So if we are not born virtuous, if virtuous acts are acts that we must carefully work to cultivate in ourselves, then we must also be born with a propensity toward non-virtuous acts. But if we agree to characterize non-virtuous acts as evil (i.e., not good), even allowing for degrees to which they may be evil, then we should conclude that we humans have a built-in propensity for evil.
Nevertheless, we could also argue that alongside our propensity for evil, we also have a propensity toward the good.
As is well known, when Christianity came along centuries after Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, St. Paul and St. Augustine conspired to construct the doctrine of original sin.
Especially with Augustine, the doctrine of original sin is advanced along with his two-way way of thinking (i.e., good versus evil). But is Augustine's two-way way of thinking an advance over the three-way way of thinking that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle worked with? Doesn't two-way thinking suggest that we may have a fifty-fifty chance of hitting the mark? By comparison, doesn't three-way thinking suggest that our chances of possibly hitting the mark are less than fifty-fifty? I'm glad that I'm not a betting man, so I don't have to bet of these things.
The most basic way to understand the doctrine of original sin is to understand it as claiming that we humans are not born virtuous, an understanding of the doctrine of sin that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle could readily grasp.
Now, in the Christian tradition of thought over the centuries, the major implication of the doctrine of original sin was that we humans have a propensity for not being virtuous. In short, we have a built-in propensity for evil. We are born with this propensity for evil, and no human escapes being born with this propensity for evil.
It is now time for me to mention and discuss the puzzling statements that Wolfe makes. He says, "I do not believe we ever should [grant] that every single person has internalized a capacity for evil" (page 76).
Granted, there may be a catch in his wording here regarding "internalized a capacity for evil." He seems to imply that we are not born with a capacity for evil, as the doctrine of original sin has been understood to imply, however vaguely. The doctrine of original sin to the contrary notwithstanding, our human nature from birth onward does not include a capacity for evil, he seems to imply in the quoted statement. Instead, when we do find people who evidently do have a capacity for evil, we should infer that they somehow acquired and internalized a capacity for evil, he seems to imply. They weren't born with such a capacity as part of their human nature, he seems to imply.
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