Is man basically good, or basically evil?

[Blitz]

Racist? I am mostly African for goodness sakes. Africans, ask any missionary, have strong superstitions.

[Eleventh Doctor]

I don't see how that keeps them from changing, I mean some people have strong superstitions. I don't see the point in stereotyping an entire continent as being unable to change.

[Blitz]

I didn't say unable to change. Hey my dad is living example, but it is hard to change them. Like we have some Christians to say. I said usually it takes a generation to change.

[Eleventh Doctor]

So the main issue is God doesn't want a revival?

[Blitz]

No, I believe that God is using different ways now. Missions are working slowly but steadily at hearts. And either way, there are enough mass evangelists to evangelize the world.

[Pound Foolish]

Through out this conversation, people, mainly Protestants, keep using the state of mankind as a proof. Blitz says we know mankind is evil because "revivals" die away so quickly. (Do they?) Metal15 and others on here say we know our nature is evil because mankind does evil so often.

I am amazed at you Protestants' ability to look into mankind's hearts, the vast majority of which you have never met, so deeply you can say which are religious and who are not, who is evil and who is not. And as for assuming the deeds they do are mostly evil, that is astounding. The mere mathematical complications of considering every single action each individual has done, then determine which deeds are good and which are bad, then deciding which is in majority, is an awe inspiring feat. Then what? Was there a margin of error? Did you determine an average? Oh and by the way, when did God tell us, "I command you to go forth and judge all thy brethren, for your are wise and you must weigh and condemn the actions of thy neighbor."

But all this aside, does it matter whether our actions generally are evil? Or if we quickly stray from revivals? What do our actions determine?

Suppose a rose loses a few petals and some leaves on its stem dry. Does the rose stop being a rose? Or conversely, suppose the flower flourished. Would the flower turn into a goddess?

If we have an evil nature, then yet, we sometimes do good in spite of that nature. Conversely, if we are good in our nature, we sometimes do evil in spite of it. Can either then be held up as proof of refuting the other?

And what do all our actions have do with what we are? We cannot change an evil nature for a good if we do good, neither do we stop a good nature being good if we do bad. For, in either case, while we act in spite of our nature, that doesn't change what our nature is.

Anymore than a rose with dead leaves stops being a rose.

We are not discussing mankind's actions' but his nature.

[GratiaDei]

Matthew 7:17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
Isaiah 64:6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.
Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Genesis 8:21 Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.
Ecclesiastes 7:20 Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.

These verses seem pretty clear to me in terms of man's nature.

[Pound Foolish]

Welcome to the debate, Gratia. Please stay.

"Matthew 7:17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit."

And? It's hard here to even see your point. How can one construe from this that we are completely bad in nature? In fact, according to that verse, if we were entirely bad, we would be unable to produce any good fruits at all. Therefor, we are good in part though not wholly, since we do indeed sometimes "bear good fruit."

"Isaiah 64:6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags."

We've been over this one more than once. If you go back a couple of pages, you'll see I refuted it. If you can't find it, just let me know and I'll repost it for you. Really though, you Protestants lean awfully heavily on the same verses to prove your points. Despite the fact the verses don't prove your points at all.

"Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time."

Yes, "had become." According to what you Protestants have been saying on here, we were good before the fall, but then lost our good nature through it. Why, if our nature turned wholly evil as direct result of the fall, was God angered by what we had become, in a downward spiral over time, generations after Adam and Eve? If the fall made us evil, why weren't we evil ever since the fall, rather than generations after?

Anyhow, that was then. God fixed that problem by drowning most of the human race. Tah dah.

"Genesis 8:21 Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood."
That's a dreadful translation. Who translated your version of the Bible and which publishing house is it from? To directly translate from the Hebrew, for example, instead of inclination, it would be "imagination."

"Ecclesiastes 7:20 Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins."

Perfectly true. No one who ever lived, except Jesus and his mother, has ever been entirely sinless. How do you go from that to assuming our nature is evil? We are in a world choc full of temptation. Evil choices make our actions' and perhaps personalities evil, but not our nature.

[Blitz]

I would have to disagree with Jesus's mother being sinless. And if we were basically good, where did sin start that let us to deny our basically good selves?

[Pound Foolish]

Disagree about Mary if you wish. You're allowed to be wrong. It's a free country.

Where did sin start? Our corruption, of course. We have a good but fallen nature.

Or were you trying to reverse my statement about The Flood and man's gradual corruption back on me? I say "if we are naturally bad, why did we slowly become bad" you say, "if we are good, why did we do bad?"

If so, then we are again failing to distinguish between our actions and our nature. Our essence is not what we do. We do not become running when we run. In the same way, a rock that rolls downhill does not become rolling when it rolls, but simply a rock. In other words, our nature is our essence, our natural state of being which we can conform to through our external actions or deny. Do you agree to this definition of the nature of things?

[Blitz]

How can we be good and fallen? How can we be good and yet love sin? It plain does make sense. It is like saying, "This is a good machine that makes a bad product."

[Eleventh Doctor]

A machine by it's nature can be good, i.e. working, and still produce a bad product; if it receives bad plans or inferior materials are put into the machine i.e. the fallen world around us. That is actually a perfect analogy for how we can sin but still have a fundamentally good nature.

[Blitz]

But then how did we get bad? We create the evil in the world. Evil doesn't appear on it own. Only in one case did that happen in the garden, and that wasn't even by itself. If we were basically good, all people would flock to God. Provide me one verse that says man is basically good.

[Eleventh Doctor]

We started doing bad things after the Fall when evil corrupted what was good by the temptation. You're right that evil doesn't appear on it's own. We are basically good and so there is an inherent longing for God but because we live in a fallen world we try to fill that longing with other things.

Man is basically good because we are created in God's image, if God is good then we are good if God is bad then we are bad; is God good or bad?

[Blitz]

But didn't Jesus say only God is good? Ask any Jewish and that is what they will say. Calling someone good is calling them God. Matt.19:17
Romans 3:10-12
I believe that all works before salvation are useless. We are not good. That verse shows us that 'good works' before we are saved are unprofitable. Useless. Trash. God has a different definition of good, I believe. Just like God would not accept the sacrifices from the Israelite because their hearts weren't right; the same goes for our works before we become Christians. We were incapable of good.

[Eleventh Doctor]

So if a non-Christian stopped and gave food to a starving person that was trash? Completely useless?

[Blitz]

Yes. Why would he do it? Self-justification.

[Eleventh Doctor]

So if you were starving and a non-Christian came up to you and offered you food, would you take it? Since it's self-justification?

[sing]

Matthew 7:17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
Isaiah 64:6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.
Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Genesis 8:21 Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.
Ecclesiastes 7:20 Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.

These verses seem pretty clear to me in terms of man's nature.

I'm totally with you here Gratia! I think that this debate isn't gonna end. It is mostly just the Catholics against (for lack of another word) the non Catholics. Catholic Bible against our Bible.......

[Eleventh Doctor]

Catholic versus Protestants? Also I'm neither, I'm Orthodox