Occurrence of Sin

[kevrx3]

Hey everyone,

I’ve always wondered this and haven’t really gotten an answer yet. If God knows what we’re going to do and if he knows we are going to sin; why does it still occur? Would free will be tied into this as if He knows what we are going to do, then how is it still free will in the eyes of God?

Thanks everyone for answering this!

 

[tjm190]

I believe the Catholic position is that God knows all of the possibilities for human action, but not the outcome- He knows every choice that could be made but the outcome is left to you.
Predestination is more Calvin’s thing.
(NOT an expert!)

 

[Lancer]

… God knows all of the possibilities for human action,* but not the outcome***-…

NOTE:…all emphasis is my doing.

God in fact does know the outcome of our free will decisions…he has already predestined his plan based on each decision we have made and will make…as well as the same knowledge for everyone…who came before us…those with us now…and those to come after us.

Also…he is outside of time and he sees all of us in the womb…in this life…in the grave and in his heavenly kingdom or … all at the same time. A Mystery?..awesome to point of scary?..to me…yes indeed! This mystery surely gives me pause before I says…no…I won’t do what Our Lord God, the Father, and Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son, say to do…through the Church.

Luke 10:16 (ESV)

16The one who hears you hears me, and the one who** rejects you rejects me,** and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me."

Here is the Catholic position on God knowing the outcome and our free will as stated in Catechism of Catholic Church (CCC)…with some follow-on excerpts:

600 To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of “predestination”, he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace: … "**For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.*396

*396 Cf. Mt 26:54; Jn 18:36; 19:11; Acts 3:17-18.
​

306 God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures’ co-operation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God’s greatness and goodness. For ***God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of co-operating in the accomplishment of his plan. ***

Providence and the scandal of evil.
309 If God the Father almighty, the Creator of the ordered and good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist? To this question, as pressing as it is unavoidable and as painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice.*** Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question: the goodness of creation, the drama of sin and the patient love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, his gift of the Spirit, his gathering of the Church, the power of the sacraments and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to consent in advance, but from which, by a terrible mystery, they can also turn away in advance.*** There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.

310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better.174 But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world “in a state of journeying” towards its ultimate perfection. In God’s plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.175

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has*** moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world.*** God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.176**** He permits it,*** however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and,*** mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it: **

For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.177​

​

**176 St. Augustine & St. Thomas Aquinas
**177 St. Augustine

I guess this is the bottom line from the CCC:

2115 God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.

I offer this for your consideration and hope it helps…and guides you to the CCC for your answers.

Pax Christi