All People Are Children of God

I just rewatched Elder Brian K. Taylor's talk Am I a Child of God?, and while his message was focused on the individual, reminding each of us that we are all children of God, regardless of anything we've done or anything that's going on in our lives, this answer also reflects another important truth that I plan to write about shortly: All human beings are children of God, even the bad ones.

There have been a lot of bad people in the history of the world. There are plenty of bad people alive on the Earth right now. There is a lot of wickedness in the world, all caused by bad people, but even the worst of those people are still children of God. Even the worst people have divine potential. Even the worst people can repent. Even the worst people who have ever lived can, after several major (but still possible) changes, eventually become perfect.

No one is irredeemably evil. In fact, I might go so far as to say that no one is evil at all. Wicked people do evil things, but I would not say that they themselves are evil. People are imperfect, many are wicked, and all make bad choices from time to time (some, frequently), but that does not make them inherently evil. All humans are human, and all of them are children of God.

Let's try to remember that when we have to deal with the "evil" people we encounter in life. Let's remember that they weren't born evil, and they aren't incurably evil now. Now, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to stop them from doing evil. Of course, we should try to persuade them to do good, and sometimes, force will be necessary to prevent people from harming others, but even when we must use force against others, we must also remember that they are still human and that they are still children of God. Even the worst people can still repent and become better and good people. So let's remember that everyone has divine potential, and let's do what we can to help them repent and try to achieve it.