Assumption #1: God knows all things past, present, and future; therefore, God knew that sin would exist even before the creation of Lucifer.
Assumption #2: God is love
Points to consider
- God does not desire companion bots that love him instinctually.
- God does not desire a choiceless "love."
- God had reasons for proceeding with creation, even though He knew it would result in sin and suffering.
Since God is love, what does the existence of sin teach us about God's nature and Godly love?
What is God's ultimate goal?
What does the cross inform us about free will?
Can God be just without being merciful?
What does all of this say about the nature of God's wrath? (When the thing happens that God foreknew would happen, does God get mad?)
I’d like to touch on the subject of satan and sin because I think the rest is pretty much easy to understand. Personally I think satan is irrelevant to sin. he did tempt Eve in the garden but he didn’t tempt Adam. Sin was inevitable regardless of satan because I believe the true source of sin is free will not satan. satan can’t make anyone do anything, we are responsible for our own actions. If satan hadn’t tempted Eve in the garden sin would’ve still eventually happened. It all starts with the purpose for which God created the earth. God created the earth to cultivate people who would choose to love Him of their own free will. In order for love to be of any actual value it must be given freely and there must be an alternative option of rejection. Think about it, if everyone had no other choice but to love you how would that be special? Love wouldn’t be special at all it would be an inescapable outcome. The whole thing that makes love special is the person’s desire to give it and share it with you. If you remove the opposing option of rejection then it becomes an automatic certainty. Think of it like dropping a stone. You drop a stone and it’s going to automatically fall to the ground every single time. Pretty boring, nothing interesting or special about it. But what if that stone was able to make a choice and decide whether to go up or down or sideways or diagonal or circle or spin or flip or curve now all the sudden dropping a stone becomes much more interesting because you don’t know what it’s going to decide to do. Now it has an element of diversity that spikes curiosity and interest which makes dropping them more entertaining. Now this is a drastic oversimplification for an analogy but the point is because love requires free will to be of any true value and free will carries with it an infinite diversity it adds a quality to man that can be entertaining to God. On the other hand free will and diversity also adds the opposite negative quality that man can also choose to disobey God and reject Him and even hate Him. I’ve debated with many people who claim that Adam & Eve were not created with a sinful nature and that their sinful nature was a result of their sin. And this to me seems to derive from a misinterpretation of Romans 5:19.
”For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.“
Romans 5:19 NASB1995
Ok the reason I say this is a misinterpretation is because if Adam & Eve didn’t have a sinful nature before they sinned then they wouldn’t have sinned to begin with. You can’t have the cause being the effect, it’s circular reasoning that results in an oxymoron. It’s basically saying they couldn’t sin until they sinned which doesn’t make any sense. Adam and Eve sinned because they had free will from day one. Now back to Romans 5:19, Paul says thru one man’s disobedience many were made sinners. I believe Paul is referring to disobedience as a character trait not the actual act of being disobedient. Adam possessed the ability to be disobedient and that is what we inherited from him which is the same free will that Adam had. And with this interpretation we’ve eliminated the circular reasoning that Adam was incapable of sin until he sinned. Now I didn’t come to this conclusion completely on my own I actually stumbled across this concept in Iranaeus’ writing Adversus Haereses written in 170AD. Just a quick background on Iranaeus, he was a follower of Polycarp who was a follower of the apostle John. Iranaeus wrote this.
1. Man has received the
knowledge of good and
evil. It is
good to
obey God, and to
believe in Him, and to keep His commandment, and this is the life of man; as not to
obey God is
evil, and this is his death. Since
God, therefore, gave [to man] such mental power (magnanimitatem) man
knew both the good of
obedienceand the
evil of disobedience, that the eye of the
mind, receiving experience of both, may with judgment make choice of the better things; and that he may never become indolent or neglectful of God's command; and learning by experience that it is an
evil thing which deprives him of life, that is, disobedience to
God, may never attempt it at all, but that,
knowing that what preserves his life, namely,
obedience to
God, is
good, he may diligently keep it with all earnestness. Wherefore he has also had a twofold experience, possessing
knowledge of both kinds, that with discipline he may make choice of the better things. But how, if he had no
knowledge of the contrary, could he have had instruction in that which is
good? For there is thus a surer and an undoubted comprehension of matters submitted to us than the mere surmise arising from an opinion regarding them. For just as the tongue receives experience of sweet and bitter by means of tasting, and the eye discriminates between black and white by means of vision, and the ear recognises the distinctions of sounds by hearing; so also does the
mind, receiving through the experience of both the
knowledgeof what is
good, become more tenacious of its preservation, by acting in
obedience to God: in the first place, casting away, by means of repentance, disobedience, as being something disagreeable and nauseous; and afterwards coming to understand what it really is, that it is contrary to goodness and sweetness, so that the mind may never even attempt to taste disobedience to
God. But if any one do shun the
knowledge of both these kinds of things, and the twofold perception of
knowledge, he unawares divests himself of the character of a
human being.
2. How, then, shall he be a
God, who has not as yet been made a man? Or how can he be perfect who was but lately created? How, again, can he be
immortal, who in his mortal nature did not
obey his Maker? For it must be that you, at the outset, should hold the rank of a
man, and then afterwards partake of the
gloryof
God. For you did not make
God, but God you. If, then, you are God's workmanship, await the hand of your Maker which creates everything in due time; in due time as far as you are concerned, whose creation is being carried out. Offer to Him your heart in a soft and tractable state, and preserve the form in which the Creator has fashioned you, having moisture in yourself, lest, by becoming hardened, you lose the impressions of His fingers. But by preserving the framework you shall ascend to that which is perfect, for the moist clay which is in you is hidden [there] by the workmanship of
God. His hand fashioned your substance; He will cover you over [too] within and without with pure gold and silver, and He will adorn you to such a degree, that even the King Himself shall have pleasure in your beauty. But if you, being obstinately hardened, reject the operation of His skill, and show yourself ungrateful towards Him, because you were created a [mere] man, by becoming thus ungrateful to
God, you have at once lost both His workmanship and life. For creation is an attribute of the goodness of God but to be created is that of
human nature. If then, you shall deliver up to Him what is yours, that is,
faith towards Him and subjection, you shall receive His handiwork, and shall be a perfect work of
God.
3. If, however, you will not
believe in Him, and will flee from His hands, the
causeof imperfection shall be in you who did not
obey, but not in Him who called [you]. For He commissioned [messengers] to call people to the marriage, but they who did not
obey Him deprived themselves of the royal supper.
Matthew 22:3, etc. The skill of
God, therefore, is not defective, for He has power of the stones to raise up children to
Abraham;
Matthew 3:9but the man who does not obtain it is the
causeto himself of his own imperfection. Nor, [in like manner], does the light fail because of those who have blinded themselves; but while it remains the same as ever, those who are [thus] blinded are involved in darkness through their own fault. The light does never enslave any one by necessity; nor, again, does God exercise compulsion upon any one unwilling to accept the exercise of His skill. Those
persons, therefore, who have
apostatized from the light given by the
Father, and transgressed the law of liberty, have done so through their own fault, since they have been created free agents, and possessed of power over themselves.
4. But
God, foreknowing all things, prepared fit habitations for both, kindly conferring that light which they desire on those who seek after the light of incorruption, and resort to it; but for the despisers and mockers who avoid and turn themselves away from this light, and who do, as it were, blind themselves, He has prepared darkness suitable to
persons who oppose the light, and He has inflicted an appropriate punishment upon those who try to avoid being subject to Him. Submission to
God is
eternal rest, so that they who shun the light have a place worthy of their flight; and those who fly from
eternal rest, have a habitation in accordance with their fleeing. Now, since all
good things are with
God, they who by their own determination fly from
God, do defraud themselves of all
good things; and having been [thus] defrauded of all
goodthings with respect to
God, they shall consequently fall under the just judgment of
God. For those
persons who shun rest shall
justly incur punishment, and those who avoid the light shall
justly dwell in darkness. For as in the case of this temporal light, those who shun it do deliver themselves over to darkness, so that they do themselves become the
cause to themselves that they are destitute of light, and do inhabit darkness; and, as I have already observed, the light is not the
cause of such an [unhappy] condition of
existence to them; so those who fly from the
eternal light of
God, which contains in itself all
goodthings, are themselves the
cause to themselves of their inhabiting
eternaldarkness, destitute of all
good things, having become to themselves the
causeof [their consignment to] an abode of that nature.
St Iranaeus 170AD Adversus Haereses Book 4 Chapter 39
This is why I conclude that the existence of satan is irrelevant to sin because we were destined to sin by our own free will. This concept is supported by a man who followed a follower of the apostle John which I believe gives credibility to his testimony on how the early church interpreted scripture.
