I can analyze different scenarios as following: (A) Temptation is beyond our strength and (B) Temptation is not beyond our strength. We sin in first case and I think we can agree that we are not responsible for our sin in this case. Now we analyze the second case: (1) We are rational when we make a decision and (2) We are irrational when we make a decision. We don’t sin in first case. We sin in the second case but we are irrational therefore we are not responsible for our sin again. It is like choosing between a glass of wine or a glass of poison. The person who choose poison is not responsible for his choice since he was irrational. Mad people are completely irrational and we don’t expect anything from them. Being irrational is something between being mad and healthy, rational.
You’re missing a third option: That we can overcome temptation when assisted by God.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit;
apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5.
“No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful,
and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” 1 Cor. 10:13
This indicates that on our own, we would of course be powerless to resist temptation. However, God provides necessary strength to overcome temptation. Thus when we sin, it will be in spite of the readily available and freely offered strength to resist.
The person in your example is merely acting irrationally, they have not become intrinsically irrational. You have only proven that a person is capable of choosing to do irrational acts. You have not proven that person actually
becomes irrational when they act irrationally. There is a difference.
So we are not God and can sin when we are only irrational. Therefore we are not responsible for our sin.
You don’t simply lose your rational powers at the moment you sin. There’s absolutely no basis for that. You’re unnecessarily denying the ability to be a rational being and still willfully act contrary to known goodness.
The person is either rational or irrational at the moment he makes the decision. We define rational as “based on or in accordance with reason or logic”. Evil is defined as wrong as opposite as good which is defined as right. We are cognitively open to both concepts. We know the consequence of evil and good act. Therefore we always do good when we are rational or otherwise.
Wrong. When philosophers and theologians define “rational” as pertaining to human nature, they’re describing an attribute, not an ability that can be turned on and off. By our reason we have the power to grasp metaphysical concepts like “self”, “love”, and “justice”
Again, you’re denying the ability to have full knowledge of the gravity of sin and executing it with full consent.
By buggy I mean there are problems in our functioning, in another word we become irrational sometimes. Irrationality is not a potential in us that we can become or choose to be irrational. Irrationality is a bug which prohibit us from functioning properly and rationally.
That’s an interesting hypothesis, but it’s been proven wrong. Rational beings don’t simply become irrational every time they do wrong. Apart from suffering a mental break due to some sort of trama, humans have the ability to grasp right and wrong and act in accord with either.
Sin, temptation, habit, inordinate attachment can all be factors in our judgement for either good or bad, and thus our culpability can be diminished. But that’s completely different from saying “humans sometimes act irrationally, and thus are irrational, and thus not responsible for their actions.”
For instance: I know that driving my car off a cliff is irrational. I know this because I can logically deduce that such an action would put my life in direct imminent danger. FULL STOP. I have so far proven my reasoning abilities to be fully in tact…
and there is nothing stopping me from willfully thwarting that reason and driving off the cliff anyway.
There is nothing else I can say. If you still don’t understand, or refuse to understand, then I can’t be of any help. Have a good Memorial Day.
