Natural goodness, eh?
This little essay by Rushdoony, first published in 1999, packs a sharp punch.
https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/the-cultural-war
“Culture war” has been with us for most of my life. Rushdoony boiled it down to Original Sin vs. the “natural goodness” of man.
Let’s scratch our heads over this. The world has just finished fighting World War II, complete with the Holocaust and the atomic bomb. Then war springs up in Korea.
And the world’s intellectuals, and more than a few churchmen, want us to believe that man is naturally good? For that to be true, God’s word must be wrong. So they set themselves up as “God’s editor” and proceed to correct all the mistakes they say He made. Poor God. What would He do without us?
Original Sin vs. natural goodness: “This is the dividing line,” Rushdoony wrote. And we can forget about trying to merge good and evil. All you get out of that is good that used to be good but now is corrupted by evil.