(September 29, 2017 at 12:06 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:I was not getting into why they did not sin--only countering an argument that God could create people in a "dimension" where they would not have chosen sin.(September 29, 2017 at 8:12 am)SteveII Wrote: You missed the point of the answer. Simon asked (at least I understood his question to be) if there are people in heaven who do not sin while there, then why couldn't God have created a world with those people. My answer was "those people" are the way they are because of the way the world was, their experiences there, and the conditions they now find themselves in.
If they do not sin because of "the way they are" then you are no longer arguing that they have free will but rather that their behavior is in some sense determined. You've undermined your argument for one. For two, your answer is so vague that it basically reduces to "they would not sin for some unspecified reason." That's hardly adequate as an explanation for why they would not sin. It's little more than a bare assertion of your conclusion. Christians have said that we are "slaves to sin." Even those who accept Jesus as Lord and Savior continue to sin. That is "the way they are." You need to do more than just handwave at some unspecified reason to explain why they will sin no more once in heaven.
There are several possibilities. The doctrine of Sanctification is where a Christian is perfected in love, meaning that the heart is undivided in its love for God or that it loves nothing that conflicts with its love for God. It is reasonable to assume that being in the actual presence of God (or having access to the actual presence of God) has the effect of preventing a divided heart. In addition, whatever additional knowledge (promised in scattered versed throughout the NT) becomes known to us in heaven would likely have the effect of illuminating the consequence of sin and therefore eliminating the desire for it. Anyway, there are no logical problems with free will existing in heaven.
