Sovereignty of God and Man's responsibility

swiftxjames · #1 17th August 2012, 05:46 PM

This is my first thread in these forums and so to nice meet you all and thanks for your input.

i have been talking to a fellow student of mine about how man is not responsible for the fall because God allowed it to happen. he is basically saying that he can't blame adam and eve for what happened because they were technically children who did not know what a crime or evil deed. along with that they were tricked by the serpant. so therefore they cant be responsible for what happened and this was bad parenting on the part of God. even if that was the case, i told him that man was still responsible for committing the transgression, but he is still sticking to his argument.

along with that, he brings in the account of God hardening pharaoh. since God hardened pharaoh, it shouldn't be pharaohs fault for doing the things he did. i know this goes into the sovereignty of God and all but it has led this person to say things like "God is an attention whore and He is petty."

I know that the sovereignty of God and man's responsibility is a very hard topic for even us Christians but to an unbeliever, it is just as, if not more, confusing and hard.

so is this something we should try to defend? because it only seems to lead him to conclude that god is responsible for the evil that is committed and leads him to say some scathing remarks about God.

if we are to just give him biblical interpretation of what god does, are we to just keep explaining to him about theology that just keeps getting harder and harder? even though i know he will reject it anyways?

St_Worm2 · #2 17th August 2012, 06:17 PM

Adam was responsible for his sin, not God. Adam made the choice to disobey God (to do what was wrong when he knew what was right .. see Genesis 2:17) and he was punished for it, just like we punish our children when they disobey us.

As far as the serpent being responsible, yes, the woman was deceived (tricked), but Adam wasn't (see Genesis 3:1-8). He was enticed by Eve and fell to the temptation knowing full well what the consequences would be ... at least for him. So he was rightly held responsible for his actions by God, not Eve. And it was because of Adam's disobedience that both sin and death entered our realm (Romans 5:12).

Yours and His,
David
p.s. - if God made it impossible to disobey Him, what would He be effectively ruling out of our lives?

seeingeyes · #3 17th August 2012, 07:06 PM

Originally Posted by swiftxjames

so is this something we should try to defend? because it only seems to lead him to conclude that god is responsible for the evil that is committed and leads him to say some scathing remarks about God.

Honest questions: Does God need you to defend Him? What if God is ultimately responsible for the evil in this world? How would that change your view of Him?

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7)

And welcome.

St_Worm2 · #4 17th August 2012, 07:09 PM

As far as Pharaoh is concerned, God hardened Pharaoh's heart only after Pharaoh had already done so several times himself. He did not act against Pharaoh's will, but finally in harmony with it.

This is an interesting study concerning the sovereignty of God (and we should probably take a deeper look into it), but the most important thing to remember about this passage is that God is God, not Pharaoh or anyone else. He is sovereign, we are not. God showed Pharaoh that he did not have the freedom to do whatever he wished, that instead, he needed to choose to obey God. And when he didn't, he suffered the consequences, just like Adam did.

It's not like Pharaoh wasn't given every chance in the world (so to speak) and plenty of good and obvious reasons to choose to obey God, but he would not!

--David

Clare73 · #5 17th August 2012, 07:32 PM

Originally Posted by swiftxjames

This is my first thread in these forums and so to nice meet you all and thanks for your input.

i have been talking to a fellow student of mine about how man is not responsible for the fall because God allowed it to happen. he is basically saying that he can't blame adam and eve for what happened because they were technically children who did not know what a crime or evil deed. along with that they were tricked by the serpant. so therefore they cant be responsible for what happened and this was bad parenting on the part of God. even if that was the case, i told him that man was still responsible for committing the transgression, but he is still sticking to his argument.

along with that, he brings in the account of God hardening pharaoh. since God hardened pharaoh, it shouldn't be pharaohs fault for doing the things he did. i know this goes into the sovereignty of God and all but it has led this person to say things like "God is an attention whore and He is petty."

I know that the sovereignty of God and man's responsibility is a very hard topic for even us Christians but to an unbeliever, it is just as, if not more, confusing and hard.

so is this something we should try to defend? because it only seems to lead him to conclude that god is responsible for the evil that is committed and leads him to say some scathing remarks about God.

if we are to just give him biblical interpretation of what god does, are we to just keep explaining to him about theology that just keeps getting harder and harder? even though i know he will reject it anyways?

No one can understand (accept) the aspect of the sovereignty of God you are discussing unless he is sold out to God.

Many who believe in and love God do not accept it when it is Biblically presented to them.

These things are probably better left alone for those who do not know God, because all they do is build up resistance to God, which just makes things harder.

elopez · #6 18th August 2012, 12:03 AM

You need to challenge the idea of Adam and Eve being 'child' like. I mean, why assume that? See I don't think the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil actually contained some type of magical knowledge of morality, but rather it was the act of disobedience that brought a type of experential knowledge instead of intellectual knowledge. That being the case, we can only assume God 'gave' them intellectual knowledge of morality, and when we think about this from a biblical prespective, it makes more sense.

Everything that God created was deemed inherently good, and our first parents obviously experienced this goodness, so there is no way they were ignorant of what good was. As far as evil goes, God had commanded Adam and explained the consequence, which is what intellectual knowledge is. Eve was not present at that time, so Adam would have had to tell her the command and consequence, which only means he grasped it well enough to repeat it back to Eve. Eve understand the command and consequence because it was the reason she gave to the serpent for not wanting to eat the fruit.

As far as Pharaoh, if we read back into the text we actually notice he hardened his own heart. When we talk about God 'hardening' one's heart, what we mean is that God is simply assuring what we really want. Consider this question: Do you think he would have let the people go if God had not hardened his heart? I doubt it, because that is what he truly wanted.

In short, I don't beleve there is justification in thinking the Sovereignty of God is mutually exlcusive from man's moral accountability.

swiftxjames · #7 18th August 2012, 01:15 AM

i guess the first sentence i posted may have caused a bit of confusion. so just to clarify, i believe that the fall was caused by Adam and Eve.

but the more i explain certain things, the more resistance he seems to form against God. so i have decided to try and bring this conversation to a close

i cant help think of the verse from Matthew 7:6:
"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces."

thanks for ur help guys

Radagast · #8 18th August 2012, 05:56 AM

Originally Posted by swiftxjames

I know that the sovereignty of God and man's responsibility is a very hard topic for even us Christians but to an unbeliever, it is just as, if not more, confusing and hard.

so is this something we should try to defend?

Yes, because both are critical to the Christian faith. Without the sovereignty of God, prayer is kind of pointless. Without man's responsibility, the concept of judgement makes no sense.

bling · #9 18th August 2012, 09:03 AM

Originally Posted by swiftxjames

This is my first thread in these forums and so to nice meet you all and thanks for your input.

i have been talking to a fellow student of mine about how man is not responsible for the fall because God allowed it to happen. he is basically saying that he can't blame adam and eve for what happened because they were technically children who did not know what a crime or evil deed. along with that they were tricked by the serpant. so therefore they cant be responsible for what happened and this was bad parenting on the part of God. even if that was the case, i told him that man was still responsible for committing the transgression, but he is still sticking to his argument.

along with that, he brings in the account of God hardening pharaoh. since God hardened pharaoh, it shouldn't be pharaohs fault for doing the things he did. i know this goes into the sovereignty of God and all but it has led this person to say things like "God is an attention whore and He is petty."

I know that the sovereignty of God and man's responsibility is a very hard topic for even us Christians but to an unbeliever, it is just as, if not more, confusing and hard.

so is this something we should try to defend? because it only seems to lead him to conclude that god is responsible for the evil that is committed and leads him to say some scathing remarks about God.

if we are to just give him biblical interpretation of what god does, are we to just keep explaining to him about theology that just keeps getting harder and harder? even though i know he will reject it anyways?

First off: God made humans “very good” but that is not perfect, since God could not make humans “perfect” like Christ since Christ is not a made being.

There are just some things that are impossible to do and even God cannot do them like “make a being that always has existed.”

When addressing the question “Why”, you always need to keep in mind the objectives. Man’s and God’s objective. In this case also the reason God created humans in the first place would help.

Yes, God would fully realize man would sin, given the situation man was in (I could have told God that), but not ever sinning is not man’s objective. Sin is not the problem (unforgiven sin can be a huge problem). Sin has purpose for the nonbeliever and all mature adults start out as nonbelievers (except for Adam and Eve).

If you deal with your friend logically, building from the objectives, it is very understandable if he really wants to understand and think about it.

bling · #10 18th August 2012, 09:09 AM

<staff edit >

Good and evil is not the same as right and wrong. It is wrong to touch a hot iron but it is not “evil”. Adam and Eve were given right and wrong instructions by God but not good and evil. It just so happens that eating the fruit was not only wrong but evil in that Adam and Eve were disobeying God, but they did not know that was “evil”, but would know it was wrong.