Is Human Nature Basically Good, Bad Or Neutral?

[Chestertonian]

So how about it? Are people born good, bad or neutral?

Edited August 14, 2009 by Chestertonian

[Katholikos]

As a Protestant, I believed that man was totally depraved, evil to the core, could do no good, that even his will was tainted. His sins were merely "covered over" but remained like a snow-covered dunghill. As a Catholic, I believe that man is good, wounded by Original Sin, but is only a little lower than the angels. God who made us "very good" (Genesis 1:31) remakes us in the image of Jesus Christ and joins us to the very life of God. Christ changes us at the core of our being, enabling us to participate in His own Divine Life.

[Selah]

^ What he said. We are "very good" and by our actions we determine what or who we are.

[Groo the Wanderer]

good, but wounded by sin


ccc 374, 1706-1707

[goldenchild17]

[quote name='Chestertonian' post='1948789' date='Aug 14 2009, 11:52 AM']So how about it? Are people born good, bad or neutral?[/quote]

Tough question for me. I think one of my theology manuals addresses it but can't look it up right now. I think that God created us in His likeness and found it good. I think that by baptism we become essentially good, but I think based on your question, we may be BORN essentially with a depraved and bad human nature, thanks to Adam's sin.

[Katholikos]

FYI, born bad with a depraved nature is Protestant. We are born wounded by Original Sin, but essentially good. God said everything He created is good. The "depraved" POV originated only in the 16th century. Aren't 'cha glad to be Catholic?! Yes siree! Catholicism is optimistic. Protestantism is pessimistic. Peace, y'all.

[Selah]

That's why I hated Calvinism so. A little baby depraved? Chyeah right.

[Thomist-in-Training]

Wait. Human nature is basically good. Right now though, the human condition--each child born--is blighted by original sin (and still by concupiscence after baptism, though not so badly). So you're asking 2 different questions it seems to me. But all natures are good, trees, rocks, flies, and angels... I think (a real Thomist may correct me) even the demons had good natures but their characters, as it were, have been perverted.

[Apotheoun]

Human nature is good.

[Hassan]

What is "human nature"?

[desertwoman]

Bad.

[Selah]

[quote name='Hassan' date='17 August 2009 - 09:56 PM' timestamp='1250557015' post='1951529']
What is "human nature"?
[/quote]

If they say why...why...tell em that it's human nature, oh why, why...



[quote]
Wait. Human nature is basically good. Right now though, the human condition--each child born--is blighted by original sin (and still by concupiscence after baptism, though not so badly). [/quote]

May I ask a question? I don't want to go too off topic, but I have always been confused about something.

I understand that Adam and Eve sinned, and that they were punished. But why would we have the same curse of "sin" on us when we never disobeyed God in the garden? Of course we are responsible for our own actions, but why would we be held responsible for Adam and Eve's sin?

Does that make sense? I'll elaborate if it doesn't

[Thomist-in-Training]

[quote name='Selah' date='18 August 2009 - 07:30 AM' timestamp='1250595023' post='1951809']
If they say why...why...tell em that it's human nature, oh why, why...



May I ask a question? I don't want to go too off topic, but I have always been confused about something.

I understand that Adam and Eve sinned, and that they were punished. But why would we have the same curse of "sin" on us when we never disobeyed God in the garden? Of course we are responsible for our own actions, but why would we be held responsible for Adam and Eve's sin?

Does that make sense? I'll elaborate if it doesn't
[/quote]

That makes sense and it's certainly relevant. I am not sure what the answer is and I think I have wondered about it but it goes in circles when I try to figure it out. I think though that for [i]me[/i], I am less confused if I always remember "O happy fault of Adam, which won for us so great a Redeemer!" That is from the Exsultet sung at the Easter Vigil. If you think of "Adam + Eve = Original Sin on us too = Unfair", then you [i]will [/i]get confused. But if you remember "[b]Original S[/b][b]in[/b], Just How it Is Now for the Human Condition--But Can be defeated by Baptism and Grace, Thanks to the [b]Passion of Our Lord Incarnate[/b]" it makes more sense.

That is, This may not help since I don't know why our fate is tied so closely to Adam and Eve any more than you do. But it helps to never think of Original Sin without the Passion + Redemption for us all. Remember, at the same time as Adam and Eve were punished, a Redeemer was promised : "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and [b]her seed[/b]: she [Vulgate; he in some transl] shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel."

While I've been typing this, someone has probably typed a clearer, more theological answer, which won't offend me at all.

[Hassan]

[quote name='Thomist-in-Training' date='18 August 2009 - 08:26 PM' timestamp='1250641586' post='1952284']
That makes sense and it's certainly relevant. I am not sure what the answer is and I think I have wondered about it but it goes in circles when I try to figure it out. I think though that for [i]me[/i], I am less confused if I always remember "O happy fault of Adam, which won for us so great a Redeemer!" That is from the Exsultet sung at the Easter Vigil. If you think of "Adam + Eve = Original Sin on us too = Unfair", then you [i]will [/i]get confused. But if you remember "[b]Original S[/b][b]in[/b], Just How it Is Now for the Human Condition--But Can be defeated by Baptism and Grace, Thanks to the [b]Passion of Our Lord Incarnate[/b]" it makes more sense.

That is, This may not help since I don't know why our fate is tied so closely to Adam and Eve any more than you do. But it helps to never think of Original Sin without the Passion + Redemption for us all. Remember, at the same time as Adam and Eve were punished, a Redeemer was promised : "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and [b]her seed[/b]: she [Vulgate; he in some transl] shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel."

While I've been typing this, someone has probably typed a clearer, more theological answer, which won't offend me at all.
[/quote]

I genuinely thought this was a thoughtful and even beautiful response.


However for me it seems that ultimately this is ultimately saying that the doctrine is justified because God eventually corrected something which never made sense in the first place.

[Thomist-in-Training]

[quote name='Hassan' date='18 August 2009 - 09:51 PM' timestamp='1250646705' post='1952329']
I genuinely thought this was a thoughtful and even beautiful response.


However for me it seems that ultimately this is ultimately saying that the doctrine is justified because God eventually corrected something which never made sense in the first place.
[/quote]

Whoa whoa whoa. I appreciate your appreciation of my response, Hassan. But what I said was that it didn't make sense to me, [Firstname R. Lastname]. That doesn't mean there isn't a real answer that makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of things that I didn't understand once that I do now. Likewise, there are other things that will never make sense to me but are still true (calculus, the function of the aorist in Greek, etc).

[Thomist-in-Training]

[quote name='Thomist-in-Training' date='18 August 2009 - 10:43 PM' timestamp='1250649799' post='1952371']
Whoa whoa whoa. I appreciate your appreciation of my response, Hassan. But what I said was that it didn't make sense to me, [Firstname R. Lastname]. That doesn't mean there isn't a real answer that makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of things that I didn't understand once that I do now. Likewise, there are other things that will never make sense to me but are still true (calculus, the function of the aorist in Greek, etc).
[/quote]

Ahem. That being said, here is a response from the Catholic Encyclopedia written just for this thread (no, not really, published in 1911). I'll summarize it below for those who skip over long blocks of text.

[quote][b]It is unjust[/b], says another objection, [b]that from the sin of one man should result the decadence of the whole human race[/b]. This [i]would [/i]have weight [i]if[/i] we took this decadence in the same sense that Luther took it, i.e. human reason incapable of understanding even moral truths, free will destroyed, the [i]very substance of man changed into evil. [/i]

But according to Catholic theology man has [b]not[/b] lost his natural faculties: by the sin of Adam he has been deprived [size="3"][b]only of the Divine gifts to which his nature had no strict right[/b][/size], the complete mastery of his passions, exemption from death, sanctifying grace, the vision of God in the next life. The Creator, whose gifts were not due to the human race, had the right to bestow them on such conditions as He wished and to make their conservation depend on the fidelity of the head of the family.

A prince can confer a hereditary dignity on condition that the recipient remains loyal, and that, in case of his rebelling, this dignity shall be taken from him and, in consequence, from his descendants.
It is not, however, intelligible that the prince, on account of a fault committed by a father, should order the hands and feet of all the descendants of the guilty man to be cut off immediately after their birth. [That last] comparison represents the doctrine of Luther which we in no way defend. The doctrine of the Church supposes no sensible or afflictive punishment in the next world for children who die with nothing but original sin on their souls, but only the privation of the sight of God. [Denz., n. 1526 (1389)]. [/quote]

Basically, part of what can make it difficult to understand "Why original sin?" is a misconception of what the results of original sin are in each of us. We didn't even deserve of ourselves to be created, so when we are created, we're already "in the black." God had planned to give great gifts beyond this to mankind and part of them were already given to Adam and Eve. They sinned. He, their Creator and King, chose to take back parts of the super-gifts and to withhold others (some theologians argue--I THINK--that otherwise A. and E. and the rest of us would have lived forever. I THINK). But he didn't OWE us these gifts, ever; it is not as if we are totally crippled by original sin; we still have reason: even if it's clouded, we can get pretty far with it.

[MissyP89]

I know the party line says we're all basically good, and I believe that. Of course, we can go downhill after that, or we have the potential to do great things. For that reason, I chose neutral.

[Apotheoun]

When talking about a human being one must differentiate between [i]what[/i] and [i]who[/i], for God is the source of the former reality, while each person is the source of the latter reality.

In other words, [i]what[/i] we are is good, because God made human nature good, while [i]who[/i] we are is either good or bad, depending upon the activity of our free will.

Edited August 19, 2009 by Apotheoun

[sarcasmguy126]

Well, Christians (at least Catholics) believe that everyone is born with the stain of original sin on their soul. Which means that their choices shape them into a "good" or "bad" person. We all have a little bit of badness in us...it just depends on the path we choose, and also whether or not we follow Christ.

Am I right?

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='sarcasmguy126' date='19 August 2009 - 02:56 PM' timestamp='1250715383' post='1952814']
Well, Christians (at least Catholics) believe that everyone is born with the stain of original sin on their soul. . . . We all have a little bit of badness in us...it just depends on the path we choose, and also whether or not we follow Christ.

Am I right?
[/quote]
Nope, you are not correct. I am an Eastern Catholic and I do not believe that anyone is born with a "stain of sin." The ancestral sin made Adam's descendants mortal, but not by nature sinful.

Sin is personal, not natural, and so there is no inherent "badness" in anyone.

Edited August 19, 2009 by Apotheoun