Is God responsible for evil for not offering Beatific Vision as a gift?

[Vico]

Vico:

They were given the knowledge of what God commanded, but through pride, choose to do what they wanted instead first though thought and then action. That is uncharitable and a mortal sin.

Is pride evil? How could they be created good and have sense of pride?

The feeling of self-respect and personal worth is not the sin of pride.

 

[Vico]

**

fhansen:

Vico:

Specific words exist with opposites which describe notions, such as evil is the deprivation of good. Adam and Eve had the knowledge of what God commanded. For us creatures with free will, good and evil comes with creation of free will, and we do not experience the Beatific Vision initially since we are created journeying.

I think it would be more accurate to say that free will allows for the possibility of evil, rather than to say that “good and evil comes with creation of free will”, no? Either way, yes, from the larger perspective God made His creation in a state of journeying to perfection, with Adam and Eve the first travelers. But is this world that we live in now an inevitable detour out of Eden, or just a possible one? They didn’t have to disobey, to sin.

From an eastern perspective, there is no moral evil without an act and that act is the first angelic defection, entering creation through the will: a condition (εξις) and not a nature (φύσις). It is an attraction of the will towards nothing, a negation of being, of God, of creation, of grace.

Not sure- can the will be attracted to nothing, to negation? Didn’t both Lucifer and Adam at least think they were gaining something?

To take a shadow of good for the good itself is the sin.

 

[STT]

They wouldn’t know good and evil because they wouldn’t know evil. There’s no inherent need for evil in God’s creation. The first evil they experienced BTW was their own sin, which immediately put them in a compromised or damaged position vis a vis God and their relationship with Him. They had effectively rejected His Godhood, and this act/state was itself a matter of injustice, casting them into a very different sort of world where a rift now existed, between themselves and God, themselves and their fellow man, themselves and creation, and between and within their very own selves.

And while innocent, they weren’t ignorant of God’s command. That command was written in their hearts/consciences already. It was like the command against murder or bearing false witness or committing pedophilia that we have in our hearts now. We all know these things are intrinsically wrong; we sense it within ourselves as revulsion. And yet we can rationalize and justify any behavior, overriding any and all internal laws simply because we’re free to, by deciding, for example, that no such absolute morality exists, that our interior sense of revulsion and righteous indignation against certain acts are simply the result of social conditioning, etc. We’re free to think anything, and then to act accordingly.

Adam simply exercised that same freedom. Was he culpable in some absolute, irrevocable, sense? No, which is why God never abandoned Adam but rather sought to work with humankind, leading them to perfection/salvation over time, a perfection that would ultimately involve their making the right choice.

There is no difference between wrong and evil so they knew that their act is evil considering the fact that they knew that eating the fruit wrong (according with what you said). So you are dealing with a problem.

 

[STT]

The feeling of self-respect and personal worth is not the sin of pride.

That I agree but that was you who said that they perform sin through pride.

 

[fhansen]

There is no difference between wrong and evil so they knew that their act is evil considering the fact that they knew that eating the fruit wrong (according with what you said). So you are dealing with a problem.

Yes, they knew it was wrong-but they had never experienced-or known- wrongness/evil personally and the consequences that flow naturally from it. The new world they entered was one where sin abounded-because God was no longer recognized as God. In His wisdom and mercy God made man’s life temporary; “the wages of sin is death”; sin/evil cannot have an eternal foothold or existence even as God allows evil to play out its hand, for a time, in order to bring an even greater good out of it, and in order for us to literally have the time and experience to make the right choice, of rejecting evil and embracing good with the help of grace.

In any case this knowledge of evil, and therefore good, came only after they sinned:
"And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil." Gen 3:22

 

[Vico]

Vico:

The feeling of self-respect and personal worth is not the sin of pride.

That I agree but that was you who said that they perform sin through pride.

There is a sin of pride.

 

[STT]

Yes, they knew it was wrong-but they had never experienced-or known- wrongness/evil personally and the consequences that flow naturally from it. The new world they entered was one where sin abounded-because God was no longer recognized as God. In His wisdom and mercy God made man’s life temporary; “the wages of sin is death”; sin/evil cannot have an eternal foothold or existence even as God allows evil to play out its hand, for a time, in order to bring an even greater good out of it, and in order for us to literally have the time and experience to make the right choice, of rejecting evil and embracing good with the help of grace.

In any case this knowledge of evil, and therefore good, came only after they sinned:

“And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Gen 3:22

Well, you are saying that they knew that eating the fruit was wrong/evil yet not knowing what is evil because they haven’t yet eaten the fruit! That is a contradiction.

 

[STT]

Yes. That we agree: They sinned through pride. The question that I am raising is that how they could be created good and have sense of pride? Having a sense of pride is a fallen property. They haven’t yet eaten the fruit.

 

[fhansen]

fhansen:

Yes, they knew it was wrong-but they had never experienced-or known- wrongness/evil personally and the consequences that flow naturally from it. The new world they entered was one where sin abounded-because God was no longer recognized as God. In His wisdom and mercy God made man’s life temporary; “the wages of sin is death”; sin/evil cannot have an eternal foothold or existence even as God allows evil to play out its hand, for a time, in order to bring an even greater good out of it, and in order for us to literally have the time and experience to make the right choice, of rejecting evil and embracing good with the help of grace.

In any case this knowledge of evil, and therefore good, came only after they sinned:

“And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Gen 3:22

Well, you are saying that they knew that eating the fruit was wrong/evil yet not knowing what is evil because they haven’t yet eaten the fruit! That is a contradiction.

No, I said they didn’t know evil directly, personally. They hadn’t yet “met” it. In fact in my understanding the Hebrew word for “know” in this instance is often intended to mean just that, direct: experiential knowledge. They’d been told that touching fire causes pain; they hadn’t yet touched it; they hadn’t experienced its effects for themselves; they hadn’t tasted of it; they didn’t know it.

 

[STT]

No, I said they didn’t know evil directly, personally. They hadn’t yet “met” it. In fact in my understanding the Hebrew word for “know” in this instance is often intended to mean just that, direct: experiential knowledge. They’d been told that touching fire causes pain; they hadn’t yet touched it; they hadn’t experienced its effects for themselves; they hadn’t tasted of it; they didn’t know it.

What did they learn by eating the fruit if they knew that eating it is wrong/evil?

 

[STT]

No, I said they didn’t know evil directly, personally. They hadn’t yet “met” it. In fact in my understanding the Hebrew word for “know” in this instance is often intended to mean just that, direct: experiential knowledge. They’d been told that touching fire causes pain; they hadn’t yet touched it; they hadn’t experienced its effects for themselves; they hadn’t tasted of it; they didn’t know it.

What did they learn by eating the fruit if they knew that eating it is wrong/evil? They knew about what is wrong indistinctly. They didn’t need to experiment it.

 

[eddietoo]

adam and eve did not sin in a vacuum. satan deceived them. his words were the words of a proud being who knew that pride was an ever present danger to the intellect and will of a being created with free will. an intellectual being with free will could succumb to pride when it is introduced to them by an outside force.

while pride led to their disobedience. their sin was the disobedience. even though they were introduced to pride, they did not have to disobey. they could have resisted the temptation created by pride. they could have rejected pride and remained humble and obedient.

why did not they resist? that is the mystery of sin; and, also what motivated st. augustine to sing, “oh happy fault!”

 

[fhansen]

What did they learn by eating the fruit if they knew that eating it is wrong/evil? They knew about what is wrong indistinctly. They didn’t need to experiment it.

Why not? People do it all the time. What they presumably learned by now, as we’re all here to learn, is why not to eat of it, why God is worthy and deserving of obedience.

 

[Vico]

Yes. That we agree: They sinned through pride. The question that I am raising is that how they could be created good and have sense of pride? Having a sense of pride is a fallen property. They haven’t yet eaten the fruit.

No, ordinate self esteem is not bad, the sin of pride is an inordinate esteem of oneself, because it is contrary to the truth – an act or disposition of the will desiring to be considered better than what is true.

See there are different meanings shown below:

Merriam Webster pride:

1 :the quality or state of being proud: such as

a :inordinate self-esteem :conceit
b :a reasonable or justifiable self-respect
c :delight or elation arising from some act, possession, or relationship parental pride

 

[fhansen]

Yes. That we agree: They sinned through pride. The question that I am raising is that how they could be created good and have sense of pride? Having a sense of pride is a fallen property. They haven’t yet eaten the fruit.

As Vico stated, pride is inordinate self-esteem, self-love; ordinate self-love being a good, a gift from God. Another way it’s been described is as an inordinate desire for one’s own excellence. Adam’s desire was to be like God-a good thing in itself-but he wanted to be like God while apart from Him, autonomous from Him. This is where the injustice lay; this is where Adam sinned, because he held himself up to be equal to or superior to God. What could allow for this “defect”, the defect of the creature failing to recognize his “creaturely status” as the CCC 398 puts it?:

398 In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.

IMO the main “defect” of Adam was simply that he wasn’t God. When combined with other facts, such as the fact that Adam was given the gift of reason and also of free will, the ingredients are present for a potential fall; Adam could, by virtue of being a limited, finite, creature, make a wrong choice; he could believe a falsehood about himself; he could sin. He could commit an act against his own nature even if he was adequately equipped to not make such a choice. Freedom carries with it responsibility.

 

[STT]

Why not? People do it all the time. What they presumably learned by now, as we’re all here to learn, is why not to eat of it, why God is worthy and deserving of obedience.

Ok. Now we are back to OP. Why God didn’t then share Beatific Vision?

 

[STT]

No, ordinate self esteem is not bad, the sin of pride is an inordinate esteem of oneself, because it is contrary to the truth – an act or disposition of the will desiring to be considered better than what is true.

That I agree that pride is an inordinate esteem of oneself. What I am arguing is that pride is evil and they were created good. How such thing is possible? I would be happy to know your opinion about OP too.

 

[fhansen]

Ok. Now we are back to OP. Why God didn’t then share Beatific Vision?

I don’t know that it has any easy answer. Only that He wants us to choose good over evil based on what we know of both in this world, and not without the aid of grace, before we have the full benefit of experiencing the absolute pure good, Himself. He wants to test and refine us-to see how we’ll behave when the Master’s gone away. He brings an even greater justice and perfection out of His creation by placing it on a journey to that perfection, one which involves struggle, a struggle to do the right thing, a struggle to be just, a struggle to learn how to love rather than simply so overwhelm and saturate us with that goodness that there really is no choice, no tested and refined and increased justice in us. He wants us to play a role in it all-and that’s where our own true value is established.

 

[ANV]

“God is loving” seems imcompatible with existence and reality.

 

[Vico]

Vico:

No, ordinate self esteem is not bad, the sin of pride is an inordinate esteem of oneself, because it is contrary to the truth – an act or disposition of the will desiring to be considered better than what is true.

That I agree that pride is an inordinate esteem of oneself. What I am arguing is that pride is evil and they were created good. How such thing is possible? I would be happy to know your opinion about OP too.

Moral evil is through an act of will not temptation and the pride is a temptation.