Permitting evil

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thegr8andpowerfulOz said:
It also seems to me that you’re asking whether we would choose to be like all of God’s other creatures, not understanding the concept of good and evil, or would we make the same choice that Adam and Eve made, even having experienced the suffering that that choice has caused?
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They couldn’t really know the difference beforehand; their act was motivated simply enough-with a general desire to be like God. They aspired to be more than who they were in actuality (the essence of pride as Aquinas teaches), not recognizing their limitations vis a vis an infinite and limitless God-and in the process became less as I understand it- and as I observe it daily in the world we live in. But haggard and wiser; that’s how man should become in this world. And ultimately humbled.

Again, at its bare root Adam’s choice was the choice to eliminate God from his life for all practical purposes, at least his conscious life, by denying His authority as his God. And this is why faith is the first step for man in returning to God. To believe that God exists after all, and that He’s worthy and deserving of our love and obedience. Love of God is the means to true obedience, and that’s why the first commandments of the Decalogue and, more clearly, the greatest commandment, are what they are.
 
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STT said:
Do you feel good, happy, or evil, angery? Where do these things come from? Your nature which is created by God. You cannot decide to become evil or good. You just feel them.
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Of course you can decide; we shape our lives by our moral choices, and we have control of those choices such that we’re morally accountable beings as we all know without needing to ponder on it very much.

Man is either free or not free-and God certainly can create a being with free will. What we do with that will, how we control various appetites and cravings and desires and the choices that apply to them, is up to us. But it’s a struggle; we’re “incubating” here, and hopefully growing towards perfection in our choices.
 
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That’s one way of looking at it-through an evolutionary model. But however we might wish to conceive of this change, the bottom line is this: man is made for communion with God. And we can freely walk away from it. That’s the central aspect of our faith. Without that fact the New Covenant is meaningless. Something is missing in man’s world, and that’s why we have the kind of world we have. Something that “should be”, isn’t.

And we can say that this is just a matter of perspective as well-maybe we only feel like something is missing or out of place- but there are many anomalies in human life IMO, and one is sin itself, why people with more or less sound minds can behave so irrationally- and badly. One definition of evil BTW, involves its irrationality.

But even at that, while humankind kind of goes through the motions and behaves as if we’re home here in our little corner of the planet, wherever that may be, the truth is that we don’t even know where we came from, if anywhere, what we’re here for, if for anything, and where we’re going afterwards, if anywhere. That pretty well describes the state of being “lost”. Knowing God resolves this condition to a great degree. I cannot emphasize enough that man was made for and needs communion with God, whose image we’re made in. And, whether or not we prefer ourselves to God at any point, we’ll never be satisfied until we meet and know Him, even if only fully in the next life.
 
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thegr8andpowerfulOz said:
“ We ” have the capacity to choose between good and evil, and the story of mankind, is the story of how we are learning to do so.
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I just don"t see the “learning” factor in much evidence, at least apart from the light that arrived here 2000 yrs ago. A light that is growing, admittedly, while much darkness seems to remain here on earth as well, at least as much as ever, in fact. Either way one name of that light is love, and until that love blossoms strongly in our hearts the light is only barely shining here on earth, though increasingly better.

The point is that it just doesn’t “happen”, on its own, if Christianity is true at all. It requires grace-and our cooperation with it.
 
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If there were no evil then there would be no sinners.

If there are no sinners then there are no saints.
 
o_mlly said:
I think we only know of two such human persons.
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You obviously did not read my response to your comment carefully.

You said “If there are no sinners then there are no saints.”

Its the opposite to your view. If nobody sins then EVERYBODY will be a saint when they die.
 
thistle said:
If nobody sins then EVERYBODY will be a saint when they die.
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In heaven, only moral agents, those who are free to and do choose God, can be saints.

If nobody sinned then we’d all still be in the garden.
 
Vico said:
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in S.T. Part I, Question 48. The distinction of things in particular
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If good is existence then evil is non-existence. You however experience pain and that is not nothing.
 
fhansen said:
Of course you can decide; we shape our lives by our moral choices, and we have control of those choices such that we’re morally accountable beings as we all know without needing to ponder on it very much.

Man is either free or not free-and God certainly can create a being with free will. What we do with that will, how we control various appetites and cravings and desires and the choices that apply to them, is up to us. But it’s a struggle; we’re “incubating” here, and hopefully growing towards perfection in our choices.
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Choosing comes after the urge for sin. The urge in sin is rooted in our nature. Our natures like everything else is the creation of God.
 
STT said:
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Vico:
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in S.T. Part I, Question 48. The distinction of things in particular
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If good is existence then evil is non-existence. You however experience pain and that is not nothing.
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Normally pain improves health and well being over time. When pain is considered evil it is because it takes place in conjunction with an evil act, but the pain then is the unpleasant consequence of evil, not evil itself.
 
Kullervo said:
That sounded always pretty convincing to me until it came to my mind if permitting evil isn’t immoral too.
If I knew that someone is going to commit murder, I should probably stop him rather than tolerate his decision to do evil.
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Imagine you have six kids & you want them all to get along, never harm each other in any way. & you never want to cause any harm to any of them.

As years go by they grow & develop differently. One is analytical & great at applying logic. Another is physically gifted & excels at all sports. Another is a culinary genius, another has an eye for fashion, etc…

Of course as a good parent you foster these gifts & help them develop. But one day, you have to decide between a soccer game & a talent show. Whichever you choose, someone is going to be hurt.

Or you buy a pair of cleats for the budding ball player & dance slippers for the dancer, but the athlete wanted the slippers.

Think about the Brady Bunch. Regardless how fair they tried to be someone was always offended. Life just wasn’t fair. But with nine different wills trying to co-exist, there was always some friction.

Multiply that by a billion. & the majority of us do not agree on the “rules” for co-existence.
 
o_mlly said:
If nobody sinned then we’d all still be in the garden.
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That’s an interesting thought. And yet I doubt that could’ve ever really been an option. The command was given and the choice had to be made. To not choose God was/is sin for man. I guess, theoretically, Adam could’ve remained on a sort of neutral ground by not eating of the fruit but that wouldn’t be choosing God either would it? Perhaps eating of the Tree of Life would’ve signified that choice. Either way it seems he had to move, to choose, to act, at some point. JMO.
 
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STT said:
Choosing comes after the urge for sin. The urge in sin is rooted in our nature. Our natures like everything else is the creation of God.
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No, the desire for possessions or for pleasure or for glory or power are rooted in nature. Disordered desires, where the natural appetite for food becomes gluttony or the appetite for sex becomes lust becomes rape are rooted in a will that is not bound to God first above all else.
 
fhansen said:
No, the desire for possessions or for pleasure or for glory or power are rooted in nature. Disordered desires, where the natural appetite for food becomes gluttony or the appetite for sex becomes lust becomes rape are rooted in a will that is not bound to God first above all else.
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Where do disordered desires come from? We created them? God created them?
 
Vico said:
Normally pain improves health and well being over time. When pain is considered evil it is because it takes place in conjunction with an evil act, but the pain then is the unpleasant consequence of evil, not evil itself.
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Does good is existence?
 
They come from our inability to control our appetites when we are the sole determiner of right and wrong for ourselves-when we have no God IOW. We work out this struggle on a journey to perfection as the church teaches, as we grow nearer or further from God-or remain neutral. But the closer we become, or the more we love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength to put it another way, the more that our natural desires are controlled, in harmony as it were. This is a process, where we acknowledge that something isn’t right as things are-and so begin to cooperate with a God who always draws us to the highest level, the greatest good that we can be. The human will is the key-and the prize, so to speak.
 
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