Subject: How did sin originate |
Bible Note: Hi Tim You wrote: "...premise 2) cannot be correct under your system of thought since nothing can just happen apart from the will of God.” I think you simply misunderstood my argument Tim. I have pretty much defined the word ‘happens’ in the 1st premise, namely that whatever happens in the universe happens because God wills it so. ‘Happens’ therefore is defined as anything that comes to pass, comes into being or takes place in the universe God created. Probably a better wording, I admit, would be ‘comes to pass’ or even ‘takes place’. So if I re-word the argument you are not happy with it will look thus: a. whatever takes place in the universe, takes place because God wills it to take place b. sin took place therefore, God willed that sin would take place. If you still think the argument is no good, please let me know what’s wrong with it. You wrote: If nothing can happen apart from God's sovereign will, then of course God must be responsible for sin. Again, you probably didn’t pay enough attention to what I wrote in the post you are replying here to. Your ‘of course’ conclusion above just does not follow from the premise I put forth, i.e. because God foreordained the end from the beginning (as per Isaiah 46:10 and many other passages), including sin of course, it does not follow at all God is the author of sin. What you’ve got here is a classic Ignoratio elenchi (irrelevant conclusion), consider, all men are mortal, Socrates was a man, therefore Socrates was a Greek. The conclusion just does not follow from the premises stated. So it is with my argument, you just cannot simply arrive at ‘therefore God is responsible for sin’ from the premises I stated, you need to work your way through to arrive at the conclusion you wish to arrive at but I’m not giving you a hand with this one ;-) Also please note that both (a) and (b) are soundly scriptural, both premises can be easily supported from Scripture and since the Scripture is true, it follows the premises are true also, and since the argument is formally valid we have a sound argument and the conclusion is necessarily true. You are welcome to refute the argument of course if you wish. You wrote: If man is incapable of excersising free choice, then God must be responsible for our very choices. Same thing, Ignoratio Elenchi. If you disagree, please demonstrate how you arrived at the conclusion that because man has no free will God is responsible for the choices man makes. You wrote: Personally, I don't believe that the Biblical doctrine of Sovereignty eliminates the possiblity of God granting us the ability to freely choose. This is the only way I can find that does not make God responsible for sin. You interchangeably use ‘free will’ and ‘free choice’ and since I assign different meaning for each of these phrases I’m afraid we could be talking past each other if we don’t define our terms properly. By ‘free will’ I understand an ability to a contrary choice and I reject men have such an ability, I believe God has predetermined all our choices before He created the universe. By ‘free choice’ I understand an un-coerced choice. To illustrate, I choose to live in Sydney but not in LA not because I was coerced to choose Sydney, but my choice was predetermined by God already. If you are wishing to say that God is responsible for my choice, I’m all ears (or eyes), let’s see the argument. As it stands, the conclusion is irrelevant. Cheers |