"innate goodness" (Was: JKR's Messages)

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 121004


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
> 
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
> <justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
> > 
> > Carol earlier:
> > > > I don't know about either of you, but I'm bothered by the 
> word "innate," which suggests that their goodness is inborn--a 
> concept very much at odds with the idea of choice. snip> > > > > 

> > Carol again:
> > "Innate" means both "inborn" and "essential to." 
> > 
> > Here's Merriam-Webster's definition in case mine is unclear:
> <snip>
> > 
> > So if Harry and company are "innately good," goodness is part 
> of their *essence* and therefore unchangeable and 
> incorruptible.<
> 
> Pippin:
> Um, that's too much of a leap for me.  Regardless of  what 
> essence means in our world, how can any  'essence' be 
> unchangeable and incorruptible in a world where a 
> mild-mannered human can become a raging werewolf? 

Tonks:

I think JKR is using the idea of innate as in the concept that 
Humans are created as good. (as opposed to the Calvinist idea that 
they are basically flawed and in need of redemption.) They can 
choose to change who and what they become over time by the choices 
that they make. Being basically good does not mean that they can not 
make mistakes and bad choices. It means that their bad choices do 
not make them bad to the core. They can however CHOOSE to become 
something other than what they were created to be, as LV had 
apparently done. But this is not done easily and takes both a 
conscious choice to go against ones true nature and a long series of 
deliberate bad choices over time.

As to the term essence. There is a concept that involves the essence 
of a person, and the energies of a person. They are not the same. 
The energies are the events in time and space. The essence exist 
outside of time and space.

Tonks_op