Once again, @peanut has provided a segue to the next step, which is actually the first step in understanding the solution to the Problem of Evil.
@Peanut said: “Perhaps they had to “sin” (minor edit) because God’s Redemption plan, planned before the creation of the world, would otherwise not come to fruition.
Jesus was the Lamb slain for sin before the foundation of the world. That sacrifice wouldn’t have occurred if Sin wasn’t meant to enter the world through Adam.”
This is the definition of the GPoE:
“In every case that God carries out His decree to create a rational person who has morally relevant freedom of choice, the possibility of evil comes into existence at that same time.”
God is the foundation and source of all true logic. Valid logic is good, and right, and true because God is good and right and true. Logic allows us to describe entailments that must be true, because of the truth value of a set of premises.
As an analogy, valid mathematics allows us to write equations and find a true answer. 5 + 3 always adds up to 8. Mathematics are also an outflow of God’s existence and nature.
A rational person is someone who uses logic, facts, and reason, rather than just emotion or impulse, to make sound judgments, solve problems, and understand the world.
GPoE is simply the recognition that when God creates a free-will, rational person (capable of reciprocal love), the possibility that that person will choose to make an evil choice is an unavoidable entailment. God cannot create a free rational person who cannot sin, by definition.
Many who address the “problem of evil” will point out that because humans have free will, evil seems inevitable. In Alvin Plantinga’s paper “God, Freedom, and Evil”, which he calls the “freewill defense” rather than a theodicy, he describes the dilemma in that way. This is a logically posterior approach.
The logically anterior approach is to recognize that in any possible world, with any possible rational person (angels, for example) that God might create, it holds true that the created rational person could possibly sin.
A possible person for whom this entailment would not hold would be deficient in some way, or still a baby. Like someone in a persistent vegetative state, or extremely low IQ, and so on.
This is a big deal. If God plans (as Peanut pointed out) for a bride for His son, a family of believers, eternal heaven of redeemed saints, then God is entailed, by His very nature (He cannot deny Himself) to provide a Savior. Planned from before the foundation of the world, again as Peanut pointed out. Our God is worthy! Praise His holy name! He knew the suffering that lay ahead, and He loved us so much!
All comments are welcome!
Your brother