Before Jesus
- Thread starter Frisbinator
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If free will is truly free, then a perfect creation with free will would have absolute power of choice, to choose evil or good. The Latin tern is liberum arbitrium, which could be translated "free choice". Man has free choice. This is part of his perfection. It would not be possible to create Man without Free Choice. That would be like trying to make a triangle with only two sides.
Original Sin was perpetrated by Satan.
Just because the story is symbolic doesnt mean that the events which the symbols somehow refer to did not happen.
Besides all scriptural details you can be sure of this:
There was a "fall" event involving Satan, God, and the first two humans which have had profound effects on humanity.
Just because the story is symbolic doesnt mean that the events which the symbols somehow refer to did not happen.
Besides all scriptural details you can be sure of this:
There was a "fall" event involving Satan, God, and the first two humans which have had profound effects on humanity.
Jenyar,
Never said it was.
Which no one would have done had they correctly understood the consequences.
Apparently not since he seemingly created a product that malfunctioned, or if the malfunction was intentional then he is simply a monster. Either way he is either imperfect or a monster, there is no other choice.
As usual your explanation is ambiguous and confused. The issue has nothing to do with freedom, that’s your party line and is not relevant here. The issue is that of design. Had God wanted his product to behave a certain way then through his omnipotence it could have been achieved. That man apparently malfunctioned must have been a deliberate design decision and therefore cannot be the fault of man, he would have had no choice in his own design.
Again, ambiguous, mixed and confused concepts. If I am rational and am aware that stepping in front of a speeding car will kill me then I will not take that action. The same applies to man and obeying God. If he had been made clearly aware of the consequences and had been appropriately educated then obeying would never have been a problem.
You are still missing the point. God is meant to be omnipotent. If he had wanted people to listen then it would have occurred. The only reason people might not have wanted to be taught is that they had not been provided with the correct guidelines in the first place. Any way you cut this the design and consequences would have been entirely in the hands of the designer and man would not have been responsible for incorrect actions.
Lawdog,
Ok then that means man is not at fault and should never have been pusnihed becuase of the actions of a super powerful supernatural being. God should have punished Satan not man.
LOL. Nonsense. It is either symbolic or actual. They are mutually exclusive conditions.
Now just hold on there Cris. Adam and Eve were strong enough to resist temptation. They must take the greater weight of the responsibility. The mysterious question that you should be asking is this: Why does Original Sin get passed on to us, after all, what did we do wrong?Cris said:
So a red light does not symbolize the danger of passing vehicles?
Lawdog,
Again, freedom is not the issue. It is a matter of design. Why would God deliberately design and create someone who would want to do evil? Again with his omnipotence no one would ever have made the wrong decisions even though they would have had the freedom to do so. That anyone would choose incorrectly is an issue of design and the sole responsibility of God.
What about freedom stops someone from jumping in front of a car? What about God's omnipotence prevent us from freely exercising our abilities?Cris said:
And yet they did. God told Adam they would die. What could be worse to the first conscious man? Sin is irrational.
You persist in calling it a malfunction. A mistake is not a malfunction, it's an abuse of design, a deviation from good. They didn't cease to be human, they just ceased to be good.
The problem is that you can't bring the two ends together. God's purpose - to create a man capable of independent thought and action - and hence love and actual good - was perfectly achieved. Therefore your problem is that God didn't make the decisions for them, which is absurd if you really accept that freedom isn't a flaw.
Unless by a series of rationalizations they diluted the danger until it meant practically nothing. If death is "bad", but you can manage to equate "death" with "divinity", and that makes it "good", for which some might easily jump in front of a speeding car (or strap themselves with explosives). People can rationalize almost anything, and one way is to separate actions from their consequences. For many people, the distance between birth and death is more than enough to justify anything.
It could be a car, it could be old age, but if God clearly says sin leads to death, how come so many people still sin? It's illogical. Not even the Bible tries to explain it - it just shows us the picture.
No, the only way you can hold God responsible for our actions is if He was the one who did them - as you imply He should have. We're not held responsible for what we don't know or can't do without God, but for what we can know and do out of own initiative.
The ability to act autonomously makes us responsible for our autonomous actions. So we're not being blamed for what God, or even satan, did.
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Lawdog,
The anomaly occurs because Eve did not have the knowledge to understand that to disobey God is a bad thing BEFORE she eats from the tree that gives her the knowledge of good and evil and to know she shouldn’t have done that. It is a catch-22 trick perpetuated by an evil God that had already decided it wanted to cause widespread suffering and murder billions of people.
Since Eve could not have understood the consequences of her action she could not have been responsible and hence the whole story behind the downfall of man is a farce which in turn makes the whole notion of a savior a farce, which pretty much means the whole of Christianity is a farce.
If A&E is read correctly there was no original sin.
The anomaly occurs because Eve did not have the knowledge to understand that to disobey God is a bad thing BEFORE she eats from the tree that gives her the knowledge of good and evil and to know she shouldn’t have done that. It is a catch-22 trick perpetuated by an evil God that had already decided it wanted to cause widespread suffering and murder billions of people.
Since Eve could not have understood the consequences of her action she could not have been responsible and hence the whole story behind the downfall of man is a farce which in turn makes the whole notion of a savior a farce, which pretty much means the whole of Christianity is a farce.
I have been working on it in my mind. So far here is my feeble answer: When Adam sinned, since he is the father of the entire human race, and since the defect corrupted his entire body and soul, then the product of his flesh is also corrupted. So each human contracts it, like a child that might contract aids. This is different than actual sin. God must use the potentialities that the parents supply in procreation, and if they are corrupted, he must use them. Instead of healing the child of original sin from the start, God prefers to make the public statement of claiming the child for his own by means of public babtism.
many theologians have sruggled with this question. Do you have any answer?
many theologians have sruggled with this question. Do you have any answer?
Correct. At least not any the we're personally responsible for. But like Lawdog says, we still inherit the consequences of their sin, which acts as its own temptation. Like Jesus said, it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.Cris said:
Where do you get the idea that she did not know the consequences of her actions? She had information on the knowledge of good and evil, meta-knowledge that God gave them. If they could doubt that, they could doubt anything. Especially if you consider that we have inherited the knowledge they gained, and still have the problem with sin and temptation. Your argument is contradicted by current evidence.