I seriously need help on this question. We are having a debate in my class and I really need some ideas to help defend that man is evil.
Is man evil?
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Genesis 6:5
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Jeremiah 7:24
But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
When you say evil, people envision a person who does all sorts of unspeakable things to his fellow man murder, torture and such. However it is important to note that in the Bible God sees evil in a much broader scope. Evil is sin and sin is born of unbelief.
Hebrews 3:12
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Jeremiah 7:24
But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
When you say evil, people envision a person who does all sorts of unspeakable things to his fellow man murder, torture and such. However it is important to note that in the Bible God sees evil in a much broader scope. Evil is sin and sin is born of unbelief.
Hebrews 3:12
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
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Characteristics of an evil heart:
Stubbornness (Ec. 8:11),
Madness (Ec. 9:3),
Depravity (Je.17:9),
Extortion and excess (Mt. 23:25),
Fountain-head of all evil (Mk. 7:21),
Source of all unbelief and covetousness (Heb. 3:12; 2 Pet. 2:14).
In Christ,
Tracey
Stubbornness (Ec. 8:11),
Madness (Ec. 9:3),
Depravity (Je.17:9),
Extortion and excess (Mt. 23:25),
Fountain-head of all evil (Mk. 7:21),
Source of all unbelief and covetousness (Heb. 3:12; 2 Pet. 2:14).
In Christ,
Tracey
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Man DOES evil, but he wasn't created evil. Man chooses evil, but he evil is not the basic personality trait in man. Babies don't commit evil, they learn to commit evil as they grow up and see others commit evil and cling to evil thoughts.
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Actually, Man wasn't created evil as indicated by lambslave. Adam was our representative and sin entered the world through Adam. Adam chose sin, but now everyone is born with sin..ie Original Sin
Man is depraved. We sin because we are born into sin. That is why they talk about being reborn, because our first life was that of sin and deserving of hell, but our afterlife, 2nd life, is that of being born of the spirit. First in the natural then in the spiritual. When we are reborn in the spirit, good works flows out of us as we are partaking of life through Christ, but before we are born again, we do things out of a selfish depraved state.
Man is Evil:
Man is born as a creature of reason and logic. Look at it this way. Cause and effect.
The only thing stopping man from doing something that is in him is consequences. If the consequences no longer matter, then you have a lawless man. Conformity. Man will conform to the society he lives in and the laws that he thinks is right. Man is still lawless though. Ask for how many people don't wear there seatbelts or speed down the road. These are laws of the land and should be adhered to, yet we are autonomous and set our own laws with conformity to the laws that hold a larger consequence. I hope that helps.
Man is depraved. We sin because we are born into sin. That is why they talk about being reborn, because our first life was that of sin and deserving of hell, but our afterlife, 2nd life, is that of being born of the spirit. First in the natural then in the spiritual. When we are reborn in the spirit, good works flows out of us as we are partaking of life through Christ, but before we are born again, we do things out of a selfish depraved state.
Man is Evil:
Man is born as a creature of reason and logic. Look at it this way. Cause and effect.
The only thing stopping man from doing something that is in him is consequences. If the consequences no longer matter, then you have a lawless man. Conformity. Man will conform to the society he lives in and the laws that he thinks is right. Man is still lawless though. Ask for how many people don't wear there seatbelts or speed down the road. These are laws of the land and should be adhered to, yet we are autonomous and set our own laws with conformity to the laws that hold a larger consequence. I hope that helps.
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Man's instinct is to be sexual and reproduce.
We are created this way to ensure our species survives.
The Bible tells us that lusting is a sin. So unless we get married at the point of puberty. we are inherent sinners in this area, and many more...
We are created this way to ensure our species survives.
The Bible tells us that lusting is a sin. So unless we get married at the point of puberty. we are inherent sinners in this area, and many more...
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We are not ontologically bad, bad in our being, we are morally bad, bad in our choices.
God makes our natures and he makes nothing evil. He makes our bodies and they are not evil. He makes our person but to be a Man is to be a descendent of Adam and to be such is to without sanctifying grace and to suffer the consequences, however, which is, to sin because we are sinners.
However, Christ is the remedy.
To emmajane:
(There is a difference between making love and lust. To make love does not have to include lust.)
God makes our natures and he makes nothing evil. He makes our bodies and they are not evil. He makes our person but to be a Man is to be a descendent of Adam and to be such is to without sanctifying grace and to suffer the consequences, however, which is, to sin because we are sinners.
However, Christ is the remedy.
To emmajane:
(There is a difference between making love and lust. To make love does not have to include lust.)
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Theresa said:
I totally agree with you. Brilliant thought.
But have you ever ventured into the 'sex' threads here? Members who claim to be 'married in the eyes of the Lord' but have yet to obtain a legal marriage certificate, are regularly shot down by other members, who insist that 'unclean' acts are sinful prior to legal marriege.
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I have experienced both, lust and love. The one is ugly, the other is beautiful. Nothing has served to show me better that the only beautiful thing is goodness and lust is not good.
Before I took up theology the only thing I could find to ease my boredom staying home with the kids was romance novels. I would read one almost every night and as such, have read at least a thousand or so. Now, certainly I can only pick out about twenty that were really good and I would like to write one myself but, to go on, I would say that it was okay in the books, which parts I usually skip anyways, but it was okay for them to be together before marriage because they loved each other.
Well, one day I realized that it's not okay because if they would truly love each other they would love each other's souls, and our souls are from God and the only good thing that you can do is God's will. To think you can gain by ignoring His will or His laws is insanity.
Now, insomuch as they mirrored real life, well, it is real. I myself have been guilty of premarital sex but never once did I believe or convince myself that it was OK. It never was so I hid from God or I ignored him in order not to face it until the time that we decided to marry, and then I could come back to Him again. In this day and age I never had any expectations of not engaging in such before marriage.
So, God's law states that to fornicate is against his Will and against His law, as such it is a sin and it is wrong. But, God can bring good out of evil, so for my sin he had given me one child (I now have three) and has given me a wonderful husband, a good life and all that, even though I disobeyed Him. But for all that, evil never became a good. It is truly shattering sometimes to realize the difference.
His mercy is....well, it just is.
Before I took up theology the only thing I could find to ease my boredom staying home with the kids was romance novels. I would read one almost every night and as such, have read at least a thousand or so. Now, certainly I can only pick out about twenty that were really good and I would like to write one myself but, to go on, I would say that it was okay in the books, which parts I usually skip anyways, but it was okay for them to be together before marriage because they loved each other.
Well, one day I realized that it's not okay because if they would truly love each other they would love each other's souls, and our souls are from God and the only good thing that you can do is God's will. To think you can gain by ignoring His will or His laws is insanity.
Now, insomuch as they mirrored real life, well, it is real. I myself have been guilty of premarital sex but never once did I believe or convince myself that it was OK. It never was so I hid from God or I ignored him in order not to face it until the time that we decided to marry, and then I could come back to Him again. In this day and age I never had any expectations of not engaging in such before marriage.
So, God's law states that to fornicate is against his Will and against His law, as such it is a sin and it is wrong. But, God can bring good out of evil, so for my sin he had given me one child (I now have three) and has given me a wonderful husband, a good life and all that, even though I disobeyed Him. But for all that, evil never became a good. It is truly shattering sometimes to realize the difference.
His mercy is....well, it just is.
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good4u
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This is a great question, 13Hankins!!!!
Yes, man is indeed inherrently evil.
You did not say what type of class you are preparing for whether it is a seminary class or a public education class, I will venture the last.
You can support your position without actually using Scripture if it is a public education class, by using biblical principles.
Original sin, in particular. The epistle of Romans does an outstanding job of outlining the origins and nature of sin.
Yes, man is indeed inherrently evil.
You did not say what type of class you are preparing for whether it is a seminary class or a public education class, I will venture the last.
You can support your position without actually using Scripture if it is a public education class, by using biblical principles.
Original sin, in particular. The epistle of Romans does an outstanding job of outlining the origins and nature of sin.
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Original Sin does not prove that Man is evil either, unless you misunderstand what Original Sin is.
Man was created with a body, a soul (life-principle), a spirit, and the indwelling of God, sanctifying grace. The nature of Man is the nature of man deciding what man can and cannot do.
Grace is supernatural. It is beyond our natures. We do not have even the tiniest seed of which we could grow it on our own. We get grace from God or we have not at all.
Adam was created with grace in his soul. Grace is supernatural life within him. Because he had this he had prenatural graces also.
But, he also had free-will. He chose badly and as a result, the indwelling of God, sanctifying grace, left him, and naturally, he lost the preternatural (???) graces too.
So therefore, what was left was Man, a body, a soul, a spirit, free-will. Basically man was left with nature only, the supernatural life died within him.
Original Sin does not state that Man is bad in his being. Original Sin only shows that man is left with nature only. As such, he is weakened however, not totally depraved. A baby is not evil.
So Christ had to come to give the supernatural life back to us, and we have to be reborn with it.
"Genesis 3 does not teach that man is now ontologically bad, bad in his being, but morally bad, bad in his choices. God made our being; we make our choices. Yet it is our state of sinfulness, or seperation from God (our state of original sin), that leads us to make sinful choices (actual sins). The word "sin" comes form the German 'Sunde', which means "seperation." We sin (actual sin) because we are sinners (original sin), just as we sing because we are singers. Sin is not our essence (that remains ontologically good), but it is more than our day-to-day choices, it is our habit, our charachter. Yet this habit or character in turn was cause by Adam and Eve's first "actual sin" or evil choice, symbolized by the eating of the forbidden fruit.
How are we to blame for what Adam and Eve did? We aren't; we are to blame for what we do. But what we do is conditioned by what they did, just as a baby who is born a drug addict because it's mother took drugs during pregnancy, is conditioned by what his mother did. The mystery of heredity is part of the greater mystery of solidarity, of interdependence among individuals, that goes all the way up into the Trinity itself.
The Bible never says we were punished for Adam's sin, but rather that we sinned "in" Adam. There is a mystery of solidarity. Premodern thinkers, less individualistic than we, saw the human race as an organism, like a tree, not an anthill. Each individual (leaf) gets bad sap because the tree as a whole has bad sap. It's not a matter of imitation, of anthill-like "follow the leader," but of incorportation, just as our salvation through Christ is not a matter of our imitating Christ from without but of being incorporated into Christ from within by faith and baptism. (It's all in Romans 6)."
You Can Understand the Old Testament - Peter Kreeft
Man was created with a body, a soul (life-principle), a spirit, and the indwelling of God, sanctifying grace. The nature of Man is the nature of man deciding what man can and cannot do.
Grace is supernatural. It is beyond our natures. We do not have even the tiniest seed of which we could grow it on our own. We get grace from God or we have not at all.
Adam was created with grace in his soul. Grace is supernatural life within him. Because he had this he had prenatural graces also.
But, he also had free-will. He chose badly and as a result, the indwelling of God, sanctifying grace, left him, and naturally, he lost the preternatural (???) graces too.
So therefore, what was left was Man, a body, a soul, a spirit, free-will. Basically man was left with nature only, the supernatural life died within him.
Original Sin does not state that Man is bad in his being. Original Sin only shows that man is left with nature only. As such, he is weakened however, not totally depraved. A baby is not evil.
So Christ had to come to give the supernatural life back to us, and we have to be reborn with it.
"Genesis 3 does not teach that man is now ontologically bad, bad in his being, but morally bad, bad in his choices. God made our being; we make our choices. Yet it is our state of sinfulness, or seperation from God (our state of original sin), that leads us to make sinful choices (actual sins). The word "sin" comes form the German 'Sunde', which means "seperation." We sin (actual sin) because we are sinners (original sin), just as we sing because we are singers. Sin is not our essence (that remains ontologically good), but it is more than our day-to-day choices, it is our habit, our charachter. Yet this habit or character in turn was cause by Adam and Eve's first "actual sin" or evil choice, symbolized by the eating of the forbidden fruit.
How are we to blame for what Adam and Eve did? We aren't; we are to blame for what we do. But what we do is conditioned by what they did, just as a baby who is born a drug addict because it's mother took drugs during pregnancy, is conditioned by what his mother did. The mystery of heredity is part of the greater mystery of solidarity, of interdependence among individuals, that goes all the way up into the Trinity itself.
The Bible never says we were punished for Adam's sin, but rather that we sinned "in" Adam. There is a mystery of solidarity. Premodern thinkers, less individualistic than we, saw the human race as an organism, like a tree, not an anthill. Each individual (leaf) gets bad sap because the tree as a whole has bad sap. It's not a matter of imitation, of anthill-like "follow the leader," but of incorportation, just as our salvation through Christ is not a matter of our imitating Christ from without but of being incorporated into Christ from within by faith and baptism. (It's all in Romans 6)."
You Can Understand the Old Testament - Peter Kreeft
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good4u
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Ms. Theresa,
You talk in circles. If you can't clearly and precisely communicate your points, we have nothing to talk about.
So my post to you is: HUH?
You talk in circles. If you can't clearly and precisely communicate your points, we have nothing to talk about.
So my post to you is: HUH?
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What circles are you seeing?
I am saying quite clearly that man is not evil. To be man is not to be evil, however, to be man is to be prone to do evil. That, however, does not translate as "Man is then totally depraved."
I am saying quite clearly that man is not evil. To be man is not to be evil, however, to be man is to be prone to do evil. That, however, does not translate as "Man is then totally depraved."
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The question is, is man evil? Are babies evil? Are we bad in our being? Did God create us evil? Does God create evil?
The answer to all of the above is "No." To be man is not to be evil. To be man is not to be bad in our being, but to be bad in his choices.
You said check out Romans and original sin. I pointed out what original sin actually is. It is not a sin, it is the absence of sanctifying grace because of the first sin.
If you need me to be clearer, you need to point out what it is exactly you need to understand.
What is your definition of Original Sin?
The answer to all of the above is "No." To be man is not to be evil. To be man is not to be bad in our being, but to be bad in his choices.
You said check out Romans and original sin. I pointed out what original sin actually is. It is not a sin, it is the absence of sanctifying grace because of the first sin.
If you need me to be clearer, you need to point out what it is exactly you need to understand.
What is your definition of Original Sin?
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Oh yes. Are we inherently sinful?
I've been learning about Sanctification and forgiveness for sins, as these have always puzzled me a bit.
Conventional opinion is that we can't be free from sin, hence sanctified, until we die and are judged.
Unless, of course, you're a Saint.
Which, sadly, most of us are not.
La la la...
I'm sinful. I do things every day which are sinful in some way. I don't want to be... I just AM. And generally, I'm pretty regretful afterwards. Additionally, I know nobody else who is never lazy / selfish / greedy etc...
I've been learning about Sanctification and forgiveness for sins, as these have always puzzled me a bit.
Conventional opinion is that we can't be free from sin, hence sanctified, until we die and are judged.
Unless, of course, you're a Saint.
Which, sadly, most of us are not.
La la la...
I'm sinful. I do things every day which are sinful in some way. I don't want to be... I just AM. And generally, I'm pretty regretful afterwards. Additionally, I know nobody else who is never lazy / selfish / greedy etc...
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