full circle on that term, normally it applies to playing along with silly fantastical stories, not playing along with the thought that they aren’t true, interesting) and try to think about this.

How can we really choose this guy who we can’t be sure we’ve met? If you say you’re sure, what do you say to all the other religions whose people say they are as sure? Keep in mind that if you aren’t willing to talk about this with the possibility of you being wrong, and being open to changing, you can’t expect them to be either.

I have never talked with God. How can I choose him?

Now, he could certainly pop up in my living room right now and introduce himself. Then I would have a real being that I could love.

I’m not a bad person. I do good with or without God because I profoundly care about each and every person on this planet, because I know that they hurt just like I do, and want the same things.

Is it just or loving to send me to hell because I don’t believe in a person who is unwilling to even walk up to me and say hello directly with no vague indirect hoopla just to let me know he exists and would like me to love him?

I can speak for most fellow atheists when I say that we have absolutely nothing against God in any way, we just don’t believe he exists. If he were to introduce himself to me tomorrow I would love him.

But then again, I guess if he easily could do all these things and refuses, and then sends me to hell for it, perhaps he is not such a likeable fellow after all.
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God has written His law onto our hearts. And His first and greatest commandment is “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.” We must silence to the world around us and listen to our heart.

Also, God is with us. He is truly, really, and substantially present at every Liturgy and in every Tabernacle in the entire world. We can physically connect with God!
 
Read Romans 6,7 and 8.
It explains sin and how it effects even the believer Rom7:18
 
I accept the teachings of Mother Church but also rather like the Orthodox interpretation 👍
 
Human nature is fallen, which means it has the potential to embrace evil; however, it doesn’t mean the nature itself is evil. God created it so it is good. Without grace, man would seem more likely to be prone to follow the impulses of his fallen nature which could lead to evil. At the same time, those impulses could also lead him to good things as well.

Many Protestant faiths disagree and would say that man’s nature is evil Christ saves him anyway. The idea that grace covers up evil. I think it was Luther who described it as snow covering up dung.
 
IanBoyd57 said:
How can you choose someone you have never met?

Now, I know some of you claim to know God personally, but (at least with the honest christians I’ve talked to and even ones I’ve heard answer this in debates when pressed) you do admit that the way you believe you are talking to God is simply how he speaks to you through your conscience. I did the same thing when I was little and I truly believed I was talking to God.

Unless God has materialized in your living room, though, you haven’t really met him, you just believe you know of him and that he speaks to you.

Yet, the 9/11 hijackers also had consciences, and they believed God was speaking to them through their consciences, and unless God really told them to crash planes into those buildings then… they were wrong.

And they believed that it was God just as surely and fervently as you guys do, and almost certainly more so as they were willing to kill themselves for it.

So then, just hearing our consciences can’t make us truly certain that we have, in fact, found God. I mean, I’m sure you all still consider yourselves special, but ‘suspend your disbelief’ (wow I went full circle on that term, normally it applies to playing along with silly fantastical stories, not playing along with the thought that they aren’t true, interesting) and try to think about this.

How can we really choose this guy who we can’t be sure we’ve met? If you say you’re sure, what do you say to all the other religions whose people say they are as sure? Keep in mind that if you aren’t willing to talk about this with the possibility of you being wrong, and being open to changing, you can’t expect them to be either.

I have never talked with God. How can I choose him?

Now, he could certainly pop up in my living room right now and introduce himself. Then I would have a real being that I could love.

I’m not a bad person. I do good with or without God because I profoundly care about each and every person on this planet, because I know that they hurt just like I do, and want the same things.

Is it just or loving to send me to hell because I don’t believe in a person who is unwilling to even walk up to me and say hello directly with no vague indirect hoopla just to let me know he exists and would like me to love him?

I can speak for most fellow atheists when I say that we have absolutely nothing against God in any way, we just don’t believe he exists. If he were to introduce himself to me tomorrow I would love him.

But then again, I guess if he easily could do all these things and refuses, and then sends me to hell for it, perhaps he is not such a likeable fellow after all.
Click to expand...
This is why the Apostolic (as opposed to certain Protestant views) view of Grace is so important: infused Grace versus imputed grace. The Grace that unites us to God makes for a literal indwelling of the Holy Trinity in our souls. God, who is already omnipresent, becomes more connected to us by Grace than we are even to our own flesh and blood relatives. This doesn’t require a person to person conversation anymore than my relationship with myself requires a person to person conversation.

Some people are blessed to have such a conversation with God in this life, but most of us must experience it through the Liturgy and the Sacraments; when we participate in the Mass we come into personal, physical, and spiritual contact with God, and we hear His words through the prayers and the Scriptures. So in a very real sense we can know God better than we know our own family, and even ourselves, in this life without ever having a “conversation”; it’s more akin to holding a loved one in your arms and knowing the love between you without having to say a word.

Peace and God bless!
 
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