Are People Basically Good?

Are people basically good? Many seem to think so, but God’s Word says otherwise. Today, R.C. Sproul warns us not to grade our own righteousness on a curve, for the true standard of goodness is the perfect character of God.

We live in a culture that has been so pervasively influenced by the philosophy of humanism, that we’ve heard it said so often, we begin to believe the idea that human beings are fundamentally, basically good. We may do things that are wrong. We grant willingly that no one is perfect. But in the main, we are basically good. A recent Gallup poll was given among professing evangelical Christians in America where over 60 percent of them affirmed the statement that human beings are basically good.

Whereas Paul in the New Testament tells us there is none righteous, no, not one (Rom. 3:10). There is none who does good, no, not one (Rom. 3:12). So we have a collision here between the evaluation of human performance and virtue by our own philosophies, and by that view that is uttered by Christ and by the teaching of sacred Scripture. But it seems such a dire thing for the Bible to say that there’s none righteous, no, not one. There is none who does good at all. What if I said to you, “You are simply no good?” How offensive would that be to you? That would be a terrible insult for me to say to you, “You’re just plain no good.”

Well, you aren’t any good. So, I say it with a smile, but that’s the point that Jesus is trying to make with the rich man. Man, this man, he wants to know how to get to heaven. What do I have to do? Good Teacher, tell me, please. And the good teacher said, “Why do you call me good? Don’t you know that only God is good?” (Matt. 19:16–17). Now, I know that the word good is a word that is a relative term. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not embracing moral relativism, but something can only be deemed to be good or bad against some standard, some norm.

Now, when we say that we’re good, and we think that we’re good, what’s the standard by which we are judging ourselves? The Scriptures indicate that our tendency is to judge ourselves by ourselves and judge ourselves among ourselves, and then adds the evaluation of that—which is not wise, because that’s not the standard that God has established. But we try to grade ourselves on a curve. I look around and I take comfort if I can see somebody behaving in a more godless manner than I do. I will say, “Compared to that fellow, I am a pretty good guy.” But the standard by which God determines goodness is the character of God Himself.

As Calvin once said, that when we keep our eyes on the horizontal level, fixed on this earthly plane, on the terrestrial sphere, we begin to think of ourselves more highly than we ought. We begin to flatter ourselves and consider ourselves as slightly less than demi-gods until once we turn our gaze to heaven and contemplate just for a single second what kind of being God is. If we do that for an instant, suddenly our self-image is shattered, and we realize that if we examine ourselves in light of the character of God, that we must repent in dust and ashes.