Are Men Born Sinners? - Library of Theology

possible to make mankind miserable and unhappy. But God's law is declaratory. He has
declared to us the law of our nature. He has declared to us the same law of right and
wrong that is founded in and revealed to us by our nature, necessities, and relations as
moral beings.
3. Jesus recognized that there is a common standard of right and wrong revealed to all
men when he gave the Golden Rule: "And whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." Matt. 7:12 If men did
not have a common knowledge of right and wrong revealed to them in and by their
nature, they could not obey the Golden Rule because obedience to the Golden Rule
depends upon a subjective knowledge, common to all men, of right conduct toward
others.
4. The claim that morality is only a changing thing, which is established in each time
context by the society in existence, has missed the point. For although it is true that
different societies accept or permit things that other societies do not permit, still, man's
innate convictions of right and wrong remain the same. What a man or a society will
permit and the convictions of conscience are two different things. For instance, a man
may himself be a thief and a liar. But does that mean that he has no convictions against
stealing or lying? If someone steals from him, will he claim that there is nothing wrong
with stealing? What liar ever said, "I see nothing wrong with lying. I love and admire
liars. In fact, I just love it when people lie to me." Or what murderer would ever say, "I
see nothing wrong with murder; in fact if someone attempted to murder me, I would put
up no resistance at all."
5. If there were no common standard of right and wrong revealed to man by his nature,
we could have no human government. In fact, human government would be a mere
imposition were it not for man's moral nature and would be ridiculous, as ridiculous as a
moral government over animals. The very fact that men do have human government
shows that men know themselves to be responsible moral agents. It shows that they have
innate convictions of right and wrong, and that they have a conscious knowledge of
responsibility and accountability.
6. But the fact that human government is judged to be unjust, if it makes arbitrary law or
imposes unjust penalty, shows that there is an ultimate standard of right and wrong a law
revealed in our nature which all men know and appeal to. For instance, let a judge decide
that he wants to sentence a convicted murderer to only one day in jail, and see if society
does not rise up as one man to denounce the injustice of the sentence! But what does
society appeal to in pronouncing the sentence unjust? Of course, it appeals to that selfevident
standard of right and wrong which is revealed to all men in their moral nature. Or
let us imagine that all the laws of our land are repealed overnight, and new laws are
imposed such as the following: "It is a felony, punishable by life imprisonment to do
anything good for your neighbor. All citizens are required by law to seek the misery and
hurt of their neighbor. Therefore, all citizens are required to lie, steal, kill, and in other
ways abuse their neighbors and seek to deprive them of their rights. In keeping with this
new law (which cannot violate any absolute standard of righteousness and justice, since