Did God create sin?

[RodneyJ]

I know He created everything, but did He create sin as well?

 

[Other_Eric]

I know He created everything, but did He create sin as well?

Inasmuch as God has allowed free will, He has allowed for the possibility of sin and therefore can be said to have “created” it but not as a direct consequence. It also misses the point. It’s like looking at one of Michelangelo’s sculptures and asking if he “created” the rubble he chiseled off the marble slab.

 

[ejreydrum]

we have to remember that he made everything that is good, not bad, such as sin. Sin is a result of disobediance to God, because of our free will.
ejreydrum

 

[Khariz]

I’m really glad to see this thread, because I’ve been wanting to bring up an aspect of this for a long time.

I’m sure this is something that comes up over and over again ad naseum, but I want to talk about it again anyway, and I think it fits squarly into the topic of whether or not God created sin.

Okay so God is omnipotent (all knowing) and omniscient (all powerful) right?

So, before He even created man, He knew that very shortly after He created man with free will, that man would immediately disobey Him WITH that free will. Note, that I’m certainly not saying that god MADE man disobey him, but only that God KNEW that man would disobery him, before he even created man.

That said, here is a question that has ALWAYS lingered in the back of my mind. I asked this question to Priests and Pastors of all denomonations of Christianity, and I’ve never really felt settled on this matter:

If God created man knowing that man would do this, why did it make God so angry when man did exactly what God knew he would do anyway. Yeah, okay, he told Man NOT to do it. But it still seems a bit shallow of an omnipotent being to get all huffy about something that he already knew was going to occur anyway.

For lack of a better way to explain it, it almost seems like God “Set man up” for failure. Why create man if you know man is going to disobey you and it’s going to tick you off? Why did man have to suffer for ages before redemption for doing things that God expected man to do anyway?

I think everyone will understand my question, so I’ll stop re-wording it over and over again. Please help me finally understand this.

 

[Joe_5859]

I know He created everything, but did He create sin as well?

Properly speaking, sin is not a “thing”, but a choice. It is a possibility for us because God granted us all free will. Therefore, we are free to choose for Him or against Him. Sin is the choice against God.

With the concept of sin, particularly Original Sin, it has helped me to think of it in terms of a privation (absence) of a thing rather than the presence of something. In other words, sin and Original Sin are not tangible, created things, but rather are the absence of a good that ought to be there.

A great analogy is temperature. Coldness is not a thing itself but is simply the absence of heat. That is why there is an absolute zero (about -270 degrees celsius), but there is no limit on how hot it can get. This is a great analogy for grace and sin. There is no limit to the grace that God can poor into our hearts, but every time we sin, we close ourselves off to that grace and it gets a little colder in our heart.

Does this help at all?

 

[jjformica]

I don’t think God became “angry” with Adam and Eve. I don’t think God (who is love) is capable of anger in the sense that we understand anger. I think (notice I keep using the word “think”) God simply told Adam and Eve to leave the Garden of Eden and suffer the consequences of their sin which they committed out of free will. Punishment was inevitable and necessary. Even our earthly parents punish us for our wrongdoings though they loves us unconditionally. I think sadness, rather than anger, is a better word for how Adam and Eve made God feel.

God created us out of love, regardless of the fact that He knew many would fall and be damned to hell for all eternity. It’s the many that love Him in return and are saved that causes God’s great joy. He also knew in advance that many would love Him in return. He created man out of love, because God IS love and wanted to share His love. He could have made us without free will, but what good would that do? We would be incapable of loving Him in return if we were “programmed” in perfection and without having free will. After all, God made us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world and in the next.

I once read (cannot remember where) that the reason for Satan’s fall was because he hated the idea of God sending His only begotten Son to be born of a mere human (Mary) and live among us. Satan thought God lowering Himself to our level was dispicable and, therefore, Satan’s arrogance caused his fall from grace and resulted in his being banished from heaven. This is mind-blowing because, as you stated, this means God knew what He was going to do even before man was created. By the time man was created, the devil was already banished from heaven, hence the incident in the Garden of Eden. This is so becuase God is not bound (as man is) by the elements of time. God is past, present and future all at the same time.

Keep in mind that God did not create evil, but He allows it because God can create immense good out of evil. For instance, without Adam and Eve’s sin, we would not have the Holy Eucharist; our greatest gift from God! He turned original sin into an opportunity for us to share in His divinity. What a blessing!

I hope my rather lengthy babblings were at least a little helpful.

 

[Khariz]

It was helpful.

Through my own readings and studies, about the best theory I have seen as for why Original Sin is “inevitable and necessary”, as you put it is the following:

The way we are created, we can only really understand things because of inherant dichotomies. That’s to say, we can only understand things in relation to other things.

The only reason we know what up is, is because of down. The only reason we understand small, is because there is a large.

God Himself, is the only entity that can conceptually understand things without a basis of comparison. So if God had either A) created us automatically loving him or B) let His Son die for our sins at the beginning of time, instead of when He did, there would be no basis for us with which to understand God’s love.

To explain it more clearly:

If there had not been a period of time where we were NOT in God’s good Grace(s), we would not understand what it is like to BE in God’s good Grace.

If there was not a time where it seemed like God did NOT love us (like when he’s killing us all in a flood), we would not understand his Pure Love (like sending his Son to die for us, so that we may be forgiven).

If we had done nothing wrong, and thus did not need forgiven, why would we respect and cherish His love? It would be meaningless to us.

But of course…my mind circles back around and confuses me all over again. Why did God create us in this seemingly imperfect way, to have to understand things only in relation to other things. Why couldn’t we have been made with the same Perfect clairvoyance of Truth that God has? I don’t expect anyone to be able to answer this question, but I suspect that if we had the raw truth burned into our psyche, we would have no need for free will.