2.9 Human Behavior (OB9)

The question of whether man is inherently “good” or “evil” has inspired many poets and philosophers to produce a plethora of theater plays, poems, and tales. All philosophies are based on the assumption that man is inherently good (e.g., humanism, Marxism). Let us now consider the evolutionistic view.

Evolution: Many statements confirm the unanimous opinion that man is aggressive and selfish. Joachim Illies [I1, p. 85], a biologist, writes, “The human fist, as a means of showing and implementing aggression, is in fact a tangible proof for the development of man.” A biologist from Freiburg, Hans Mohr [M2, p. 16–17], emphasizes this further: “The origin of man, as Homo sapiens, occurred towards the end of the Pleistocene—as a result of natural selection in a battle with other hominids and other men. An irrefutable conclusion is that hate and aggression and the tendency to kill are inherent . . . murder, homicide, torture, and genocide characterize the cultural history of man. The murdering children of Pol Pots are no singular excess, but the rule. It should be obvious that even the ritualization of murder to the point of being acceptably cultivated, as in knightly battles and duels and in Haager’s war ordinances, has the same genetic origin as blind, merciless, lustful murder.” Mohr is compelled to ask: “How did we acquire these appalling genes?” His answer that the eggshells of evolution still cling to us fits well in the evolutionary scheme of things, but it is biblically false, as we shall see now.

The Bible: Human nature is by no means described by the Bible as good. A clear picture of God’s diagnosis of man’s condition emerges from only a few passages:

Genesis 8:21: “. . . every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.”

Psalm 14:3: “All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

Isaiah 1:5–6: “Your whole head is injured, your whole heart is afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness.”

Matthew 15:19: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”

The factual conclusions about human nature in the Bible and in evolutionistic thought are similar. But the causes of this reality lie worlds apart. What evolution describes as an inevitable heritage from the animal kingdom, the Bible regards as a consequence of sin. This crucial event marks the change from “image of God” (Gen. 1:27) to an evil (Gen. 8:21), mortal (Ps. 90:5–9), and lost being (2 Cor. 4:3). Man was not created evil, but only became evil after he had sinned. Two fundamentally different and divergent paths follow: If man is sinful, then he requires salvation (see paragraph 8.5); if his evil state is a result of his evolutionary origin, then salvation is of no concern.