I feel I’ve done a bad thing - derailing the thread, so I started a new one.
Good, here we come to the primacy of Christ in the divine oikonomia. This, I think aligns along the supralapsarian strand of Reformed though, @Pater15, and it I extend it, the mission of the Son as the Redeemer, is logically prior to the decree of the Fall. So here I would like to bring what Richard Muller clarifies that this is not a temporal sequence in God but a logical ordering of His eternal purposes.
Now what does this imply?
The Incarnation and the Atonement are not merely God’s response to sin but the central pillar of His eternal purpose for creation. The Lamb was slain for the foundation of the world. Therefore, the possibility of the Fall, and its actualisation via middle knowledge, was sovereignly permitted within the scope of the divine will that willed first and foremost to reveal the depths of God’s nature through the Person and work of Christ.
The Cross is not Plan B, it is the revelation of the eternal, self-giving love that has always existed within the Triune Godhead (Father giving the Son, Son obedient to the Father, Spirit proceeding from both) now demonstrated ad extra for the benefit of creation.
Yes, I remember that you said:
Certain divine attributes remain abstract and unmanifest in a monochrome reality of unalloyed good.
How can mercy be demonstrated if there is no guilt?
How can grace be shown if there is no demerit?
How can patience be exhibited if there is no rebellion?
How can justice be revealed if there is no transgression?
Most profoundly, how can sacrificial, agapic love be manifested if there is no object of wrath deserving condemnation?
Romans 5:8 I think, is the ultimate expression of this:
God’s love is demonstrated precisely within the context of our sinfulness and His proactive work to overcome it.
This manifold wisdom of God (Eph 3:10) is multi-faceted diamond whose full brilliance can only be seen when light shines through it from the dark backdrop of evil.
God’s glory is not a static display but a dynamic triumph. He does not just declare Himself forgiving, He achieves forgiveness on the Cross. He does not just say He is powerful over evil, but rather He defeats evil through resurrection. The universe is a stage for the divine drama of conquest and redemption. A world without sin is a world without this specific genre of action.
This is where the Augustinian-Thomistic doctrine of privatio boni provides the essential metaphysical grounding. God’s non-responsibility is not a mere legal technicality but rather is an ontological necessity. God, as Actus Purus, is the cause of being itself. Evil, as privation of good, has no being to cause. He created the angelic and human wills (which are good); He ordains the circumstances of the test (which are good); He even permits the presence of a tempter (whose existence as a creature is good, though his will is privated). The act of sin itself, the privative movement of the will away from God, is sourced entirely in the creature. This preserves the asymmetry crucial to orthodoxy, that God is sovereign over all events, yet He is holy and separate from the evil itself.
Furthermore, the use of sinful agents is the supreme example of God’s providential mastery over secondary causes.
The actions were genuinely free, driven by hatred, envy and political expediency, true moral evils for which they are fully culpable. Yet, simultaneously, their actions were the precise means God had ordained from eternity to accomplish the greater good imaginable. This is not a contradiction but a mystery of divine concurrence, where God’s sovereign will infallibly guides the free (and even sinful) actions of creatures to His intended ends without violating their freedom or imparting sin to His own nature.
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@Bruce_Leiter I so much appreciate yourself, and @Johann and @KPuff and @Samuel_23 and all the rest. You guys really bring the Word of God, and that’s so refreshing.
I’ve been years in discussions, trying to make sense logically of the pervasive evil in the world, from the perspective of the unbelievers. Why waste time with that, a rational person might ask lol.
I mentioned a protracted time of catastrophic loss in my own life. A “Job” experience, if you will. The difference being, I had foolishly asked for mine. I had been a believer for many, many years, and I had reached a place of successful semi-complacency, and I felt that my relationship with God was falling off.
I was even a bit angry and bitter toward God for a sort of weird reason. As a deacon and teacher and elder in the church, I noticed that many people seemed to suffer in many ways, that I wasn’t suffering at all. It seemed to me that people in many cases were just doing the best they could, and it wasn’t doing any good for them. Why should I get all the blessings? Didn’t seem fair.
I self-diagnosed that my insidious pride was getting in the way of my spiritual insight. SO I began to pray, daily, continuously, that God would humble me, no matter what it takes. Everything is on the alter. I just want my right place with God back.
Sometime later, in the midst of my humiliation, I read Watchman Nee’s book titled “The Normal Christian Life”. He warns against praying for humility. “Don’t be a fool!” He says. “God will thoroughly answer your prayer, and I promise - you won’t like it!” He goes on to say that the mistake of that prayer is in attributing responsibility. The Bible tells us to humble OURSELVES. Ask for help from God, but don’t ask Him to do it for you. You will regret it. He was right.
So when I’m praying that prayer, the thought I’m having is that God’s love will limit my suffering. He will somehow just impute a Godly dose of humility, like I’ll just wake up one day with a full fill of humbleness. That’s not what happens.
What happens is that God withdraws the guidance of His Spirit to your mind and thinking and decisions, and boundaries, and everything else. He leaves you to yourself, because you asked Him to. You do stupid things, repeatedly. And quite naturally, everything crashes.
So then my challenge is to understand why God can even allow all this evil stuff. So began my labor. As Ulysses Everett McGill says, “I was looking for answers.” (Best movie ever made ha ha)
Please hear me out - when the debate is with an atheist, one cannot rely on any super-natural revelation. Be it sacred scripture, or any other spiritual communication. I believe that God is the source of properly balanced logic, and I trust that the questions of good and evil can be logically stated. So I’ve been debating for years without much reference to God’s word at all, in the actual debate that is. I never listed verses for support. Of course all of my own understanding of anything comes from God’s word first.
My years in those debates, and I haven’t neglected my own Biblical study, have been fruitful. But I’ve had enough of atheists to last me I think. It’s a joy to interact with folks who love God’s word!
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I hear what you’re saying, but in my experience nothing holds in debate like Scripture itself. I am often engaging Messianics, and it is liberating to see how the Word lands, because the Holy Spirit is always at work. There is nothing wrong with having a critical and analytical mind, and for what it’s worth, I am a left-hander myself.
When it comes to debating, Sam Shamoun is a classic example, I deeply appreciate his boldness.
And I truly love your testimony, brother.
Shalom achi.
J
Tell me more, what were the topics and objections the atheists raised, im curious about it..
When someone talks about debate….im bad at debate, but I like discussing matters hehe
Was it at some college campus?
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What!?!? How did you….
An artist too?
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Spot on @Pater15. Yes, I am an artist, and much more, but there is no pride in that. Pride wears many masks and takes many forms, even among us.
Judges 3:15–21 – Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, is explicitly called “a man left-handed” (’iṭṭēr yad yeminô, literally “restricted in his right hand”). God raised him up as deliverer for Israel against Moab. His left-handedness allowed him to conceal a dagger on his right thigh, where no guard expected it. He slew Eglon king of Moab and led Israel into victory.
Judges 20:16 – Among the Benjamite warriors, Scripture highlights “seven hundred chosen men who were left-handed; each one could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.” Their unusual skill was God’s provision for precision in battle.
1 Chronicles 12:2 – In the list of David’s mighty men who came from Benjamin, it records “they were armed with bow and could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow.” These ambidextrous warriors, likely including left-handers, were uniquely equipped by God for military strength.
These references show that what others might see as a disadvantage or oddity, God wove into His design for deliverance and victory. Ehud’s left hand was the very means God used to break Israel’s bondage, and the Benjamite slingers turned their seeming weakness into unmatched precision.
J.
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No, mostly on William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith forum. Dr Craig has been quite impactful and successful in the debate arena. There are many you-tube videos of his debates with noted atheists and naturalists.
And not a few testimonies of folks who have come to faith, at least partially because the exposed incoherence of their beliefs left them rudderless.
Unfortunately, the forum has fallen to the trolls. It seems that the folks who run it have decided that it doesn’t get much valid traffic any longer. So there are a few “resident” atheists who’ve been there forever, making the same incoherent arguments. The Christian contributors have mostly wandered away, so what’s left isn’t worth participating in. I think they are letting it die the death.
So I’ve had several “formal” debates (online), but it’s mostly narrative type with some syllogistic argument. None of the atheists would agree to formally debate me any longer. I don’t know why, I’m such a nice guy! Lol. Always cordial and respectful.
The value for me, as my logical understanding matured, was that they (the atheists) will throw every tomato available at you. So you get a thorough adversarial scrutiny of your ideas and interpretations. Once they start calling you names, that means you’ve won. They NEVER give in. Lol! But it was never just “flame-wars”. They are mostly educated, professional folks who for some reason like to argue their viewpoints. I suspect that they are somewhat afraid they are actually wrong about whether God exists.
But the PoE is the big deal to most of them, and they won’t budge an inch on their stance that if God lives, He is responsible for all the evil that exists.
They did join me in trying to get the trolls kicked off. So there’s that.
I believe that many atheists will, in time, find their way to God. Often it’s life itself that teaches the lessons — circumstances and trials that gently or sometimes painfully open the heart. What matters most is whether they remain open when that moment comes.
I’ve seen this personally in my own family. One of my relatives was a well-known scientist. He had been baptized when young and once believed, but as he pursued his studies and eventually earned a PhD, he became convinced that God did not exist. Sadly, he fell ill and passed away at a young age. Yet, a few months before his death, something changed in him — he confessed that God is real, and he repented.
That experience reminded me that we can never fully know how someone’s story will end. Some who seem far from faith may be drawn back before the end, while others may remain hardened. Ultimately, I trust Christ with those outcomes. What we can do is simply plant the seed — and let Christ be the one who waters it.
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@Samuel_23, even though I attended and graduated from a biblically- and doctrinally-sound seminary, I don’t understand many of your words like “provatio boni,” but I do know something about Adam and Eve’s fall:
However, while Eve considers his statements, Satan has given her half-truths, until he gives her an outright lie. She, then, gives into his temptation to be equal to God, on God’s level to make her own decisions about right and wrong. In other words, she gives in to self-centeredness in the use of her desire for “bodily sustenance,” “aesthetic desire,” and “wisdom”–all driven for the first time by her acquired selfishness, which is the root of the sin-tree that poisons it in all humans. Those parts of the human psyche are not basically good but evil, as a result, as the rest of Genesis clearly illustrates.
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I didnt mean like that brother @Bruce_Leiter, the cirumstances, thats the main point to focus:
The problem was:
To talk about Privatio Boni, it means Privation (absence) of good, I tried to explain it with an example, so that its easy to grasp:
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@johann Yeah, but how did you know ha ha?
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A lot of our later debates were on biological realities.
Like I would say - “Be it resolved, that natural abiogenesis is impossible.” Or, “Darwinian evolution stands falsified.” Or something along those lines.
I remember a long exchange with more than one over my “GPoE” statement. That the possibility of evil is entailed by God’s nature, if He decrees to create intelligent persons.
Some would have long exchanges on the ontological argument, but I never felt that it’s a powerful, knock-down type of conclusion.
Anselm held that a maximally great being (MGB) who actually exists is greater than an MGB who is imaginary, thus proving God’s existence. I agree that an actual God is greater than an imaginary God, but I can’t see any causal connection.
The contingency argument is very powerful to me, and the fine-tuning of the universe has no natural explanation. The moral argument I think the atheists have no answer for. It gets tossed in the black hole of evolutionary determinacy.
My favorites are in the world of science and biology. These are pretty much irrefutable. They really bring out the insults and mud-slinging on the atheists part. But they are ensnared and cornered by their own metaphysical commitments. More recently their resort is to quantum metaphysics, mostly because it’s a dark untestable hole, in my opinion. All they have to do is cry out “Quantum fluctuations!”, and the argument is over.
I will say that I got the most howling of all, maybe a year ago, when I offered the “reason people sin” argument for belief in God. I was surprised by how odious that seemed to be to them.
Herein is the heart of the question. If it wasn’t a pre-existing evil element within his nature that Satan chose to corrupt, but a privation of the good nature that God created, what was the pre-existing GOOD element within his nature that he chose to corrupt?
My argument is that God created rational persons with a drive for greatness (a good thing), freedom to choose what to believe (a good thing), and ultimate self-interest (another good thing). So we stand on this precipice, and all God asks us to do is to believe Him. And we see that when we do believe Him, we don’t follow Satan into the abyss of utter self-centeredness.
That’s all. Just believe Him. He’s careful to not force, or coerce us. Our capacity for love is not diminished.
We understand that there exists a living God who created the whole universe, with whom we have to deal. Thankfully, He is a refuge of love and acceptance. Of course our sins and the sins of the whole world have to be dealt with - He did that for us through Christ.
Ohhhh okok… thanks that you liked it but this is the yeah fine, yeah good…yeahhhhhhh okk, hmmmm what…, yeah ofc we can discuss and have a wonderful time learning and also Im glad you liked my writings…
btw I forgot to tell…Welcome to this community
Just take this opportunity to learn and discuss matters that would be hard to understand otherwise.
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Anyways @Pater15, coming back to this discussion, yeah its amazing..
If evil is privation and not a substance, what was the pre-existing good that was corrupted in Satan’s will?
Yes,
The pre-existing good element was idneed, the drive for greatness. Now this is not a flaw but the very imprint of the Imago Dei in a creaturely mode. For an angelic intellect, this drive is the innate, God-given orientation toward its own perfection and flourishing, which is found in its telos:
the eternal contemplation and praise of God
However, this good drive operates within a metaphysical context of hierarchy and participatory being. God is the Summum Bonum, the Supreme Good. All created goods are reflections and participations in His goodness. The angelic nature, in its original righteousness, understood this intuitively. Its greatness was received greatness, its glory a reflected glory. The beatitude of the creature consists in the joyful acknowledgement of this reality, that its own perfection is found in its ordered place within the whole creation, turned in love toward the Source of all being.
The sin of Satan was not the desire for greatness, but the corruption of the mode by which that greatness was to be achieved (@Bruce_Leiter ). It was a catastrophic failure in metaphysical reasoning. The primal sin can be understood as follows:
1. The Good desire: The desire for a likeness to God, for ultimate fulfillment and glory.
2. The Privative Choice: The Rejection of the participatory and receptive mode of attaining this good. Satan’s intellect conceived of a false dichotomy: to be like God either through God (by participation, grace and obedience) or autonomously (by seizure, self-assertion and equality, he chose the latter.
3. The Resulting Privations: The single choice instantaneously introduced multiple privations into his good nature.
A. Privation of Truth: He rejected the fundamental metaphysical truth of his own creatureliness and contingent existence. He believed the lie that divinity could be seized rather than received.
B. Privation of Humility: He rejected the virtue of Humility, which is the honest acknowledgement of one’s place in the order of being.
C. Privation of Ordered Love: His love, which was rightly oriented toward God as the Supreme God, became disordered and inverted toward himself. The drive for greatness curdled into the vice of pride.
In essence, Satan did not corrupt a specific element, but corrupted the relationship between his faculties and their ultimate End. He sought the end while rejecting the means ordained by God (receptive participation). THis is the meaning of the ancient (@Pater15 ) maxim corruptio optimi pessima (“the corruption of the best is the worst”). The highest angels fell the furthest because their superior intellects conceived a more profound perversion of a supreme good.
This same dynaic is precisely what played out in Eden and continues in us. The
(to be like God, knowing good and evil, very important @Bruce_Leiter and @Johann) and
(to trust God’s command or the serpent’s reinterpretation of reality), and
(the desire for flourishing)
were all present and good.
The sin was in seeking self-interest and greatness autonomously, through the act of disbelief, choosing to believe a false narrative about God (that He was withholding good) over the truth He had spoken.
so whats the solution, the solution is what Pater15 said
Why is this the solution?
Because belief is the fundamental act of receptive participation. It is the intellectual and volitional realignment of the soul with reality. To believe God is to:
- Acknowledge the Truth, to accept His account of reality as primary.
- Exercise humility, to submit our own limited, fallen intellect to His infinite wisdom.
- Restore ordered love, to trust that His commands are for our good, thereby rightly ordering our desire for flourishing toward Him.
The Cross of Christ is the ultimate demonstration of this reality. It simultaneously reveals the horrific cost of disbelieving autonomy (humanity killing God) and the infinite depth of God’s believing, receptive love (“not my will, but yours be done”). In atoning for sin, it does not obliterate our drive for greatness; it redeems it, re-ordering it toward its true end and that is participation in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) through union with Christ. We do not become less be believing, we finally become what we were always meant to be.
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Yes, true sister, you have got the right strand.
discuss with everyone…
They will share valuable points too, take note of that as well
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This is amazing and insightful and spot-on.
You also foreshadow the next big subject for discussion, which is:
“Why Does God Make This World SOOOOO Hard?
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Thank you brother @Samuel_23 your expansions are bang on - thrilling to read!
Open a thread so we can discuss this, @Pater15, since the world is falling apart and massive apostasy is spreading just as Scripture foretold. Paul warned, “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). The Spirit also says clearly, “In later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1).
Shalom
J.