Why God did create us better

[COPLAND_3]

I rarely get stuck on a concept, but lately I’ve been struggling with why God knowingly created life with the potential of evil. I say this not because I doubt God and his plan but because I get so frustrated with my own daily short comings and a constant struggle to avoid sin. I cant seem to be satisfied with a reason why God didn’t created the human will and inclinations to be better in the first place so that humanity could be at peace and there be no evil. I know that humans have chosen by free will to do evil, but God could have created us to be better since he is all powerful. I know there is a purpose why God chose creation the way he did but I have yet to grasp why he didn’t make humans and angels better with a will that would choose evil which has made a total mess.

If there are replies then please don’t get offended if I challenge some of the answers because its not meant out of trying to be an antagonist but only seeking the truth to satisfy my inner struggle.

 

[Jim_Baur]

You are a great scholar. I always enjoy your posts and sites.

There is a big distinction between doing bad or evil actions, and doing sin.

Bad or evil (‘ra) unpleasant (giving pain, unhappiness, misery, injury, distress, calamity

Sin (hata’): miss the mark, way, stumble, incur guilt (turn from good or love)

From my experience, I do many 'ra things.

From my experience, I fallen in love with God decades ago.

I have been turned (REPENTANCE, METANOIA) from love of the creation to love of the creator.

You have been turned, too. From my experience in reading your thoughts and knowing that you have tried to comprehend and love, you too do only 'ra.

I know from experience that I have been injured spiritually along the way.

Those of us that have been injured do 'ra, but not sin. We love God. But the Oaks of Justice take a long time to grow.

I can see from experience that you have much produce (karpos) in you from the Spirit of God. He plant His seed, His word, and it takes time to grow, especially if we have been injured.

Blessings,

Jim Baur

 

[MrSnaith]

I rarely get stuck on a concept, but lately I’ve been struggling with why God knowingly created life with the potential of evil. I say this not because I doubt God and his plan but because I get so frustrated with my own daily short comings and a constant struggle to avoid sin. I cant seem to be satisfied with a reason why God didn’t created the human will and inclinations to be better in the first place so that humanity could be at peace and there be no evil. I know that humans have chosen by free will to do evil, but God could have created us to be better since he is all powerful. I know there is a purpose why God chose creation the way he did but I have yet to grasp why he didn’t make humans and angels better with a will that would choose evil which has made a total mess.

If there are replies then please don’t get offended if I challenge some of the answers because its not meant out of trying to be an antagonist but only seeking the truth to satisfy my inner struggle.

Actually, the Catholic Church teaches that God did create us better than we are now. That is, we were created in a state of Preternatural Grace, and one of the three Preternatural Graces we were given was the freedom from concupiscence.

Concupiscence is what you struggle with daily. It’s the inclination toward sin. It’s that part of your will that desires to choose the lesser good over and above the greater good. That’s not how we originally were. It was the deliberate, and absolutely free choice that Adam and Eve made that caused us to be how we are now.

You may wonder, then, why God allowed the choice. He did so out of Love. Love is the freely chosen good of the other. It is what allows us to be in union and communion with others, to share our being with them, allowing them to enjoy our own life. This love relationship is a fundamental element of the Trinitarian Family, and it is the basic essence of all of God’s actions. If we had not been created with the free choice to love God, then God would have deprived us of the deepest likeness we could share with Him, His Image.

Essentially, God created us to share in His Divine Life, to be a part of His Divine Family, in a community of Love. If we were not free to accept or deny this destiny, then this destiny would have been impossible to us. Unless it’s freely chosen, it’s not really love.

 

[PJM]

=COPLAND 3;11855633]I rarely get stuck on a concept, but lately I’ve been struggling with why God knowingly created life with the potential of evil. I say this not because I doubt God and his plan but because I get so frustrated with my own daily short comings and a constant struggle to avoid sin. I cant seem to be satisfied with a reason why God didn’t created the human will and inclinations to be better in the first place so that humanity could be at peace and there be no evil. I know that humans have chosen by free will to do evil, but God could have created us to be better since he is all powerful. I know there is a purpose why God chose creation the way he did but I have yet to grasp why he didn’t make humans and angels better with a will that would choose evil which has made a total mess.

If there are replies then please don’t get offended if I challenge some of the answers because its not meant out of trying to be an antagonist but only seeking the truth to satisfy my inner struggle.

HERE’S WHY

God is perfect and loves us Perfectly.

Read Isaiag 43 verses 7 & 21

In all of Creation; in the entire Universe there is only ONE thing capable of Loving or Hating God: HUMANITY.

God created us so that we MIGHT freely choose to Know; Obey, Love and Worship HIM.

On the issue of “love” god DESIRES perfect love be returned for the perfect love he gives to us.

Perfect love in an absoulate sense HAS to be freely given.

God permits us to:
Ecc. 15:18 “Before man is life and death, good and evil, that which he shall choose shall be given him”

In order for man to be enables to love perfectly requires a mind, intellect and freewill. They are entrusted to us with the option of abusing these powerful attributes; which too adds to the perfection of freely choosing to love God:thumbsup:

 

[Aloysium]

How about:

To

Romans 7:14-25 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

St Paul, possibly referring to this, adds

2 Corinthians 12: 7-10 . . . Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

We are to surrender all to Christ, perhaps including the peace we would have were we sin-free (a state to which we must strive) by our own efforts.

 

[sirach2v4]

The Jewish Publication Society commentaries on the Torah and other such commentaries speculate on problems like this.

The Jews do not emphasize original sin like Catholics do. There’s a notation in the CCC about that, probably around the discussion of original sin.

What the Jewish commentaries say, is that, according to some analysis of scripture, that they believe that the Torah was written in God’s mind thousands of years before world was created. And, the world was created with the Torah as the “script.”

The Jewish commentaries (starting back with the Talmud) are always motivated by a belief in harmonizing scripture with their faith. So, they simply accept and teach that G-d, of course, knew what he was doing and how things turned out.

But, the scripture, esp. the Torah, is God’s love letter to them. So, they are looking for the earthly paradise that they see promised there, the promised land itself, etc.

In that book Why the Jews Rejected Jesus the author notes significantly and critically of Christians, that we’ve spiritualized everything, starting with Jesus — our kingdom is not of this world,etc.

The Jewish commentaries point out regularly all the anthropomorphisms about God. I imagine that our Christian belief that sin offends God is an anthropomorphism, for all the same reasons that the Bible has anthropomorphisms – to teach us about God.

I was reading the ACCS which you know well about, and the thought occurred to me that “Father” and “Son” are anthropomorphisms that best describe to our ability to understand, the relationship of these two hypostases of God – two persons of God. certainly the Father is not a Father in the natural sense, but always in a spiritual sense. LIkewise, the Son.

Anyway, God cannot and does not change, so sin cannot really offend God in the way to make any change. (I am neither a philosopher or a theologian, by the way.) So, what happened from creation onward was willed by God or permitted by God, including our concupiscence.

Only those who have faith have been given that faith by God. That’s another mystery - in the sense that this principle has been revealed to us, although it is beyond our comprehension.

In the ACCS on the gospel of John, Augustine is quoted at least several times as saying there are things we don’t know and may never know.

 

[fhansen]

Here’s from the Catechism:

**302 Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created “in a state of journeying” (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call “divine providence” the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection:

By his providence God protects and governs all things which he has made, “reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well”. For “all are open and laid bare to his eyes”, even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of creatures.161

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
**

 

[QNDNNDQDCE]

St. Thomas asks in a place in the Summa Theologica why does God leave us to suffer the penalties due to sin in this life even after baptism. Part of his answer is,

Secondly, this is suitable for our spiritual training: namely, in order that, by fighting against concupiscence and other defects to which he is subject, man may receive the crown of victory. Wherefore on Romans 6:6, “that the body of sin may be destroyed,” a gloss says: “If a man after Baptism live in the flesh, he has concupiscence to fight against, and to conquer by God’s help.” In sign of which it is written (Judges 3:1-2): “These are the nations which the Lord left, that by them He might instruct Israel . . . that afterwards their children might learn to fight with their enemies, and to be trained up to war.”
newadvent.org/summa/4069.htm#article3

In short, God gives us a more difficult battle so we can receive a more glorious victory.