You said: “…as good as God chose to make His creation” but also later say: “Even being a perfectly made creature is not enough; they were perfectly made…”, so which is it?
I mean perfectly in how He formed them, not in how they were in their nature of what He used to form them. So, both things above which you quoted are referring to the same thing
< talking about how well He formed them, not talking about the nature of what He used.
If you say: “God held back making humans as good as He could and chose to make them less than he could have made them” then this God is contrary to a totally unselfish type God and totally unselfish would be the ultimate in Love, so is that the God you worship?
He started with humans being less than He could have made them, but now we can become all we can be, by means of Jesus. So, He is not selfish, if He has given us His own Son and now we can be transformed into the image of Jesus > Romans 8:29. So, no I do not worship a selfish god.
Could God make beings just like Jesus from their day one or is there something that Jesus had besides being a non-created being that God could not create (instinctively) in man?
I think I have offered enough in the above comment.
We really need to understand “man’s objective” to know if man was made as good as God could make him to fulfill his objective, so what do you see as “man’s objective? (Please do not just say: “to bring glory to God” since a tree brings glory to God by being a tree.)
Romans 9 shows how God is our Potter, and He has vessels for honor and for dishonor. A vessel has a purpose. We humans can understand this, from how we create vessels for holding different things and for transporting different sorts of materials in different and specialized vessels. You can understand that you are not going to use a sewer pot for drinking water.
Satan is a vessel for carrying the "spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience" (Ephesians 2:2) to the flaming sewer which burns with fire and brimstone. His spirit is very nasty filth of boredom and loneliness and hurts and unforgiveness and bitterness and arguing and complaining and abusive stuff of nasty angry reacting and dominating and dictatorial drives for pleasures. That stuff does not belong in any human; yet, ones are volunteering and excusing themselves to keep on being vessels of such nasty stuff.
So, yes there are humans who are vessels of what is not God's love. They serve to help to transport it to the flaming sewer.
So, I can see how God is organized, the God of order. He has vessels for different purposes.
I agree Adam and Eve started out uncorrupted, what is this one quality that is “less than God” which allowed them to be corrupted and why was it not given to them?
What I understand is that Adam and Eve were human in spiritual nature. And the human spiritual nature is weaker than God and can be corrupted. But, also, the human spirit can be transformed into the likeness of Jesus.
You say: “total depravity is not only about being fully evil”. So do you believe a baby even prior to birth is “fully evil”?
I mean it does not mean fully evil, but fully dependent. I do not mean fully dependent and fully evil
You say: “"totally depraved" rightfully means totally dependent…”, but animals are totally dependent on God for the air they breathe so are they “totally depraved”?
I am talking about being fully dependent, spiritually, so we need how only God's grace is able to change us to become like Jesus. I am not talking about how creatures depend materially on God for things of this life.
We, as mature adults, can see from the Adam & Eve story and life itself and realize we cannot of our own power be consistently obedient to God, be righteous, be holy, and/or be acceptable, but would that have to mean an innocent baby, who has not sinned yet, is evil?
I said, I mean dependent. Now, though, if an unborn is infected by the spirit of sin from the baby's parents, then "the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience" (in Ephesians 2:2) can be already infecting the baby, in the womb; and so, the baby can have started in having this wrong spirit, before birth. But if case this is so, the infection of sin has only gotten started, not matured like how older people can "become worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (in 2 Timothy 3:13). So, no a baby is not already fully evil. But he or she could get started if parents in sin have conceived. Right in the conception, that wrong spirit of self-involvement can get started. Then, as the person develops, there is more and more for the wrong spirit to work in.
But we have what happened, when John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit, right from the womb. He could know who Jesus is, even before he was born . . . not being only about himself, but being filled with God's Holy Spirit!
Does the fact that; I cannot freely fly around the room; mean I do not have free will in other areas?
Now, this is correct, but how are you going to apply this, please?
You might begin with a correct statement, but possibly how you apply it should not be known by the company it keeps!
If it does mean I can still have free will then the fact I cannot keep from never sinning, would not mean I do not have free will in other areas?
If you can sin, your ability to sin can effect all areas, though this may not be obvious. For one sort of an example, your weakness for a wrong pleasure can moonlight as weakness making you able to suffer in various emotional torments which might not involve obvious sinning.
The Bible does not refer to Adam and Eve’s first sin as a “fall” so why should we?
I understand "fall" to be an image, not necessarily a perfect representation. Paul does say the Galatians fell from grace. So, I can see that people who know the Bible have derived "fall" from Paul's use of "fallen from grace", in Galatians chapter one.
So, what wording would you use, please?
Adam and Eve sinned with the “nature” they had, so why would our “nature” have to change in order for us to sin?
With the nature they had, they were weak enough to become corrupted, so then they were of a fallen or corrupted nature which then did sin. In their human nature before the fall they were not choosing to sin. So, I consider that they were first corrupted, then they were able to choose to sin.
We know “knowledge” of good and evil was gained for mankind through the eating of the fruit, but is knowledge itself bad to have?
I don't think the knowledge of good and evil is bad. But their disobedience was the problem. And the evil spirit of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2) who had them eat it was the real problem; we see how people in sin can totally see good and evil in a bad way. They even can hate rain and call it "bad weather" . . . when in fact we need God's blessing of rain, in order keep alive on this planet. So, they were feeding on knowledge of good and evil in an evil way, how Satan's evil spirit had them seeing things the wrong way.
For another example > people can know good and bad things, but then their spirit of worry has them taking things in a totally wrong way, instead of how in God's love we can creatively handle any problem or nicer thing, and use it to do His loving.
Also, men can see woman as being good, but only or mainly in terms of what they look like, instead of evaluating if and how we share in real love. The spirit of evil has people mainly focusing on how a woman looks and acts and tones her voice, instead of seeing how we need to learn how to love.
So, the problem is not in knowing anything, but how we see it and what we do with it.
Would it be “fair” for God to give a better “nature” to Adam & Eve than we have?
I think that is not the point. What we can benefit from is the fact that Adam and Eve started out better than we have; and yet even they of their own selves did not have what it takes to stand against Satan. This can help us to humble ourselves and see how we so need God.
“Knowledge” of good and evil does provide us with lots more ways to sin and so all mature adults do sin, but is sin the problem or is unforgiven sin the problem?
both
Even if you don't know something is sin, still you are being effected by the wrong spirit witch has you sinning. And that spirit can mess us with all sorts of personality torments . . . while we are living selfishly for pleasures and control, instead of being strong in Jesus and His all-loving love.
That did not answer the question: Are there things God just could not do since it would be impossible to do with Adam and Eve? Ex. God could not create a being that has always existed.
I have offered my theory about "vessels". This can apply, here
Babies are for a very good reason instinctively self-desirous, so does that make them evil? And if you say yes, would the baby not even born yet also be evil? Do you think that is the way God views these humans?
Jonah 4:11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left…
So, yes God sees if we are evil or not; and He has compassion on us. And this is our example, of how He wants us to see people, if indeed we know they are wrong.
"He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness." (Hebrews 5:2)
I can see that if even little children can quickly start to show very self-involved stuff and can be even very clever at controlling and competing, this can mean they got a head-start in sin, even before they were born. And ones can be very clever, it seems, without any training; so I see that could be because Satan's spirit is clever and conniving and he is able to share this with even very little children . . . without their needing any training.
“Total Depravity” has to do with the child at conception due to Adam & Eve’s sinning being totally sinful (hell or purgatory bound) and continuing that way until God changes him/her. It is not just; the lacking of Loving God and others. A child has to grow to the maturity to even know to Love God and others.
A child needs to grow and develop in order to know who his or her parents are, too. And even after a child does know how his or her parents care for him or her, the child can ignore their love; among other things, children can trash their parents' love and caring, by smoking. So, even with much development, one in sin can then have more developed ways of rejecting how others care for him or her.
Like I offer > God has vessels for different purposes. I offer this, in consideration of Romans chapter nine, and how in various places in the Bible we see how God uses evil people for His intentions. Genesis 37-50 is an excellent example of how God who "is love" (1 John 4:8 & 1 John 4:16) used Joseph's situation for God's all-loving purpose. So, if you throw God out and just make Him an intellectual toy and then criticize Him, you are missing out on Him as our greatest Resource and the only One who can change an evil person.
And if we make ourselves the judges of God, we are keeping ourselves from our greatest Resource. If He knows babies are in sin in the womb, it helps to know what He knows so we can know what is needed. Or else, we can pretend in denial that babies' sin problems are just natural and medical, in witch case we are not going to seek how God alone can take care of our problems really right.
Do you have to first sin to become a slave to sin or are we just born that way (which would really make it God’s fault)?
First, it is not God's fault.
I understand that if someone is connected with "the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience" (in Ephesians 2:2), then the person is in more or less slavery to that evil spirit of selfishness with its fears and torments and pleasure seeking. And then the actions come, because of being a slave. Slaves own actions do not put them into slavery. They are in slavery, then they do actions of their slavery.
People accuse God about this. And Paul answers this, in Romans chapter nine.
