Monday, January 19, 2009

Plantinga: The Fall

I have often been torn over the essence of man.  Is he basically evil or good?  In this question I often lean towards the side of man being basically evil.  So much evil occurs in the world that it seems man cannot possibly be good at heart.  Brothers kill brothers, men commit heinous crimes and it seems the hurt never ends.   Even in my own heart I detect an evil, which seems infect every part of my being.  I have also heard the argument, however, that man was created good in God’s eyes.   All men became sinners but the fall did not change human essence.  I tend to disagree with this argument but that is beside the point.  Whether or not man is basically evil or good is not the point.  It is a simple fact that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  We have all broken the natural moral Laws that were put in place from the beginning of time.  Thus, we need Jesus Christ to redeem us and restore the possibility of a relationship with God.  This theme has been presented many times in the blog but I believe it is very important to Christianity.  It is a vital part of our relationship with Christ to humble ourselves and remember that we are horribly flawed.  We cannot achieve salvation on our own.

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