Part One: I began the below post two days ago.
I have been struggling with the idea of whether or not man is inherently good by nature. A christian point of view says we are good, because we are God’s creation and he is good, but the world I live in tells me different. When we get power, we are evil. When we get money, we are evil. We abuse, corrupt, molest, steal, cheat, and kill.
Don’t get me wrong, there are good people. But are they acting in spite of their nature or because of it?
This is where being an atheist or naturalist is great. We are neither good nor bad. We just are. We choose what we will be.
This man risked his life to save a stranger, leaving his two daughters behind. He makes me feel like I am good.
Part Two: Tonight I saw Children of Men.
I won’t review it here right now, but possibly soon. The movie’s premise is a world without children is a world without hope. There are many other political and social issues raised by the film but the primary issue is one of hope. At one point, a character is the movie is talking about one of the main characters lives. He says something like “There are two things, faith and chance. His faith led him to his wife, his faith shaped who he was, but then chance came along and caused him great sorrow. In his life, chance won.” This is a very inaccurate summary of what was said, but you get the point. The movie showcased the depravity of man in a way that made you sick to your stomach while watching. Good people died pointlessly. Life had no worth. My wife walked out of the theater saying how much she hated the movie because how bad it made her feel. “Good”, I thought (but obviously didn’t say), it did what was intended. Life without hope is sickening. So what do we put our hope in? Science? The goodness of man? The film shows that both have failed the world. According to the movie, the answer is definitely not governments or even the groups that subvert them.
So what then do we put our “confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing” in?
Part Three: Later this evening, I read page 171 of Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
It had this on it:
Ultimately our gift to the world around us is hope. Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refuses to believe that this is all there is…
Central to reclaiming creation…is the affirmation that when God made the world, God said it was “good”.
And it still is.
I don’t totally agree with everything Mr. Bell says about the nature of God and Christianity, but he makes a good point here. So then do we start a new church called “Hope Meeting Place”? No, thats not the point.
If we live in world that is good, then we have hope. And if we have hope, we can give it out. To the helpless and hopeless.
I have often times pondered this same question. Is man good or evil. As a history teacher I can say as men we do a lot of evil things. And some of the mosr evil people would be the ones that call themselves beleivers in hope. As a Christian I have a belief. That belief influences my way of life and thinking. As a Christian I belief that we are good because Jesus has washed us clean and made us good. Though we continue to d evil. Complicated I know. But then I think about a little child. What is the first concept a young child learns? MINE! Now I might be wrong, but that last time I checked, selfishness wasnt one of the fruits of the spirit. So as young children we often learn to be selfish. SOme would say that they are natural instincts. Instincs of survival. Good point. But does that make selfishness good? Im not so sure.
SO when I look at this conflict between good and evil deep within people I do ponder the question, are we naturaly good or evil?
I think that the evilness we see in this world are signs of brokeness. Whether you one believes in religion or not, anyone can see that we as humans are broken. We work long hours to gain money to buy a 62 inch Plazma TV that will some how move us up on the food chain of life. Yet 3 months later that TV is in for repairs and we are franticly saving so that we can gain our spot back. Humans have an amazing compasity to do good. We can lookat all the evil in this world. Our eyes are always drawn to it. But I think that if we were to take a little time to watch a young person help and elderly person carry their bags to their car, we would see that though sex and violence sells, but as long as there is one person in the world that cares just enough to bring a homless person a warm meal, I think that I can still have hope.
So this on has been bothering me for 2 days now, thanks alot bro!
I’m not sure that we are innately bad or good.
I’d like to say we are by nature good, but this seems contrary to what I have experienced. Like you said in you “Grow Up” post “We feel drawn to touch the darkness. To be ‘deep’, ‘sophisticated’, and ‘adult’.” To be “bad” seems to come very easy without much effort, or some would say, it comes naturally. To quote something a 1st Century Hebrew Philosopher wrote to the Roman world:
“What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.”
But our esteemed philosopher makes another good point. We also despise the bad things that are so easy for us to do. This is especially apparent in this season of making resolutions for change…we know what’s good for us.
By now most of us have stopped working out, started smoking again, forgot the brown bag lunch, and so on. We know what’s good for us but its really hard work to actually execute goodness.
I’m left with really not knowing if this means we are by nature on or the other, I think I’ve got some more reading and experience before I decide (if I ever decide).
BUT… I like what you say about faith, hope, and believing in goodness.
What I do know is that I am happiest and most fulfilled when I believe in a good plan and act in goodness. I think reason that Mr. Autrey’s story you mentioned sends good chills thorough my spine and makes me want to do more good is that our appointment here is to execute goodness. We are programmed to believe in good, feel good when we hear about good, and feel even better when we do good ourselves.
Now that I have worn out the word good, belief/faith, and hope to describe this philosophy of goodness, I would like to introduce one more worn out word. Its one you are familiar with, its goodness in action…love…no not falling in (or out) of love, puppy love, or Hollywood love…but true unselfish love, good incarnate.
To conclude I’d like to quote again our Hebrew friend turned fanatic who I think sums this up pretty well for me:
“But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.”
No one is really good, not even one person. I do believe we can do good but none of us are by nature good. Doing good doesn’t equal a state of being good. Nasty criminals can do good and so can I, we aren’t too far apart. In my humble opinion.
An illustration: If jumping from the earth to the moon was good then we are all about 249,999.999 miles away. Even the most dedicated, unselfish, “good”, person is only jumping at most a few feet higher than the rest of us. We all are left with this overwhelming shortcoming. No amount of good deeds or good intentions can make up the difference.
Depressing? No, actually it is hopeful. If goodness was dependent on our will power and human effort then it would be very hopeless. Like Bro #3 posted we often have good intentions of change and doing wonderful things but we stick with it for a while and then often revert to behavior that we despise.
Don’t get me wrong here, I am not saying we are worthless, no good creations. From a artist or creators point of veiw we are prized creations. The highlight of the gallery, each one of us. The issue is that we in and of ourselves when measured up to what is truly “good” simply fall short (way way way short). That doesn’t mean we are worthless or that there is no hope.
Actually quite the contrary, since we have no hope of being our own saviors and once we give up hoping that we can save ourselves then there is tremendous hope for us.
So are we good? Yes and No.
Yes, if by good you mean are we awesome artwork that is highly prized and unique, then yes we are more “good” than any of us alllow ourselves to see.
No, if by good you mean that if all of who we are and what we can muster up is measured up against who is truly good.
And yes I am biased because I believe in a Creator and Savior here. My goodness is granted to me, I am pardoned of my 250,000 mile shortcoming and I am good.If goodness is not a deposit from the Good One into your empty bank account then the pennies that you have worked so hard to save up will never stack up high enough to equal the millions we need.