[Terabitten]

is there any biblical justification for the assertion that man’s nature is “basically good”?

I've seen, up close and personal, that mankind is not intrinsically good. I've had dinner with a mass murderer and I've stood up to my waist in piles of the dead.

I do not believe there is any Scriptural justification for the position that man is basically good. There is quite a bit of Scriptural justification for the opposite position, that man is, by nature, evil. Of course, you'd expect a Calvinist who believes in total depravity (or, as R.C. Sproul calls it, radical corruption) to hold that position. :)

[MrB]

The very essence of the Bible is about

Creation, Fall, Redemption, Re-Creation,

with man being intrinsically wicked since the Fall.

I’ve had “Christians” insist that my “interpretation” wasn’t right. However, they mostly just asserted that they “didn’t like that interpretation”. I guess, if you don’t like the main and plain message of the scripture, you have to marginalize it or just call it allegory.

I have yet to have anyone rise to my challenge to come up with scripture justifying that viewpoint
when they assert that man is basically good .

[rbmillerjr]

Hmmm...interesting.

The writer makes a list of arguments that he can’t refute effectively.

Note the humungous list.

Then he says it is not fair to use them. Then a call for end of debate and compliance to the list

Seems like an Olberfuhrer msnbc sort of strategy.

I’d make up my own list on the Protestant side, but I don’t want to insult people’s intelligence.

Yeesh.