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Published by Jeff
on Friday, May 25, 2007 at 5:56 PM. 
A friend of mine told me that she believes that everyone is basically good, but through bad experiences they change for the worse. I cannot see it that way. Why did the first bad experience happen?
I believe we have a trace of goodness in our spirits because we are the handiwork of God who created us. However, just being born into this fallen world with the fallen genes of our ancestors wrecks that goodness. We then have to learn to tap into it again. However, we are incapable of doing this on our own.
My point is that we are all born self-centered and have to learn not to be. My friend countered that babies aren't self-centered and that is why she believes that we learn to be self-centered.
Babies are the HEIGHT of self-centeredness. I told her that I have never NOT seen a self-centered baby! They want and want and want. They have to have this or cry. They are VERY self-centered. When was the last time you saw a baby put someone else in front of his own needs? They don't know how to NOT be self-centered. I am not blaming them; I'm merely pointing out an observation.
She argued back that babies only do that because they are trying to survive.
My answer was, "Fine, so they have an excuse. It is still self-centered. They have to learn not to be. They have to be taught to share when they are old enough to understand. If they were born "good" and selfless, there would be no instruction needed. We don't have to teach them to suckle, do we? However, we surely have to teach them to share.
Ironically, on the day of my discussion, I found an ally in the newspaper. Billy Graham writes an article and addressed this. This is what he wrote:
". . . most of our problems have a deeper cause: the greed and selfishness of the human heart. Jesus said, 'For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander' (Matthew 15:19)."
Most people will not want to believe as I do. I didn't want to believe it either. What we want to believe is irrelevant to the truth, however. We live in a fallen world and it is all we can do to daily climb out of it enough to not suffocate from our own odor.
A friend of mine told me that she believes that everyone is basically good, but through bad experiences they change for the worse. I cannot see it that way. Why did the first bad experience happen?I believe we have a trace of goodness in our spirits because we are the handiwork of God who created us. However, just being born into this fallen world with the fallen genes of our ancestors wrecks that goodness. We then have to learn to tap into it again. However, we are incapable of doing this on our own.
My point is that we are all born self-centered and have to learn not to be. My friend countered that babies aren't self-centered and that is why she believes that we learn to be self-centered.
Babies are the HEIGHT of self-centeredness. I told her that I have never NOT seen a self-centered baby! They want and want and want. They have to have this or cry. They are VERY self-centered. When was the last time you saw a baby put someone else in front of his own needs? They don't know how to NOT be self-centered. I am not blaming them; I'm merely pointing out an observation.
She argued back that babies only do that because they are trying to survive.
My answer was, "Fine, so they have an excuse. It is still self-centered. They have to learn not to be. They have to be taught to share when they are old enough to understand. If they were born "good" and selfless, there would be no instruction needed. We don't have to teach them to suckle, do we? However, we surely have to teach them to share.
Ironically, on the day of my discussion, I found an ally in the newspaper. Billy Graham writes an article and addressed this. This is what he wrote:
". . . most of our problems have a deeper cause: the greed and selfishness of the human heart. Jesus said, 'For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander' (Matthew 15:19)."
Most people will not want to believe as I do. I didn't want to believe it either. What we want to believe is irrelevant to the truth, however. We live in a fallen world and it is all we can do to daily climb out of it enough to not suffocate from our own odor.
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