How was Adam able to be "tempted"?

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Baraq said:
Remember, the parable of the tares?

God is not the author of sin, but has allowed the tares to grow alongside his people until judgment.
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This statement is correct. But it doesn’t correlerate to your earlier statement.
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baraq:
Calvinists believe, and rightly so, that God is SOVEREIGN in ALL things. Nothing can happen without the Father. Whether it be the fall of Sparrows, Angels or men, God is in complete control.
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Baraq said:
Only someone foolish would say the position is ‘silly.’ If you read scripture solely, you would understand that man can NOT come to saving faith on his own. He does not have the free will to chose God. He cant come to saving faith on his own.Yet, left to himself he can commit all kinds of sin by his will.
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That is not free will, any more than one has the “free will” to fall out of a tree but not to fall up into that tree.

I think you are mistaking “free will” for “able to come to God without his grace”. Those are quite different matters.

BTW, I didn’t call you silly, I called your position silly. But you had to “go personal”. That’s always the first sign of being unable to defend one’s posiition.
 
VociMike said:
That is not free will, any more than one has the “free will” to fall out of a tree but not to fall up into that tree.

I think you are mistaking “free will” for “able to come to God without his grace”. Those are quite different matters.

BTW, I didn’t call you silly, I called your position silly. But you had to “go personal”. That’s always the first sign of being unable to defend one’s posiition.
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Oh, you were just calling the doctrine of my Church silly? Whew!! I thought you were the first to be unable to defend their position

lol
 
Baraq said:
Oh, you were just calling the doctrine of my Church silly? Whew!! I thought you were the first to be unable to defend their position

lol
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Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, can we proceed?

I maintain that a person who can only sin, who cannot avoid sin, who cannot choose to respond to God’s grace, has no free will. Show me how that is wrong.
 
Baraq,

Free will is essential because it is a God given gift and trait in man. God did not cause Adam and Eve to fall. Instead, God so valued his creation of man, which includes the extraordinary gift of free will, that God was willing to let man fall and then redeem him.

Our triune God knew from the “beginning” that Adam and Eve would fall yet he created them anyway. Does this mean that God made them fall? No it does not. God did not cause Adam and Eve to fall anymore than my deciding to have a baby is the cause of that child deciding to become an auto mechanic or a doctor.

Our Creator is the ultimate cause of existence of all things, but he is not the direct and purposeful cause of the sins of man that are committed within creation. God has a purposeful will and a permissive will. God permits things to occur because of the value He places on the gift of free will in man.
 
Baraq said:
Only someone foolish would say the position is ‘silly.’ If you read scripture solely, you would understand that man can NOT come to saving faith on his own. He does not have the free will to chose God. He cant come to saving faith on his own.Yet, left to himself he can commit all kinds of sin by his will.

Romans 8:30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
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I posted this question in the “Golden Chain” thread and it was left unanswered.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=159911&page=19

Now I’ll ask you the same question;

Do you believe Adam had the freedom to chose whether to sin or not. That when he sinned, he did not have a gun to his head and is thus completely responsible for what he did. Now I ask you, was the Fall of Man one of the eternal decrees of God? Election occured before the Fall. However, election and reprobation presupposes the existence of a massa damnata (i.e. a mass of condemned sinners) from which to select and save the elect. In order for there to be a massa damnata from which God would select His elect, there had to be a Fall. The death and resurrection of Jesus was foreordained and thus presupposes a Fall.

Acts 4:27-28

27"For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
28to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.

1 Peter 1:20

**20For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you **

If Adam did not have free choice, then God would be causally responsible for Adam’s sin. However, if the Fall was an eternal decree and Adam’s sin was a free act, then you apparently see no contradiction between the execution of a decree in time and the libertarian freedom of the will of Adam. I believe that God involves the free will of man in accomplishing His plan of salvation and that this in no way diminished His eternal decrees. He choses the elect and the elect, in turn, freely choses Him. Isaiah 1:18-19 states:

18"Come now, and let us reason together,"
Says the LORD,
"Though your sins are as scarlet,
They will be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They will be like wool.
19"If you consent and obey,
You will eat the best of the land;
20"But if you refuse and rebel,
You will be devoured by the sword "

Why “reason together” if God does not involve the freedom of the will in executing His plan of salvation? As Catholics, we believe man cannot chose God without first being enlightened by His prevenient/antecedent grace. Once God has intervened in this was in the heart of man, man is now free to choose God. God wants our free response to His grace.

God Bless,
Michael
 
Baraq said:
No free will?

We believe in free will to be lost and wicked without God.

We believe man after the fall is totally DEPRAVED, and unable to come to faith on our own. Men cant promise, earn, or merit salvation, its rather a gift of God. Scripture, the breath of God, fully and wholly supports this position
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Free will means the ability to chose, to select one thing over another. If one cannot chose anything other than sin, then man does not have “free will” to be lost and wicked without God. If grace is irresistible, then sin is irresistible because man cannot control concupiscence (i.e. sin nature) apart from grace. Let me ask you another question:

Calvinists often quote the following verse:

Proverbs 21:1

**1The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD;
He turns it wherever He wishes. **

The King who wrote this is King Solomon. Now let’s read the following on King Solomon:

1 Kings 11:1-10

**1Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,
2from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the sons of Israel, “You shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.” Solomon held fast to these in love.
3He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away.
4For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
5For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites.
6Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not follow the LORD fully, as David his father had done.
7Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon.
8Thus also he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
9Now the LORD was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice,
10and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not observe what the LORD had commanded. **

Now God turns the Kings heart wherever He wishes. Did God desire and cause King Solomon to turn away his heart from Him and sin? If He did, why would He be angry if He is directly responsible for what Solomon did? You might say that God “allowed” King Solomon to sin. If “allowing” means that God does not directly cause the act, then that means that God gave Solomon the freedom to chose between remaining faithful to God or to turn away from Him. Could Solomon have chosen not to sin? Was the division of the Kingdom of Israel as punishment for Solomon’s sin an eternal decree of God? If it was, how do you reconcile that with God giving Solomon libertarian freedom to choose to sin or not to sin?

God Bless,
Michael
 
The problem with Calvinists is that they want to have it both ways. They want determinism when it comes to good, and libertatrian free will when it comes to sin. They recognize that without free will there is no personal responsibility. Without personal responsibility, God becomes responsible for sin. And yet we have plenty of examples in the Bible in which a “sin” was necessary in order to accomplish the plan of God:
  1. The Fall of Man
  2. King Saul’s sin which results in his kingdom being taken away and given to David. The messiah was supposed to come from the House of David.
  3. The sins of Solomon which leads to the formation of the northern kingdom
  4. The sin of Judas
Calvinists admit that behind the actions of man are the eternal decrees of God. When it comes to chosing God, they cannot understand how an eternal decree can be reconciled with free will. And yet they balk when it comes to sin. They admit that in the case of sin, an eternal decree can be executed in a way that involves free will.

God Bless,
Michael
 
Baraq said:
Calvinists believe, and rightly so, that God is SOVEREIGN in ALL things. Nothing can happen without the Father. Whether it be the fall of Sparrows, Angels or men, God is in complete control.

IMO- To think the incarnation of Christ was ‘plan B’ is pure folly.
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But if you admit that Adam had free choice, then how did God ensure that Adam would sin in order for Him to accomplish His plan of salvation. What would have happened if Adam had chosen not to eat the fruit of the tree? That’s a possibility if he had free will.

God Bless,
Michael
 
Ghosty said:
Without even digging into Aquinas we can answer simply that it’s not Original Sin that makes us temptable, but that Original Sin merely increases our difficulty in avoiding succumbing to temptation. Even with Original Sin we can beat temptation to some degree, but we can’t beat it completely, as in we can avoid a particular temptation but not all temptations, without Grace.

To summarize Aquinas’ argument on this subject (I’ll provide articles from the Summa in a later post because it’s actually scattered throughout his works and not answered completely in any one place) humanity was created in Grace, but not in perfected Grace which he calls Glory (part of the Beatific Vision and perfect unity with God). Adam and Eve, like us, had the ability to cooperate with Grace or turn against it. In our case we have the added baggage of the effects of Original Sin, the disorder in our nature that makes us more easily give into temptation, but in their case there was no disorder within them that made them prone to temptation. Rather they heard Satan’s proposal and accepted it without any force other than his persuasion.

Think of it like the difference between offering heroin to someone who’s never tried them, and has grown up in a good home, and offering it to someone who’s already addicted and has had few good rolemodels in their life. That is the difference between Adam and Eve and us when it comes to temptation. It also explains why their sin was so utterly devastating: they have every means at their disposal empowering them to reject Satan, but they chose his offer anyway. Theirs was the gravest sin imaginable, since we at least have some “excuse”, though not one that gets us off the hook. They sinned with what Aquinas would call “certain malice”, i.e. complete knowledge of the facts and consequences, and with the direct intention of turning against God’s Will (this can be seen by the very dialogue Eve has with Satan in the Garden).

In short, Adam and Eve had more free will than we do today, and they used it for evil. It’s humbling to think that our race, given all the benefits of Grace and the Garden, managed to throw a monkey-wrench into the workings of the Universe, no? It’s even more humbling that God didn’t let that be the end of the story, but rather made it the beginning of our story of Redemption.

Peace and God bless!
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Thank you for this response, it is very helpful.
 
Baraq said:
No free will?

We believe in free will to be lost and wicked without God.

We believe man after the fall is totally DEPRAVED, and unable to come to faith on our own. Men cant promise, earn, or merit salvation, its rather a gift of God. Scripture, the breath of God, fully and wholly supports this position
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But what about BEFORE the fall, did Adam have free will?
mikeledes said:
The problem with Calvinists is that they want to have it both ways. They want determinism when it comes to good, and libertatrian free will when it comes to sin. They recognize that without free will there is no personal responsibility. Without personal responsibility, God becomes responsible for sin. And yet we have plenty of examples in the Bible in which a “sin” was necessary in order to accomplish the plan of God:
  1. The Fall of Man
  2. King Saul’s sin which results in his kingdom being taken away and given to David. The messiah was supposed to come from the House of David.
  3. The sins of Solomon which leads to the formation of the northern kingdom
  4. The sin of Judas
Calvinists admit that behind the actions of man are the eternal decrees of God. When it comes to chosing God, they cannot understand how an eternal decree can be reconciled with free will. And yet they balk when it comes to sin. They admit that in the case of sin, an eternal decree can be executed in a way that involves free will.

God Bless,
Michael
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So very true.
 
NotWorthy said:
So, when a woman is raped, God did it?

When a baby is aborted, God did it?

God killed the 6 million Jews in WWII? The 50 million Russians under Stalin?

God is Love?!?

I’ll never get my hands around Calvin theology.
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That’s because you, based on the above post, have no clue what reformed theology is.

I suggest you find a web site that has the Westminster Confession of Faith and take a look at the larger catechism.
 
VociMike said:
That’s a really silly position.
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My understanding of the catholic position is that it isn’t all that much different.

Can a person in mortal sin, without God’s grace, repent of their sins?
 
mikeledes said:
But if you admit that Adam had free choice, then how did God ensure that Adam would sin in order for Him to accomplish His plan of salvation. What would have happened if Adam had chosen not to eat the fruit of the tree? That’s a possibility if he had free will.

God Bless,
Michael
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Could it be that Adam had a will that was more free than ours but still not entirely free?
 
Calvinator said:
That’s because you, based on the above post, have no clue what reformed theology is.

I suggest you find a web site that has the Westminster Confession of Faith and take a look at the larger catechism.
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No thanks. I just came to the conclusion based on another’s post, not on the Westminster Confession.
 
Catholic_Dude said:
I was talking with a Calvinist and I was rejecting his claims that it was God’s plan that Adam fall into sin and that free will is a myth.

Anyway, he asked an interesting question which I told him I would ask for help in answering. It was along the lines of…How was Adam able to be tempted in the first place if he didnt suffer from the effects of original sin?

I would also like it if someone could provide some info from Aquinas on this issue and better yet explain what he is saying if it is too complicated.
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answer: he was able to be tempted because he had free will.

your friend doesn’t believe in free will. and that is where he is messing up with his circular logic, his question to you was circular logic as well.

the explanation of the answer is: without free will, adam would not have needed to be tempted/lied to in order to get him to “take a chance.”

your friend also does not take into account that before the fall, adam and eve were full of grace. yet, they fell from grace upon the eating of the tree of KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. theology of the body has some interesting commentary on this whole incident.

a calvinist is the same as satan with their lies and deceits. they are directly responsible for the poisoned minds of the sspx’ers. they are also responsible for existentialist and nihilistic philosophies and ideologies. their religion started in germany and france and that is the same area where the sspx’ers started and are based now. those regions of the world are still infected with calvinistic beliefs to this day. the sspx’ers do not believe in free will either. they are against the document on religious liberty and other vatican 2 documents… all because of calvin’s influence and rejection of free will and their being nurtured in an environment where calvinism flourishes.
 
Calvinator said:
My understanding of the catholic position is that it isn’t all that much different.

Can a person in mortal sin, without God’s grace, repent of their sins?
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The question at hand has never been whether God’s grace is required - we all agree it is. The question is whether we have the free will to accept or reject that grace. If we don’t have the free will to do that, we simply don’t have free will.
 
VociMike said:
The question at hand has never been whether God’s grace is required - we all agree it is. The question is whether we have the free will to accept or reject that grace. If we don’t have the free will to do that, we simply don’t have free will.
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This is another point on which a key chunk of Protestant theology doesn’t make much sense. If we lack free will, why adult baptism rather than infant baptism?

Calvin’s warped view of humanity strikes me as neo-Gnosticism.

So much theological error stems from not understanding Christ’s fully human, fully divine nature and emphasizing one over the other.

The tragedy of humanity is that we can be so much holier than we are, yet choose not to be.

We can excuse ourselves from this ingratitude to God in any number of ways, one of which is by embracing the notion that we are not free at all.

Adam was tempted because he had free will, as did Eve. One presumes God has no need of puppets.
 
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