Adam and Eve vs. Bob and Sue

[rinnie]

If God knew Adam and Eve would sin why not create Bob and Sue instead who would not sin?

He did. He named them Jesus the Son of God. and Mary the Blessed Mother free from sin at the moment of her conception.

 

[rinnie]

Ok everyone lets clarify:

Bob and Sue have free will too!
He could have created a man and a woman who chose freely not to sin.
He knew Adam and Eve would sin after all.
So instead of making them He could have made Bob and Sue.
So why did He not?

What would make a difference if Bob and Sue didn’t sin. All People have free will to sin or not to sin.

God took away the sin of Adam and Eve which we as Catholic’s call Original sin.

Now by his grace we have a clean slate to sin or not to sin, and if we do he even made it possible for us to be forgiven that sin.

Even if Adam and Eve made the choice to not sin by no means takes away our choice.

Job never sinned he was righteous. He chose not to sin.

 

[jochoa]

He did. He named them Jesus the Son of God. and Mary the Blessed Mother free from sin at the moment of her conception.

Since in the concept, Bob is a created sinless man, I would not equate Jesus with Bob because Jesus is not created. The parallel between Sue and Mary is fine because Mary is created.

 

[Thorns]

Isn’t this the “why didn’t God create robots” question? Free will is required for love. And while it was possible for Adam and Eve not to sin, perhaps the Incarnation and Redemption brought about such an even greater good that to allow the finite evil in order to generate this infinite good was “worth it.”

Except the Church teaches that the ends dont justify the means. That indicates God does not operate that way, nor does he play with peoples’ lives and eternity that way. Even one damned soul is too much.

Its not that Redemption was “worth it”, but more a way to make things possible for salvation once again. It is damage control, in other words.

 

[Thorns]

Because the choice would not be free if he would decide in advance to have unmade it.

God wants us not to sin but this is not the only thing he wants.

Are you saying that Jesus and Mary did not have free will because God planned for them to be sinless in advance?

Why didnt God make Jesus and Mary to begin with instead of Adam and Eve? The world would still have been in its glorified state without suffering.

 

[Arandur]

Except the Church teaches that the ends dont justify the means. That indicates God does not operate that way, nor does he play with peoples’ lives and eternity that way. Even one damned soul is too much.

I’m not sure that any of those three latter assertions are true.

The ends don’t justify the means, but the least evil available means are permissible to avoid greater evil (as in self defense). That qualifier, along with the a difference in wisdom, knowledge, power, and benevolence between man and God changes the context. This is how:

1. Frequently in discussions about free will, we assert that the nature of true love requires free will–the ability to choose NOT to love. That is a lesser evil (the possibility of choosing not to love) permitted for a greater good (love) to be available. Thus I think we can see that the very nature of free will involves a condition allowing for an evil to permit a greater good.
2. Second, the ends never justify the means for us as humans, because we lack the knowledge, power, wisdom, and pure benevolence to make remedy in justice and mercy; we can’t guarantee an end that would be sufficient for the evil that occurred.
3. The “ends never justify means” is also a different context: it is saying that a positive action taken to commit an evil is not permissible, to bring about a good. However, there are myriad other situations that fall outside this admonition, two major ones I will bring to the for:
   A. If someone else commits an evil action, we are not culpable for it; though we CAN (and surely it is good if we do) attempt to remedy the evil with a greater good. We do this all the time, both when we step in to help our neighbors who are victims of a natural evil (a natural disaster or illness) or a moral evil committed by another (abandoned children taken in, outpourings of support for people who have been abused or wronged, etc).
   B. There is the principle of double effect: taking an action not intended to bring about an evil result that just so happens to cause an evil, unavoidably: the classic removal of a section of fallopian tube affected by ectopic pregnancy, an act intended to save the mother from otherwise-certain death, while we know that it will result in the death of the embryonic child (who also is subject to certain death anyway; yet we still don’t directly kill the child, just take action to save one life that has inadvertent, but known, effects).

3A is most analogous to God permitting free will, since God allows someone else (us) to commit evil; He does not commit it Himself. Yet He brings about greater good regardless. He is not culpable in our commission of evil.

3B is perhaps more analogous to God permitting people to choose Hell, since if He does not, He not only negates free will, but also justice (and with it, true mercy), and thus loses the good of someone freely choosing Heaven.

With the risk of getting down a more complex tangent, 2 + 3A + 3B combined may explain why God could allow or even command the Israelites to wipe out other populations, rendering judgment, keeping the Israelites free of corrupting influences likely to lead more souls to damnation, and having within His own power the capability to remedy any killing of innocents.

It’s also part of the background for why allowing death and natural evil is permissible for God, as a consequence of actions.

Its not that Redemption was “worth it”, but more a way to make things possible for salvation once again. It is damage control, in other words.

It has been said by many in our Church’s history (and even in the Scriptures) that through Christ’s Incarnation and our Adoption and theosis, we have a higher state of union with God than the Angels. This did not exist prior to the Incarnation, which means that it was not part of the state of Original Justice.

It is through this reality that we can, in our Easter Vigil Exsultet, proclaim “O happy fault of Adam.”

Similarly, many throughout Church history have asserted that the Angels, if capable of envy (and perhaps this is one of the sins of the Fallen Ones), would envy mankind for the Incarnation and the Eucharist.

These are the contexts in which I say (I think with the Church) that Redemption was “worth it,” that there is a greater good here than even what existed in Original Justice, for the duration in which Adam and Eve did love God without sin separating them from Him. And it only happened after sin had entered the world.

Since “salvation” depends on a prior fall, I DO think that sin was necessary for Redemption. Though as C.S. Lewis explored in Perelandra, it was certainly possible and would have still been quite glorious for our First Parents to never sin. It just would have been different.

Likewise, Redemption was more than just “damage control.” It “makes all things new;” and it changed us. Through Christ we are not just “repaired;” we’re not even just fully restored to an Adamic condition. We are made greater than what Adam had. We are glorified in Christ and united to Him in a unique way that Adam lacked.

This is the greater good that God worked despite allowing us to commit sin. Note again that God did not do evil, so you cannot claim “ends justify means” really even for Him. Rather He acted to bring about greater good despite evil that we commit.

Allowing the continued commission of evil, rather than saving us all the way that He saved Mary, must have similar purpose (allowing evil but remedying it with greater good).

 

[tonyrey]

I explained this in the post you just responded to. It is not that information or knowledge is coercive, the contradiction is in the definitions of omniscience and free will.

Read again the scenario that I posted. How would you reconcile that thought experiment?

The knowledge would be coercive if God informed us about our future course of action because we would believe we had no other option. It is for that very reason we are are not informed - so that we can choose what to believe and how to live.

 

[Sparkythedog]

The knowledge would be coercive if God informed us about our future course of action because we would believe we had no other option. It is for that very reason we are are not informed - so that we can choose what to believe and how to live.

God could tell an intermediary who, in turn, could tell another intermediary so as to double blind the experiment.

Or God could just tell me my future since I will try my darnedest to do the opposite and prove Him wrong.

Coersion can be eliminated from this experiment in numerous ways.

 

[tonyrey]

The knowledge would be coercive if God informed us about our future course of action because we would believe we had no other option. It is for that very reason we are are not informed - so that we can choose what to believe and how to live.

Your suggestions are hopelessly unrealistic. I, for one, would be highly sceptical if anyone claimed to have had a revelation from God about my future behaviour. As for trying to prove God is wrong, no genuine believer would contemplate such an absurd possibility.

Faith is not just a theory but an awareness of the power of love which transforms our attitude to life. We are not impotent puppets but independent persons made in the image of our Creator - with a capacity for creation or destruction.** We alone** decide what to believe and how to behave. Otherwise nothing you have written makes sense…

 

[opusAquinas]

Again, why did God not create two people who would not sin?

 

[Sparkythedog]

Your suggestions are hopelessly unrealistic. I, for one, would be highly sceptical if anyone claimed to have had a revelation from God about my future behaviour. As for trying to prove God is wrong, no genuine believer would contemplate such an absurd possibility.

Which part is unrealistic? You first stated that if God tells you your future, it would be so convincing that you could not conceive of doing anything else. Then you state that if someone tells you what God said about your future, then you would not be convinced.

What is it about the way God would say something that makes it so convincing? Why would a human, repeating exactly what God said, not be convincing.

To make it a real world example let’s say that God tells me: You will be on the corner of J street and 10th next Wednesday at noon. What would make this statement more coercive if God said it?

 

[tonyrey]

Which part is unrealistic? You first stated that if God tells you your future, it would be so convincing that you could not conceive of doing anything else. Then you state that if someone tells you what God said about your future, then you would not be convinced.

I’m amazed you cannot distinguish the difference.

What is it about the way God would say something that makes it so convincing? Why would a human, repeating exactly what God said, not be convincing.

There is such a thing as hallucination…

To make it a real world example let’s say that God tells me: You will be on the corner of J street and 10th next Wednesday at noon. What would make this statement more coercive if God said it?

God wouldn’t say it because He knows it would interfere with your freedom of choice. He leaves us to make our own decisions.

 

[tonyrey]

Which part is unrealistic? You first stated that if God tells you your future, it would be so convincing that you could not conceive of doing anything else. Then you state that if someone tells you what God said about your future, then you would not be convinced.

I’m amazed you cannot distinguish the difference.

What is it about the way God would say something that makes it so convincing? Why would a human, repeating exactly what God said, not be convincing.

There is such a thing as hallucination…

To make it a real world example let’s say that God tells me: You will be on the corner of J street and 10th next Wednesday at noon. What would make this statement more coercive if God said it?

God wouldn’t say it because it would interfere with your freedom of choice. He leaves us to make our own decisions.

 

[opusAquinas]

I’m amazed you cannot distinguish the difference.

There is such a thing as hallucination…

God wouldn’t say it because He knows it would interfere with your freedom of choice. He leaves us to make our own decisions.

God told Simon Peter that he would deny Him three times remember. This did not interfere with Simon Peter’s free will.

 

[opusAquinas]

OK EVERYONE!

I think I know why God did not create Bob and Sue who would not sin.

God created the world to show forth His Mercy and Justice.

He did this best by creating Adam and Eve who would sin of their own free will.

By permitting the Fall God shows maximally His Mercy and Justice.

He can be merciful to every type even the worst scoundrel. And show justice to all kinds of people.

 

[Sparkythedog]

God told Simon Peter that he would deny Him three times remember. This did not interfere with Simon Peter’s free will.

It didn’t? I haven’t heard that story in a while but I believe that Jesus made a prediction, Simon Peter said he wouldn’t deny him, but then ended up denying him anyways. Why wasn’t he able to change his path? This doesn’t seem like a good example of free will. It seems to imply the opposite.

 

[Sparkythedog]

I’m amazed you cannot distinguish the difference.

There is such a thing as hallucination…

God wouldn’t say it because He knows it would interfere with your freedom of choice. He leaves us to make our own decisions.

I don’t think you quite understand what I’m putting forward in this example, but that’s ok.

 

[Richca]

If God knows I will sin, then my future is already determined. God may not have determined it himself personally, but it is determined none the less.

Here is a thought experiment that I put forward in another thread to explain this:

Imagine God knows you will sin at a certain time and place and relays to you that knowledge. Can you freely choose not to commit the sin that God has said you will commit?

If you can choose not to sin, then you have free will but God is not omniscient because his prediction was wrong.

If you can’t choose not to sin then God is omniscient but you don’t have free will.

The two are logically irreconcilable without changing the definitions of those words.

If free will and omniscience are logically irreconcilable in your view, then what follows from affirming one and denying the other is also logically irreconcilable. For example, if you affirm that God has omniscience but human beings do not have free will, then God is the author of sin which is inadmissable as it is written
"Do not say: “It was God’s doing that I fell away,”
for what he hates he does not do.
Do not say: “He himself has led me astray,”
for he has no need of the wicked. (Sirach 15: 11-12).

If you affirm that human beings have free will but God is not omniscient then that means God changes (God would be in potentiality to new knowledge) which is also inadmissable as it is written " I the Lord do not change" (Malachi 3:6).

Affirming one and denying the other involves logically irreconcilable contradictions.

 

[Sparkythedog]

If free will and omniscience are logically irreconcilable in your view, then what follows from affirming one and denying the other is also logically irreconcilable. For example, if you affirm that God has omniscience but human beings do not have free will, then God is the author of sin which is inadmissable as it is written
"Do not say: “It was God’s doing that I fell away,”
for what he hates he does not do.
Do not say: “He himself has led me astray,”
for he has no need of the wicked. (Sirach 15: 11-12).

If you affirm that human beings have free will but God is not omniscient then that means God changes (God would be in potentiality to new knowledge) which is also inadmissable as it is written " I the Lord do not change" (Malachi 3:6).

How do you reconcile affirming free will but denying omniscience or affirming omniscience but denying free will?

I would say that, because there is a logical contradiction between the definitions of free will and omniscience, the view of what God is must be wrong.

 

[tonyrey]

God told Simon Peter that he would deny Him three times remember. This did not interfere with Simon Peter’s free will.

I don’t believe Peter was fully responsible - if at all - for his action because he wept bitterly when he realised what he had done. Being overcome with fear when he was questioned is sufficient evidence that there was a mitigating circumstance which casts doubt on the extent to which he was exercising free will. The spectacle of crucified criminals and rebels by the roadside didn’t leave much to the imagination…