Does God use sin to accomplish his plan?

[oldcelt]

Now we would have to go back to what sin is, and is not.

Temptation or to temp is not sin.

Sin is acting on temptation. The person who created sin acted. Sin did not exist before an actor acted. Thus creating a ‘first sin’.

Another avenue you should explore regarding the pride of lucifer is what lucifer knew.

There is a part of the definition of sin that you do not understand and are not considering. The inability to understand it’s effect.

We do not know God as angels do. Lucifer’s rejection came with full knowledge of who God Is.

Human sinfulness and angelic rejection are two totally different things in two completely different environments, time and no time.

The mystery of the divine outside of time is more logically not understood by humans, than known. It can only be known through revelation. So to make assumptions as you have either means God has revealed to you that which was revealed differently earlier in time, or you are wrong.

The great thing though, is that if you want to correct your thoughts of Christianity’s teachings, you’ve found a good place to poke around.

Merry Christmas!

Could be that nothing has ever really been revealed. Just the writings of the desperate and insane looking for some sense of reason in their lives.

Regarding sin, Adam and Eve’s transgression was to seek knowledge. You too can do that and come to the painful realization, as it has been painful to me, that we are on our own out here. I still respect this holiday as a remembrance of my parents, who put so much effort into making it wondrous for their children from all angles.

Merry Christmas to you and all who may stop in.

 

[D_Martin]

This has troubled me for nearly 30 years and I’d like to hear other takes.

Many people believe that God is directly involved in the creation of every human being. I personally do not, but here is the question.

If God is directly involved in the creation of every person, how can people be physically conceived through such things as rape, incest, invitro fertilization, pre-marital sex, etc? Each of these is viewed by the Church as a grave or mortal sin, yet God is using them to create lives.

There is a proper and improper way to do all things, is the oil you put in your car as gasoline come from crimes committed on others? If so, is it still okay to use the gasoline? Is the clothes you’re wearing made from enslavement of child labor? If so, then is it okay to have them? Or are you looking for justification for condemnation of something, or someone?

Pick your poison on the theological provisions of condemnation of others, and even one’s self. Consider the shift of theology on the subject alone on “pre-marital intercourse” if some one is born of mortal sin then why is it mortal sin to prevent the life to come into the world? But yet any use of prevention other than abstinence is also a sin, of what theological degree, not sure. Abstinence is ok, but any other prevention of having unexpected souls come into the world is prohibited.

God has given man the ability to give the life he has in the world in the flesh to another, just as God has given the ability of His Son to give use the Life He has with His Father. Actually almost all living things have this gift to give life that they have. In the case of the Lord God the only acceptable Way is to be born of His Spirit. But does the Lord God have the prerogative to chose? Seeing that this is to the whole world.

 

[anthonymarie]

I have come to far to return.

“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”

C. S. Lewis

 

[hazcompat]

HOW CAN GOD WILL OR ALLOW EVIL?
However, you will perhaps now say, there is sinfulness in all these actions. How then can God will them and take part in them if He is all-holy and can have nothing in common with sin? God indeed is not and cannot be the author of sin. But it must be remembered that in every sin there are two parts to be distinguished, one natural and the other moral. Thus, in the action of the man you think you have a grievance against there is, for example, the movement of the arm that strikes you or the tongue that offends you, and the movement of the will that turns aside from right reason and the law of God. The physical action of the arm or the tongue, like all natural things, is quite good in itself and there is nothing to prevent its being produced with and by God’s cooperation.

What is evil, what God could not cooperate with, is the sinful intention which the will of man contributes to the act. When a man walks with a crippled leg the movement he makes comes both from the soul and the leg, but the defect which causes him to walk badly is only in the leg. In the same way all evil actions must be attributed to God and to man in so far as they are natural, physical acts, but they can be attributed only to the will of man in so far as they are sinful and blameworthy.

If then someone strikes you or slanders you, as the movement of the arm or tongue is in no way a sin, God can very well be, and actually is, the author of it; for existence and movement in man not less than in any other creature proceed not from himself but from God, who acts in him and by him. For in Him says St. Paul, we live and move and have our being. As for the malice of the intention, it proceeds entirely from man and in it alone is the sinfulness in which God has no share but which He yet permits in order not to interfere with our freedom of will. Moreover, when God cooperates with the person who attacks or robs you, He doubtless intends to deprive you of health or goods because you are making a wrong use of them and they will be harmful to your soul. But He does not intend that the attacker or robber should take them from you by a sin.That is the part of human malice, not God’s design.

An example may make the matter clearer. A criminal is condemned to death by fair trial. But the executioner happens to be a personal enemy of his, and instead of carrying out the judge’s sentence as a duty, he does so in a spirit of hate and revenge. Obviously the judge has no share in the executioner’s sin. The will and intention of the judge is not that this sin should he committed, but that justice should take its course and the criminal be punished. In the same way God has no share at all in the wickedness of the man who strikes or robs you. That is something particular to the man himself. God, as we have said, wishes to make you see your own faults, to humble you, deprive you of what you possess, in order to free you from vice and lead you to virtue; but this good and merciful design, which He could carry out in numerous other ways without any sin being involved, has nothing in common with the sin of the man who acts as His instrument. And in fact it is not this man’s evil intention or sin that causes you to suffer, humiliates or impoverishes you, but the loss of your well being, your good name or your possessions. The sin harms only the person who is guilty of it. This is the way we ought to separate the good from the evil in events of this kind, and distinguish what God operates through men from what men add to the act by their own will.

Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence
by Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure & St. Claude de la Colombiere

 

[oldcelt]

There is a proper and improper way to do all things, is the oil you put in your car as gasoline come from crimes committed on others? If so, is it still okay to use the gasoline? Is the clothes you’re wearing made from enslavement of child labor? If so, then is it okay to have them? Or are you looking for justification for condemnation of something, or someone?

Pick your poison on the theological provisions of condemnation of others, and even one’s self. Consider the shift of theology on the subject alone on “pre-marital intercourse” if some one is born of mortal sin then why is it mortal sin to prevent the life to come into the world? But yet any use of prevention other than abstinence is also a sin, of what theological degree, not sure. Abstinence is ok, but any other prevention of having unexpected souls come into the world is prohibited.

God has given man the ability to give the life he has in the world in the flesh to another, just as God has given the ability of His Son to give use the Life He has with His Father. Actually almost all living things have this gift to give life that they have. In the case of the Lord God the only acceptable Way is to be born of His Spirit. But does the Lord God have the prerogative to chose? Seeing that this is to the whole world.

Comparing humans to an all-knowing deity isn’t really a valid comparison, is it? In some people’s belief system God knows EVERYTHING and that includes the Church. So, if he knows that a rape is going to occur and result in a pregnancy, and does nothing to prevent it, he has used a mortal sin to create another human soul. For all we know war is his way of population control.
No matter the belief system, when it involves a unseen deity, people are guessing. My guess is that there is a god who leaves us to our own industry and controls nothing. I am nothing more than the product of my parent’s love/lust.

 

[D_Martin]

Regarding sin, Adam and Eve’s transgression was to seek knowledge. You too can do that and come to the painful realization, as it has been painful to me, that we are on our own out here.

Yes, but could it be what was revealed, (now knowledge that they received and has given to every human soul), that doing something other than God’s Judgement expressed in His Commandment is not only evil, it is evil to the doer, because it will also result in death of the doer. Therefore, doing God’s Judgements expressed in His Commandments will result in life. And in who’s life, since one must receive it from one who already has life? But if the life was lost from the one who has give us life, then how is it that we can be restored to the Life Adam and Eve once had before they lost it and then gave us the life they had? Because how can one keep what one has not, by do the Judgements that are expressed in the Commandments of God?

 

[oldcelt]

HOW CAN GOD WILL OR ALLOW EVIL?
However, you will perhaps now say, there is sinfulness in all these actions. How then can God will them and take part in them if He is all-holy and can have nothing in common with sin? God indeed is not and cannot be the author of sin. But it must be remembered that in every sin there are two parts to be distinguished, one natural and the other moral. Thus, in the action of the man you think you have a grievance against there is, for example, the movement of the arm that strikes you or the tongue that offends you, and the movement of the will that turns aside from right reason and the law of God. The physical action of the arm or the tongue, like all natural things, is quite good in itself and there is nothing to prevent its being produced with and by God’s cooperation.

What is evil, what God could not cooperate with, is the sinful intention which the will of man contributes to the act. When a man walks with a crippled leg the movement he makes comes both from the soul and the leg, but the defect which causes him to walk badly is only in the leg. In the same way all evil actions must be attributed to God and to man in so far as they are natural, physical acts, but they can be attributed only to the will of man in so far as they are sinful and blameworthy.

If then someone strikes you or slanders you, as the movement of the arm or tongue is in no way a sin, God can very well be, and actually is, the author of it; for existence and movement in man not less than in any other creature proceed not from himself but from God, who acts in him and by him. For in Him says St. Paul, we live and move and have our being. As for the malice of the intention, it proceeds entirely from man and in it alone is the sinfulness in which God has no share but which He yet permits in order not to interfere with our freedom of will. Moreover, when God cooperates with the person who attacks or robs you, He doubtless intends to deprive you of health or goods because you are making a wrong use of them and they will be harmful to your soul. But He does not intend that the attacker or robber should take them from you by a sin.That is the part of human malice, not God’s design.

An example may make the matter clearer. A criminal is condemned to death by fair trial. But the executioner happens to be a personal enemy of his, and instead of carrying out the judge’s sentence as a duty, he does so in a spirit of hate and revenge. Obviously the judge has no share in the executioner’s sin. The will and intention of the judge is not that this sin should he committed, but that justice should take its course and the criminal be punished. In the same way God has no share at all in the wickedness of the man who strikes or robs you. That is something particular to the man himself. God, as we have said, wishes to make you see your own faults, to humble you, deprive you of what you possess, in order to free you from vice and lead you to virtue; but this good and merciful design, which He could carry out in numerous other ways without any sin being involved, has nothing in common with the sin of the man who acts as His instrument. And in fact it is not this man’s evil intention or sin that causes you to suffer, humiliates or impoverishes you, but the loss of your well being, your good name or your possessions. The sin harms only the person who is guilty of it. This is the way we ought to separate the good from the evil in events of this kind, and distinguish what God operates through men from what men add to the act by their own will.

Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence
by Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure & St. Claude de la Colombiere

I’ve read this before and find it to be gravely wanting. It’s the basic God’s cruelty is good for people. It is a very twisted attempt to provide cover for a deity that uses sin and cruelty for his gain,

 

[hazcompat]

I’ve read this before and find it to be gravely wanting. It’s the basic God’s cruelty is good for people. It is a very twisted attempt to provide cover for a deity that uses sin and cruelty for his gain,

I’ve heard this before. It’s your basic man’s cruelty is attributable to the good God. God is guilty of creating the hand. Man chooses to use it to help or hurt his neighbor. God has no gain! Omnipotent, no gain or loss.

Peace

 

[D_Martin]

Comparing humans to an all-knowing deity isn’t really a valid comparison, is it? In some people’s belief system God knows EVERYTHING and that includes the Church. So, if he knows that a rape is going to occur and result in a pregnancy, and does nothing to prevent it, he has used a mortal sin to create another human soul. For all we know war is his way of population control.
No matter the belief system, when it involves a unseen deity, people are guessing. My guess is that there is a god who leaves us to our own industry and controls nothing. I am nothing more than the product of my parent’s love/lust.

Are you saying that without God’s intervention that man is left to circumstances beyond man’s control? We are not talking about beyond God’s control, we are talking about beyond man’s control, correct? And are you saying that no one can have a relationship with the Creator and Judge? If you are talking about the Lord God of Israel then one can have a relationship with Him through His Word. Which is what the Adam and Eve thing is all about, what the Lord God said to Adam, and what Adam and Eve did in relationship to what the Lord God said to Adam.

Also if some one being in the world is the result of “sin”, then why should it matter to the one it effects most, the one who is in the world because of it? Though a rape, for example, is a horrendous act, the raped has lost something but the soul who came into the because of it has received life. The victim of the rape, in many cases, can overcome the harm of the act (maybe).

It’s really all about justification to be in the Light, and what is it that is justified to be in the Light but the Light itself, and that which the Light shines on? A fool isn’t a fool because he was born into darkness, he becomes a fool when he refuses the Light.

Note the justification to remain in the flesh is to eat that which sustains the flesh, namely “the bread as a result of the sweat of the brow” (not necessarily morals, reason being there are many immoral in the flesh and remain in the flesh to a ripe old age), but what is it that not only gives the Life that was intended for mankind, but justifies one’s presence therein?

 

[oldcelt]

I’ve heard this before. It’s your basic man’s cruelty is attributable to the good God. God is guilty of creating the hand. Man chooses to use it to help or hurt his neighbor. God has no gain! Omnipotent, no gain or loss.

Peace

He gains in the advancement of his plan and hopefully another saved soul. Of course, he could have saved us all a lot of trouble if he had simply created what he wanted rather than play all the games.

The omniscience that Christians attribute to God is a real mill stone hung from his neck. As I’ve said before, with knowledge comes responsibility. I am a mandatory reporter. If I see someone threatening the well-being of a child, I HAVE to report it or possibly face jail. This God just uses it for his own gain.

 

[Razanir]

Let me try explaining it with an analogy.

Imagine you invent some new technology that converts garbage to clean electrical energy. If people use it as you intend– that is, they use their household waste for energy instead of sending it to a landfill– then it’s a good thing. Now let’s say a serial killer gets his hands on one of these machines. Except instead of using household waste, he uses it to dispose of the bodies. It’s still a good product that comes out of it– clean power for his house– but he found a despicable means of getting it.

 

[oldcelt]

Let me try explaining it with an analogy.

Imagine you invent some new technology that converts garbage to clean electrical energy. If people use it as you intend– that is, they use their household waste for energy instead of sending it to a landfill– then it’s a good thing. Now let’s say a serial killer gets his hands on one of these machines. Except instead of using household waste, he uses it to dispose of the bodies. It’s still a good product that comes out of it– clean power for his house– but he found a despicable means of getting it.

I understand your analogy, but it in no way absolves an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving, all- merciful (all written tongue in cheek) deity.

 

[ffg]

Could be that nothing has ever really been revealed. Just the writings of the desperate and insane looking for some sense of reason in their lives.

Regarding sin, Adam and Eve’s transgression was to seek knowledge. You too can do that and come to the painful realization, as it has been painful to me, that we are on our own out here. I still respect this holiday as a remembrance of my parents, who put so much effort into making it wondrous for their children from all angles.

Merry Christmas to you and all who may stop in.

Anything could or could not have happened. But we should be fair to history when using our ability to think.

Faithful folks are more often than not our well educated leaders, the whole insane and desperate argument might be good form if all religious kooks were in nut houses.

Giving credence to the assumption people are learning and speaking with a clear mind is a more logical assumption.

If we were all nuts, history would have played a different story.

Fun conversation.

Take care,

 

[oldcelt]

Anything could or could not have happened. But we should be fair to history when using our ability to think.

Faithful folks are more often than not our well educated leaders, the whole insane and desperate argument might be good form if all religious kooks were in nut houses.

Giving credence to the assumption people are learning and speaking with a clear mind is a more logical assumption.

If we were all nuts, history would have played a different story.

Fun conversation.

Take care,

You too…A Merry Christmas to you and yours

 

[hazcompat]

St John of Damascus
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

…
Wherefore in God, Who alone is passionless and unalterable, and immutable, and ever
so continueth, both begetting and creating are passionless. For being by nature passionless and not liable to flux, since He is simple and uncompound, He is not subject to passion or flux either in begetting or in creating, nor has He need of any co-operation. But generation in Him is without beginning and everlasting, being the work of nature and producing out of His own essence, that the Begetter may not undergo change, and that He may not be God first and God last, nor receive any accession: while creation in the case of God, being the work of will, is not co-eternal with God. For it is not natural that that which is brought into existence out of nothing should be co-eternal with what is without beginning and everlasting. There is this difference in fact between man’s making and God’s. Man can bring nothing into existence out of nothing, but all that he makes requires pre-existing matter for its basis, and he does not create it by will only, but thinks out first what it is to be and pictures it in his mind, and only then fashions it with his hands, undergoing labour and trouble, and often missing the mark and failing to produce to his satisfaction that after which he strives. But God, through the exercise of will alone, has brought all things into existence out of nothing. Now there is the same difference between God and man in begetting and generating. For in God, Who is without time and beginning, passionless, not liable to flux, incorporeal, alone and without end, generation is without time and beginning, passionless and not liable to flux, nor dependent on the union of two nor has His own incomprehensible generation beginning or end. And it is without beginning because He is immutable: without flux because He is passionless and incorporeal: independent of the union of two again because He is incorporeal but also because He is the one and only God, and stands in need of no co-operation: and without end or cessation because He is without beginning, or time, or end, and ever continues the same. For that which has no beginning has no end: but that which through grace is endless is assuredly not without beginning, as, witness, the angels.

Peace

 

[tonyrey]

I’ve read this before and find it to be gravely wanting. It’s the basic God’s cruelty is good for people. It is a very twisted attempt to provide cover for a deity that uses sin and cruelty for his gain,

Without sin and cruelty neither you nor I nor anyone else would be free to think for ourselves and make our own decisions… I choose to wish you a happy Christmas.

 

[oldcelt]

Without sin and cruelty neither you nor I nor anyone else would be free to think for ourselves and make our own decisions… I choose to wish you a happy Christmas.

I choose to return that wish for a Merry Christmas and a safe, prosperous new year. Be well.

 

[oldcelt]

St John of Damascus
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

…
Wherefore in God, Who alone is passionless and unalterable, and immutable, and ever
so continueth, both begetting and creating are passionless. For being by nature passionless and not liable to flux, since He is simple and uncompound, He is not subject to passion or flux either in begetting or in creating, nor has He need of any co-operation. But generation in Him is without beginning and everlasting, being the work of nature and producing out of His own essence, that the Begetter may not undergo change, and that He may not be God first and God last, nor receive any accession: while creation in the case of God, being the work of will, is not co-eternal with God. For it is not natural that that which is brought into existence out of nothing should be co-eternal with what is without beginning and everlasting. There is this difference in fact between man’s making and God’s. Man can bring nothing into existence out of nothing, but all that he makes requires pre-existing matter for its basis, and he does not create it by will only, but thinks out first what it is to be and pictures it in his mind, and only then fashions it with his hands, undergoing labour and trouble, and often missing the mark and failing to produce to his satisfaction that after which he strives. But God, through the exercise of will alone, has brought all things into existence out of nothing. Now there is the same difference between God and man in begetting and generating. For in God, Who is without time and beginning, passionless, not liable to flux, incorporeal, alone and without end, generation is without time and beginning, passionless and not liable to flux, nor dependent on the union of two nor has His own incomprehensible generation beginning or end. And it is without beginning because He is immutable: without flux because He is passionless and incorporeal: independent of the union of two again because He is incorporeal but also because He is the one and only God, and stands in need of no co-operation: and without end or cessation because He is without beginning, or time, or end, and ever continues the same. For that which has no beginning has no end: but that which through grace is endless is assuredly not without beginning, as, witness, the angels.

Peace

I think St. John is either making some very big assumptions, or this is a personal revelation. It really doesn’t matter right now. My family is beginning the Christmas festivities.

My you also have a festive and rewarding Christmas. No matter our specific beliefs, this a special time of year to revel in the ones we love. Merry Christmas.

 

[tonyrey]

I choose to return that wish for a Merry Christmas and a safe, prosperous new year. Be well.

It’s good to end on a united note with peace on earth to all men of good will.

 

[LoveGod102]

Now we would have to go back to what sin is, and is not.

Temptation or to temp is not sin.

Sin is acting on temptation. The person who created sin acted. Sin did not exist before an actor acted. Thus creating a ‘first sin’.

Another avenue you should explore regarding the pride of lucifer is what lucifer knew.

There is a part of the definition of sin that you do not understand and are not considering. The inability to understand it’s effect.

We do not know God as angels do. Lucifer’s rejection came with full knowledge of who God Is.

Human sinfulness and angelic rejection are two totally different things in two completely different environments, time and no time.

The mystery of the divine outside of time is more logically not understood by humans, than known. It can only be known through revelation. So to make assumptions as you have either means God has revealed to you that which was revealed differently earlier in time, or you are wrong.

The great thing though, is that if you want to correct your thoughts of Christianity’s teachings, you’ve found a good place to poke around.

Merry Christmas!

Sin is rejecting God. Our rejecting God and the Satan rejecting God are somewhat different because Satan was never human and his choice was irrevocable, but they aren’t totally different things. The difference is that Satan was an angel with more intelligence than us, and he better understood the consequences of his sin.