Hello! Since every action presupposes an inclination first, Adam, Eve, and the angles must have had a sinful attraction to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge after the serpent tempted them. Inclinations are involuntary reactions your body has to stimulus. For example, straight men will only chose to get with women if they experience sexual attraction to them.

Without sexual attraction, they will have no motivation to do so. Attraction is not a choice. So saying the often repeated “God gave Adam and Eve free-will” clearly doesn’t explain WHY they choice to use their free-will in the first place. They needed a motive first. They had to EXPERIENCE temptation first to even consider the idea of sinning. It was not Adam or Eve’s fault they experienced temptation, it was God’s fault because he made them with sinful natures.

Now, God could have made Adam, Eve, and the angles morally perfect, so they would not have had the ability to willing sin (just as God can’t will to sin) and things would have just been fine. They still would have a free-will, though not in the contra-casual sense. God would also be the EFFICIENT CAUSE, NOT THE FINAL CAUSE, of the SINFUL NATURES of his INNOCENT CREATION, though he did make them primarily with GOOD NATURES, since they did not sin until they were tempted.

Also, I must add, good and evil have an INVERSE relationship (less evil=more good). Without a sinful inclination, no one would sin, since they would have no motive to do so. You can only use free-will if you have a motive.

No sinful motive (inclination) = no reason to sin = therefore, you can and will only do what is good. Had Adam been completely good, he would only do what is good.

We know doubly-beyond a doubt that God did not make the first moral creatures perfectly good. They were less than 100% good, so we are talking 70% good, 30% evil (for example) which would beyond doubt prove that some of their constitution was morally evil. People have been acting like good is a stand-alone property when it isn’t! That is why none of them can explain WHY Adam, Eve, and the angels sinned.

Thank you, and God bless.

Edouard

An example will elaborate: I look at a woman and feel the involuntary impulse to be with her. It is not my fault I have sexual attraction to her. I was attracted to her since I was born straight.
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The only reason I would even be able to have or not have a relationship with her is because of the automatic sexual impulse I had. Only then would I be in the position to exercise my free-will (do I or do I not get with her).

Ability is not enough. I would need the ability to will. Just because I could go through the motions and get with the girl does not mean anything (I could try to get in a relationship with a rock). But since I don’t have any inclination to get with a rock, I would necessarily avoid it.

Now, let’s just say God made some guy 100% straight. There is no way he could be sexually attracted to a guy. If he is not sexually attracted to a guy, he would have absolutely no motivation to have sex with the guy. He would necessarily only get with women. Inclination is not a choice (as I showed in my example with the woman) and has to precede any action (you need a motive before you do anything).

In the same sense if God made the first couple completely good, the snake would have had no effect on them. They would had to have been somewhat evil from design in order to be tempted.

We know no one completely good can experience temptation, since it says in the Bible that God cannot experience temptation. Jesus had free-will, but was not able to will to sin. Adam was able. So free-will does not explain anything.

Though God and his initial creation all had free-will (the ability to make choices based upon one’s nature without being forced) God was 100% good while his creation wasn’t. Also, if Adam and Eve were not as holy as God, they would be less than 100% holy. So, for example, they would have to be 90% good 10% evil. Right?

And I don’t think you can say they could just change. Good cannot turn into evil, it’s infinite opposite. Water, for example, can turn into ice, but not an elephant.

My point is, God deliberately made his creation semi-evil (by primary cause) when he could have made them as good as him, and it still would have been a free choice since they would have been acting on their nature.

I guess I am stuck on the either Adam was perfect and could not sin versus Adam was imperfect making God somehow responsible for sin dialectic. It doesn’t seem valid to me. Adam was perfect and given an eschatalogical task which he was able to accomplish but botched.

Still, perhaps it is truly mystery as to why Satan fell since the Bible doesn’t really tell us much. Are the other angels capable of sin? Were they ever? … the Bible doesn’t really say.

Please feel free to check our website concerning our doctrinal beliefs: http://bastionoftruth.webs.com/
or you can contact us through email at lxmaq@yahoo.com.

Thanks Jeff, Steve

My question concerns circular reasoning in presuppositional apologetics. Says Van Til, circular reasoning does not necessarily make for bad arguments (c.f. In Defense of the Faith 4th ed., 123, and particularly fn. 8). However, does this mean that circular arguments—begging the question—never makes for bad arguments? When, in presuppositionalism, do they make for bad arguments? This is relevant to Edwards because I am wondering why his natural theology gets labeled by Jeff as presuppositional and not as simply question-begging. E.g., some classic cosmological arguments get rejected for pretty overtly begging the question (some Reformed apologists make such criticisms, in fact) and it seems like Edwards makes such arguments.

On the other hand, Van Til at times, and some discussions of Van Til, seem to argue that natural theology arguments for God’s existence are only good arguments when circular. E.g., Bahnsen (Van Til’s Apologetic, 617ff) argues that there are presuppositional versions of the cosmological argument (though he wanders off before saying exactly what that argument would be). These arguments seem to simply say, e.g.:
1. God must be the cause of everything that has a cause (or, everything created)
???
C. Therefore, God exists.
This seems to suggest that the problem with many arguments in natural theology is that they did not beg the question enough, and Edwards successfully made some such arguments because he begged the question.

So, what’s the right thing for the Van Tillian to say here? Feel free to email me to tell me your thoughts, pbrucea@hotmail.com

Steve,

The Bible’s clear answer to your question is, “no,” see Revelation 21-22.

“And I saw a new heaven and new earth; for the first heaven and first earth passed away…and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

If the wages of sin is death, and in heaven, their will be no death, then, there will be no sin in heaven.

Jeff

Very interesting discussion about a thorny theological question, maybe unanswerable. To look at it from the flip side, can man sin once he is in heaven and in the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? Adam certainly knew the Father but he sinned so what about us? Maybe if you can answer one you can answer the other.

For my part, if I get there, I’ll certainly try to be on good behavior and stay there

Steve

In Adam situation, his knowledge of God was something other than 1 or 0. If it was a 1, when the serpent, said, “If you do this, you can know things like God does”, Adam could have said, “I am a creature, and I will never know as the creator does. Such is a silly claim.” When Adam ate of the fruit, he did in fact do so because it looked to be his best option at the moment, just as his descendants do and have done since then.

There was nothing defective in Adam that caused him to not seek to know and understand God properly. He simply had the ability to go one way or the other. He went the wrong way and all have suffered in his wake.