Is Humanity Inherently Evil? | The Story of God

I've come to meet Baptist Reverend and theologian Cutter Calloway to find out whether original sin means we are all evil at heart.

"Pleasure to meet you."

"Thank you, have a seat."

"Thank you. Which book were you reading?"

"The first few chapters of Genesis. That is exactly what I want to talk about, and what I want to talk about is sin. What is original sin?"

"Well, it's a good question. The Christian tradition kind of coined original sin and some primal desire that we all have. That's a very basic human urge or impulse. Because Adam sinned, that original sin was passed on from one generation to the next, perpetuated generation after generation after generation."

"I have recently spent some time with a person who we could say personifies evil. And you just said, 'Why did you do these things?' And he would say, 'That’s just me.' Like, 'I’m not beyond that.' I don't know. Now that's inherent evil, wouldn't it?"

"What you saw, you could name that as a sort of demonic thing. This is demonic. It's demonic, but I think it's important for us to acknowledge that there is a little bit of him in all of us. There's something inherent in us that seems to bend itself towards death and violence."

"Is there a devil, or is that just a metaphor?"

"It is a metaphor, and also the devil is real."