Are People Inherently Good Or Bad?

Romans 7:18, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.”

Are people inherently good or bad? The answer is yes, depending on your perspective.

From a Biblical viewpoint, all humans are inherently sinful, wicked and bad, as evidenced by our text passage of Scripture. That is why Jesus Christ came into the world to pay our debt of sin, so that we could freely receive God's gift of eternal life.

But from a practical standpoint, as far as sinful men go, most people have no desire to hurt others. I think most people are inherently good, as far as sinners go. Nearly everyone has their own sinful bad habits, whether it be gossiping, worrying, lust or getting drunk. But despite such bad habits, most people are not evil. That is, they don't intend to hurt others, even though they sometimes do, such as drunk drivers.

I like what an Alaskan state trooper taught his son, who was also a state trooper. His wise father said, “Most people who get into trouble with the law are not bad people, they are just at a bad point in their life.” I like that. Pastor Jack Hyles (1926-2001) taught us preacher boys to view people as being broken, not bad. You don't throw an expensive Swiss watch away when it stops working, you get it fixed. How much more priceless are humans created in God's image! So, we see that from a certain perspective that both ideas are true. Indeed, people are inherently good and bad, depending on how you look at it.

To clarify, I reject humanism. I do not believe that mankind is slowly improving and getting better over time. What saith the Scripture? 1st John 5:19, “And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.” The Apostle John under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit penned those words 2,000 years ago. The world has always been a wicked place. The human race hasn't improved over the millenniums. We have new technologies and increased knowledge in these modern times, but these modern discoveries have merely allowed mankind to travel further down the road we were already on.

I listened to Alex Jones for decades on his Infowars show falsely claim that the human race was improving and would ultimately reach its climatic utopia at some future point. Alex couldn't be more off base! That is humanism. The inspired Word of God teaches that the world is a wicked place, and it always will be, prone to self-destruction. Only 17% of human civilization's history has been without war. Think about that! Read Romans 3:10-23 if you want to learn what God thinks about the human race.

And yet God the Father loves us so much, that He sent His only begotten Son into the world to die on a cross in our place, so that we could freely receive eternal life as a gift (Romans 6:23).

I like the 1982 song by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, Ebony And Ivory, in which secular song we hear the lyrics, “There is good and bad in everyone.” That is very true. But please don't overlook the Biblical truth that even though there is good in everyone, we are wicked sinners by birth and by nature according to Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (cf. Romans 7:11-25).

We are all wicked sinners by nature. We were born that way, spiritual dead, alienated from God (Ephesians 2:1-2). But even the vilest sinner still has some capacity to do good. Gangster Al Capone (1899-1947) was infamous for having his competitors murdered during the Prohibition era in the 1920s. As a kid, I loved watching The St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago on television each year. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre occurred on February 14, 1929, when seven members of Chicago's North Side Gang were murdered by assailants disguised as police officers, believed to be ordered by rival gangster Al Capone. This event marked a significant moment in the violent gang wars during the Prohibition era.

Yet, the world's most infamous mobster ran a free soup kitchen for suffering Chicagoans during The Great Depression. Even the Devil does good things to deceive his victims and hide his true nature. Ironically on Al Capone's gravestone is the epitaph, “My Jesus Mercy.” Did Mr. Capone go to Heaven in 1947? I sure hope so, but dear reader, he was a devout Italian Roman Catholic. Catholics do not trust solely in Jesus Christ, they trust in the sacraments of their ungodly cult. Catholics trust in The Blessed Virgin, Mary. I sadly doubt Capone's salvation.

Two hours before his death Capone received the last rites from his parish priest, Monsignor Barry Williams. When he died newspapers reported that during his lifetime “he was blamed directly or indirectly for 500 deaths.” During his criminal career historical accounts relate that he made between $60 and $100 million a year in illicit profits. Hebrews 9:27, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” The $64,000 question is did Al Capone trust exclusively in the finished redemptive work of Jesus; or did he trust in the sacraments and non-existent power of Catholic priests to absolve his sins? We'll find out one day when we reach the afterlife ourselves.

 

People are both inherently good and bad. I have met some moral sinners throughout my lifetime, who were good people even though they weren't saved; and I have also met some rotten evil saints of God, who were contemptible and injurious toward others. The false prophets in Matthew 7:21-23 boasted of having done “many wonderful works,” but they went to Hell forever. And yet we read in the Old Testament about Jacob who ruthlessly cheated his own brother, and David who murdered one of his own soldiers to steal his wife. It doesn't matter if people are saved or lost, we are all capable of both good and bad things.