Some Are Born Evil and Some Are Born Good?

I think this little conversation was enlightening as to how the liberal anthropology is trapped to conclude that being bad is just a genetic crap shoot.

http://shine.yahoo.com/dailyshot/daily-shot-ali-talks-virgin-phones-dsk-fights-182900640.html

 

If the reason one is bad has been disproved to be environmental, which is still the most popular opinion, even though it clearly is illogical and does not make sense of the data briefly mentioned here, then we are left with either the devil making me do it (which seems to be what this woman thinks "religion" says--I don't know where she got that one, as the Bible says that we are evil because of our lack of a redemptive relationship with God, who is the source of the will to do good--the devil simply provides opportunity for us to express our falleness), or one is left to argue that it's simply genetic, which explains to a secularist why some people are better than others, even when their environment should have dictated otherwise. What this says is that some people are inherently bad and some people are inherently good by virtue of their physical makeup. This is sort of a hybrid view between a gnostic anthropology, where one's physical matter has made one bad, on the one hand, and a Hindu type caste system, where the other group is made physically superior in terms of nobility and goodness than the inferior group on the other. It's interesting that such an observation shows that two humanities do exist. It just makes the wrong call for why they exist and what produces good and evil.

However, what is also interesting is that one must assume what good and evil are in order to conclude that certain people are one group versus the other. This requires a metaphysical knowledge that such a naturalistic attempt to understand humanity has thus far neglected. If all we are are a bunch of genes then actually no one is good or bad in the ultimate sense. Such an observation is subjective imposition upon other people. Maybe the woman speaking is evil and Jeffrey Dahmer good, or maybe they're both neutral, since good and evil can only truly exist if they stem from a transcendent entity, without which, to speak of people in terms of good and evil is simply an archaic religious assumption that no longer has place within a naturalistic paradigm.

Furthermore, one is not likely to define himself as evil. Most of the worst of people in the history of the world thought they were doing something good. Hitler was trying to preserve that more noble humanity that such a liberal anthropology creates. He was trying to lift up his people by destroying and ruling over the bad people. The same goes for Mao, Pol Pot, and pretty much every instigator of genocide that ever existed. Most people don't view themselves as evil people, but as good people; and even if you get them to acknowledge that they do something evil, they still see themselves as good people who just do bad things (or they say that they "make mistakes" in order to lessen the claim that what they do is evil). One man's violent rebellion is another man's fight for independence and liberty from oppression. Who's to say otherwise?

The retreat from environmental causes of evil, which have proven themselves to be completely bogus (environment creates opportunity for one to express his nature; it does not give him a new nature), will not save the concept of good and evil within a liberal anthropology. It will merely speed its demise. The only way back is to acknowledge that God is the standard of good and evil and has communicated clearly the definitions and boundaries of each. Hence, it is possible to redeem the liberal anthropology if in fact God has made some people bad by virtue of genetics and others good, and we can tell that because He says so in the revelation He has provided us. Unfortunately, for the liberal anthropology, His revelation says something very different. Hence, if we are to give the only reasonable answer to concluding that good and evil people exist in the world, we must acknowledge the existence of God and rely upon the revelation God has given us to know what good and evil are and why people do either one of them. In other words, the only reasonable thing to do with the liberal anthropology that assumes that man is either born neutral or basically good is to reject it completely on the grounds that (1) Good and evil exist; (2) Environment does not create a good or evil person; (3) God exists and has given us revelation that good and evil are neither genetic or environmental, but have to do with one's relationship (or lack thereof) with God. 

Again, we see that the Scripture accords with reality, giving us a far better understanding of the data than the contradictory, liberal anthropology can muster.