Are We Humans Good or Bad?

Ron Simkins – October 28, 2025 2 Comments

Glimpsing- and believing!- how valuable we are in God’s eyes, and how valuable each person is, can be a struggle at times. May the resounding “Yes” to the difficult questions be a window into God’s great Love, as Ron Simkins shares below.–Renée

Please do not misunderstand this short personal essay as the musings of someone who has low self-esteem. Almost never in my life has anyone accused me of having a low self-image. On the other hand, I have more often than I like to think about been accused of my own personal brand of stubborn arrogance. Please read the rest of this essay with that in mind.

I tried to be good until I was twelve. Sitting on a rock fence talking to a friend in East Tennessee, I decided at twelve years old to give up trying to be good. From twelve to nineteen I never once tried to be “a good boy” although I was more than willing to fake “being good” when it was advantageous to what I wanted.

Not surprisingly, when I decided to search for God, I thought it was all about really “trying to be good” again. Sadly, most fundamentalist/conservative Christian theology, and most progressive/liberal Christian theology, only confirmed this mistake.

Thankfully, I had a very wise father who taught me that we often need to reframe our perspective and ask different questions. This perspective has served me well.

I would ask him, “Are we humans good or bad?” He would answer, “Yes.”

I would ask him, “Is the world getting better or worse?” He would answer, “Yes.”

But, when I learned to ask a different question, “Are we humans worth anything, or are we worthless?” My father had a very different answer—“We are more valuable than we can possibly imagine! That is what God is trying to tell us, and that is what God is showing us through Jesus.”

I understand, and sometimes share, the recent tendency to be very critical of Paul. It has been a tragedy that so much of Protestantism has interpreted Jesus in the light of Paul. It is also unfair to Paul who clearly understood himself in the light of Jesus. Paul never quit wrestling with the reality that no matter how hard he tried to be good, he was always both good and bad. Romans 7 describes his personal wrestling with the tension caused by the fact that the more he focused on trying to be good, the more he got in touch with how often he failed to be really good at his core.

Then, like my father’s answer to me, Paul reframed the question in Romans 8. There he reframes the question away from am I good or bad to what is God doing to show us how valuable we are? He concludes that we humans are more valuable than we can imagine. And, like my father’s answer, his answer is that what God is showing us through Jesus is how valuable we humans are to the One who matters most—the God of the universe.

I have only written a few poems in my life, but one of those few was written years ago as I began to learn to reframe the question. It was titled “Romans 7 and 8.”

Damned if I do.
Damned if I don’t.
I probably should;
But I surely won’t.

Loved if I don’t.
Loved if I do.
My only hope?
To be loved by You.

There is nothing “cheap” about the grace that God offers us. It has cost God so much! It has cost Jesus so much! You can tell the value by what those who really know are willing to pay. The cost God and Jesus have paid, and are currently paying, to be with us and love us tells us how valuable we humans are.

I will close with one more quotation in which Paul has reframed the question away from “trying to be good” to “living thankfully out of God’s grace.” There isn’t time or room here to show the Old Testament theme that lies behind the translation “God’s most prized treasure,” but it is a powerful Biblical theme flowing from the Hebrew word segullah—“most prized treasure” translated by the Greek word group peripoiēsiōs.

“You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit because you trusted in the Messiah.  The Holy Spirit is the down payment on our inheritance, which is applied toward our redemption as God’s most prized treasure, resulting in the honor of God’s glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14 mostly from the CEB).

How valuable are we? You? Me? The person sitting next to us? The person, or group, we find difficult? More than we can even imagine! Let’s grow toward living out of that reality!

Ron Simkins 10/28/25