How you can have free will without the option to sin

[The Transcended Omniverse]

I'm OK with that. Humans want things to be all loving and just. Look at the world is it all loving and just, how many years, prophets, saints and humans have had it this way. As far as I know only 2 humans ever lived in the world you want and they sinned anyway.

But how could they sin if their capacity to do so was removed by an all loving/all just God in the first place?

 

[bobhikes]

But how could they sin if their capacity to do so was removed by an all loving/all just God in the first place?

She took the word of a snake over that of God and He did what she asked over the word of God. There was just one thing they were forbidden from doing. They had only one real choice all the other choices were removed from them. They did not even know they were naked. They still failed, they couldn't avoid even that 1 choice and God actually spoke to them directly.

God doesn't want a robot, God wants and individual so you must have at least 1 choice and humans will always fail given just one choice. Maybe its in the millions of choices that allows us to be forgiven and move on. He can curve the scale and at least allow some to pass. If it was just 1 choice we would all fail.

 

[Skwim]

Then that would have to mean that God is not all knowing since if he thought that they would not disobey him, then this means he cannot see into the future and he does not know everything about his creations. Also, why not just remove the apple from plain sight to someplace safe where Adam and Eve could not get to it?

That's why I said "As I see it from the Christian standpoint." Christians readily disregard his omnipotence and omniscience when talking about what god does and doesn't do when they need to. Taking his omniscience into consideration, before he even created the Earth god knew A&E were going to eat the apple, he would flood the earth, he would come to earth as a savior, and that you would be asking this question. But so often Christians pretend that god did this or that because of what someone did. Taking god's omniscience into consideration, the fact of the matter is that it couldn't have been otherwise. If you sin it's because you could not, not sin. Sinning or not sinning is never any kind of option. So having free will is not depended on being able to sin or not. Free will depends on the ability to choose between different possible courses of action.


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[Jonathan Ainsley Bain]

God could have created the universe and his human creations any way he wanted to. There is one way he could have done it and it would have been the far better way. That would be to have made his human creations perfect sinless beings where they are incapable of sinning. They would not have the option to sin. This would not be taking away their free will and I am going to explain.

If you had someone who worked at McDonalds and they had some horrible item on that menu which would be an option that a customer could choose, that item does not belong and should be removed from the menu. Removing this item would not take away the customer's free will. The customer can still freely choose any of the other good items on that menu.

Why have that item on the menu in the first place then? If it's to teach a lesson for wrongdoing, then I think this is absurd and asinine and I will also explain. If you had a patient and the life lesson to be learned is to avoid cancer, then avoiding cancer is what is important. Therefore, there would be no reason to inflict cancer upon this patient or to give him/her the capacity to be inflicted with cancer.

In that same sense, it would be asinine and absurd for a God to endow the capacity for sin upon his human creations just so that they can learn to not sin when avoiding sin was what was important to begin with. That is no different than giving a patient cancer or giving him/her the capacity to be inflicted with cancer just so that he/she can learn how important it was for him/her to avoid cancer.

Therefore, I think it is cruel and unloving for a God to bestow the capacity for sin upon his human creations since this is what is resulting in them going to hell, being punished, etc. Many people are blind and accept God's actions and judgments as holy, righteous, etc. But God's moral nature should be judged on the basis of how you would judge the moral nature of your mother, father, or anyone else.

In other words, if it is unloving and unjust for a certain person or parent to make a certain judgment or do a certain deed, then that can be projected onto God as well. So if he carries out those same judgments and actions, then that also makes him unloving and unjust.

Just because God did it does not make it right. Therefore, I would ask you to imagine for a moment that your mother or father performs the same acts, deeds, and judgments as God. Wouldn't that make him/her an unloving and unjust parent then? I think it would.

Lastly, your brain has different capacities. You have, for example, the capacity to send signals to your body and make yourself move. Therefore, removing the option to sin would be no different. It would be like taking away the brain's capacity to send signals to your body and make you move (aka paralysis). Another example would be that some people in the world are so loving and caring that they are incapable of hating others. So we can clearly see how certain attributes of our personality can be incapacitated. Therefore, if the same can be done for these types of situations, then the same thing can be done in the situation of sin as well.

Excellent topic.
But I disagree entirely.

Its all about the consequences of actions, and no action can ever be perfect except eternal bliss.
Now if we all had eternal bliss, there would be no suffering to contrast it with, so we would not know
that we had such bliss. Thus it would cease to be bliss; it would just be mundane existence.

It is only because we suffer from thirst that we can feel the sheer joy of drinking pure water.
It is only because we hunger that we enjoy a hearty meal.

But we have to freely choose our own paths, so that we appreciate, and not seek to blame
others for our thirst and hunger.

Thus, without death, there can be no love.

Go ask the youngest angel,
She will say with bated breath,
By the door of Mary's garden
Are the spirits Love and Death.

- Yeats
an imperfect being who sinned terribly, but also gave the world his best moments

 

[Glaurung]

Evidently god thought it's possible because he created A&E with the idea they would not disobey him, eat the apple, and bring sin into the world. As I see it from the Christian standpoint, his vision for the future was a world populated by sinless, free willed homo sapiens.

Adam and Eve were evidently capable of sin. What they did not initially suffer was concupiscence. The constant emotional pull towards sin in general.

 

[Glaurung]

That's why I said "As I see it from the Christian standpoint." Christians readily disregard his omnipotence and omniscience when talking about what god does and doesn't do when they need to. Taking his omniscience into consideration, before he even created the Earth god knew A&E were going to eat the apple, he would flood the earth, he would come to earth as a savior, and that you would be asking this question. But so often Christians pretend that god did this or that because of what someone did. Taking god's omniscience into consideration, the fact of the matter is that it couldn't have been otherwise. If you sin it's because you could not, not sin. Sinning or not sinning is never any kind of option. So having free will is not depended on being able to sin or not. Free will depends on the ability to choose between different possible courses of action.

God's omniscience is not deterministic, you simply assert it based on your own ideological needs. The very thing you're accusing Christians of here.

God foresees everything, but just because he foresees it doesn't mean he determined it; it only means he has permitted it. Our choices remain free.

 

[Stevicus]

God could have created the universe and his human creations any way he wanted to. There is one way he could have done it and it would have been the far better way. That would be to have made his human creations perfect sinless beings where they are incapable of sinning. They would not have the option to sin. This would not be taking away their free will and I am going to explain.

If you had someone who worked at McDonalds and they had some horrible item on that menu which would be an option that a customer could choose, that item does not belong and should be removed from the menu. Removing this item would not take away the customer's free will. The customer can still freely choose any of the other good items on that menu.

Why have that item on the menu in the first place then? If it's to teach a lesson for wrongdoing, then I think this is absurd and asinine and I will also explain. If you had a patient and the life lesson to be learned is to avoid cancer, then avoiding cancer is what is important. Therefore, there would be no reason to inflict cancer upon this patient or to give him/her the capacity to be inflicted with cancer.

In that same sense, it would be asinine and absurd for a God to endow the capacity for sin upon his human creations just so that they can learn to not sin when avoiding sin was what was important to begin with. That is no different than giving a patient cancer or giving him/her the capacity to be inflicted with cancer just so that he/she can learn how important it was for him/her to avoid cancer.

Therefore, I think it is cruel and unloving for a God to bestow the capacity for sin upon his human creations since this is what is resulting in them going to hell, being punished, etc. Many people are blind and accept God's actions and judgments as holy, righteous, etc. But God's moral nature should be judged on the basis of how you would judge the moral nature of your mother, father, or anyone else.

In other words, if it is unloving and unjust for a certain person or parent to make a certain judgment or do a certain deed, then that can be projected onto God as well. So if he carries out those same judgments and actions, then that also makes him unloving and unjust.

Just because God did it does not make it right. Therefore, I would ask you to imagine for a moment that your mother or father performs the same acts, deeds, and judgments as God. Wouldn't that make him/her an unloving and unjust parent then? I think it would.

Lastly, your brain has different capacities. You have, for example, the capacity to send signals to your body and make yourself move. Therefore, removing the option to sin would be no different. It would be like taking away the brain's capacity to send signals to your body and make you move (aka paralysis). Another example would be that some people in the world are so loving and caring that they are incapable of hating others. So we can clearly see how certain attributes of our personality can be incapacitated. Therefore, if the same can be done for these types of situations, then the same thing can be done in the situation of sin as well.

I don't really believe in free will. I believe in freedom of choice as a political concept, but if I accept the idea that we were created by some being called "God," then I agree with the first sentence of your post: "God could have created the universe and his human creations any way he wanted to." He imposed his own limitations upon us and our bodies, which also shape our minds and understanding of the world around us. God chose to handicap us with too many weaknesses, where our "will" can easily break if we suffer physical discomfort, fatigue, hunger, thirst, sickness, etc.

It's very easy to avoid sin if one is well-fed, comfortable, and living in the lap of luxury, but if someone is cold, hungry, in pain, or otherwise suffering, then it might be more difficult to avoid sin. And if God set it up that way on purpose, then it seems like He's organizing some kind of endurance contest to see how much people can take before they crack.

 

[Skwim]

God's omniscience is not deterministic, you simply assert it based on your own ideological needs. The very thing you're accusing Christians of here.

God foresees everything, but just because he foresees it doesn't mean he determined it; it only means he has permitted it. Our choices remain free.

Yeah, that was a terrible post I made. Goes to show that a person shouldn't get into philosophical issues while in the midst of a bad head cold.


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[psychoslice]

If you are under gods thumb, then of course you don't have free will, so where do you want to be ?.

 

[David T]

God could have created the universe and his human creations any way he wanted to. There is one way he could have done it and it would have been the far better way. That would be to have made his human creations perfect sinless beings where they are incapable of sinning. They would not have the option to sin. This would not be taking away their free will and I am going to explain.

If you had someone who worked at McDonalds and they had some horrible item on that menu which would be an option that a customer could choose, that item does not belong and should be removed from the menu. Removing this item would not take away the customer's free will. The customer can still freely choose any of the other good items on that menu.

Why have that item on the menu in the first place then? If it's to teach a lesson for wrongdoing, then I think this is absurd and asinine and I will also explain. If you had a patient and the life lesson to be learned is to avoid cancer, then avoiding cancer is what is important. Therefore, there would be no reason to inflict cancer upon this patient or to give him/her the capacity to be inflicted with cancer.

In that same sense, it would be asinine and absurd for a God to endow the capacity for sin upon his human creations just so that they can learn to not sin when avoiding sin was what was important to begin with. That is no different than giving a patient cancer or giving him/her the capacity to be inflicted with cancer just so that he/she can learn how important it was for him/her to avoid cancer.

Therefore, I think it is cruel and unloving for a God to bestow the capacity for sin upon his human creations since this is what is resulting in them going to hell, being punished, etc. Many people are blind and accept God's actions and judgments as holy, righteous, etc. But God's moral nature should be judged on the basis of how you would judge the moral nature of your mother, father, or anyone else.

In other words, if it is unloving and unjust for a certain person or parent to make a certain judgment or do a certain deed, then that can be projected onto God as well. So if he carries out those same judgments and actions, then that also makes him unloving and unjust.

Just because God did it does not make it right. Therefore, I would ask you to imagine for a moment that your mother or father performs the same acts, deeds, and judgments as God. Wouldn't that make him/her an unloving and unjust parent then? I think it would.

Lastly, your brain has different capacities. You have, for example, the capacity to send signals to your body and make yourself move. Therefore, removing the option to sin would be no different. It would be like taking away the brain's capacity to send signals to your body and make you move (aka paralysis). Another example would be that some people in the world are so loving and caring that they are incapable of hating others. So we can clearly see how certain attributes of our personality can be incapacitated. Therefore, if the same can be done for these types of situations, then the same thing can be done in the situation of sin as well.

reality as a created, isnt reality.

 

[whirlingmerc]

If creatures love God purely and their highest desire is to glorify and love and know Him, then there would not be sin even with an ability to choose... and likely that is how those redeemed in heaven and the holy angels are or will be ... just not yet...

You choose according to the highest inclination of the heart.... but your heart is fallen in need of redemption

 

[MonkeyFire]

God is LOVE. Evil came as part of Natures plan.

 

[viole]

God could have created the universe and his human creations any way he wanted to. There is one way he could have done it and it would have been the far better way. That would be to have made his human creations perfect sinless beings where they are incapable of sinning. They would not have the option to sin. This would not be taking away their free will and I am going to explain.

If you had someone who worked at McDonalds and they had some horrible item on that menu which would be an option that a customer could choose, that item does not belong and should be removed from the menu. Removing this item would not take away the customer's free will. The customer can still freely choose any of the other good items on that menu.

Why have that item on the menu in the first place then? If it's to teach a lesson for wrongdoing, then I think this is absurd and asinine and I will also explain. If you had a patient and the life lesson to be learned is to avoid cancer, then avoiding cancer is what is important. Therefore, there would be no reason to inflict cancer upon this patient or to give him/her the capacity to be inflicted with cancer.

In that same sense, it would be asinine and absurd for a God to endow the capacity for sin upon his human creations just so that they can learn to not sin when avoiding sin was what was important to begin with. That is no different than giving a patient cancer or giving him/her the capacity to be inflicted with cancer just so that he/she can learn how important it was for him/her to avoid cancer.

Therefore, I think it is cruel and unloving for a God to bestow the capacity for sin upon his human creations since this is what is resulting in them going to hell, being punished, etc. Many people are blind and accept God's actions and judgments as holy, righteous, etc. But God's moral nature should be judged on the basis of how you would judge the moral nature of your mother, father, or anyone else.

In other words, if it is unloving and unjust for a certain person or parent to make a certain judgment or do a certain deed, then that can be projected onto God as well. So if he carries out those same judgments and actions, then that also makes him unloving and unjust.

Just because God did it does not make it right. Therefore, I would ask you to imagine for a moment that your mother or father performs the same acts, deeds, and judgments as God. Wouldn't that make him/her an unloving and unjust parent then? I think it would.

Lastly, your brain has different capacities. You have, for example, the capacity to send signals to your body and make yourself move. Therefore, removing the option to sin would be no different. It would be like taking away the brain's capacity to send signals to your body and make you move (aka paralysis). Another example would be that some people in the world are so loving and caring that they are incapable of hating others. So we can clearly see how certain attributes of our personality can be incapacitated. Therefore, if the same can be done for these types of situations, then the same thing can be done in the situation of sin as well.

May I ask to the Christian audience how Adam and Eve knew that that Hamburger was so horrible without tasting it first?

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

God is LOVE. Evil came as part of Natures plan.

So, now we have two things making plans for us.

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

Sin is an determined act against your moral knowledge of Good. You know when you are sinning and still chose to do so. You can't accidentally sin. How can God remove this without removing choice?

For example fornicating with your married neighbor is a sin for most of us. Your going to have married neighbors in life should god take away the ability to fornicate with anyone but the person you marry and how does God do this?

I heard that God is omnipotent. So, prima facie, that does not seem to be a problem. HE could , for instance, turn the face of married people completely red. So that we know. Or program a smell on married people which is tolerable only to the spouse.

Which leads me to the next question.

Do you feel tempted to eat dog crap? I don't know you, but I personally don't. Even if we consider that I never tasted it before.

But why not? Why is it so easy for me to resist that sort of possibly dangerous diet, whose actual taste is unknown to me, and not other things that have a much higher and eternal impact?

Why did God mess with my free will about consuming dog's excrements and not with much more important things?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Nakosis]

God could have created the universe and his human creations any way he wanted to. There is one way he could have done it and it would have been the far better way. That would be to have made his human creations perfect sinless beings where they are incapable of sinning. They would not have the option to sin.

The only way I could see it working is if this life/existence on earth was a virtual simulation. Only if there were no real penalty or consequence. Like in a game if someone decided to kill all of the NPCs. There maybe some virtual consequence so you learn, within the game what not to do to avoid those virtual consequences, but no one is really hurt.

Like I doctor giving a virtual patient cancer then learning how to treat it. Might loose a few patients along the way, but no one was really harmed.

 

[bobhikes]

Do you feel tempted to eat dog crap? I don't know you, but I personally don't. Even if we consider that I never tasted it before.

But why not? Why is it so easy for me to resist that sort of dangerous diet, whose actual taste is unknown to me, and not other things that have a much higher and eternal impact?

Why did God mess with my free will about consuming dog's excrements and not with much more important things?

Ciao

- viole

It doesn't matter, that's not the point. The point is that you can't take away the option to sin and say you love god. God gave Adam and Eve everything they wanted and asked one thing in return. Out of love of God alone they should not have eaten from the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.

If you truly love someone how can you do something that is going to hurt them purposely. If you want absolute love you need to be able to give love in return. Do you need your love ones to take all the temptations from your path so you can love them.

 

[Muffled]

God could have created the universe and his human creations any way he wanted to. There is one way he could have done it and it would have been the far better way. That would be to have made his human creations perfect sinless beings where they are incapable of sinning. They would not have the option to sin. This would not be taking away their free will and I am going to explain.

If you had someone who worked at McDonalds and they had some horrible item on that menu which would be an option that a customer could choose, that item does not belong and should be removed from the menu. Removing this item would not take away the customer's free will. The customer can still freely choose any of the other good items on that menu.

Why have that item on the menu in the first place then? If it's to teach a lesson for wrongdoing, then I think this is absurd and asinine and I will also explain. If you had a patient and the life lesson to be learned is to avoid cancer, then avoiding cancer is what is important. Therefore, there would be no reason to inflict cancer upon this patient or to give him/her the capacity to be inflicted with cancer.

In that same sense, it would be asinine and absurd for a God to endow the capacity for sin upon his human creations just so that they can learn to not sin when avoiding sin was what was important to begin with. That is no different than giving a patient cancer or giving him/her the capacity to be inflicted with cancer just so that he/she can learn how important it was for him/her to avoid cancer.

Therefore, I think it is cruel and unloving for a God to bestow the capacity for sin upon his human creations since this is what is resulting in them going to hell, being punished, etc. Many people are blind and accept God's actions and judgments as holy, righteous, etc. But God's moral nature should be judged on the basis of how you would judge the moral nature of your mother, father, or anyone else.

In other words, if it is unloving and unjust for a certain person or parent to make a certain judgment or do a certain deed, then that can be projected onto God as well. So if he carries out those same judgments and actions, then that also makes him unloving and unjust.

Just because God did it does not make it right. Therefore, I would ask you to imagine for a moment that your mother or father performs the same acts, deeds, and judgments as God. Wouldn't that make him/her an unloving and unjust parent then? I think it would.

Lastly, your brain has different capacities. You have, for example, the capacity to send signals to your body and make yourself move. Therefore, removing the option to sin would be no different. It would be like taking away the brain's capacity to send signals to your body and make you move (aka paralysis). Another example would be that some people in the world are so loving and caring that they are incapable of hating others. So we can clearly see how certain attributes of our personality can be incapacitated. Therefore, if the same can be done for these types of situations, then the same thing can be done in the situation of sin as well.

I believe we were created sinless but without the ability to choose we could not be as creative.

I believe your error is in thinking that the creator intended for people to sin and that is not the case.

I believe that can be flipped to say it is cruel and unloving for you to accuse God of wrong doing even more so when your premise is wrong.

I agree there are a great many choices left on the menu when God takes away the ability to sin however He will not force anyone to decide to give up sin other than to send people to Hell which I have to admit is pretty forceful.

 

[Milton Platt]

God could have created the universe and his human creations any way he wanted to. There is one way he could have done it and it would have been the far better way. That would be to have made his human creations perfect sinless beings where they are incapable of sinning. They would not have the option to sin. This would not be taking away their free will and I am going to explain.

If you had someone who worked at McDonalds and they had some horrible item on that menu which would be an option that a customer could choose, that item does not belong and should be removed from the menu. Removing this item would not take away the customer's free will. The customer can still freely choose any of the other good items on that menu.

Why have that item on the menu in the first place then? If it's to teach a lesson for wrongdoing, then I think this is absurd and asinine and I will also explain. If you had a patient and the life lesson to be learned is to avoid cancer, then avoiding cancer is what is important. Therefore, there would be no reason to inflict cancer upon this patient or to give him/her the capacity to be inflicted with cancer.

In that same sense, it would be asinine and absurd for a God to endow the capacity for sin upon his human creations just so that they can learn to not sin when avoiding sin was what was important to begin with. That is no different than giving a patient cancer or giving him/her the capacity to be inflicted with cancer just so that he/she can learn how important it was for him/her to avoid cancer.

Therefore, I think it is cruel and unloving for a God to bestow the capacity for sin upon his human creations since this is what is resulting in them going to hell, being punished, etc. Many people are blind and accept God's actions and judgments as holy, righteous, etc. But God's moral nature should be judged on the basis of how you would judge the moral nature of your mother, father, or anyone else.

In other words, if it is unloving and unjust for a certain person or parent to make a certain judgment or do a certain deed, then that can be projected onto God as well. So if he carries out those same judgments and actions, then that also makes him unloving and unjust.

Just because God did it does not make it right. Therefore, I would ask you to imagine for a moment that your mother or father performs the same acts, deeds, and judgments as God. Wouldn't that make him/her an unloving and unjust parent then? I think it would.

Lastly, your brain has different capacities. You have, for example, the capacity to send signals to your body and make yourself move. Therefore, removing the option to sin would be no different. It would be like taking away the brain's capacity to send signals to your body and make you move (aka paralysis). Another example would be that some people in the world are so loving and caring that they are incapable of hating others. So we can clearly see how certain attributes of our personality can be incapacitated. Therefore, if the same can be done for these types of situations, then the same thing can be done in the situation of sin as well.

Not to mention that he has interfered with peoples free will repeatedly in the past, so what's the big deal now?