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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: The true God lives in the real
Message-ID: <769@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 1-Oct-85 17:55:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.769
Posted: Tue Oct  1 17:55:56 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 7-Oct-85 03:22:58 EDT
References: <667@utastro.UUCP> <-145727674@sysvis> <2210@sdcc6.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 59
Summary: 

In article <2210@sdcc6.UUCP> ix415@sdcc6.UUCP (Rick Frey) writes:
>In article <-145727674@sysvis>, george@sysvis writes:
>> 
>> If the "Bible" teaches that man is basically evil, where is it?  I have 
>> seen no evidence of this.
>> 
>Where to start.  I guess the beginning is the best place.  "And the Lord
>saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every
>intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."  Gen 6:5
>
	But this still doesn't say that humanity is *by* *nature*
wicked, only that at that particular time essentially all men were
*acting* wickedly.

>"All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us have turned to our
>own way."  Isaiah 53:6
>
	Again, a statement of *action*, or *behavior*, not nature or
innateness. It says we *have* gone astray, not that we must do so!

>
 "There is none righteous, not even one; there is none
>who *understands*, there is none who *seeks* for God; all have *turned* aside,
>together they have *become* useless; there is none who *does* good, there is
>not even one.
>
	Note the words I have emphasized, they are all *action* words
in a tense form indicating a *change* of state.

>You're right about man being made in God's image, but two verses help
>show where you've erred Biblically.
>
>"Behold I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they have
>sought out many devices."  I won't claim that this is a great passage
>convicting humanity as a whole of evil, but since many other passages
>do, this one shows God creating men upright and men choosing to go
>wrong.  By the way, it's from Ecclesiastes 7:9.
>
	Which is exactly what was being said, that man's inner being,
as created by God, is good but we have, by deliberate willfullness,
departed from that goodness. Quite different from saying that mankind
is intrinsically evil!

>I'm somewhat unsure myself about exactly where the nature of evil lives.
>I'm a firm believer in free-will and so I lean toward the choice  
>side, that men choose to do evil but I also see alot of scripture
>saying that choice is somewhat built into fallen flesh.

	Well, I would say that it is as much the corrupt nature of a
follen *world* as the nature of humanity. That is we learn evil
because it is all around us and we have very little in the way of the
truly good as an example of how we should behave.
>
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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