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WinterSunrise
Guest
God has created bad people and good people without altering their free will. Why didn’t he create only the most moral human individuals so that the Fall wouldn’t have happened at all?
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WinterSunrise
Guest
I realise that the answer would be that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more and we reached Jesus, but why didn’t God just create a den for Jesus to be crucified by demons so that a non-fallen humanity could have a Church to receive grace in?
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MasterXploder7
Guest
If God didn’t alter free will then people choose to be good or bad based on their circumstances. Then God didn’t make them good or bad, rather, he made them with the knowledge of knowing what they would become.
That’s actually kind of important. God offers forgiveness to both the super-good and the super-bad. God knows the kind of terror that we can perform - yet he makes us all anyway.
But if your question is focused on the Fall?
You might say the fall was likely to happen regardless of who it was. Many Christians say that Adam and Eve are the best possible starting points for humanity.
That’s actually kind of important. God offers forgiveness to both the super-good and the super-bad. God knows the kind of terror that we can perform - yet he makes us all anyway.
But if your question is focused on the Fall?
You might say the fall was likely to happen regardless of who it was. Many Christians say that Adam and Eve are the best possible starting points for humanity.
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MasterXploder7
Guest
Is this something you are curious about or something you are struggling with?
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WinterSunrise
Guest
I’m struggling with it.
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WinterSunrise
Guest
I notice how in Genesis 3 Eve was unaware of what a lie was, so why didn’t God just create only the best angels that wouldn’t fall?
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MasterXploder7
Guest
That is a mystery. Many saints have wondered about similar questions but as far as I am aware, none of them have ever given a serious answer.
If we don’t have free will then I suppose we would be like zombies or ants or bees. The same would apply to the angels if they didn’t have free will.
Do you feel like you would have rather been a zombie that couldn’t be tempted to wrong doing?
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Inbonum
Guest
God is love and making human or spiritual puppets is against that love. Of course God can do everything but He don’t do things in our logic.
God didn’t create bad people. Everything God do is good but free will leaves space for evil actions.
Are you struggling with question of evil in this world?
God didn’t create bad people. Everything God do is good but free will leaves space for evil actions.
Are you struggling with question of evil in this world?
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WinterSunrise
Guest
I am struggling with that question
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Inbonum
Guest
Just to note that problem of evil is something that is sometimes or often hard to accept even by Catholics. We can accept it in faith and ask grace to accept it.
Try with this
Try with this
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Inbonum
Guest
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WinterSunrise
Guest
That was a lot of help, thank you
I don’t think most of us would make the cut.
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Dan_Defender
Guest
When God created the angels, one third of them fell, even though they are pure spirits and have exalted knowledge. So it is not just about humanity.
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Vico
Guest
All were created good, with free will. Through free will choice is made for good or sin.
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runningdude
Guest
Adam and Eve were full of grace. They were the most moral individuals.
They chose to sin. Sin was not inevitable.
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Gorgias
Guest
No. God created humanity and observed “it is very good.”
Now… subsequently, people have sinned. But God didn’t create people as ‘bad’; that was their own choice.
Read the story of Noah… but keep reading after the ‘rainbow’. The point of the story is that you can’t point to one person and say “good” and another and say “bad”. The possibility for sin – as well as the possibility of contrition and redemption – lies in us all!
I’m not sure that’s the takeaway there. It’s not lack of understanding of what a lie is… it’s the willingness to believe something that contradicts God’s express command.
In the story (which is figurative, BTW), God said “this” and the serpent said “not this”, and Adam and Eve were willing to believe that God had lied.
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Benadam
Guest
That would have been a lie about the nature of angels
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MNathaniel
Guest
This. Eve heard from two different people: God Himself, and a mere creation: Satan. The two voices said contradictory things, and she had a choice about which of the two to trust… and she chose Satan. Not the God who had created her and given her every good thing: but the snake who whispered to her that God wanted to withhold something good.
I’ve often thought about how what Eve should have done, was go back to God and tell him what the snake had said. Bring her confusion to God. Ask him about it.
But instead Eve chose to believe the worst of God, instead of to believe the best of God. And this was a God with whom she had walked in the garden.
Anyway. Basically, I don’t think there’s any way we can claim Eve didn’t know what a ‘lie’ was. The only choice before her was whether to trust God and assume the snake was lying – or to distrust God and believe the snake that God had lied. But she knew there was a liar in this picture. And God had given her every reason to trust him… but she chose to distrust him, and trust the snake who whispered to her instead.
I’m actually struggling with a sort of parallel situation, in my own life. Struggling with suspicions and distrust towards the Catholic Church. My mind is filled with whispers against it. But I’m trying to respond… well, the way I think Eve should have responded. I’m staying in communication with my spiritual director, my spiritual father: a Catholic priest. I’m bringing my problems and confusion to him. I’m not walking away with them. I’m aware that between two contradictory worldviews, one of them will be a ‘lie’ – but I’m refusing to believe yet, on an impulse or a whisper, that the Church is the lie.
Anyhoo. Long tangent, sorry.
Regarding the overall topic, as others have said: God didn’t make “good” people or “bad” people. He made us all good, and in his image: that is, with free will… which means we get to choose for ourselves whether we align with his goodness, or not. I don’t know the answer to whether it would have been possible for God to ensure Adam and Eve’s sinlessness without violating their free will or eradicating them a moment after creation once he realized they’d choose ‘wrongly’… but it doesn’t seem in God’s nature to eradicate us, and I think we can trust him that one way or another, the way things have unfolded… we can at least take it as it is, and acknowledge that God has made great good out of it.
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Aulef
Guest
This was already said: the angels and the first humans were created the most moral individuals. However, they choose to fall.
Rational beings will always have a choice because they have intellect and will. It is a part of our nature that cannot be detached.
Rational beings will always have a choice because they have intellect and will. It is a part of our nature that cannot be detached.
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