A puzzling thing about traditional religion

I just wanted to consolidate what I have asked/proposed on previous threads cause I am losing some of the ideas that I brought up in my own head and its just a way for me to touch base again....Ok, Sin vs Gods holiness. Essentially, because we are sinful in nature, we can not have a relationship with God unless we accept Jesus and thus transfer his righteousness to us. The God sees us with an unstained soul and we can finally measure up to his holiness.First, Why is sin a crime in the eyes of God? God is holy, therefore saintly and sinless. But God, by giving us free will, KNEW that we would abuse it (he is omnipotent) so why is it a crime in his eyes? If I make X, but the way I make X has a flaw Y (I could have made X with out the flaw Y) and I expect/know this, Why should I destroy (punish) the X?? Its like some faulty quality control system where you know the bugs but you aren't going to fix them.Next, Could Jesus have sinned if he was a man.... I mean, he was on Earth for a while.Last, If God is infinite, how can we as finite beings, ever hope to have a relationship with him?Obsidian

Obsidian, I think the normal reply would be that X cannot be made without Y (free will by definiton involves the possibility of sin).

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First, Why is sin a crime in the eyes of God? God is holy, therefore saintly and sinless. But God, by giving us free will, KNEW that we would abuse it (he is omnipotent) so why is it a crime in his eyes? If I make X, but the way I make X has a flaw Y (I could have made X with out the flaw Y) and I expect/know this, Why should I destroy (punish) the X?? Its like some faulty quality control system where you know the bugs but you aren't going to fix them.

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Again here I am refering to c.s lewis book, mere christianity. A good read for someone who doesn't understand christianity, probably an even better read for someone who thinks they do.
I'll start with this quote from the book because it helps lay the groundwork for the next part. "anyone who has authority knows a thing can be in accordance with your will in one way and not in another. It may be quite sensible for a motther to say to the children, I'm not going to go and make you tidy the schoolroom every night. You've got to learn to keep it tidy on your own. Then she goes up one night and finds the teddy bear and the ink and the french grammar all lying in the grate. This is against her will. She would prefer the children to be tidy. But on the other hand it is her will which has left the children free to be untidy. The same thing happens in any regiment, or trade union, or school. You make a thing voluntary and then half the people do not do it. That is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible."
So for one it is not God's will that we sin.
So if anything is truly free, it is free to go either way, right or wrong, good or bad ect. Do you think that if we had no free will that we would be capable of any real love, goodness or joy?
What God wants is to give us the joy of freely coming to him ,having a wonderful fulfilling relationship to him, a source of joy unmatched in anything else offered of this world, which we could not have if we did not have free will.
Okay quoting from the book again, "Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom in the wrong way; apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream could rise higher than it's source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch we are sitting on. If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will-that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings-then we may take it it is worth paying" .
Does this make any sense as to why give us a free will?------------------
saved by grace

what funky said above is perfect, and mere christianity is a great book...

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Originally posted by obsidian:
First, Why is sin a crime in the eyes of God? God is holy, therefore saintly and sinless. But God, by giving us free will, KNEW that we would abuse it (he is omnipotent) so why is it a crime in his eyes? If I make X, but the way I make X has a flaw Y (I could have made X with out the flaw Y) and I expect/know this, Why should I destroy (punish) the X?? Its like some faulty quality control system where you know the bugs but you aren't going to fix them.

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not much can be added to funky's post, but man wasn't made with any flaw... free will isn't a flaw, it's part of God's nature... yup, God knew the danger (even the outcome), but what good is it creating beings who only love you because they have no choice?... again, read what funky said about God wanting us to experience the joy of knowing and loving him, of wanting us to experience it freely

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Next, Could Jesus have sinned if he was a man.... I mean, he was on Earth for a while.

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different christians will give different answers on this one... i can only give mine... my answer is yes, he could have sinned... the old argument against this goes, if he could have sinned he wasn't God... but that shows (imo) a misunderstanding of the nature of the trinity... he was God very God, but he was Man very man also... actually he sometimes appeared quite proud of that fact, calling himself "the son of man" on several occasions (referring, i think, to adam)...remember, the n.t. also says, "God cannot be tempted of sin" yet Jesus *was* tempted, 3 times by satan himself... the bible also says he lived his life as every other man, and i take this to mean with all the problems, pains, sufferings and temptations we all share in common... he was tempted as man, and if tempted as man he resisted as man... he could have given in to temptation, just as he could have avoided sacrificing himself for us... he even said he could do this last, if he chose

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Last, If God is infinite, how can we as finite beings, ever hope to have a relationship with him?

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Obsidian

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God is eternal.. i really do need to get back to your question on the trinity, cause this ties in with it... simply put, our souls and spirits are eternal also... the body, our flesh, will die and rot... it's simply a house, simply a shell built to hold the *real* us...we don't know yet what the term 'spiritual body' means, not completely (tho i think we can form some ideas from Christ's post-resurrection appearances)... but all that makes us who we are is eternal, and the eternal part of us that has the power to commune with God (our spirit), which died but has been born again in Christ, can commune with him right now, spirit to Spiritthink for a moment on these definitions of 'life' and 'death'... life is defined as, proximity to God... death is defined as, banishment from God... the spirit of man is the part of man that either lives or dies in those senses... the soul lives regardless... hell might simply be, the eternal existence of the soul that has no spiritual life, no proximity to or communication with God

I'd just like to point out that I agree with forgiven.------------------
saved by grace

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Originally posted by forgiven:
what good is it creating beings who only love you because they have no choice?...

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God designed, according to the theory, every miniscule piece of our body, minds, souls, and whatever else you imagine we have. He designed very bit of hardware and software and every single element of every day we spend on earth, every person we meet, every blade of grass. Each atom, each thought, everything is by design. And designed with absolute foreknowledge. Squeezing free will into that is ridiculous.Imagine yourself at a crossroads. You have to make a decision. Left or right? You go right. Now, start back tracking through all of the causes and effects that led you to that crossroads and to that decision. You end up at God. God set up the dominoes and pushed over the first one. Where is free-will? Nowhere. The chain of causality leads to GOD.Anything you do to get out of the problem does damage to God or to free-will.We are capable of making decisions that God can not predict, which seem to be the only good way to define free-well. Then God is not omniscient and not being omniscient could have made some awful mistakes.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

John remember the designer we're talking about. The one that designed all these wonderful beautiful and complex things, God is a thinking reasoning God, he breathed his spirit into us, we are thinking reasoning free willed beings. Eternal beings that might just end up decaying for all eterinity. Quit trying to fit God into the box you want to put him in. Choose to leave with the creator or rot and decay for all eternity being more and more miserable for all eternity. You'll have lots of time to work on philophy and evolution theories and contradictions in the bible..------------------
saved by grace

Just because God knows what you will choose doesn't mean he told you to choose that way. I might know the cat is going to eat the food i put down for him, doesn't mean i made that choice for him. That's a weak argument i had when i was 12 c'mon John i know you have something better than that.------------------
saved by grace[This message has been edited by funkmasterfreaky, 11-25-2002]

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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:
John remember the designer we're talking about.

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Well, yes, funkie... that is precisely the problem.

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The one that designed all these wonderful beautiful and complex things, God is a thinking reasoning God, he breathed his spirit into us, we are thinking reasoning free willed beings. Eternal beings that might just end up decaying for all eterinity. Quit trying to fit God into the box you want to put him in. Choose to leave with the creator or rot and decay for all eternity being more and more miserable for all eternity. You'll have lots of time to work on philophy and evolution theories and contradictions in the bible.

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What good is a discusion if you are going to appeal to faith? You may as well go home, Funk. Have faith. The discussion is over.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

You really serious? If i have faith in God you don't even want to talk?------------------
saved by grace

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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:
You really serious? If i have faith in God you don't even want to talk?

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That's not it, Funkie. I don't care about your faith in God, but when you answer a question with 'well I'm sure God did it' that pretty much ends the discussion. It is effectively an unassailable position and this has nothing to do with whether God actually did anything or not. In other words, it is a cop-out.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

Okay i sort of get that but some things don't have any other explanation because they are supernatural. I don't know how to explain it because it's an act of God... I didn't say just cuz he's God he can design everything and incorprate free will. I tried to provide an explanation. To the purpose of free will, and to how, just because it's known which ways you will choose that doesn't effect your ability to choose. Does this make sense?------------------
saved by grace

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Originally posted by John:

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Originally posted by forgiven:
what good is it creating beings who only love you because they have no choice?...

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God designed, according to the theory, every miniscule piece of our body, minds, souls, and whatever else you imagine we have. He designed very bit of hardware and software and every single element of every day we spend on earth, every person we meet, every blade of grass. Each atom, each thought, everything is by design. And designed with absolute foreknowledge. Squeezing free will into that is ridiculous.

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Imagine yourself at a crossroads. You have to make a decision. Left or right? You go right. Now, start back tracking through all of the causes and effects that led you to that crossroads and to that decision. You end up at God. God set up the dominoes and pushed over the first one. Where is free-will? Nowhere. The chain of causality leads to GOD.

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Anything you do to get out of the problem does damage to God or to free-will.

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We are capable of making decisions that God can not predict, which seem to be the only good way to define free-well. Then God is not omniscient and not being omniscient could have made some awful mistakes.

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john, i posted quite a long message on this in which all the things you mentioned were covered...there is a vast difference between knowing what your child will choose to do in a given situation with given sets of circumstances and in forcing the child to so chooseimagine, just for the sake of argument, God thinking thru as many possible universes as necessary before settling on this one... now imagine that he had in mind ahead of time the attributes he wanted man to have, and these attributes mirrored his own... one of them was free will, the freedom to choose...ok, so he settled on the universe in which he created adam... then he foresaw all that would occur after this creation, but the creation itself (and the man he created) were perfect...yes, by virtue of saying "let it be" he set in motion a history of events foreknown by him... however, within that history all that john chose to do was freely chosen... God did not force john to choose to eat a turkey sandwich instead of a ham sandwich yesterday, but God knew you would...the "chain of causality" leads to God in the sense that without creation none of it would happen at all... but you seem to be stating that turning right at the crossroads instead of left was forced upon you by God, that he *caused* you to so choose... that simply isn't true...could he not have created? maybe, maybe not.. i don't know the answer to that... i do know that an omniscient being can't *not* know a thing, he can't *choose* to not know that which he knows...my wife went to work this morning after having put some clothes in the washer... she *knew* i'd put them in the dryer, but her knowledge of this in no way means i am not free to choose another option... granted, her knowledge of my action isn't a perfect knowledge (as God's knowledge is perfect), however the analogy holds... foreknowledge of my choice is not the same as imposing her will on me, it isn't the same as causing me to so choose...

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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:
Okay i sort of get that but some things don't have any other explanation because they are supernatural.

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How do you know? How can you decide between a supernatural event and a natural event that we can't explain?

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I don't know how to explain it because it's an act of God...

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Then demonstrate THAT it is an act of God.

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I tried to provide an explanation.

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I understand that, but unsupportable statements aren't explainations, they are folk tales and legends.

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To the purpose of free will, and to how, just because it's known which ways you will choose that doesn't effect your ability to choose. Does this make sense?

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When talking about you and I, it makes perfect sense. I could know with great certainty which of two options you'd choose, but that doesn't have any effect upon which you actaully choose-- ruling out cheating and telepathy. But an omniscient God's knowledge is inviolable. God cannot be wrong, thus, that knowledge is equivalent to determining the outcome. Once an omniscient being knows what the action will be that action is locked in tight. It will happen precisely as God has forseen. This is predestination, not free will.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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*******sleeper********[This message has been edited by graedek, 11-25-2002]