Rebellion and Sin [Christians Only]

Fluorescence

So lately I've been reading a fair bit of the Bible and listening to podcasts about it in order to understand what exactly it is that it teaches. One point that I've stumbled across time and time again is that God never intended for evil, suffering, death or sin to be a part of this world. These things came to pass due to rebellion against His wishes for the earth. Makes sense to me.

The issue I'm struggling with is why did He give us the capacity to rebel at all? If He never wanted all these terrible things to happen to the world, why are such things even able to occur? In some ways, I can understand why we were given free will; who wants to force someone to love them? Such love is meaningless. Whereas love freely given is a beautiful thing. However why is hate even an option? Why does it exist? If humans are God's image-bearers, how is it that we have this facility for hatred? For rebellion? For unholy things?

If anyone could shed some light on these issues for me, I'd be much obliged. Thanks And apologies in advance for the Christians Only tag; the last time I came in here to ask questions, my thread was derailed by non-Christians. I know where to go to get other viewpoints :P

wolfsbane

Fluorescence wrote: »

So lately I've been reading a fair bit of the Bible and listening to podcasts about it in order to understand what exactly it is that it teaches. One point that I've stumbled across time and time again is that God never intended for evil, suffering, death or sin to be a part of this world. These things came to pass due to rebellion against His wishes for the earth. Makes sense to me.

The issue I'm struggling with is why did He give us the capacity to rebel at all? If He never wanted all these terrible things to happen to the world, why are such things even able to occur? In some ways, I can understand why we were given free will; who wants to force someone to love them? Such love is meaningless. Whereas love freely given is a beautiful thing. However why is hate even an option? Why does it exist? If humans are God's image-bearers, how is it that we have this facility for hatred? For rebellion? For unholy things?

If anyone could shed some light on these issues for me, I'd be much obliged. Thanks And apologies in advance for the Christians Only tag; the last time I came in here to ask questions, my thread was derailed by non-Christians. I know where to go to get other viewpoints :P

Hi, Fluorescence

Not sure I can help you much, for the only authoritative source we have says nothing about why God permitted evil to enter His creation. We may speculate about the nature of love and its relationship to free-will, but it's only speculation.

Scripture gives us knowledge about God's nature - His infinite holiness, goodness, etc. From that we know we can trust Him to have done what is good and right.



*******************************************************************
Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has become His counselor?”
35 “Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?”
36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

Fluorescence

I suspected as much - I can't really find very much to answer my questions, besides some vicious attacks from atheists who use it as a point to disprove His existence. Trying to find a Christian PoV is proving difficult.

Onesimus

Hi. The Lords Angels have this free will also ( hence the rebellion of Satan who took a load of angels with him ) even to this day.

God as we know is a mystery. And, a mystery is something we know little about ( according to what God allows us to know ) but just not everything about.

Such a question ( one I've often had ) would force us to look behind the curtain of wizard of oz so to speak in order to get an answer. The Lord requires trust from us. So he gives us what he wants to give ( he is God afterall and can do what he wants ) and when we have a question he wont allow us the answer to, then we must trust in Him and what he has given us and that is to get on with the task of reaching heaven and working out our salvation with all the light that he has given to get there.

One day I feel that he will reveal all, but for now we are just babies on milk.

When I think about it. There are certain things I do not want my son to know about, because his mind is just not ready for such things, but as he matures and grows older, he will be ready to know. The same with us and Jesus. We are babes in his arms and we must trust in him on each step we take towards a life in Him. So it is with my son, when I tell him to do something he just trusts me, never questions, and does it according to his ability. And so the part of scripture goes where Jesus tells us that we will not enter the kingdom of heaven unless we become like a little child. And a little child is full of simplicity and trust. He doesnt question, he just believes. When I say question I mean he doesnt ''argue'' it in a sense he just accepts. Unlike the form of questions we ask which are important questions about our faith. It is important to ask questions.

So when we ask questions of our faith in which we get an answer to we accept them. But when we ask good questions like you have done and fail to get an answer we must also trust and accept the mystery. Afterall there is no point in calling God a mystery if he reveals all.

Does that make sense? eek :eek: I'm no theologian :)

Onesimus

Fluorescence

Onesimus, that is an excellent response. Thank you. Comparing it to the knowledge a parent allows a child to know makes perfect sense.

I suppose I must have patience and hope that one day I may have answers :P

Onesimus

Fluorescence wrote: »

Onesimus, that is an excellent response. Thank you. Comparing it to the knowledge a parent allows a child to know makes perfect sense.

I suppose I must have patience and hope that one day I may have answers :P

Afterall patience is a virtue right? :D and we all lack a bit of that

philologos

OP: If we didn't have the freedom of the will, we would be robotic. One of the greatest mysteries to me is how the mechanics of free will works in light of the sovereignty of God in Creation. E.G - I believe firmly in predestination, but at the same time, I can recognise that there is free will insofar as we are responsible for the weight of our own sin.

This is why Jesus needed to die in our place on the cross to bring us to repentance, to bear the wrath of God for our sinfulness, and to bring us into a new covenant relationship with our Father.

I'd recommend taking a peek at these Bible overview talks. I've found them abundantly useful.

Fluorescence

I've actually listened to all the Don Carson podcasts from that series; I'm debating buying the book at the moment :P

Anyway, yes I understand the point of free will (at least, I think I can), but what I fail to grasp is how this freedom affords us the capacity for evil. If God is Good, and everything that is was made by Him, and He only makes Good things, how can Evil exist? Apparently it's because we rebelled (which I can kinda understand). What I don't understand is how Good things have the ability to rebel against Goodness. Surely that's self-destructive, which isn't a good thing...

I hope I'm making my question clear :pac:

philologos

Fantastic. By the by, if you are thinking of getting the book, my advice is do so . The book is why I recommend the podcasts.

As for how freedom affords the capacity of evil. Think about it, if we have the choice between doing option X, and option Y, then it is clear that we can choose to do things which are opposed to God's will (evil). If you have a choice, you have the ability to rebel also.

C.S Lewis in his Mere Christianity puts it in the following manner. Evil is twisting what is abundantly good and using it for malicious purposes. So, intelligence is abundantly good, I can either use that intelligence to serve others in varying ways, or I could use it for destructive purposes for example to plot a murder.

It is this choice that places the responsibility firmly in our hands for what we happen to do.

Festus

I struggling with this "why give us the capacity to rebel" statement.

He didn't.

Lucifer was created with perfect knowledge and that would have included the knowledge of good and evil.

Humans were created with knowledge of right and wrong but not of good and evil.

Lucifer's act was an act of rebellion.

The human act following Lucifer's, or Satan's encouragement was not an act of rebellion but an act of disobedience.
The consequence of this act of disobedience was the acquirement of the knowledge of Good and Evil. God did not give it to us.

The consequence of the acquirement of this act is the ability to rebel.

Satan was right when he told Adam and Eve that they would become like him and the angels only he was refering to the ability to rebel.

tommy2bad

philologos wrote: »

OP: If we didn't have the freedom of the will, we would be robotic. One of the greatest mysteries to me is how the mechanics of free will works in light of the sovereignty of God in Creation. E.G - I believe firmly in predestination, but at the same time, I can recognise that there is free will insofar as we are responsible for the weight of our own sin.

This is why Jesus needed to die in our place on the cross to bring us to repentance, to bear the wrath of God for our sinfulness, and to bring us into a new covenant relationship with our Father.

I'd recommend taking a peek at these Bible overview talks. I've found them abundantly useful.

I definitely replied to this before but either the modding is super strict or it got swallowed up in the ether.
Their is so much wrong here I don't know where to start.
1 Predestination and God can't exist in the same universe, they don't so no problem, neither can free will, now theirs a problem.
2 Being responsible requires free will to commit the sin, lacking that responsibility is a moot point but not free or willed.
3 Now Jesus comes to redeem us, freely, or is that predestined? Now God is subject to the destiny that damned us. Bang goes His sovereignty.

Bad things happen good people has been troubling thinkers for a long time, so far no satisfying answer but we got art, religion and philosophy out of the efforts so not a total wast of time.

philologos

I'll post another thread on God's sovereignty.

Slav

Fluorescence wrote: »

The issue I'm struggling with is why did He give us the capacity to rebel at all?

Say if you want to give your kid full freedom. Not an illusion of freedom, not a limited freedom, not a freedom with you keeping an eye on him but the real thing. He goes alone and make mistakes in his life. Did you make the capacity of mistakes? Yes, but this was an integral part of his freedom. Take it away and you'll take real freedom away from him completely.

If He never wanted all these terrible things to happen to the world, why are such things even able to occur?

Did you want your hypothetical kid to leave the college? No. Why such thing was able to occur? Because your son wanted it and it was he who had full control over it. You did not have any.

If humans are God's image-bearers, how is it that we have this facility for hatred? For rebellion? For unholy things?

Being an image of God does not mean to be infallible as God, same as, for instance, we are not omnipresent or omnipotent as God. However, we know that we inherited freedom and creativity from God but fell and created unholy things.