Why did God decree Death?

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SalamKhan

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Jalal ad Din Rumi says that without death, we would be like a field that never gets reaped & harvested. That among the created beings there are pure souls & dark souls, that it is necessary to make manifest this good & evil just as it is necessary to distinguish the wheat from the straw.

What do you think of this question?
 
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men[e] because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
 
Not really, if you’re referring to “pure souls & dark souls”, I was paraphrasing Rumi, who was a poet.
 
We are not of this world. Death is a necessary passage to the afterlife.
 
I’ve always considered death as something undesirable although because of our original sin impossible to stop or prevent. It was not included in God’s original plan, but that is the price we pay due to original sin.

It is also a reminder of the catastrophic consequences that sin can bring to our lives.
 
SalamKhan said:
Jalal ad Din Rumi says that without death, we would be like a field that never gets reaped & harvested.

What do you think of this question?
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I think that he is neither Allah nor even Mohammed. I think that his assertion – which suggests that Allah cannot “make manifest good and evil” without the presence of death – not only denies our understanding of Allah’s omniscience but also literally claims that He needs something in the physical world to help Him understand humans and their righteousness. In short, he suggests that our God needs creation in order to rule humanity. That’s a rather impious assertion…
 
I think death was just an evolutionary step till we discover a way around it.
 
Not really. Your post is akin to saying God did not know Abraham’s faith, hence why He tested Him. But, as we know, God did not test Abraham to acquire knowledge of his faith, but rather to make manifest his faith, as God does not reward idleness. Jalal ad Din Rumi was a Sufi who believed in the tradition that God was a hidden treasure who wanted to be known, and thus in the context of being reaped & harvested, each human soul contains a pearl of a different grade. Consider also, what happens to fields which never get reaped and harvested.
 
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Socrates92 said:
Because we done screwed up.
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John10 said:
It is also a reminder of the catastrophic consequences that sin can bring to our lives.
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We screwed up NOTHING, everything happening according to God’s original design/ plan.

If God would not will sin, He would created this world in which evil and sins (original and ours) would have no place.

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In fact, God DESIGNED/ PLANNED, PREDESTINED from all eternity, ORDERED and CAUSED the original sin, and they are FREELY chosen their “sins/ fall.”

The same above principle applies the sins we are all FREELY commit as well, of course CAUSED by God. – CCC 308; etc. Far from diminishing our dignity, this truth enhances it.

Without God, His cooperation by providing the power of operation for our acts of sins, the acts of our sins predestined from all eternity in accordance with His all-embracing purpose, we can do absolutely NOTHING, not even a smallest act of sin.

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Catholic Encyclopedia : Evil
“But we cannot say without denying the Divine omnipotence, that another equally perfect universe could not be created in which evil would have no place.”
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310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it?
God freely willed to create a world in a state of journeying towards its ultimate perfection, 314 through the dramas of evil and sin .

As we see above, God does not only not will sin, but He created in this world the dramas of evil and sin and this is what HE CREATED at His CAUSE of the “fall.”
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The TECHNICALITY the way God step by step made the events happened at the “fall,” the way God step by step created the dramas of evil and sin .

At the “fall,” God removed our heart of flesh and put a heart of stone instead. – Reverse of Ez.36:26.

God made the “fallen” man/ us carnally minded, God also made us unable to subject to His law, (Rom.8:6-7).

God infused the “fallen” man/ us with the law of sin/ God enslaved us to sin, to all manner of evil desire, the inclinations for all kinds of sins, (Rom.7:8-23). etc.

As we see, it is an absolute logical fallacy to say God does not will sin, when at the “fall” He has created the dramas of evil and sin.

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence explains;

“His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized.

He directs all, even evil and sin itself, to the final end for which the universe was created.”

Nor would God permit evil at all, unless He could draw good out of evil (St. Augustine, “Enchir.”, xi in “P.L.”

Evil, therefore, ministers to God’s design (St. Gregory the Great, op. cit, VI,
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324 Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.

As we see; Sin is not rebellion against God, sin is ministers to God’s design and He created the dramas of evil and sin, for the benefit of the entire human race.
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God bless
 
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I think you are confused.

As per the Catechism:

413 “God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. . . It was through the devil’s envy that death entered the world” ( Wis 1:13; 2:24).

414 Satan or the devil and the other demons are fallen angels who have freely refused to serve God and his plan. Their choice against God is definitive. They try to associate man in their revolt against God.

415 “Although set by God in a state of rectitude man, enticed by the evil one, abused his freedom at the very start of history. He lifted himself up against God, and sought to attain his goal apart from him” (GS 13 § 1).

416 By his sin Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had received from God, not only for himself but for all human beings.

417 Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called “original sin”.

418 As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called “concupiscence”).

419 “We therefore hold, with the Council of Trent, that original sin is transmitted with human nature, “by propagation, not by imitation” and that it is. . . ‘proper to each’” (Paul VI, CPG § 16).

420 The victory that Christ won over sin has given us greater blessings than those which sin had taken from us: “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” ( Rom 5:20).

421 Christians believe that “the world has been established and kept in being by the Creator’s love; has fallen into slavery to sin but has been set free by Christ, crucified and risen to break the power of the evil one. . .” ( GS 2 § 2).

Death is the result of original sin:

“but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:17
 
God did not create death. God saw all that He had created was good, and He blessed them.

Death came as a curse of sin.
 
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God DESIGNED/ PLANNED, PREDESTINED, ORDERS and CAUSES all our actions before we do them.
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308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator.
God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes:
For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Far from diminishing the creature’s dignity, this truth enhances it.
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Aquinas said, “God changes the will without forcing it.
But he can change the will from the fact that He himself operates in the will as He does in nature,” De Veritatis 22:9.

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The Mystery of Predestination by John Salza.
Page 84; St. Thomas properly explains the chain of causality:

"It is to be observed that where there are several agents in order, the second always acts in virtue of the first: for the agent moves the second to act.

And thus all agents act in virtue of God Himself: and therefore He is the cause of action in every agent. ST, Pt I, Q 105, Art 5.

Because God is the cause of action in every agent, even man’s free will determination to do good comes from God."
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Page 77; “Sufficient grace remains an interior impulse, whereas an efficacious grace produces an exterior act.

With efficacious grace, man is able to resist the grace but does not, because the grace causes him to freely choose the good.

This means that when God wills a person to perform a salutary act (e.g. prayer, good works), He grants him the means (an efficacious grace ) that infallibly produces the end ( the act willed by God ).

If God wills to permit a person to resist His grace, He grants him a sufficient, and not an efficacious, grace.

The distinctions between these graces reveal that God is responsible for man’s salvation.

FOR EXAMPLE
Page 113: However, the Church teaches that God infused Adam with sufficient grace to resist temptation and to perform his duties with charity.
God, however, willed to permit Adam to reject His grace and to sin.” – His wisdom He so ordered the events of his sin.

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Free Will explains;
“God is the author of all causes and effects, but is not the author of sin, because an action ceases to be sin if God wills it to happen. Still God is the cause of sin.”
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence explains;

“His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized.

He directs all, even evil and sin itself, to the final end for which the universe was created.”

Evil, therefore, ministers to God’s design (St. Gregory the Great, op. cit., VI,

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310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it?
With infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world in a state of journeying towards its ultimate perfection, 314 through the dramas of evil and sin.
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So, God had to create, creating the dramas of evil and sin, as long as creation has not reached perfection, CCC 310.
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God bless
 
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SalamKhan said:
Your post is akin to saying God did not know Abraham’s faith, hence why He tested Him.
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Din Rumi isn’t God, though. 😉
SalamKhan said:
in the context of being reaped & harvested, each human soul contains a pearl of a different grade
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Doesn’t this imply, though, that God doesn’t know about the particulars of the pearl until the “reaping and harvesting”?
 
See this is what makes me uncomfortable with faith at times:

We have a God who by His definitions needs nothing but He wants us in paradise with Him. He permitted sin and created a world in which our primary goal is to survive and grow.

Then when we finally die we enter a static unchanging state for eternity as what?

A collective item? Got to catch em all? A battery?

I do NOT consent to this game.
 
I to an extent agree, God is the one who decides if we die or not, we do not have any choice in the matter!
 
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