“I was arguing what is commonly called “the free-will defense”, which along with the “soul-making defense”, is the most common explanation that Christians offer for the existence of evil. And this guy answered by saying that if God created humans who freely decide to sin, they sin because God must have created them with a desire to sin. That there is a part of the constitution of humans that causes them to pick evil. So that stumped me. Like, what was it that caused Eve to choose to disobey such an easy commandment?”
Gen 3: 1. “…did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2. The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3. but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die. 4. “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5. For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.””
One thing that is never really addressed in any of the attempts to counter PoE arguments is the actual construction of human beings. It’s kind of like this, we are all humans, and every human person since the first two humans are also humans, and so with any experience in life at all, we can identify with the behavior of other humans.
So when Paul says, “oh wretched man that I am, who can save me from this body of death?”, we can say, amen brother, me too. This is our lived experience and Biblical truth.
Does anyone have any ideas as to why Adam and Eve, whom God called “very good” would fall so easily? And I’ll point out that the actual biblical text says:
Genesis 1: 31. “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.”
It says that God “saw” that it was very good. This is important because it comes up again and again. Like when Jesus said in John 5:19. “Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he SEES his Father doing”
So how is it that Adam and Eve were so easily bamboozled? What are your thoughts?
There are NO WRONG ANSWERS FOLKS! I hope we get a few perspectives.
Full disclosure, I am writing the book. I’ve had adversarial scrutiny for years which has turned out well. However, my conclusions could still absolutely be wrong. I’ll trust my brothers and sisters to bring their own Spirit-led observations. It’s substantially finished - I’m not looking for new material. Just checking whether those conclusions seem true to mature spirit-led believers.
Evil isn’t a positive force but a lack or corruption of goodness. Just like darkness is the absence of light or cold is the absence of heat. Evil isn’t created but arises when existing good is diminished or perverted, making it a deficiency rather than a self-existent entity.
Now, some say God created humans with the desire and ability to sin; therefore, sin must be evil, and sin must be created by God. This is simply not true. Evil depends on good for its existence; it’s a defect or lack in goodness, not a thing in itself. The fact that evil has a parasitic nature, aka, evil cannot exist without good existing first, which is what leads some to the point of view of it being created by God at the same time.
Evil is a twisted form of good. Illness is the absence of health, murder is the absence of life, and sadly, rape is the perversion of sex. Evil corrupts or removes inherent good.
Both the fall of Lucifer and the fall of man are the same sin. Both caused a massive falling away, death, and destruction. Pride told him that he did not need God, that he was God. That he was as smart as and as important as God Himself. He “said in thine heart,” “I will be like the Most High.”
He did not feel he needed to answer to God. He tried to become God. You know the rest of the Story. God smacked him down to the Earth, He took from him any authority He gave him, and cursed him forever. Then God made man. He gave man all the authority over the Earth that God had made and gave to him. He made man even more important than angels themselves. This did not sit well with Lucifer, who even had his name stripped from him and became Satan. How did he cause the fall of man? Pride.
Notice what Satan told Eve was the reward for disobedience. He told her, “Ye shall be as gods.” What goes through your mind when you hear something like this? You no longer answer to anybody, you are the most important thing in the World. You are better than anyone or anything else. You are the best and the greatest. You are now number one.
They disobeyed God, why? To become as gods. They did it for the same reason Satan did. The only difference is that Satan thought it up in his own heart, and Adam and Eve had to be tempted with it. It is the same sin. Pride. What happened? Detachment, emptiness, isolation, loneliness, lonesomeness, quarantine, reclusiveness, seclusion, separateness, solitariness, wilderness, withdrawal. Satan fell to the Earth. God removed Himself from the Earth and humankind.
Satan is not a god. He is a created being also. All he can do is take what already is good, twist it, and give it back as evil. I hope I explained that well.
My thoughts and maybe it’s already been covered. Don’t know. Hope not.
The Bible doesn’t say Eve sinned, only that she was deceived. 2 Cor 11:3 Adam sinned because he knew what he was doing. The way I read it, God’s instructions were given to Adam only and I assume he was to share that with Eve. But she didn’t get it completely right because she mentioned not touching the tree and that wasn’t in God’s commandment. He only said not to eat from it.
So Eve was deceived by the serpent and Adam knew he was disobeying God when he took the fruit and ate it. In a way, Adam is a type of Christ. I think he ate the fruit in order to join his wife who he knew was now lost. He could have refused and watched her die or he could join her in that death. Death is what God said would happen and it did. Spiritual death immediately and physical death later. So Adam gave himself up and identified with Eve. Much like Jesus who set aside His Godly powers and identified with man.
Great question @Peanut . I would certainly agree that they couldn’t make a “fully informed” choice.
How might they be enabled to make a fully informed choice? Or how might the Angels be enabled to make a fully informed choice as well? Or any of us?
We learn about good (and evil), through our life experiences, either by observing both in others, or through our own first-hand experience. The goods and the evils that we choose to participate in.
In the case of Adam and Eve, however, there were no possible good/evil experiences available to them, except one.
From my perspective, the Bible teaches that they made the decision to sin together. It says that she ate, and she gave some to Adam, who was with her, and he ate as well. So it seems that they participated in the same sin, together, and for the same reason.
I understand that there could be an element of misdirected pride. I tend more to think that the Bible gives quite clearly their immediate cause for sinning.
“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”
Good for food, pleasing to the eye, desirable for gaining wisdom. It doesn’t say that they wanted to pridefully throw off the shackles of God, and take over control of their own lives, or anything like that.
No, what happened is that Eve (and Adam) took the fruit, looked at it, and decided that the best thing they could do at that moment was to eat it. Simple as that. Do whatever they believed was in their best interest at the moment. So they did eat it. And they ate it in spite of God’s clear commandment.
Their great sin, that opened the evil can of worms for all humans ever born since (except one), was that they decided to NOT BELIEVE GOD. Their sin was to not take God at His word, but rather accept counterfeit from any source. And this would include their expansion of God’s commandment. She had added “we’re not to touch it”, which we can only speculate as to how that addition happened. Perhaps they talked it over, and added that restriction “just to be safe”. But what happens when we add any sort of additional words to God’s word? They aren’t true. And since they aren’t true, they weaken our commitment to the actual truth. A compromise of our own restrictions tends to make it easier to throw off God’s restrictions.
But we still haven’t solved the problem, since it seems that if they made that decision, it’s still because of the way that God made them.
It seems to me that there are two parts to this dilemma. God called them very good, so what was “very good” about the way that He made them?
Suppose He made them (and all humans that followed) with a fundamental characteristic, that we ALWAYS make the choices that we believe are in our best interest, at that moment. How would that be very good?
In the case that they (and we) ALWAYS believe every word of God, we would never sin. Because we know beyond any fraction of doubt that sinning against God at every moment is never in my best interest. If Adam and Eve had deeply, continuously believed God when He said “in the day that you eat of it, you will die”, they would never have eaten. Sure they were deceived, and sure they may have exercised a bit of pride, but the real sin that caused their sinful actions was unbelief.
If humans always do what they think is in their best interest at the moment - “very good”, unless they fail to believe every word of God. Then it becomes very bad.
Well, my brother, this is what I woke up thinking this morning…
At the core of our discussion is the idea of deception, and man’s capacity to be swayed by it.
And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Gen 2:9)
It is no accident that the two specific trees mentioned were said to be in the midst (תָּוֶךְ tāwek̠, core, heart, surrounded by the others) of the garden. This designation points to their status and their intentional importance. Only one sat under prohibition, only one sat proverbially at the end of a dark path whose entrance was marked with a “No Trespassing” sign.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen 2:16-17)
The Kogae Tree (Kogae = knowledge of good and evil, pronounced kṑ’-jḕ ) was set in a prominent place and designated as off-limits. The tree was not evil, the fruit was not toxic. It sat prominently among all good trees which were “pleasant to the sight and good for food”; it looked appealing, and it was nutritious as it was a good-product of The Creator. Man already had a well-formed experiential knowledge of good. He lived in a garden flowing with nutrition, and walked with The Holy Creator in warm fellowship. Good was a constant experience; he was not in lack of knowledge of good, he only lacked experiential knowledge of “anti-good”. The unique quality of Kogae fruit that had any harmful effect on man was that to eat of it one had to ignore the “No Trespassing” sign and experience “disobedience”. In so doing, he would gain experiential knowledge of evil. Disobedience brought the experience of un-good; in disobedience man would feel evil with all its accompanying damage. The evil was not untrue, it is truth that we don’t need. It is this experiential knowledge of evil that God declared to be unnecessary for our health, wellbeing, and continued enjoyment of fellowship with Him. We can live without it. Man was given a well-lit path to walk, the word of God being the guiding lamp (Ps 119:105) To investigate and experience the evil of disobedience is to walk past the “No Trespassing” sign; to venture the un-lit path, to peer into a black-hole with gravity so severe that all matter is compressed into near nothingness, even light cannot escape. We can live without it, but something draws us into it. Deception.
Deception is the enemy. It minimizes, and/or occludes just enough truth to appeal to our wondering intellect while enticing us through inattention toward the black-hole of disobedience. If our need for knowledge and experience is not fully satisfied with the word of God, we will be subject to the ubiquitous gravity of black-hole deception. To be fully satisfied with the Word of God is to walk by faith, and not by sight; to walk in the light and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its nagging lusts. It is to walk in complete dependence, relying solely on the Word of God, eating the good fruit, and not relying on our own faculties.
Once again, we are being asked to ignore the “No Trespassing” sign; to stand near the Kogae tree and contemplate its fruit. We are not being asked to disobey, we are only being asked to examine the fruit, to weigh it in our hands, to smell its aroma, to observe its beauty, and behold its enticing wonder. The temptation is to put some of our weight on that which will not sustain us, to tiptoe daintily on unsteady floorboards, to build a doctrine on that which has not been revealed, to walk close to the fire and trust ourselves to know how close is too close. There are lots of good trees in this garden from which we may freely eat. With all due respect to our OP, I’m encouraging us to take our picnic into another part of the garden. Maybe I’m “gun-shy” but I’ve personally learned this lesson years ago, and I won’t forget it. I’m apprehensive of this path we are on.
We all have died through disobedience. Holy God, in His great mercy, has experienced evil death so we could be freed from our death, and reborn from above. Being born from above, we have metaphorically been placed back into the Garden of Eden, in warm fellowship with The Truth, once again walking with Him in the pleasant cool of the mornings, picking luscious fruit, and enjoying the juices running down into our beard. He still warns us, “Of every word in the Word of God we may freely eat, but of the Kogae you shall not eat.” It is still unnecessary for us to understand evil, it does not enhance our relationship with The Truth, it only decays it. Our responsibility is to walk perfectly in step with our Creator, to learn Truth and feed on it continually, to eschew evil….
For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. (Eph. 5:12-13).
Walk as children of The Light.
Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen. (Matt. 28:18-20)
@kpuff - you really come through brother! I appreciate this post so much, because I think you’ve articulated a viewpoint that a lot of Christians might feel deep down, but would be unlikely to share in a public forum.
And I can share 100% of your “wishful thinking that things were different”. And I don’t mean that in any way insulting - we all wish things were different.
My one quibble might be with this -
But I might not be understanding exactly what you mean. If by “understand evil” you mean that we shouldn’t dive into experiencing our own evil, I agree 100%. No one is saying that. What I am saying is that every fulsome definition of “good” includes the word “evil” as a reference point. We can’t fully understand one without understanding the other.
It’s very necessary for us to understand what evil is. Eternity is a long time. It’s the reason that we are here in human flesh for this very short time on earth. It’s the reason that God created this universe.
And I have zero hesitation to explore what we actually are, as humans. I’m not offering my understanding as holy scripture. As I said, I could be 100% wrong on those points. With regard to this first thread, I’m saying that it seems likely that God created humans in such a way that we always do what we believe is in our best interest, at the moment. Emphasis on BELIEF. Makes logical sense, aligns with our experience, and there are no misalignments with scripture that I know of.
“Why God doesn’t love me enough to allow me even a sliver of hope for a future, with or without my husband. What am I doing wrong that I am not deserving of Gods mercy and grace, of love and security, of compassion? No one can answer that question and so I continue to suffer while desperately reaching out to others for some form of clarity. I need a miracle.”
Just one example (out of dozens daily, just on this forum) of why it would be good for us to understand “why evil?”, and “is God responsible?”
Yes, yes, yes. I surely get where you are coming from. I see things the same way, as far as I can tell. I genuinely appreciate all you have shared, and I look forward to reading your book, once it is published.
My caution is that there is a line, a demarcation beyond which we must cease exploring, and simply believe God concerning the foretold consequences of dabbling in evil, the “wages of sin” as it were. We are not without replete warnings in The Word of God to be on guard against “the wiles of the deceiver”. The text of our topic is tacitly suggesting, to really know evil, one must experience it (eat the Kogae fruit). It is deception that seeks to subvert our defenses. Deception invites us to lower our guard for the pleasures of more “knowing”. Unchecked deception leads the inattentive sheep blindly into the full experience of evil. I’m not suggesting we have crossed that Rubicon, but I am likewise aware that deception never looks like deception while it is active.
I enjoy thinking about these deep things; contemplating the unseen connecting fibers, truths left unexplained in our Holy Word of God, exploring the unanswered questions that reside only in the unilluminated darkness. I think I share this wanderlust, this unsatisfied spirit of exploration with you @Pater15. At times my enjoyment of the journey feels like a guilty pleasure. In our investigation, one may sheepishly ask: “If God created everything, and everything God created is “good” then doesn’t it follow that God must have created our taste and/or our proclivity for evil? Did God create our capacity and inclination for rebellion and call it good?”
The LORD has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom. (Prov. 16:4)
I find welling within me a spirt of warning, caution that I am hiking dangerously close to the dark edges of the cliff of insolence. I feel I may be guilty of “questioning Holy God”, or worse, imposing on Him some attributes or qualities that are erroneous, seeing Him in false light. Like Job, I withdraw, crumbling into a heap of repentance. I ask myself, “Did God not leave some things in the dark in His enduring love for us? Is there not plenty of fruit in the garden on which I can satisfy my innate curiosities. Is not the light He has given me sufficient for my happy obedience?” My problem is when I probe too deeply into the dark, I risk creating for myself erroneous doctrines on which I foolishly place my weight.
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deut. 29:29)
I am not suggesting this is where you are at, I’m not trying to point to warning signs that you have ignored. I am only being transparent in my personal sense of caution; my reluctance to probing into God’s secret darkness, trying to mine things too wonderful for me, and better left unknown.
Sorry! The PoE is the “Problem of Evil”. Historically it was laid out first by Epicurus in around 300 BC.
It’s the logical argument that says:
If God is omniscient, He would know every instance of evil.
If God is all powerful, He could prevent every instance of evil.
If God is all loving, He would want to prevent every instance of evil.
Evil does exist.
Conclusion - The all knowing, all powerful, all loving God does not exist. If God were all loving, all powerful, and all knowing, He would prevent every instance of evil from ever happening. Since we know that evil exists, it must be true that either God doesn’t exist at all, or that He is not the maximally great being that we believe Him to be.
So that’s the PoE in a nutshell. For many people who don’t know or care about the philosophical implications, this is the heartfelt reality of daily life that drives their choice of beliefs.
You’ve probably heard it as a choice to not have children, for example. As in “I could never bring a baby into this awful place”, and etc. Many think it’s plain stupid to believe in God, given the holocaust, or babies with cancer, or pedophiles, and so on. So we don’t have to know the name to know what it means.
By your leave, because I don’t know this, but let me suggest what might be another possible cause for your reluctance or trepidation. It might be easy for a person to feel that they are “demanding” answers from God. Challenging His decisions. Questioning His works. In that case we should expect God to give the same answer that He gave to Job, like “just who do you think you are? And who do you think I am? I am not a man that you demand answers from! I am the God who created everything as I see fit for My good pleasure and My glory!” Amen and amen, I say it with tears, brother. I am not questioning God like that.
My attitude is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT from that!
@MelFuller1231‘s post really hit home - as I think I’ve shared, I had a very similar experience after 30 years of marriage. One counselor told me that it takes 1 year for every 7 years of marriage to get over it. Yep that’s about what it was. First 2 years were unrelenting, I’m sorry to share. But it DOES heal over. Joy will come back - you can believe that Mel.
I am coming from an attitude of faith that God is continuously perfecting. Through it all. And I KNOW that there is a good answer. You know that too. We all trust that - there is a good answer to all of it.
So what I am doing is viscously warring against lies. I am joyfully pursuing the truth. I am applying all my meager faculties to find it.
And I’ll tell you what happens, because this has been an unfolding process over these many years. For example, when the reality of God’s Problem of Evil (GPoE) first occurred to me, and it’s implications, I recognized that it was a revelation of truth from God, and my heart welled up with thanksgiving, and I joyfully ran outside and ran around the building a couple laps, praising His name and thanking Him for His grace toward me. And so it has been at each step of His revelation.
So if you see me outside running around the building, you will know what happened ha ha.
I’m not questioning God, like demanding answers. And I’m not at implying that you or anyone will be questioning God by questioning me! I believe it’s revelation from God, to me. Everyone else is perfectly correct to question me about it. Challenge it. Lot’s of people can claim credit for revelation from God, when it’s nothing of the sort.
Another excellent thread here. I really believe that it is a simple concept, yet a hard implementation. Just like in the Garden, God said,
“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17
Why would He say that? To keep them innocent. Look what Jesus told us Himself.
“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” John 15:22
As we read here.
“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,” Acts 17:30
I think @KPuff made some really good points. except this one.
I do not think we are encouraged to “examine the fruit.” Look what God tells us about here.
“And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.”
And here.
“For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.” Ezekiel 18:32
Also this.
“Abstain from every form of evil.” 1 Thessalonians 5:22
I think we are told this to keep from actually allowing sin in. Once it takes hold in our minds, like a planted seed, it grows.
“Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. ”James 1:15
We are so weak in the flesh if we examine the fruit, if we “weigh it in our hands, to smell its aroma, to observe its beauty, and behold its enticing wonder,” we would most likely take the bite.
Let me affirm two things: (1) Yes, I sense I am personally approaching something insolent; something akin to demanding God offer information that He has probably, intentionally, held in secret. If I am correct that God is withholding, I trust that He is doing so in Love, as I trust that He is good. Hence, I am treading carefully (2) I affirm that I have never doubted your motives, or your obvious devotion, and submission to The Will of God. Your particular quest is noble, brave, and an obvious artifact of your wonder-full humanity. It is to be commended.
I am dealing with so much in my personal life that sometimes my personal “stress response” seeps into areas where they don’t belong, like this discussion. This may partially explain my excessively-cautious attitude.
Lastly, here is a thought that heretofore has not been mentioned (unless I missed it). You spoke of our proclivity to relate to A&E in the garden as fellow humans, and so we may naturally, and arbitrarily project onto them our own felt motivations, or reasoning why one might choose to disobey God’s clear instructions. i.e. “The same thing that makes me walk past God’s clearly posted “No Trespassing” sign is probably the same thing that made them do so”. What we haven’t explored is the proximity of the sign poster; what we haven’t explored is man’s normal response to a “law” (the sign), compared to a reborn man living under grace. One stark difference is the “proximity of God” (lacking a better term). To A&E, God was a well-known provider and source of all life, but He manifested Himself to them as another “being”, that is, he was relational, but separate. The born-from-above disciple of Jesus has been “granted” perfect righteousness (imputed), has been purchased with God’s own blood (redeemed), and has been sealed for eternity by the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit (indwelt). Indwelling! God! Imagine!!! Under these two unique conditions, our actual response to God’s instructions may, in-fact, be quite different. We may want to try to remember our own response to God’s law before our indwelling.
Do you suppose? Is it worth considering? Could this be a chapter in your book?
@Pater15, you ask about one of the mysteries of the Bible, how a good creation could have possibly fallen into the disaster of sin. God has not given us the answer, so it’s useless to try to get an answer.
One of some Christians’ problems is to assume that we can discover the answers to all our questions. Then, it’s very important for us to realize that our thoughts cannot match God’s thinking.
It’s still true that God is God, and we’re not.
Isa 55:6 “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;
Isa 55:7 let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Isa 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
Isa 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
I’ll just mention that we covered this in another thread(s), but I don’t mind addressing again. I hope you’ll forgive my direct language - it’s meant for mutual sharpening.
A few words come to mind in response to this, but I’ll settle on “presumptuous” as the most charitable. Again I don’t mean to be insulting, but I know of very few Bible scholars who would presume to already know all the answers in the Bible. A closed set. All knowledge has been gleaned. All the (available) questions have been answered. We know everything (that we are supposed to know) and we can go home now. It’s useless to look for additional wisdom or knowledge”. I don’t agree with you at all on this one.
Secondly, you’ve misapplied a scripture taken out of context. Isa 56 is a magnificent exposition of the heart of God, who admonishes the wayward, the sinner, the miscreant to come back to their loving and merciful heavenly Father who created them.
For those accustomed to walking in abject terror of an angry, wrathful, Almighty God, these words must have seemed quite strange. Those who have turned their backs on God (everyone at some point) might rightfully suppose in their own minds that it’s too late for them. That God would certainly reject them, and ultimately destroy them.
It’s the only thing that makes sense.
But instead of relying on their human thinking, He calls them to return to Him, explaining “I don’t think the way you do, my thoughts are higher than yours, and my way is not only the way of deadly justice, or fearful vengeance like yours, but rather my way is also the way of love, forgiveness, and redemption for the repentant soul. And I am right here, near to you. Turn your heart and receive forgiveness.”
I don’t think this passage has any thing at all to do with God instructing His people to consider any unanswered question to be a “useless” pursuit.
One last thing - as the title of this thread says, the question “what about the person?”, is an invitation to examine the “very good” persons that God created, and ask what is it about them that caused or allowed them to sin. This is a question that literally thousands of theologians have sought to answer, and every pastor has preached on at some time or other. And most have given this or that answer. I don’t think many just called it a useless pursuit and left it at that.
My opinion is that knowing the answer could be a huge benefit to anyone who wants a closer walk with God.
What an interesting observation - and one that I can’t say I’ve considered real closely before now. And I may need to ruminate on it a bit.
So it sounds like you’re drawing a comparison to God’s proximate presence in the garden to A&E, and their ongoing daily dialogs, to the born-again saint who has the benefit of the in-dwelling Spirit. That triggered my first thought, which is that we have to include another similar example. When Jesus walked the earth with His disciples, He told them that He must go away for awhile, so that He could send the Holy Spirit, a permanent helper who would be with them always.
But when He was with them, it may have been almost like when God was with A&E. Reminds me of when I was a late teenager, and my safest place on this planet was sitting next to my Grandfather in his old green pick-up truck. I used to resist temptation saying to myself, “I sure wouldn’t do it if I was in the truck with Grandfather.”
But I think you’re larger point, if I understand, is that adding the indwelling of the Spirit significantly shifts the whole dynamic. God promised that the Spirit would lead us into all truth. And the truth is what we need. By knowing the truth (and BELIEVING the truth), moment by moment our “very good” human fundamentals deliver us from being slaves to sin, instead to the freedom of walking in the Spirit.
So i still haven’t sequestered everything by chapter yet ha ha but yeah it’s a great addition!
@Pater15 (although I can’t understand why you wouldn’t be called “Pater of 13”
Without revisiting all we have previously discussed on this topic of G-PoE, my personal meditation took me to contemplatin’ not only God’s classic “Problem of Evil”, but once admitting evil’s obvious persistent influence in all of our lives, I considered what strengthens our resistance to its “damage”; what is the source of anyone’s ability to deny its deceptive temptations. It seems to me E would not be so much of a P if we could easily and simply “Just say NO” (contrary to First Lady Nancy Reagan’s fairly-fruitless national anti-drug campaign). I considered with a few countermeasures to the power of evil that we all know about.
You mentioned the first one:
The proximate presence of an influential and respected (revered) leader (Grandfather) has a substantial dampening on our innate reluctance to resist evil. The thought of our exposure disappointing someone dear to us has a profound strengthening effect on our resolve and ability to “stay clean”. A&E did have this, didn’t they? So do we! They hid, but our exposure is guaranteed (Numbers 32:23).
The second one is a crystal clear command accompanied with comprehensive codified consequences (CCCwithCCC). If the rule is ambiguous or if it is expected to be unenforced, the power of the temptation is augmented.
“Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” (Ecc. 8:11)
A&E had a CCCwithCCC, right? We have the Holy Bible with all of its clear instructions, commands and admonitions, all with the promise of accompanying death for neglecting their warning (Rom 6:23). I’m not sure how you see Paul’s “confession” in light of this principle:
“although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief (1 Tim. 1:13)?
The third is loving oversight by an exemplary role-model. If a person has an accessible role-model, who is obviously defeating the influence of evil in their own life, one who actively demonstrates for us that resistance is both possible, and profitable, thus removing our feeble excuse of inability, this must aid us in our resolve to resist temptation. I’m not sure how you feel A&E recognized this in their situation. The only role model they had was Spiritual God, who must have seemed wholly unaffected by the same difficulties that they faced. We, however DO have Jesus;
“we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15).
Here, it seems to me we have an advantage over A&E. Am I seeing this correctly?
The fourth is what I previously called “proximity”. It might also be thought of as “position” or “standing”.
If this is all factual (and I think it is), then we have a strong advantage in our own resistance to evil; not-the-least of which is the promise of immediate and permanent expungement of all error based on divine substitutionary payment We have been gifted with a faith fixed on the solid rock of sacrificial atonement, and the permanent sealing unto eternity by the indwelling of The Perfect Savior, who is always ready to guide us into the image of Jesus.
“No temptation has overtaken you (me) except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you (me) to be tempted beyond what you are (I am) able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you (I) may be able to bear it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)
We have been granted the inalterable decree of success (overcoming, victory) over evil and its consequences.
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”( John 16:33)
In this standing, we have a strong advantage over A&E, even though I think they foresaw it, in that they obviously taught their children to sacrifice (picture the death of the savior).
Even in our present standing, we soil ourselves from time-to-time. Even though we enjoy the same intimate personal relationship with God, we have advantages that A&E didn’t have Even so, we still confess:
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”(1 Jn 1:8-10)
I’m sorry if this sounds like reiteration or resowing previously sown ground. For me, it is clarifying in a way I have not thought of this topic before. And I have you to thank for it. I appreciate your prompt; I appreciate your faithful endeavor to sound the trumpet on this topic;
For if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?( 1 Corinthians 14:8)
In your debt
KP (Delmar)
“It’s a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart.” Ulysses Everett McGill:
Brother @Pater15, first, I was referring to the mystery of a good creation falling into sin, not all of God’s truth. That is a true mystery, or have you solved it? I’d be interested in your solution, if you have, seriously.
Second, your reference to Isaiah 56 threw me off, since I quoted the previous chapter. However, that 55th chapter describes God’s free gifts of wine, milk, water, and love for the 8th son of Jesse are the results of God’s thoughts that are very different from human thoughts. That’s the point I was making.
I was making the simple point that our human thinking cannot reach to divine thinking and that his ways, since he is God, are far beyond ours. Therefore, logic cannot plumb the depths of God’s truth beyond what is revealed in the Bible.
Thanks so much for your quite reasonable answer, and for correcting my fat-finger on the chapter number.
And I agree wholeheartedly that God’s thoughts are higher, nothing that we can hope to come near to, and not something I would ever seek to aspire to.
I will take a minor exception to your comment on logic, and I really think it’s simply a case of us talking past each other. “Logic” is an extremely technical exercise for those who make it their life’s work. It has its own complete symbolic language. I’m a simpleton in comparison. I stick with simple deductive syllogisms that yield necessary truths.
For example:
Jesus claimed to be the Son of God.
Jesus never lied.
Conclusion: Jesus is the Son of God.
It is always true in deductive logic that if the numbered premises are true, and the conclusion is a valid product of the premises, then the conclusion is necessarily true. A faulty argument might be because of false premises, or an invalid conclusion. And that’s what people argue over.
This process is something we all do informally all of time. I would call to mind our admonition to “rightly divide the word of truth”. @Johann is one of the best at this, calling into service multiple scripture references, using the original languages, to study an issue from all angles. “This is true and that is true, and the other is true, so a given valid conclusion MUST be true. We don’t always agree with each other, but that happens with brothers.
So if I say, “God cannot create a free moral agent person who cannot sin”, I am indeed offering a logical conclusion based on the law of identity. Similar statements might be “there is no such thing as a married bachelor”, or “a theoretically true circle has no corners”. These logical truths are not necessarily explained in detail in the Bible, but they are perfectly true nevertheless.
I think that Problem of Evil theodicies have nearly uniformly ignored an analysis of the fundamentals of personhood, along with a couple other key factors. And rarely does anyone expend much ink on attempting to formalize an explanation of God’s ultimate purposes for creating everything, although I think that that can be wonderfully accomplished simply by using the Bible as we have it.
So, nitty gritty time. People come to their own conclusions about why Eve ate the forbidden fruit. They always include some magnitude of deception as a contributing factor, and that’s obviously true. In like manner, ignorance is involved, and cited as a cause for her easily being deceived.
I try to take it a step further, and offer explanations as to what was the good thing in her make-up, that caused her to do a bad thing. And I say, suppose God made all people with the foundational, unchangeable characteristic, that humans always do what they believe is in their best interest at the moment, every time. Would that be a good thing? Yes, in the case that they always deeply believe God in every circumstance, that would be the very thing about them. And therein lies the choice factor. We always believe what we choose to believe.
Now, our struggle isn’t about what we do, but rather the struggle is about what we choose to believe. The reason Eve sinned was because she didn’t believe God.
I’ve gone on long enough ha ha. Thanks again brother.
So sorry @KPuff!! Dude first thing I did when I read this was call my wife over to laugh at the UEM quote! I quote from that movie and “Napoleon Dynamite” all the time! (Also “While You Were Sleeping”). Joe Jr is the MAN!.
After I called her over, I got distracted by some shiny object, which took some time to extricate myself from. Then, my daughter jumped out and said BOO! Of course I fell over in a faint like any normal possum, and next thing I knew, I was in Baltimore!
Actually, I have no excuse. I will give your post a just treatment and look forward to further discussion.