On the natural goodness of man...?

[Catholig]

My question is is man naturally good or naturally evil according to Catholic Theology. I honestly don’t know to Church’s position (although because man is corrupted by sin I think that the Church would say he is pre-disposed to evil, and that the Church is necessary to keep people from sinning), however to describe my question a bit more so that everyone can understand I’ll give a bit of background information.

A question used in some of these political spectrum tests is “Is man naturally good or naturally evil”. Supposedly if you pick naturally good you are liberal, but if you pick naturally evil you are conservative. The reasoning behind this is that conservatives believe that there is a need for strong government with laws and punishment to keep people in line, while liberals are more - err liberal, and believe that man can control himself. Of course I happen to be conservative so from the start I was asking myself “do I really believe man is evil?” I do believe that society needs laws to keep everything going, and I do believe in the hierarchtical structure of society as well (and this is all the more true when considering the Church. I honestly couldn’t imagine a Church or functioning religion w/o a distinct head such as the Pope).

Catholig

 

[MariaGorettiGrl]

Man is naturally good, but just because someone starts out good does not mean they cannot fall into sin.

Adam and Eve were made perfect. Then they sinned. All generations hence (except for Mary and Jesus) were marked with the stain of their original sin.

But babies are not seen as “evil”. Children need not go to confession until they reach the age of reason, meaning they are old enough to reasonably understand the concept of chosing to do right or wrong. And no one has to confess having the stain of original sin.

Although we say we sin because we’re “only human”, sinning takes us out of the realm of humanity and into something less, more beast-like. This explains that idea very well.

wf-f.org/mankowski.html