So I keep using this phrase in my talks, and it occurred to me that I should explain this a little better.
When talking about humans, we tend to use the rough phrases “good person” and “bad person.” We generally know what we are talking about. Someone whose character and actions are respectable, or conversely horrible. But in reality, there are not “good people” and “bad people.” There are just “people.” People who do all kinds of good and bad things.
So in the discussion of humans, which is almost all we talk about, in order to discuss them well, we must have to have some sort of theory of human nature. And that theory has to be able to correctly describe both you AND me. Both Mother Theresa AND Hitler. Biden AND Trump. Your angelic child AND your difficult child. Your best friend AND your worst enemy. Me at my best AND at my worst.
We have all heard it said, “I believe people are basically good.” Adolf does not fit into that description. The evil he unleashed on the world cannot be quantified. As Herr Evil was human, as were Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot, our theory of human nature must account for them.
The view I hold is that all people are bad.
This is the biblical view.
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9
It is clear top to bottom that no one is good.
“9 What then? Are we Jews[a] any better off?[b] No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being[c] will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Romans 3
Evryone is broken, and fallen, and sinful, and selfish, and self-interested.
“But Ginger… you can’t tell me I am the same as Fauci! No way that even the small pile of good works I have done doesn’t elevate me above him, what with him standing in the twenty foot moral trench he dug for himself and stands in arrogantly!”
That is what I am saying. God is good, he is the moral standard, and we all stand shoulder to shoulder before him. No one is good.
But there is a difference between me and Fauci. We both sin, but one of us, when realizing we are doing it, stops, admits to it, and gets to making it right.
They way I see it, there are two kinds of people in this world. Sinners and repentant sinners.
One recieves God’s mercy, the other does not even ask for it, because he never thought he was wrong in the first place.
"Simul Justus et Peccator."
Thank you for this piece and for your work over the years. Your presence in the community has meant a lot to me.
I hope you’ve connected with this lady. She is my friend, an autism mom, a voice for truth, and you certainly seem like kindred spirits.
https://avoicefortruth.com/the-beauty-and-burden-of-the-knowledge-of-evil/
Yes! I was just explaining to my kids today about the evil and sin that is in all of us from birth if we don’t repent. So many do not want to acknowledge the evil and sin. I think my oldest two are ready to read The Lord of the Flies. I hated that book but it is a good example of the sin in all of us and our need to be taught about good and evil and our need for a Savior. Unrepentant and repentant sinners. At any point, the unrepentant can snap out of it and choose a new master. Even the thief on the cross, just before his death.