So then why did God create temptation? (Sorry to be playing the part of a 4-year-old here with the “why? why? why?” game, but I’m just curious where it’ll get us in the end.)
Not to worry, your not playing the part of a 4 year old; you just need some answers because you want to know if God is actually in control like I say He is.
In the beginning God created the heavens (the angelic world) and the earth, and God created everything good. He gave all of his angels free will. Some of them abused their free will and became devils. Mind you, God did not create any devils, he created all good angels, but the bad angels made themselves into devils by their disobedience. The bad angels were tempted to pride, they were tempted to place themselves above God. This they tried to do and as a result were hurled down to the earth, where they have been tempting men since the time of Adam and Evil. (Hell is in the core of the earth, says Ven. Mary of Agreda and theologians). The bad angels are in hell and walk the earth where the living are, trying to tempt us and destroy our happiness in God.
God permits us to be tempted by Satan and the demons only so much, and always so that we can resist and gain merit for heaven. Remember, this is a place of merit through suffering, heaven is a place of reward.
Adam and Eve were tempted to pride just as the bad angels were, but God could have mercy on them because they were not created as gifted as the angels, who could know everything they needed to know for making a decision. Because Adam and Eve with free will were created good but are not God (they [and we] can only participate in God’s goodness, essence, nature, divine life), we his creatures can get tempted to disobey His commands and fall away (because of the gift of free will God gave us. God in His wisdom deems it better that we have free will with the risk of being tempted and falling, then that we have no free will at all and can not choose to love Him over evil or can not be able to gain merit.
Why did Adam and Eve get tempted? Because though they were made good and in perfect justice, only God is the essence of goodness, we creatures can only participate in His goodness, divine life, essence, nature --Adam and Eve have a human nature (even Jesus in HIs Human Nature was tempted); the moment we start to rebel and deviate from God and His commands by choosing ourselves or some evil over the goodness of God, we endanger ourselves by the temptation. The bad angels and Adam and Eve deviated from the Lord’s Will, Adam and Eve because they were tempted to be like God knowing good and evil --they CHOSE to disobey, they abused their gift of free will. With free will we always can choose to disobey if we lose our fear of offending God and our respect for Him. When God gives any rational creature free-will, the temptation not to submit to His commands are part of the package He gives us – He does not will for us to give into temptation and fall away, but He does at least with his permissive will, will for us to be tempted, so that we can resist and gain merit – this is part of His divine plan. Because we have free will it means we can choose evil over good and have self-love. We were made to love God above all and everything, but because we are not God and have free will we can get tempted to love ourselves and other things more, and we can fall away, as a result of our not being God or loving Him/ trusting Him enough. Adam and Eve did not love or trust God enough and fell. But God wanted them to have free will so they could CHOOSE to love Him and so that they could MERIT heaven. God wanted these two things more than He wanted evil to be off the face of the earth, He knew that evil would serve to make possible these two things: the choice of Him over evil by his rational creatures and their meriting heaven by resisting evil.
So are sin and death older than the rest of creation? If they’re the absence of creation, than they would have existed in the time before anything else existed, right? But God already existed then as well … hmmm
I am late for an appointment and shall try to answer this question later. God bless you!
