Oh you lucky guy! I wish I were going with you. Have a great time!
-Tom
Wow –
one of the best threads ever here!
However, am wondering if, after all is said and done (or people just quit from the exhaustion of trying to explain – futilely it may seem to them – their position to everyone else…) we just part ways (not literally!) and (I’m not a big fan of this expression…) “agree to disagree”…
There is a huge question that I don’t think (could be wrong on this or course…) that Chrisguy has addressed. I very much sympathize with Chris’s need to place blame for evil at our feet (not God’s) and with a more traditional reading of Genesis; ie created perfect, and from there fallen. In doing all this Chris (as I’m reading him; obviously likely not as he himself understands his own position….) finds it very troublesome to imagine God’s starting point with us as rooted in ambiguity and ignorance. And I’ve very sympathetic to this myself.
But to do this, there simply must be some amount of knowledge, and whatever word we shall use to mean “lack of ambiguity”, implanted – de novo!! – into Adam and Eve!
**— except in other contexts we would call that determinism… **
Which is precisely the thing we cannot have if we are to be understood to be “free”. The problem, as I see it, of God just implanting certain information and lack of ambiguity inside of Adam and Eve (Chris appears to say this might happen via “conscience”) is this: If God is allowed to just implant these things, why on earth did He not implant MORE of it??!! ie implant just “enough” so that the awful initial flawed choice never happened?
Well of course God wouldn’t do that; for that would mean determinism! – and love can’t be determined. Yet of course God couldn’t/wouldn’t create someone in complete darkness and ignorance and ambiguity because that would mean an utter lack of freedom; and without freedom, there is no accountability. And no accountability, no sin.
So, as I am reading tom and Chrisguy, each is coming at the dilemma from the opposite direction; Tom starts by narrating our moral journey as that in which is nearly total ignorance and ambiguity (not quite total though; that’s important) and moves towards a state of ever growing awareness of cause and effect, and reasoned ability to do what is best… Thus, as knowledge increases, and ambiguity fades, our freedom increases as does our responsibility for sin…
…while Chris starts with awareness, comprehension, and at least some discernment (but not too much; for that’d be determinism of a sort… overwhelming us with so much evidence we simply would be powerless to act otherwise…) which is the only way we can become actualized as persons.
Chris resists the ignorance and ambiguity paradigm – fearing it threatens our blameworthiness for sin; as well as rendering God strangely culpable in the vortex of sin… Tom resists the notion we are created with plenty enough knowledge and context to “do the right thing” partly because he doesn’t see it as fitting our own human experience at all (ie we are all born in ignorance and ambiguity; each and every one of us…) partly because he doesn’t think it’s scriptural, (forgive them; for they know NOT what they do) and partly because this mechanism does not (in his estimation) place the blame for sin at God’s feet.
Tom and Chris are trying to meet in the same place! ie where knowledge doesn’t “determine” and where ignorance doesn’t “excuse” and where growth in all these things, directed by the Grace of a Loving Father, moves inexorably to that time where God really is all in all. Freedom then grows over time and when, eventually is unleashed in all it’s wonder upon the universe, results in a condition where all have chosen God freely and no one complains he was unduly forced, or determined.
They both want the best of freedom; it renders us accountable, and persons… yet both hope to avoid the worst of freedom; capable of responsibility in the face of irrationality, causing outcomes more correctly described as bondage, an excuse for ultimately destructive behavior.
You guys may not really be that far apart!
(ever the optimist)
Bobx3
And PS: Chris, you must have been reading a former “tom” – known here as TGB! I’d not heard the expression “creaturely becoming” since his days here!!! Really great guy he is…
Hey Chris,
My claim all along has been that some degree of ignorance is a necessary condition of the very possibility of sin. Ignorance therefore plays an essential role in every sin. Is it the only necessary condition? Of course not. A person’s being alive is also a necessary condition of that person’s committing a sin, and a person’s having a minimal degree of rationality is another necessary condition. So I guess I need a better understanding of what you mean by “the only role” before I can give a more complete answer to your question.
You also asked:
I believe that I have done a good deal that will help bring about my ultimate sanctification. For I have committed many sins and have done many stupid things over the course of my live. And I believe that our sins are sometimes more useful to God than our more virtuous acts might be in teaching us the lessons we need to learn as he brings about our ultimate sanctification.
I realize that the above rather enigmatic remark is not very helpful by itself. But in a topic I launched back in 2009 entitled “The Essential Role of Free Will in Universal Salvation,” I explain this remark and also address some of the other important questions you have raised. So instead of repeating myself here, I thought I would just call your attention to what I say there. You only need to read my initial post for the relevant material on my own views, and you can find it on this site at the following URL:
If you feel so inclined, you can respond here in this thread. No need to post there, since that thread is long since dead.
Thanks for your continued interaction.
-Tom
Bob, thanks for such an encouraging post! I’m not sure I clearly understand the issue you think I haven’t addressed. Do you think my view implies determinism? Anyway, do you mind maybe stating again where you see me running into a dead end?
Also, I’ll just say - I think Tom and I DO agree on a tremendous amount. Most of our quibbles are academic - at least that’s how I take them! I’d say our “hearts” are much closer than our arguments!
Our biggest difference, however, seems to be that Tom thinks sin was/is an inevitable part of creaturely becoming. I do not think this is so.
Wow - Tom Belt over on that linked thread said it better than I ever could. I agree with literally everything he wrote, and as such it serves as a perfect response. I’ll reproduce it here. I think it overwhelmingly germane to our discussion.
"I think the only real difference between us would be how much we’d insist on the libertarian nature of the choice for/against God (or perhaps the place/role such freedom plays in our fulfilling God’s creational purposes for us). As obvious and inevitable as the choice for God might seem (as in Lewis’ conversion, or in St. Paul’s for that matter), I think if we interpret this to exclude the psychological possibility of rejecting God we (a) essentially posit compatibilistic choice determined by God (via God’s arranging of the circumstances in which we are supposedly psychologically incapable of rejecting God; if not ‘libertarian’, then what? ‘Compatibilistic’ it would seem) and then (b) the whole problem of evil surfaces. If God can guarantee the desired choice for God by simply removing the epistemic distance that makes libertarian choice possible, why not simply do so from the start? The fact that creation (this side of the grave at least) is characterized by (among other things) enough epistemic distance to justify making either the wrong or the right choice is what keeps me thinking that this just is the requisite context for creaturely becoming per se, and that it can’t be brushed aside by God if God hopes to get the loving sort of relationship with creatures he wants.
But I have to admit that I do make a difference in ‘contexts’ between this present life and the world to come, where this life is a kind of probationary period and the next (hell) is judgment. And I very much like the idea of hell being that place where we come face to face with the truth of what we made of ourselves and the pain we brought to others and God. Libertarian choice may require some epistemic distance, but that wouldn’t include the right to forever live with our lies and false identities. If hell is a place beyond probation, then it seems that the loving thing to do would be to check-mate. I’m just uncomfortable with saying this leaves agents with no rational room left to fabricate a reason to reject God, for that undermines the libertarian nature of the choice and lands us in the quandary of having to explain why, if God can guarantee outcomes by simply closing the epistemic distance so that choosing wrongly becomes psychologically impossible, why did God not make creation such a place from the get go? It would seem that God’s ends for human being entail the sort of freedom (libertarian) that can only be exercised given a certain amount of epistemic distance. But if God’s purposes for us require such a context ‘now’, how not ‘then’? If God in the end gets what he wants by simply removing the psychological possibility of rejecting God by overwhelming persons with truth/light, what explanation do we give (relative to God’s telos of human being) for God endowing us with such freedom at all?"
TGB
Here’s the problem as I see it Chris. You clearly do not believe in the ignorance and ambiguity of our first parents, Adam and Eve. Perhaps I should add the qualifier “complete” ignorance and ambiguity. Which must mean that they had some amount of knowledge (ie opposite of ignorance) and structure (ie opposite of ambiguity) which must have been “implanted” by God.
So I’m not sure how I can avoid seeing your position as deterministic. Of course to be fully determined would strip us of our personhood, as well as our freedom. Thus you must be advocating some form of partial determinism; just enough so we are persons, and free, but not so much we lose those things. **But how on earth this can be parsed out so precisely is what I’m not seeing. **
Given that we all seem to agree that there is such a condition of mental existance (indeed this is the existance we all aspire to some day) wherein a person really is not even psychologically capable of doing wrong, yet is seen to be fully free and is not determined, it seems useful to follow backwards in history to discover how this condition came to be. You seem (as I’m reading you) to be starting the saga by jumping in mid stream (so-to-speak) wherein partial determinism and partial freedom are the starting conditions. Tom, on the other hand, if I’m understanding him correctly, goes all the way back to a starting point where there is neither freedom (in any meaningful sense) nor determinism.; ie ignorance and ambiguity.
You seem to allow for this process of development but insist it must begin with at least some knowledge/structure/freedom/determinism… while tom says no, we actually start with none of those things. While it is hard for me to imagine starting out with none of these things, its equally hard for me to imagine God just allowing some of them at the start. For if He allows some of them, why not more of them, and why not enough so the sin thing just never happened! If I go down that path, it just seems circular.
Hope that helps explain my difficulty understanding your position…???
Bobx3
Hi, Paidion –
Hmm… yeah, seems like God’s absolute omniscience sure is a tricky thing to work with if trying to defend a true free will. Whether or not this can be rescued by God being in an orthogonal time frame, such that all our free will actions appear as an instantaneous whole, I’m not sure. This would still seem to demand a limit on God’s omniscience from within His own timeframe, before He created a particular universe.
But even if we backtrack from absolute omniscience, then certainly we could at least say that God knew that the horrors of a sinful world, regardless of the possibly unknown particulars of whether it was Mr. Green in the Ballroom with the Rope, were a very likely outcome of creating any world of true persons. So I don’t see this as ‘letting God off the hook’ in terms of not knowing that the general horrors of evil would most likely follow.
Yet, He went ahead and created – which only makes sense or seems like Love in my small mind, if He truly will reconcile all things to clean up the mess. Or do you see any way of rescuing absolute omniscience short of determinism? I guess this is where all that ‘middle knowledge’, Molinism(?), etc. pops up. Or open theism.
Thanks Bob.
I think you’re assuming that the type of knowledge Adam and Eve had was such that it did determine their wills. I simply don’t think this has to be the case. For one, we’ve already admitted that we do things we know are wrong all the time. Surely, then, we’re safe to admit that simply knowing that what we should do such and such does not determine us to do it?
As far as Adam and Eve being created “perfect”. I don’t believe this was the case. But neither do I believe they were created “already fallen”. I believe they were created good and innocent. Not yet perfect, but made in such a way that they could become that - if not totally, at least more like God than they were before. I think the reason they were created - and the reason all humans are created - was to become divine. But that means that God could not “make” them already in that state, since it would not be “them” at all. There seems to be deep misunderstanding here between myself and others, but the best way I can put it is to say, imagine your son or daughter trying to draw a picture for you. But instead of letting them draw it themselves, you had your hand over theirs, determining every line and shape. In the end, they haven’t drawn anything at all. You’ve simply drawn a picture for yourself. Just like a parent, I don’t think God sees much value in doing that sort of thing.
As far as how the first innocent creatures were tempted, well. Again, I think that part of their journey to perfection lay in the coming to know themselves as “I’s”, and also submitting those I’s to God. Self-denial, in other words, was a necessary part of becoming like Jesus. I do not think either the recognition of self as good, nor the desire to preserve and enjoy it are evil. Only the privileging of self, which occurs through free will, is wrong.
Here’s something I wrote on this topic earlier in this thread.
The type of act, I believe, necessary for sin to occur is one in which there is a context of “self vs. other”. If this context is not there, I do not believe sin could occur. However, I do believe good acts - like the mother who is infatuated with love of child so much her thinking of self is obliterated - do not necessarily have to take place in this context. When I think about it there are many good acts which the freedom to do otherwise is not present at all: my favorite ice cream, love of art and beauty, “falling in love”, laughing, etc.
What is required then is a different sort of explanation of self sacrificial acts. These acts - while I don’t want to say they are “better” or “worse” than other good acts - are I think certain acts God deems extremely valuable. Indeed it is the whole reason, as far as I can see, that freedom was granted to the creation. God wanted us to relate in a “self vs. him” context such that (some of) our responses to him and others were us actually choosing him ourselves, from our very being and will, rather than being determined by intellect, disposition, heredity, etc.
So, without sounding absurd, I want to suggest that certain acts - such as the loving mother - certain acts in which the will is totally overcome by intellectual illumination or conviction, are not really moral, in the sense of self-sacrificial acts. This does not mean they are bad! Far from it. But it does mean they are different. An act in which our notion of self is forgotten (and how blessed these moments are!), is an act of a different kind from one in which our self is asserted in our consciousness and becomes an actual live option of choice.
Without derailing the matter too far - I believe it is only this sort of act that could be possible to an innocent, unfallen, sinless being. Neither the realization and identification of the self, nor the desire for it, are sinful. It is the choosing of it over and against God, or “the other” that is, because it is less than perfect love (which is complete abandonment of self in favor of the other - i.e. the cross.)
Hello again, Chris:
Tom Belt was a great guy, and in the post that you here reproduce he asked an important question—essentially the same question, by the way, that you asked previously. So do you remember my reply, not to him over in that other thread, but to you? Here is the question in Tom’s own words:
And here is my reply to a similar question in a previous post directed to you:
“As you are fully aware, people often ask such questions as: Why would God start us out with so many imperfections and moral weaknesses and in a context in which our wills are already in bondage to sin? Why bring us into being as sinners and then go to the trouble of saving us from our sin? Why not simply bypass all the misery and suffering along the way and bring us into being as perfected saints in the first place? Or, as you have put it yourself: If ‘God could have made us and prevented our sinning … why would God not just make us with dispositions such that we always had the maximum freedom to act obediently?’
“The assumption behind such questions–as again you are fully aware–is that, if he so desired, God could have created each of us (or perhaps a different set of persons) instantaneously as self-aware, language using, fully rational, and morally mature individuals who are from the beginning perfectly fit for intimacy with God. But why suppose that to be metaphysically possible at all? Why suppose that God could instantaneously create an individual center of consciousness that is aware of itself as distinct from God, distinct from its environment, and distinct from other persons? For my own part, I seriously doubt that God could have created any persons at all without satisfying certain metaphysically necessary conditions of their coming into being, and the most important of these would be “an initial separation from God,” which in the above mentioned article I describe in the following way:
“So if God had no choice, provided he wanted to create any persons at all, “but to permit their embryonic minds to emerge and to begin functioning on their own in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and indeterminism,” then the creation of a person is, of necessity, a much more complicated and time-consuming process, even for an omnipotent being, than one might have imagined. And if the required context is one that virtually guarantees erroneous judgments and misguided choices (perhaps even an initial bondage of the will to sin, as Paul understood it), then God faces the following dilemma in creation: Some of the very conditions essential to our emergence as rational individuals distinct from God are themselves obstacles to perfect fellowship (or union) with him, and these cannot be overcome until after we have already emerged as a center of consciousness distinct from God’s own consciousness.”
So why did God create us at a kind of epistemic distance, so to speak? Because that is a metaphysically necessary condition of our coming into being as individuals who are aware of ourselves as distinct creatures from God. As you put it yourself in a previous post: “There must be a “me” and a ‘God’ before there can be an ‘us.’” Also, we must already have come into being as minimally rational individuals before God can begin to persuade us with compelling evidence, which, as I argue in a new chapter in the second edition of my book, is quite different from the kind of compulsion that would exclude genuine freedom. But that, to be sure, is a much longer story……
All the best,
-Tom
Hey Chris, here’s a quick question. I just noticed that in your most recent response to Bobx3 you wrote concerning Adam and Eve: “As far as Adam and Eve being created ‘perfect’. I don’t believe this was the case. But neither do I believe they were created ‘already fallen’. I believe they were created good and innocent. Not yet perfect, but made in such a way that they could become that - if not totally, at least more like God than they were before.”
So here is my question: How, as you see it, were Adam and Eve, as depicted in the Genesis story, different from any other child? Are not all children created good and innocent in the sense that, like Adam and Eve, they emerge without any knowledge of good and evil?
Thanks,
-Tom
Tom,
Thanks so much for entertaining me in this thread. I very much look forward to your new book. By the way, is it totally complete, or are you still adding some finishing touches?
It seems we agree on quite a bit, particularly regarding the necessary ambiguity involved in coming into our own consciousness as separate from God. I think we disagree in this: I believe this ambiguity was given because without it we could not be good, ourselves. This is why I don’t think our choices can ever be “compelled” by God in such a way that totally closes this epistemic gap. We and God both close it more and more the more we come into perfection, but until such a process is complete, there must always be “room” there for free will. This is also why I think sin was only a possibility, not a necessity.
My understanding of your view is that God can indeed compel us, through a trump card or a shattering of our own notions of self. In fact, it seems this is the case every time we refrain from sin or do something good. I must admit I’ve felt many times that such a thing has happened to me - “I have not overcome this temptation myself. Indeed, I’ve given in to it most every time it’s arisen in my mind. The reason I don’t anymore is simply because it no longer tempts me.” Or “the only reason I didn’t cheat is because it really seemed the best idea not to in the first place.” In these cases it seems it’s “all grace” and our knowledge that such and such really is an irrational choice guards us against committing it. As Lewis said, “I say ‘I chose’, but it really did not seem possible to do the opposite.”
But as I see it, the consequences of this are that we must posit a different reason than the one I’ve given for the initial ambiguity which made sin inevitable. I hold the possibility of sin is necessary in order for the possibility of good. But this will not hold if God can overwhelm our minds such that we necessarily do good (e.g. the loving mother and honest banker). Here are my reflections on other possible reasons for the initial ambiguity, if your view is correct.
Maybe sin is necessary in order to gain awareness of self over and against God. Perhaps we be “alienated” as it were, before we can be “bonded together”. Perhaps self-awareness implicitly excludes awareness of God. After all, the more I am thinking of myself, the less I can be thinking about anything else. May pride, therefore, be a necessary prerequisite of self consciousness? As I have said before, there must indeed be a “me” and a “God” before there is an “us”. But I question - and perhaps it is a meaningless question if I could see the metaphysical ramifications clearly enough - whether or not sin must actually occur (rather than just the temptation to sin) for this realization to take place. (I suppose you could say that even being tempted to evil is itself a necessary evil in finite being - and perhaps win the argument!)
Some positives of this, if it is your view, are:
a) it explains the absolute ubiquity of sin (all must experience pride in order to come into self-consciousness and experience the subsequent union of God)
b) it can guarantee, rather than hope for, universalism (trump card)
c) it squares nicely with (some) aspects of personal experience
d) it clears up the difficulty, at least in theory though not actual experience, of explaining how we can do something wrong which we know is wrong (on your view, at that particular moment we would be experiencing an ignorance which actually clouded or removed such knowledge)
Some negatives
a) does it implicate God in all the monstrous horrors that have occurred - i.e. does he, since his will is the ultimate reason and ground for everything that happens and all the laws of reality, cause evil?
b) does it mean that every evil act is something necessary for a greater good - i.e., did the Holocaust have to happen?
But there may be ways to avoid some of these negatives. For one, we may be able to appeal to part of the Leibnizian response to the problem of evil the following way (and I admit the only reason I abandoned the “sin is a necessary part of creaturely becoming” theory is because of the problem of evil.)
The word “evil” is simply a colloquialism describing states of affairs that we find imminently undesirable. On the metaphysical plane though - that is, on the plane of being as such - “evil” cannot exist. All that we call evil is simply the lack in more or less degrees of perfect good. Hence to create, God would necessary have to bring about a less than perfect state of affairs (since it is logically impossible for God to create another metaphysically perfect thing because by definition such a thing would be “created” and therefore not self-existent). Any extent to which this creation was “lacking” could be called by us evil (and by one speaking in more metaphysical terms “lacking in goodness”.) Pure evil as such cannot in itself be. Therefore, strictly speaking it cannot be an “it” that is caused by God. Perhaps such “less than metaphysically perfect” states of affairs manifest themselves in our experience of ambiguity and ignorance? God therefore doesn’t cause “evil” but he does cause “less than perfect states of affairs”. But his intention is never less than perfect in so causing them. As far as things being “necessary” or “having” to happen - perhaps asking such things is ultimately meaningless. Again, to quote Lewis,
“With every advance in our thought the unity of the creative act, and the impossibility of tinkering with the creation as though this or that element of it could have been removed, will become more apparent. Perhaps this is not the ‘best of all possible’ universes, but the only possible one. Possible worlds can mean only ‘worlds that God could have made, but didn’t’. The idea of that which God ‘could have’ done involves a too anthropomorphic conception of God’s freedom. Whatever human freedom means, Divine freedom cannot mean indeterminacy between alternatives and choice of one of them. Perfect goodness can never debate about the end to be attained, and perfect wisdom cannot debate about the means most suited to achieve it.”
Once more,
“It must always be remembered that when we talk of what might have happened, of contingencies outside the whole actuality, we do not really know what we are talking about. There are no times or places outside the existing universe in which all this ‘could happen’ or ‘could have happened’.”
Just some speculations, anyway. I feel we both have very strong and important intuitions on this issue. I do feel that by discussing it we gain clarity. Have you ever encountered Leibniz’s answer to the problem of evil? I had not until a few months ago. RC Sproul thinks it the most compelling answer he’s come across in the last 30 years, but ultimately finds it unconvincing because, ironically, it entails an initial ignorance of Adam and Eve and gives them what he calls an “excuse”! (It seems he is set on having some people eternally damned.) Odd how close his conclusion lines up with your view.
Thanks again
Tom,
I believe the general doctrine of the Fall to mean that, though children are created good and innocent at birth, they are nevertheless inclined to all sorts of sins through the corruption, so to speak, of physical/genetic body given to them by their parents I believe the physical body “revolted” against the soul of man in the first sin (hence the “flesh vs spirit” duality that St. Paul speaks of.), and as such everyone born afterwards inherits a body in similar revolt (I think Christ inherited such a body, which made his temptations real.)
Tom T, if I may, I’m going to take a crack at this from my perspective.
I suppose a time, however brief that it may have been, that humans ruled the earth before before Satan usurped their authority. I reject the traditional doctrine of original guilt while I nonetheless see subsequent humans born is such a fallen universe. Clearly picturing this is difficult in the context of theistic evolution because population genetics studies indicate that the human breeding population never dipped below roughly 10,000 people. This in short is my understanding of the fall.
Gee Chris, I think we need to slow down and take this one baby step at a time. I say this because, despite a large area of agreement between us, our latest exchanges seem to indicate an equally large area of misunderstanding. As an illustration, here is a question that you put to me in your latest post: “does it * implicate God in all the monstrous horrors that have occurred - i.e. does he, since his will is the ultimate reason and ground for everything that happens and all the laws of reality, cause evil?”
But as I have stated several times before, Chris, God is not, in my opinion, the cause of sin or moral evil. Neither do I hold, therefore, that “his will is the ultimate reason and ground for everything that happens.” How could I believe anything like that if I also believe, as I have indicated on several occasions, that the universe includes a good deal of indeterminism and even random chance—not only on the quantum level, but in human decision making and human behavior as well. I even cited an article of mine entitled “Why Christians Should Not Be Determinists: Reflections on the Origin of Human Sin,” and I’ll once again provide below a link to a typescript copy of that article:
willamette.edu/~ttalbott/Determinism.pdf
I fully appreciate, of course, how easily such misunderstandings can arise, especially when dealing with a position that includes as many unexpected moves as mind does. But I think it best to proceed very slowly from here, as I said. So let’s start with this: Have I said something specific that has led you to suspect that, in my view, God is indeed the cause of sin?
Thanks,
-Tom*
Hi Jim,
Your view here seems remarkably similar to that of C. S. Lewis. I think you and I both reject the idea of inherited guilt, which represents a complete distortion, in my view, of anything one can find in the Bible itself. Neither do I have any philosophical objection to the idea that the universe was somehow corrupted at some point and thus became fallen in that sense. But I also wonder how you understand those humans who, as you see it, “ruled the earth before Satan usurped their authority.” In the Genesis account of Adam and Eve, they both came into being, like every other child, not knowing good and evil. Would you say the same thing of those humans who originally ruled the earth—that they too had no knowledge of good and evil?
Thanks for your contribution.
-Tom
I do not want to derail or sidetrack this fascinating conversation – though I do think there are a great number of interesting conversations that might spin off from this thread… so this is a “sidebar”…
However, I’m wondering if the long scriptural saga of God’s gift of the Law doesn’t correlate quite well with the idea of a growing and deepening conception of context and morality and right thinking as God draws us, leads and teaches us and guides us toward that grand and glorious day when the Law is no longer necessary; for it has become an intergral part of us – it is “in our hearts”.
The Law being “in the heart” (not written on stone any more; in that sense “done away with”) thus looks an awful lot like Tom’s examples of the honest banker and the devoted mother who wouldn’t even dream of doing the wrong thing.
That is to say that by adding the Law, God was beginning the (slow and arduous) process of bringing context, pealing away ambiguity, shattering the illusion that anything goes as a way of living. Now that the Law has come, there is the awareness of our sin whereas prior to this was only ignorance and ambiguity. Now there is guilt because now there is (at least some) knowledge. But Law is merely one tool in the hands of God; used to bring order, expectations, a sense of right and wrong, a way (perhaps) of measuring moral progress.
By the time JESUS comes along, His complaint is that Law itself has become object of worship. And He is seen as actually breaking the Law! – when in reality He is deepening the Law and seeking to foster it’s transference into the heart! (see third section of the Sermon on the Mount…) This transition marks the move away from ambiguity towards structure; away from ignorance towards knowledge; away from external mechanisms (perhaps force?) as motivations, to a paradigm where we “determine ourselves” to do what is right because it is right.
And in this delicate interplay between freedom and ignorance and ambiguity and indeterminism we find that freedom grows as ignorance and ambiguity fade.
Or something like that…
Bobx3
Thank you, Tom.
I’ve occasional read and discussed Lewis over the past 30 years, so I’ve no doubt that his concept influenced me. However, the influences that helped me to develop this are currently blurred in my mind 
I suppose I should cite Lewis when I formally put this together.
That Hebrew word for knowledge implies intimate knowledge. My interpretation is that the first humans did not intimately or personally experience good versus evil until the fall. In any case, the Eden allegory shows God teaching Adam some minimal standards of obedience that imply a degree of understanding good/obedience from evil/disobedience.
I simply don’t see “sin” as coherent concept in your view. I don’t know how it equates to anything other than “not knowing which choice is right”. Nor do I see how you’ve offered anything like a solution as to why such a state - an infinite ignorance - was a necessary part of creating rational beings. I tried to offer some speculations (which apparently you did not find worth much) since you’ve been silent on this issue, preferring to side-step the question by asking another: “why suppose it possible for God to create us instantaneously as rational, fully aware, language using creatures, etc?” But why suppose sin (whatever that means on your view) is a necessary ingredient in an gaining any of these functions? I can be fully aware and conversant (and I’m not sure what language has to do with anything) with my wife without ever sinning against her, can’t I? Ah - but for creatures’ emergence you say. But again, I don’t see this as necessary at all. Why do you? I can well imagine a consciousness coming into its own without ever experiencing pain or “sin” or guilt. (Not to mention, by the way, that your notion of an infinite ignorance renders the idea of guilt meaningless).
If you equate “sin” to simple ignorance, an ignorance which cannot be overcome at the moment of choice, then it amounts to “a determined act based on insufficient knowledge.” If you say it’s not determined, you’re saying the act need not - could not - have been done. But you’ve already committed to saying the ignorance is insurmountable. Therefore, sin as defined is determined to occur. God created these circumstances - the ignorance, the “guilt” that follows manifested as his unhappiness or “displeasure” with the act (an absurdity since he established all the necessary conditions which determined its occurrence) and the subsequent pain involved. You suppose he could not have infused the right type of knowledge into an innocent creatures brain else the creature would not have emerged as a separate consciousness from God. Yet he must have infused some knowledge, no? Whatever thoughts were in the creature’s brain must have been there because God determined them to be there just as they were. There are no other agents besides God who actually contribute to anything on this view. Before all was made, God established all these conditions: specifically the amount of knowledge that was not enough to do the “right” thing and his subsequent “dealings” with such acts by pain, guilt, punishment, etc. So it’s incoherent to turn around and say that determinism is false; for man has no power to do anything other than what he was determined to do based on the initially established conditions. He has no power to overcome his God-given (and if not by God, by who?) ignorance. Therefore, since ignorance necessarily leads to sin, and since God caused this ignorance, God caused sin. Again, there’s no intermediary agent here that somehow steps in and has any causal power, on your view, since creatures are determined to do things exactly how they were “pre-programmed”. You say the universe involves a great deal of indeterminism and “random chance” (whatever that means) - but where do these things come from? Without the freedom to overcome ignorance, the logical conclusions of your view make holding such notions, I believe, self contradictory.
Wonder if it’s of any benefit here to distinguish between saying that it is impossible for any person to avoid sin completely in their development, and saying that it is impossible to avoid the likelihood, the risk of some/many/most/all having to go through this, whenever true persons are created.
Is it likely that any person would perfectly choose Love over non-Love, over enthroning Self, with zero messing up in their entire growth and development and testing? If Adam and Eve had passed the test with flying colors, would it really have taken very long for one of their descendants to fail? In a world of billions and billions of free wills, was there really a realistic chance of there being no failures?
I’ve lost track of where the thread is going.
In a nutshell, jargon-free : what are we discussing at this time?
Thanks
Dave