Are Humans Intrinsically Good or Evil?
My 7th grader wants to know
Are humans inherently “good?”
My daughter is writing an argumentative essay for her 7th grade ELA class about whether humans are intrinsically good or evil.
She argues that people are innately good. đź’” It breaks my heart.
I both love and hate her answer.
She thinks we are good. I love that. It means she sees kindness, compassion, and love so much that she thinks it’s the norm.
But, of course, she thinks humanity is intrinsically good. That’s what we’ve taught her. We’ve protected her.
Our job has been to teach our kids to be good, show kindness, and love others because that’s what we want the world to look like.
But have we taught our kids the truth? Does what we taught them put them in danger?
It’s complicated, right?
I felt like screaming, “No! Humanity is not innately good. We are selfish, power-hungry predators, and I’m not sure why God puts up with our ignorance. The only way we can be good is if we live our lives in surrender to God. But we don’t.”
How do I talk to her about this?
Obviously, I didn’t want to scare her, so I kept those thoughts to myself. Yet I knew I had to have a deeper conversation with her.
“Why do you think people are intrinsically good?” I asked. “How are you going to prove that?”
“God made us in His image,” she answered without a second thought. “We are good because He is good.”
“I like that. But how do you explain why some people are evil?”
“Mom, why do you want me to think people are evil?”
“I don’t. I just want you to understand that we protect you from knowing how much evil there is in people.”
“Do you think humans are naturally evil?”
“I think we are born into a fallen world.”
“Yeah. Me too. But does that make us evil?”
“McKinley, I’m not sure we can be good without God’s help. We are selfish by default. We are self-centered, if nothing else, so we can survive. Only God can help us be different.”
“But God is good, and we are made in His image. Don’t you think that means we are good?”
“You make a good point. I’ll have to think about that.”
“I think we choose evil. I don’t think it is our nature.”
Is my daughter naĂŻve, or am I cynical?
Probably both. Yet I’m not sure how much it matters right now. At this point, it seems like my daughter needs to believe humanity is intrinsically good.
I could argue with her and convince her to see the world through my eyes.
Or I could see the world through her eyes for a while:
God created man in his image, so we are inherently good.
I choose good. And it feels wonderful.
