Freewill but Perfect

[jschutzm]

An Atheist on Yahoo! Answers asked this:

<<If God has both (A) Free Will and (B) the inability to sin, why couldn’t he have made humans the same way?>>

I believe the right answer involves defining freewill, defining perfect, and outlining the nature of God.

But exactly how to do this, in a short and concise manner… elludes me.

How would you answer this? Any help appreciated. Thanks!

 

[JohnDamian]

Because in Catholic teaching morals have Concupiscence; a desire for things which leads us to be inclined towards sin. This is coupled with our knowlege of good and evil and our free will.

The reason which God cannot sin is because he is perfect in goodness; he is incapable of doing evil – wheras; humans are not perfect in goodness – the reason for our not being perfect in goodness is encapsulated at the heart of our understanding of Original sin; which leads to suffering, death and concupiscence. It is because we are both free and finite that we have the inclination to turn away from God; wheras he in his infinite nature lacks either the need or the desire to be inclined towards evil.

 

[runningdude]

Because in Catholic teaching morals have Concupiscence; a desire for things which leads us to be inclined towards sin. This is coupled with our knowlege of good and evil and our free will.

The reason which God cannot sin is because he is perfect in goodness; he is incapable of doing evil – wheras; humans are not perfect in goodness – the reason for our not being perfect in goodness is encapsulated at the heart of our understanding of Original sin; which leads to suffering, death and concupiscence. It is because we are both free and finite that we have the inclination to turn away from God; wheras he in his infinite nature lacks either the need or the desire to be inclined towards evil.

Or is it that God does indeed have perfect freewill, and yet chooses to do no evil? God alone, after all, has the grace to remain free of sin. Yet he allows evil to happen, and all that happens is his will - Ugg, I’m getting a headache I don’t think a perfectly satisfactory answer can exist while we’re living. God is bigger than any one explanation!

 

[Scoobyshme]

An Atheist on Yahoo! Answers asked this:

<<If God has both (A) Free Will and (B) the inability to sin, why couldn’t he have made humans the same way?>>

I believe the right answer involves defining freewill, defining perfect, and outlining the nature of God.

But exactly how to do this, in a short and concise manner… elludes me.

How would you answer this? Any help appreciated. Thanks!

It might also help to define sin in light of all this. Sin is, basically, saying “No!” to the will of God. How can one say, “No!” to his own will. God’s nature is such that whatever His will is, is His will. It is not possible for Him to disobey Himself because whatever He does or desires IS His will.

Since we are separate beings from God, we CAN disobey God’s will. And, because of the effects of original sin, namely darkness of intellect and weakness of will, we often do disobey His will.

 

[Stylites]

An Atheist on Yahoo! Answers asked this:

<<If God has both (A) Free Will and (B) the inability to sin, why couldn’t he have made humans the same way?>>

I believe the right answer involves defining freewill, defining perfect, and outlining the nature of God.

But exactly how to do this, in a short and concise manner… elludes me.

How would you answer this? Any help appreciated. Thanks!

If God wanted to create a species of slavish robots to always love Him, He would have. Free will means we have the CHOICE to love God or not. It is that CHOICE to love which God wants. CHOOSING love makes the love He receives genuine and hence more precious.

 

[fhansen]

An Atheist on Yahoo! Answers asked this:

<<If God has both (A) Free Will and (B) the inability to sin, why couldn’t he have made humans the same way?>>

I believe the right answer involves defining freewill, defining perfect, and outlining the nature of God.

But exactly how to do this, in a short and concise manner… elludes me.

How would you answer this? Any help appreciated. Thanks!

I believe it’s incorrect to say that God has free will, as if He has the need to choose between this option or that the way we do. Since He’s perfect goodness itself, even the possibility of His needing to choose between this good or that is excluded. His will is always good, without any lesser good to opt for.

And while, being part of creation, we are good and not evil, we can nonetheless be said to be evil in a relative sense, by degree, as in less good than Perfect Goodness. And creation remains good by virtue of being ordered according to the will of Goodness, unless sentient creatures with self-consciousness and free will, by virtue of being less than perfectly good, were to decide for themselves that they possess greater ability for determining good than the ultimate Good, Himself, possesses.

And at some point lesser goods are bound to be determined to be greater ones, with evil resulting.

 

[The_Exodus]

An Atheist on Yahoo! Answers asked this:

<<If God has both (A) Free Will and (B) the inability to sin, why couldn’t he have made humans the same way?>>

Since God in his nature is the highest principle of being, he cannot sin or fail to conform to himself or his own nature. Therefore, since God is his nature, and his nature is perfection, God is incapable of sin.

Humans, however, are created beings which in themselves lack this characteristic. Their nature is not their own manner of existing, where they derive their being from, etc. In order to be unable by nature to sin (or lack being), they would have to contain by nature a goodness incapable of failure. Yet, since creatures began to exist, being brought into being by God, their nature is changeable. Since at one time they were not, it is impossible that, by nature, they are incapable of not being. To God alone is it natural to be incapable of failing to be. Thus creatures, by nature, are inherently capable of sin; though of course, if they always make use of God’s sufficient grace, they need not ever *actually *sin.

 

[wanstronian]

It may be that the atheist asked this not to elicit an answer as such, but to demonstrate (if only to him/herself) that any explanation highlights the implicit claim by the explainer that somehow they know the nature and will of God, when it is evident that nobody can know these things, even if God exists.

It exposes the arrogance with which the theist assumes he has some privileged insight into the nature of God, and his tendency to assert with an unjustifiable air of authority, things which he cannot possibly know. The contrast between theology and real knowledge is thrown into stark relief.

Of course, it may have been a genuine question; despite the fact that it’s been asked and pseudo-answered so often, it still gets asked from time to time.

 

[stenlis]

The reason which God cannot sin is because he is perfect in goodness; he is incapable of doing evil

Here’s an example of God’s perfect ‘goodness’ from the book of Numbers:

31:7 And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.
31:9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.
31:13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.
31:14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
31:15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

So God commanded Israelites to kill all the captive women and all the captive children except for the female virgins, which they should ‘keep alive for themselves’

If this is not evil, I don’t know what is.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Here’s an example of God’s perfect ‘goodness’ from the book of Numbers:

31:7 And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.
31:9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.
31:13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.
31:14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
31:15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

So God commanded Israelites to kill all the captive women and all the captive children except for the female virgins, which they should ‘keep alive for themselves’

If this is not evil, I don’t know what is.

I guess it all depends on the larger context in which this was written. And Moses said…?

In respect of war in general, there is nothing wrong about killing in defence of your community against a certain threat. Thus context is important.

I am no bible expert, and I admit that this is very difficult to understand, and that’s if God truly ordered the slaying of the children. But this does not mean there isn’t a justified reason for what happened, if it happened literally. It would depend on why God told them to do it, if God told them to do it.

You are certainly justified in asking the question, but in your asking you admit in your heart that in truth there is such a thing as right and wrong. Therefore your question is not relevant in terms of proving the existence of God or what it means for God to have freewill; except perhaps that it challenges the legitimacy of some aspects of the old testament bible where actions are attributed to the will of God. This is a ethical subject for a another thread. I think you should make another thread and lets see what answers are given.

 

[stenlis]

I guess it all depends on the larger context in which this was written.

The larger context is that the Israelites are marching towards the promised land but there are kingdoms in the way. Kingdoms where people worship gods other than Yahve. So they burn them. Compare this to the approach of radical islam.
MindOverMatter2;7048251:

And Moses said…?

A valid point for sure. Moses supposedly wrote the first books of the bible. You might as well say “Moses said - In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

In respect of war in general, there is nothing wrong about killing in defence of your community against a certain threat. Thus context is important.

Except that this was a military campaign rather than defense. They could have stayed and lived at the territory of the first unfortunate nation they have slain. Instead they went on a genocidal rampage eradicating a dozen more.

I am no bible expert, and I admit that this is very difficult to understand, and that’s if God truly ordered the slaying of the children. But this does not mean there isn’t a justified reason for what happened, if it happened literally. It would depend on why God told them to do it, if God told them to do it.

You are certainly justified in asking the question, but in your asking you admit in your heart that in truth there is such a thing as right and wrong. Therefore your question is not relevant in terms of proving the existence of God or what it means for God to have freewill; except perhaps that it challenges the legitimacy of some aspects of the old testament bible where actions are attributed to the will of God. This is a ethical subject for a another thread. I think you should make another thread and lets see what answers are given.

Well the poster I responded to was arguing that God does have free will but he does not commit evil acts because it’s not his nature. While I pointed out that he does commit evil acts in the bible.

You only hinted on this, but the common response I get from christians to this is that I do not know what God’s intentions were on these seemingly evil acts and perhaps I cannot know because he is such an infinite being and I’m not.

The problem is that if I cannot know enough to judge God’s actions as evil, I also cannot know enough to judge God’s actions as good. What’s more - how could you judge whether God has free will then?

 

[vz71]

An Atheist on Yahoo! Answers asked this:

<<If God has both (A) Free Will and (B) the inability to sin, why couldn’t he have made humans the same way?>>

Sin itself is defined in terms of God. So any given choice God makes necessarily is not sin. Because it follows perfectly with God’s will.

Since sin is defined relative to God, we would have to be God ourselves in order to share this ‘inability to sin’

We are not God ourselves. And that means that we have the capability of acting against God’s will.

We need not know anything more then what sin is and the fact that we are not God to answer this question.

 

[wanstronian]

Sin itself is defined in terms of God. So any given choice God makes necessarily is not sin. Because it follows perfectly with God’s will.

Since sin is defined relative to God, we would have to be God ourselves in order to share this ‘inability to sin’

We are not God ourselves. And that means that we have the capability of acting against God’s will.

We need not know anything more then what sin is and the fact that we are not God to answer this question.

Ah - the Special Pleading pseudo-defence!

 

[MindOverMatter2]

The larger context is that the Israelites are marching towards the promised land but there are kingdoms in the way. Kingdoms where people worship gods other than Yahve. So they burn them. Compare this to the approach of radical islam.

It seems to me that you are interpreting this in light of your own experiences and culture. Perhaps these different “religions” and peoples as you say were in fact an imminent threat to the salvation of the human race. What about that context?

 

[vz71]

Sin itself is defined in terms of God. So any given choice God makes necessarily is not sin. Because it follows perfectly with God’s will.

Since sin is defined relative to God, we would have to be God ourselves in order to share this ‘inability to sin’

We are not God ourselves. And that means that we have the capability of acting against God’s will.

We need not know anything more then what sin is and the fact that we are not God to answer this question.

Ah - the Special Pleading pseudo-defence!

I fail to see any special circumstance listed in the explanation at all.
Your going to have to be more specific, else you are just shouting out emptiness.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

 

[wanstronian]

I fail to see any special circumstance listed in the explanation at all.
Your going to have to be more specific, else you are just shouting out emptiness.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

Protest too much? With a five-word comment? Er, right…

You really can’t see the problem with your explanation? “No matter what God does, it’s not a sin because he’s God.”

 

[JDaniel]

An Atheist on Yahoo! Answers asked this:

<<If God has both (A) Free Will and (B) the inability to sin, why couldn’t he have made humans the same way?>>

I believe the right answer involves defining freewill, defining perfect, and outlining the nature of God.

But exactly how to do this, in a short and concise manner… elludes me.

How would you answer this? Any help appreciated. Thanks!

Js:

Because, we would have ended up with seven billion and one gods, as opposed to 7 billion people and One God.

Besides, due to His infinite immensity, God chooses only once. Humans, because of their smallness, can choose multiple times, and have “time” to think about their choices.

God bless,
jd

 

[vz71]

You really can’t see the problem with your explanation? “No matter what God does, it’s not a sin because he’s God.”

Well, that is what you get when you define sin in terms of God’s will.
From freedictionary.com…

sin

1. A transgression of a religious or moral law, especially when deliberate.
2. Theology a. Deliberate disobedience to the known will of God.
   b. A condition of estrangement from God resulting from such disobedience.

Perhaps you have an alternative definition that does not involve God??

 

[wanstronian]

Well, that is what you get when you define sin in terms of God’s will.
From freedictionary.com…

Perhaps you have an alternative definition that does not involve God??

My entire worldview - indeed, my entire world - does not involve God, other than as a superstitious concept. So neither does it involve sin, other than as a term for the breach of an arbitrary and outmoded religious moral code.

However, that’s beside the point, which is that stating that God can do X and it’s not a sin because he’s God, whereas if you or I were to do X it would be a sin, is double standards, and equates to special pleading.

 

[tskrobacz]

An Atheist on Yahoo! Answers asked this:

<<If God has both (A) Free Will and (B) the inability to sin, why couldn’t he have made humans the same way? Thanks!

Why would we want all humans to be made the same way? The question itself is flawed because it presupposes that making all humans “the same way” is somehow better than what is.