@Samuel_23, I completely with the Orthodox position, because it’s thoroughly biblical.
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After several decades of teaching, preaching, and studying God’s Word, I have come to the conclusion that humans commit sin, because it is at its root self-centeredness that begins with Eve and Adam:
Gen 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
They attempt to elevate themselves to be equal with God and to run their own lives instead of letting God guide them as his creatures.
People are broken. Guided by spirits that do not embody Divine Love. They pursue money, lust, retribution, and self detruction.
Lay down your burden and trade it in for the burden of Christ, which is light. To live for God is to dedicate one’s life to the reconciliation of the world to God, healing, forgiving, and transforming.
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Of course you guys are right. I guess my question concerns this - what is it about the way that God made them that caused them (and us) to make the decisions that they made?
I mentioned the bubble people. Bubble people don’t rebel against God.
SO let’s observe creatures that are somewhere in between. Lions kill for food, and they kill each other. But they don’t murder, because they have no moral senses or imperatives. They are not evil-doers.
Not many people get in trouble for torturing babies for fun. The human aversion to torturing babies for fun is nearly universal. So why wouldn’t God have made people with the same aversion to ANY sin?
What was it about Eve’s fundamental constitution was the key ingredient(s)?
They are free moral agents, but just being free doesn’t cause anything. Eve just did what she believed was best for herself at that moment. Yes she was lied to, and yes she was ignorant about what “dying” means. But she made the choice. Having the choice is good. She just made a bad one, because not believing God is always the bad choice.
Eve is Pandora. For an ancient culture long lost, Pandora was the Spirit of the Earth. Like Gaia. When this specific ancient culture was invaded, their history was destroyed as was often the case. Invaders would absorb lands and peoples and rewrite history and religions.
In the rewritten story, Pandora is given a present from Zeus who was being malicious. He gave her a present and told her not to open it while knowing her curiosity would eventually get the better of her. Thus she opened it and released into the world all the evil that exists today. Leaving only hope inside the box.
It should be noted that Pandora did not actually fall- it was her people that fell, causing her story to be rewritten by another people.
Eve opened the box ie ate the fruit that brought evil into our world. And her womb is the box from where hope would come generations later.
Eve embodies the whole Earth. As she fell, so did the whole Earth and all of Creation. Adam embody’s God, made in God’s image. As Eve came from Adam’s rib, the Creation came from God. As above, so below.
The sin is where the mirror reflection cracked. The Creation did not cause God to fall. But it did lead to rebellion in Heaven. Division on what to do, the question of God’s Authority, Angels vying to take control.
And perhaps what caused the rebellion was that very question of how a perfect God could create a creation that would develope a flaw? Faith waivered.
The snake itself, embodying the Accuser who tests the metal of Creation, proved the flaw was there. The Creation did not hold together in perfection. And perhaps free will was the mistake. So free will was lost. The creation was bound. Angels fell and joined with creation. And neither knows whether this was God’s plan all along to create something new.
@Pater15, my brother.
I’ve never thought about this moment the way you are describing it (and I have definitely never thought about it the way Tillman is fantasizing it.) That which we actually know about the scene we only know by distant observation. There are many “gaps” in our empirical knowledge, and our tendency to fabricate "data bridges (inadvertent confabulation) fills in those blank parts with data that already makes sense to us. We have not been told what Eve looked like, how old she was. We know few details of what the garden was like, about the weather, Adam and Eve’s relationship, what fruit was the forbidden variety, or in what language she conversed with the serpent, etc. Those missing data points are rationally fabricated, bridged between the information we have, autonomically invented in our mind, built out of available material (memories, experiences, emotions, etc.) to make the story take tangible shape, and to make logical sense. We are “sense seeking” creatures, and we aim to make sense of any situation. You do this, I do this, and Tillman has done this. I’m pretty sure I am not telling you anything here that you don’t already know, and most likely already accept.
There are two things about this confabulation I’d like to bring to the surface for us.
First, these synthetic “bridges” in information are not a bad thing, but (I believe) an artifact of our wonderful creation. God is rational, and has made us in His own image. He does not confabulate, because He is omniscient, but He has imbued us with this creative process as a gift (probably). Since we know we are not omniscient, and we know we autonomously confabulate a story, we are cautioned to not build our dogma on the bridges, but only on the solid rock on which the ends of our bridges rest. For instance, if you build a bridge inference on an Eve who is ostensibly ten years old; a petite white girl with billowing blonde curls, wearing a gingham sun-dress, rosy cheeks, innocent, trusting, naive, and compassionate toward others, your information-bridge will look quite different from someone who sees Eve as an ostensibly 50-year-old, scarred and haggard army drill sergeant, who smokes cigars, and takes no crap from man nor beast. (some even picture her as Neanderthal) I’m sure you have your own image of Eve and I’m guessing she is your ideal of innocence and pleasantry. We tend to fabricate bridges out of our ideals; we use the good wood first in our imaginary bridge building.
Second, since we accept our own proclivity to confabulation, we therefore confabulate that Eve possessed the same rational artifact of confabulation. We don’t know if our story reflects the first time Eve had met the serpent, or if she had known this linguistic dragon previously. We can only surmise what made the serpent trustworthy to Eve. Eve may have been building her own imaginary bridges about this spectacular garden resident, and it may have been built out of information from previous conversationsand her own ideals. The point I’m getting to is our autonomous mental processes make us susceptibile to deception. Deception acts much like a virus, using our own immune system against us. If someone else provides us with unreliable material to build our information bridges, material that is untrue, defective, or even harmful, the unfolding story in our mind still feels rational, and we may readily accept it as fact. Eve may have projected her own innocence onto the character of the cunning serpent, making her more susceptible to his deception:
“To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.” Titus 1:15
For us, the caution is this. Deception is not some irregularity that we bump into once in a while. Deception is ubiquitous, pervasive, and unavoidable. We are literally swimming in the cesspool of deception from our first morning breath, and throughout our entire day. It is inescapable. God has not pulled us (or Adam and Eve) out of the environment of deception, but instead has given us “Truth” as a belt to gird up our minds, and His indwelling Spirit to seal us, and His armor to protect us. It may be that Eve did “just do what she believed was best for herself at that moment”, but nevertheless, what she believed was based in pernicious deception.
2 Corinthians 6:4-10
But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
Even as we walk our own path through the valley of The Shadow of Death, He has revealed to us that for us, what we see is only a shadow. He has already carried us through this valley, and we are already on the other side, peering up at the gates of splendor. Deception still seeks us, but we keep both feet on the rock, trusting in the Truth, as ministers of God, awaiting our change, without fear of the serpent, but in loving fear of our Faithful Father.
We build our bridges from The Word of God. Only those hold true.
KP
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@Pater15, God didn’t create them “to cause them (and us) to make the decisions that they made.” Otherwise, God can be blamed for our sins. No, God made Adam and Eve and us as totally dependent on him but also as relatively independent of him to be able to make our own decisions. When we make self-centered ones, he permits but doesn’t cause us to do them in his plan in order to turn those choices into good results for his honor and our benefit, as Joseph says clearly to his brothers when they have sold him into slavery:
Gen 50:19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God?
Gen 50:20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
All people who have committed atrocities and remain unrepentant their whole lives, such as you mention, will be called to account at the final judgment when Jesus comes back and, sadly, will be banished from God’s powerful love and grace forever.
Yes, Eve did “what was best for herself.” That self-centeredness is the essence of sin, and together they decided that what was better for themselves was to rule their own lives instead of letting God rule them. Humans have continued their selfishness ever since, unless they turn back to God through Jesus’ death and resurrection.
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Thank you my brother - I appreciate your quite thoughtful responses!
Addressing 2nd first, I pretty much agree with all of that. Satan’s inclusion as the liar he is in this drama carries deeper implications than God’s construction of humans. Intertwined in ultimate purpose, would be my observation (which is probably obvious or even tautological - God purposes to achieve His purposes), so we are in agreement there.
On the “first” section, I think my point is a bit different than yours. I think my numbered points shared earlier apply to ALL non-deficient humans (not just Eve). A deficiency might be something like they are stricken by illness or injury (brain-dead, for example), or other mental or physical handicap, etc. in other words, there are properties that all humans share. Some level of intelligence, rationality, emotional spectrum, physical processes that keep us alive, and so on.
I offer Eve as an exemplary example of what it is to be a human. The secondary characteristics that you mention are not part of the consideration. She was among the first pair created, and she was the first to sin. That being the case, I think we can learn a lot more than maybe meets the eye. And in fact, I’ve come to believe that the “creation story” (that many scholars hurry through) is possibly one of the richest “metaphysical-theism” mines in the Bible. Lots of nuggets in there.
I hold that the following premises are accurate reflections of reality:
- God’s Problem of Evil. In every case that God creates a rational, free moral agent, the possibility of evil comes into existence concomitantly. It’s an entailment.
- All humans are created by God with a drive for greatness.
- All humans choose their beliefs.
- All humans always do what they believe is in their best interest at the moment.
If true, then these four points, (along with their expansions), comprise a factual, comprehensive theodicy, which explain why evil exists, and why God is in no wise causally responsible for the existence of evil.
Yes, God created the context. A “very good” context. Perfect for His revelation of Himself. Perfect for our demonstrations of what sort of persons we choose to be.
Perfect for His eternal purposes.
I love this
I’m going to read it a bunch more times before I respond.
Thanx
KP
Thanx for the response, and the explanation of your point of view. The ideas you share help to paint in some of the oddly shaped spaces in the paint-by-number canvas of “Why do People Sin”
I got that you offered Eve as an example of what it means to be human; that was not lost on me, but the secondary characteristics that I mentioned are very much part of my consideration. Being human means, we characteristically develop dogmas that may be based only in inferences obtained by trying to fill in (bridge) gaps between empirical data. One aspect of why we sin is because some of our bridges are faulty, making our dogmata unstable. At times we act contrary to God (sin) because we are relying on erroneous dogmata that is intentionally adulterated with deception. Eve, being the poster child of one who acted on deception. I do get your point though. Thanx.
I love that you have come to believe…
Amen!
You said that you hold that the following premises are accurate reflections of reality:
I resonate with your thoughts here, and with your observation of reality, from your vantage point. These ideas seem true, based on our experiences and deductions arrived at from our observations. What I’m working on is their origin, their basis; i.e., do these ideas come from us, or from The Word of God? Have you thought about this? Do you have Scriptural teaching from which these ideas are born, or are they logical inferences that spring up from Scriptural teaching? Are these rational observations, or do they bear the embossed stamp of origin from heaven? I am sincerely interested in your thoughts here.
You said
I love this. It is a radical paradigm shift away from being led by the flesh to being led by The Word; from walking in the flesh to walking in The Spirit. It does not unnecessarily crucify our personal interests, nor does it subjugate our well-being to a sacrificial higher calling of serving God (how the pagans think), but instead recognizes all of our Father’s demands on us are Fatherly. He directs our path in the way that is our highest good (although we may fail to recognize God’s goodness in this, just as we also failed, at times, to recognize our mortal Father’s intentions in his methods to train us to be men). Your point, that God created us in such a way that we are fundamentally committed to our best interest, allows for the obvious reality that men making choices, usually don’t actually know what is in their best interest, but God does. Even as God reveals to us that Life in Him is our ultimate best interest, our flesh wants to weigh that revelation against what the world is telling us is in our best interest. Jesus, in his famous “sermon on the mount” as we call it, elucidates this point with surgical precision. His difficult-to-bear sermon cuts against the world’s ideals, and exposes the blessing to be found in abandoning them; not abandoning them for nothing, but abandoning them to make room for the new ideals of The Kingdom of Heaven.
You said that your 4 points…
But, do we sin simply because evil exists, or do we sin because we choose to believe it is not evil?
Does evil exist, and we are sometimes choosing to sin because we are deceived, believing we are choosing what is in our best interest when we are actually choosing death?
Thanks again for your thoughts
KP
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Ouch! I spent some time drafting out an answer on the forum, and then somehow ozoned it. Gone in an instant! Ha ha - I took a break, and then started over in another app to copy and paste here. Don’t want to go through that again!
KPuff said: “What I’m working on is their origin, their basis; i.e., do these ideas come from us, or from The Word of God?”
So much here!
For me, this is one of the incontrovertible truths of scripture - if we come to a conclusion that seems to be true, and seems to be sort of important, if we are right about that, then it’s a positively sure thing that God has already said it somewhere in the Bible.
I don’t mean every little detail of existence, like “the foot bone is connected to the shin bone”, or “aspirin helps get rid of a headache”, or “sisters can be exasperating”. I mean important truths of our existence and relationship to God and each other.
A metaphysical nugget from Genesis Chapter 1:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them"
This is monumental. And yet, we really don’t have a consensus interpretation of what this means, to be “made in the image of God”. It’s probably true that it does have multiple meanings. Some say we are made as “image bearers” of God to the rest of the universe. Some say it’s the tripartite composition of body/soul/spirit. Could it possible be even more fundamental with regard to foundational motivations?
Comparing this to the four points, God is very concerned with His glory – so are we. God is a free person. So are we. God always does what’s in His own best interest. So do we. Taken together, the combination of our freedom, and God’s holiness (He always chooses the good), our freedom entails the possibility of evil.
God said in Joshua 24 – “15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
The possibility of evil exists, and we are free to choose it.
Our daily purpose is to be continually made into the image of God. We have to rely on Him and His strength for the struggle, His word for our instruction, and His wisdom for our daily understanding of what’s true in every situation. We live in the Hope of His eventual intervention.
Recorded in 1 John 3:
2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears,[a] we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
More scripture to come on the other points. I’m wondering if it’s okay to start a thread for each?
Dude - this is IT! So well said. I appreciate your wisdom and ability to expound.
You are right to anchor everything in Scripture, but we must be careful—what “seems true” to us is never self-validating, it must be tested against the whole counsel of God. Heresies were born from conclusions that felt “important” but were never revealed by the Lord. The Bible is sufficient, not our reasoning.
Now, Genesis 1:27 is indeed monumental, but notice the text. Both male and female equally bear the image of God. The Hebrew tselem (image) and demuth (likeness) do not point to gender roles or tripartite composition, but to humanity’s unique reflection of God’s character. Scripture itself explains this—Ephesians 4:24 defines the new self as “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness,” and Colossians 3:10 speaks of being “renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.”
Image-bearing is moral and spiritual likeness, not speculative anthropology.
Here’s where the danger comes in. You said God is free, so are we. God seeks His own glory, so do we. God acts in His best interest, so do we.
But Scripture cuts that line of thought short. God is holy, holy, holy (Isaiah 6:3). He cannot be tempted with evil (James 1:13). His “freedom” is perfect, unchanging, incorruptible. Our freedom is derivative, fallen, and corrupted by sin.
To say we mirror God’s motivations in our self-interest is to project our fallenness back onto Him. That is upside down. The possibility of evil belongs to man, never to God.
Joshua 24 is a covenant challenge, not proof of neutral choice. Israel is commanded to forsake idols and serve YHWH alone. Freedom here is covenant loyalty.
The possibility of evil lies in rebellion against the covenant, not in God’s design of freedom itself.
And yes, our daily purpose is to be conformed to the image of God, but Paul sharpens that in Romans 8:29—it is the image of His Son. Genesis begins the story, but Christ is the climax. He is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). To be made in God’s image finds its fulfillment not in Adam’s design but in Christ’s resurrection likeness. 1 John 3:2–3 seals it—“when He appears we shall be like Him.” That is not philosophical speculation, that is certain eschatological hope.
So let us not say God’s freedom mirrors ours. His freedom is holy, ours is fallen. Let us not make Joshua 24 into libertarian choice, when it is covenant summons. And let us not leave Genesis hanging without Christ. The image of God in us is restored only by the Spirit, through the cross, unto the day when Christ appears and we are glorified with Him.
Start a thread brother.
J.
@johann Thank you Johann, I was hoping you might chime in, knowing that your contributions would be wholly based on scripture.
I think we are experiencing a simple misunderstanding. My points refer to what God created, not what humans turned His creation into. I am sure you would agree with God’s assessment of what He created - that what He created was “very good”. This highlights one of God’s eternal plans and purposes of creating this world.
Clues? He creates a very good world, and places those very good humans, made in His image, within that very good context. His creation includes a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then God allows a manifestation of evil, a liar, the devil, to have access to His ignorant creation. His ultimate purpose is to expose evil, define evil, defeat evil, and destroy evil forever.
So I understand and agree that our routine manifestation of our freedom doesn’t match God’s manifestation of His freedom. But His creation of rational creatures, in His image, was indeed a reflection of Himself. A very good thing. We learn that when our manifestation of our freedom matches His manifestation of His freedom, we are doing the very best thing we can for our own good, and for His glory.
Johann said: “To be made in God’s image finds its fulfillment not in Adam’s design but in Christ’s resurrection likeness. 1 John 3:2–3 seals it—“when He appears we shall be like Him.” That is not philosophical speculation, that is certain eschatological hope.”
I agree - that was the point. I am not simply speculating philosophically, but communicating scriptural truth.
@Bruce_Leiter
A. Lets begin with the metaphysics of Privatio Boni:
Imagine a cataract in an eye. The cataract is not a new substance added to the eye; it is a defect that impedes the eye’s natural function of sight. The eye, a substance, remains good insofar as it is an eye, but suffers a “privation” of the good of clear vision. Similarly, silece is not a sound, but the absence of sound; darkness is not a type of light but the absence of photons. In a moral context, evil is the corruption of a good will. A human will is a good thing, a faculty created by God for choosing the good. Sin is not the creation of an “evil will” as a new substance but the privation of right order within a good will, turning away from the Supreme Good (God) toward a lesser, finite good, in an disordered manner. As St. Thomas Aquinas synthesizing Aristotelian metaphysics with Christian doctrine asserts in Summa Theologica (I, q.48, a.1, I-II, q.75, a.1), evil always presupposes a good subject which it corrupts. Satan himself, before his fall, was a magnificent creation, a lucent spirit of immense intellectual power. His sin was not the activation of some pre-existing evil element within his nature, but a privative choice- a turning of his rightly ordered love for God inward upon itself, becoming prideful self-idolatry. He inverted the proper hierarchy of love, we call it ordo amoris.
B. The implication for Divine Causality
This metaphysical framework is essential for absolving God of the authorship of evil.
God is the author of all being, all that is substantial. SINCE evil is not a being, but a lack, a defect in being, God cannot be its cause**.** He creates the good will; the creaturely will introduces the defect through its own misoperation. To ask “why did God make evil possible” is to subtly misunderstand the nature of possibility itself. God did not “make” a thing called the “possibility of evil”. He made a thing call “libertarian free will”, a faculty of immense goodness and dignity. The “possibility of evil” was necessary, logical corollary of that good faculty (its side shadow). It is an inherent risk of creating a being that is genuinely other than God, capable of authentic love and therefore capable of rejection. A world where love is impossible is a world of automatons; a world where love is possible, by definition, is a world where refusal of love is also possible.
God is the cause of the faculty (a good) not the privation that corrupts it (an evil).
C. The “Very Good” Creation and Human Constitution
The Genesis account repeatedly affirms that each stage of creation, and creation as a whole is “good” and finally “very good” (Genesis 1:31). This includes the fundamental constitution of humanity. The key ingredients in Eve’s nature were not latent flaws but supreme goods: rational intellect (the capacity to understand God’s command the the serpent’s lie), volitional will (the capacity to choose obedience or disobedience), and affective desire (the capacity to love God and perceive the goodness of the fruit)**. **
These faculties constituted the Imago Dei, the image of God in humanity. The temptation appealed directly to these inherent goods: the fruit was “good for food” (appealing to bodily sustenance, a good), “pleasing to the eye” (appealing to aesthetic desire, a good), and “desirable for gaining wisdom” (appealing to the intellectual desire for truth, a good)
So Eve’s sin was not the pursuit of evil, but the disordered pursuit of these good, that is to seek them autonomously, in direct violation of the divine command that established the proper mode and boundary for their enjoyment.
She acted, as u have said, on what she believed was in her best interest at the moment, but her belief was founded on a catastrophic miscalculation, that is, her prioritizing the testimony of a creature over the command of the creator (@Pater15). The cause was not a divine design error but a creaturely failure of epistemic humility and trust. (@Bruce_Leiter )
Then shall we talk about the dynamics of libertarian freedom, about gnomic will, counterfactuals and the molinist resolution
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If God is omniscient, including foreknowing future free actions, does this not imply determinism? And if not, what is the causal mechanism behind a free choice to sin?
A. Libertarian freedom vs Determinism
Orthodox Christianity has historically affirmed a robust, libertarian view of freedom, particularly in the moment of the primal sin.
This view holds that for a choice to be truly free, the agent must have the ability to do otherwise under exactly the same preconditions
This is often called the “Power of Contrary Choice”
Eve, in that moment, was not determined by her nature to sin. She was created with original righteousness (justitia originalis), meaning her desires were inherently oriented toward God. In proper terms, she was posse non peccare (able not to sin). Her choice to eat was therefore contingent, for it did not flow with deterministic necessity from her nature or her circumstances. It was spontaneous, undetermined act of her will. This is what the Eastern Fathers termed as the gnomic will (from gnome, meaning “deliberation” or “opinion”), the fallen human capacity to deliberate between options often erroneously. While a perfected will in heaven which is Christ’s human will after Incarnation, (here is a very important link @Pater15) would operate without such gnomic deliberation, simply perceiving and choosing the Good, Adam and Eve’s untested, innocent will operated in a gnomic mode, making their choice a genuine, undetermined pivot.
B. The Locus of Causality
Your observation that just because we are free doesnt cause anything, yes, freedom is the faculty or capacity for choice. The cause of the sinful choice is located in the creature’s misuse of that faculty Drawing again on Thomistic thought, the will is a rational appetite; it is drawn toward what the intellect presents to it as good. The intellect, however, is finite and fallible.
@Pater15 , here comes the climax
In Eve’s case, her intellect was presented with two competing testimonies:
God’s clear command (“you shall die”)
and
the serpent’s persuasive lie (“you will not surely die…you will be like God”)
Her failure was an intellectual one:
a failure to properly weigh the authority of the sources. She assigned greater credibility to the creature’s novel promise than to the Creator’s established word.
This faulty intellectual judgement then moved her will to choose the apparent, yet illusory, good presented by the serpent. The cause to sin is thus the creaturely self—the finite intellect’s misapprehension of the good and the will’s subsequent embrace of that misapprehension.
God is the cause of the faculties (intellect and will), but the creature is the cause of their defective operation in that moment
C. Reconciling Freedom and Foreknowledge
How does God’s infallible foreknowledge of the Fall square with genuine creaturely freedom?
The Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina’s theory of middle knowledge provides a sophisticated and compelling model.
- Natural Knowledge: God’s knowledge of all necessary truth and all possible worlds. This is knowledge of what could happen.
- Middle knowledge: God’s knowledge of what could happen in any given se of circumstances. This is knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, i.e. if creature C were placed in circumstance X, it would freely choose Y.
- Free Knowledge: God’s knowledge of what will actually happen, based on His sovereign decree to actualise a particular possible world.
In this model, God’s middle knowledge surveyed the infinite array of possible worlds. In some of these worlds, He saw that if He created a being with libertarian freedom and placed it in a garden with a forbidden tree and a tempter, it would freely choose to obey. In other worlds, He saw that it would freely choose to disobey. God, for reasons known ultimately to His wisdom, sovereignly chose to acutalize this world, a world in which He foreknows, via middle knowledge, that Adam and Eve would freely fall. His decree does not cause their choice; rather His decree is to create the circumstance in which He knows they will freely make that choice. His foreknowledge is thus non-causal and non-deterministic; it is a simple observation of the truth-value of counterfactual propositions.
@Pater15, shall we discuss about if God, via middle knowledge, saw that this world would involve in a catastrophic fall, why actualise it?
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Sure ha ha - I’ll give my understanding and you can give the fuller explanation! I think William Lane Craig must have been one of your students (or vice versa).
God wants His bride to know Him. Everything.
In Alvin Plantinga’s “O Felix Culpa”, he makes the argument that any possible world that includes a savior, is better than any possible world that doesn’t.
I mentioned in another thread about why God created this universe:
“God created THIS universe in order to give Himself the best possible context within which He could demonstrate His maximal greatness to all of His created rational persons…”
Those who choose to believe Him and in Him become part of His church, His family, His dearly beloved - His bride.
For God to achieve this purpose of full revelation of Himself, the context He creates must be suffused with horrendous evil, that He has no causal responsibility in creating. Romans 5:8 - “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
This demonstration wasn’t just for us human believers, as His bride, but also for every rational creature He ever created. Eph 3:10 - “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11. according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Real love requires complete knowing - everything revealed about your beloved. God would want the fullest love relationship possible. God’s plan to accomplish His full revelation of Himself, the magnitude of His love, required a context of evil sinful men who were willing to crucify the only truly good Man who ever lived.
Given all the possible worlds that God could have created, this one is the best one to accomplish His eternal good purposes.
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Oh yes @Pater15 I would love to talk about what you have written but since its late at night, it would be better if I discuss about it tomorrow after a good cup of coffee. But before I sleep, I will tell in brief about if God, via middle knowledge, saw that this world would involve in a catastrophic fall, why actualise it?
A. The Nature of Permissive Will:
God’s will can be understood as either antecedent or consequent, and effective or permissive. God’s antecedent will is His general desire for the good of His creation (eg like all should be saved). His consequent will is His will in response to the actual circumstances of the world (ef to permit rebellion as a consequence of free will). His effective will directly brings things to pass (“Let there be light”). His permissive will allows other agents to act. Crucially, divine permission is not mere toleration or abdication. It is a sovereign permission. As the Westminster Confession of Faith (V.IV) states that “The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extends itself even to the first Fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by bare permission, but such as has joined with it a most wise and powerful bonding, and otherwise ordering, and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends.” God does not cause the sin, but He sets its boundaries, directs its course, and harnesses its effects to serve His ultimate purposes.
B. The Greater Goods Made Possible by Permitted Evil:
Then lets talk about what are these “holy ends”? What good could possibly outweigh the horrendous evil of sin and death?
Then, I point out three aspects.
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Certain facets of God’s character remain hidden in a world of uninterrupted bliss. His justice is revealed in the righteous judgement of evil. His mercy, grace and forgiveness are revealed at the Cross. His patience and longsuffering are revealed in His forbearance with sinners. His power is revealed in triumphing over evil through the weakness of the Cross. The book of Job is the quintessential biblical exploration of this theme:
Satan’s malicious actions are permitted to serve as the catalyst for a revelation of God’s sovereignty and goodness that would otherwise remain unseen. -
A world without Fall is a world without a Cross. The Incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ represent the supreme revelation of God’s love and the supreme victory over chaos. St. Irenaeus of Lyons framed this as recapitulation or also termed as anakephalaiosis, that means Christ “re-heading” humanity, summing up our story in Himself, and undoing the knot of Adam’s disobedience through His perfect obedience.
This narrative of redemption, culminating in the self-sacrificial love of God on the Cross, is a good of such staggering beauty and depth that many theologians, following St. Augustine, have argued it is a greater good than an innocent but static paradise. It reveals the heart of God in a way Eden alone could not. (@Pater15, very important point to note here) -
A world without challenge, temptation and struggle is a world where virtues like courage, perseverance, faithfulness, sacrificial love, and compassion cannot be developed. These are “second-order” goods that require opposition to exist. As muscle gains strength by resisting weight, so does the human soul get forged and refined through spiritual combat. The EO tradition particularly emphasizes this telos as deification, that is the process by which humans through grace, participate in the divine nature and are transformed into the likeness of God. This is not a return to Edenic innocence but an ascent to a glorified state that is incapable of sin, also what we call as non posse peccare, but note, that it wont be an external constraint but it will be by internal, perfected love
Let’s question the role of Satan…yes he is a liar, an ancient serpent…
Created as a glorious angel, his fall through pride represents the primal instance of this privative choice, that is, a choice made by a pure intellect, unmoved by fleshly passion.
His subsequent role as tempter establishes him as a principality of opposition, a metaphysical adversary. Yet, even his malignant agency is made to serve God’s purposes. He is the prosecutor in the divine courtroom (as in Job), the accuser whose charges are ultimately silenced by the righteousness of Christ. Am I right? He is the foil against which God’s glory and the faithfulness of saints are displayed. His ultimate defeat at the Cross and final consignment to the lake of fire will be the ultimate manifestation of God’s justice and the final eradication of evil, serving as an eternal testament to the futility of rebellion against the divine order.
Anyways..take care @Pater15
Stay safe.
Peace
Sam
I learnt a lot from him….(That’s why I often use the term ‘actualise’.)
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and I often use “but rather,” ha ha
I appreciate each of your points, especially #3. When I bring it up that in heaven we will still have free will, say, in a Bible study or classroom, the room typically goes silent with fear and consternation ha ha.
I would only add that this world teaches His church the mechanics of implementing His law of love. We seem to agree that Eve exercised her God created faculties, but in ignorance, to devastating result.
God doesn’t want us to be ignorant.
Much of the Bible is dedicated to “fleshing out” what it means to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and spirit, and our neighbors as ourselves. So He gave us His word of instructions, for as long as we live in this mortal context, to be the principal guide on how to love each other.
It’s within this context that we demonstrate what sort of person we choose to be. We are surrounded and dismayed on every side by evil and temptations. We have ample opportunity to give full, observable expression to what we truly believe.
Question for homework - why did Jesus chide Nicodemus (a teacher in Israel) for not knowing that we must be born again?
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let’s go about this part @Pater15
The Divine Pedagogy
God’s response to this noetic catastrophe is not to abolish human agency (important point to note), but to redeem and inform it. THis is the magnificent purpose of the Law and the prophetic testimony. The Torah, and indeed the entire Scriptural canon, serves as an external guide to recalibrate the fallen intellect and will.
This is not a mere list of rules but a teleological training manual. Through the Law, God accomplishes several things simultaneously:
- The Law is a transcript of the divine mind, a revelation of God’s own righteousness and holiness.
- As Paul masterfully argues in Romans 7, the Law acts as a diagnostic tool, making sin, “utterly sinful” by providing a clear standard that our fallen nature cannot meet. It transforms vague moral failure into conscious transgression, thereby revealing our desperate need for a remedy beyond ourselves.
- As articuated in Gal 3:24, the Law was a guardian or a tutor whose purpose was to lead us to Christ. By creating a context where our failure is exposed, it drives us to seek grace.
About Nicodemus, pardon me if I’m wrong.
I think the answer lies in the distinction between natural and revelatory knowledge, and the noetic effects of the Fall.
he was a master of Torah, a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin. He possessed the very “word of instructions”. Yet, his approach to Jesus was characterized by a fundamental epistemological error: he believed that the mysteries of the Kingdom of God could be comprehended through natural reason and academic studies.
The OT, which Nicodemus knew, is suffused with the theme of SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION, which necessitates a divine act upon human heart, like some examples I can give are:
Ezekiel 36:26-27:
”I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees”
Jeremiah 31:33:
”I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.”
Deuteronomy 30:6:
”The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.”
So was Nicodemus’s fault, a lack of evidence from the OT?
Surely not, for the OT was like a veil at the temple and it ultimately points to Christ. Nicodemus’s failure was lack of spiritual perception. Many, including him, read Scriptures as a legal and historical text, waiting for a king that would rule over the whole land, and destroy the Romans, but man….they were blind to the pneumatological and transformative telos of the Scriptures.
He understood the external requirement of the Law, but missed it central promise.
And yes, @Pater15 shall we discuss more…