(October 18, 2010 at 3:04 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:(October 15, 2010 at 5:41 pm)The Omnissiunt One Wrote: Where to begin...?I like the question :-) Well scripture does not give us a lot on the nature of Adam's will. We understand how man's will works today (not a free will), but Adam's will would have been different. Many Theologens believe that Adam had a true libertarian free will, so he was just as likely to choose right than wrong apart from God's common grace. Whereas people today will always choose evil without the grace of God. Did God ordain the fall to occur? Yes, however God does not stand symetricaly behind evil events as he does good events. He ordains both to happen but does so in a manner that does not negate the responsibility of man. I would encourage you to pick up Jonathan Edward's "The Freedom of the Will" (the Theologen not the fake psychic haha) if you would like to learn more, I think it is probably the single best work on the subject.
Assuming you believe in the Fall and Original Sin, let me pose a question: where did sin come from? Adam and Eve were supposedly created perfect. This means that, even with the free will to choose evil, they would have chosen good, as they would have had no inclination towards evil. So where did this evil come from? Did God create it? If so, then he punishes us for something he created. Did the Devil create it? If so, why did God create the Devil, knowing that he'd create evil and hence doom many of us to hell? Any way you look at it, it seems that God is directly responsible, either through commission or ommision, for the eternal torture of his creations.
That's the best answer I've heard to the question, which I've posed elsewhere. Nonetheless, it's not clear that libertarian free will is coherent in a deterministic universe. Besides, God's ordaining the Fall means that he is largely responsible for our evil today, for, as you say, we will always choose evil without his grace (though this is clearly untrue, as it's possible to abide by the Bible's commandments without accepting God's existence). Even if God is not responsible for our bad acts, he is still responsible for allowing them, thus permitting his creations to condemn themselves to hell.
'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.' H.L. Mencken
'False religion' is the ultimate tautology.
'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain
'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln
'False religion' is the ultimate tautology.
'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain
'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln
