The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Talbott's Check Mate and Free Will

Evangelical Universalism
#1

I think the answer to reconciling libertarian freedom with God’s “check mate” or “trump card” lies buried in two ideas: a) it is only through our free will being exercised that we develop an identity and that our “I’s” become real objective facts. Since this is the case, it cannot be denied that the very trump card itself is only brought about by the exercise of our free will; and b) the choice which is prompted by the trump card involves seeing the horror of the acts of the old self and repudiating it. In this way the choice for God may, indeed, be a compatibilist choice, or perhaps there is at that point no choice at all - maybe the last real “choice” a free being makes is a last rejection of God, and that prompts a transformation. Sin eventually sins itself out of existence. Like a fire that cannot last forever, all that is not divine eventually dies.

Perhaps libertarian free choice - whether sinful or good - of necessity gives way to compatibilistic freedom. When we become virtuous, we actually become in a sense less free to be bad. Our libertarian choices have a sort of complimentary effect or state that is not itself free, but imposed. Maybe the trump card is the ultimate imposition, based on the free willed choice of the creature, of rational light or knowledge that leads to the final “building” of a being who now hates and could never any more commit sin?

Perhaps, then, Talbott is right in saying that the scope of our free will does not extend to the fact that we will spend an eternity with God. Perhaps the exercise of free will simply (I am not discounting it!) provides the context in which we as “selves” experience that process.

Edit There may be a worry that the trump card leads to the conclusion that it is not really the “I” who can identifiably say that they have “come to God.” I think people like Jerry Walls and Greg Boyd would say that acts can’t have purpose or meaning from an agent unless that agent makes them freely, and that this is the main reason they see for not accepting Universalism. The argument runs shortly: the most meaningful acts are free acts; indeed, we are only “real” (as opposed to puppets) insofar as we act freely; God would rather have real people than puppets; therefore, to really be united to God requires the free act of loving him, etc. I’m not sure how to address this objection. I will say, however, that if God is total love, his desire for the beatification of his creatures (who have already become “real” through exercise of free will) may override his, so to speak, “pride” in wanting them to come to him “freely” or “on their own.”

Thoughts?

#2

Hi Chris,
Thought I’d jump in here and throw out some thoughts. I think God’s “trump card” is to eliminate the uncertainty and ignorance that we have regarding God, and following his will. Though there would than be no rational reason for rejecting God once someone understood that everything they truly wanted would be obtained by submitting to God and that there was no good or enjoyment to be obtained by abstaining, it would be a “free” choice. Perhaps a choice that is more “free” than those we make as ordinary, ignorant humans. In essence, it would be similar to the choices God makes himself. (see Talbott’s article on this) There may certainly be reward in choosing “right” in an environment of uncertainty and doubt, but at the end, it is irrational and frankly incoherent to choose an end where you gain nothing and lose everything once everything is known to you. Is this a combatabalist choice? I can’t say, but the fact that it is made due to God’s “trump card” would suggest so.

Thought I’d also chime in about about sin, free will and evil from the other thread. I think Talbott is bascially right, that evil and sin arise from our choices as humans. How “free” these choices are is certainly debatable. Certainly young children, people with brain injuries, Alzheimer’s etc can’t make free choices. What about psychopaths who’ve been born with an inabilitity to empathize with other humans? It certainly makes it difficult to assign blame or moral responsibility. However, from my own perspective, I can certainly assign blame to myself when I know what the right thing to do is, but don’t do it due to other desires or weakness. :confused: I think Paul also felt this when he say “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”. Certainly it makes it difficult to judge someone else, and Jesus himself said " …forgive them, for they know not what they do". I think our moral sense or “intuition” is a very interesting part of our “free will” decisions. Decisions about what color shirt I’ll wear today are of no concern, but whether to give money to the beggar on the corner, whether to eat meat, or enlist in the Army are certainly decisions with moral implications and I think that’s where “sin” enters in. I suspect that a decision that we make against our moral intuition is sin, even if it is not something God prohibits. Paul’s teaching about not eating meat offered to idols suggests that those that were concerned about that, but ate it anyway, may have sinned. I any event, I have to agree with George MacDonald, to follow the light within you, and as you follow it, the way will become clearer.

As a last comment, I have to say that, in light of how many humans die at a young age, or never have"free will" due to brain injuries etc. , God certainly has other plans for humans if they can’t attain that degree of “free will”. Is that where angels come from or are these people something totally different? Certainly, I can’t say, but God (based on the diversity of creatures here on earth) likes variety!

Steve

#3

“My sheep know my voice.”

“The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.”

“For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”

If I walk northwest, I am walking both north and west simultaneously. Direction can be broken into distinct dimensions. N-S, E-W, up-down. There is nothing north about west, but magically, they both can occur simultaneously without us splitting asunder, and they both can be added together.

A journey north has absolutely nothing in common with a journey west, except that they both are journeys. In the same way, an evil act and a good act have absolutely nothing in common, except that they both are acts, and like a journey north-west, they both can occur simultaneously, and they both can be added together.

A journey north-west is the vector sum of a northerly component and a westerly component, occurring simultaneously at spatial right-angles. In the same way, every human act is the spiritual sum of a good act and an evil act, occurring simultaneously at moral right-angles. Just as north and west are absolute distinct directional dimensions, good and evil are utterly distinct moral dimensions. Righteousness and wickedness have nothing in common. A good tree does not bear bad fruit.

I am a good person, a child of God. I am an evil person, a child of the devil. I am both these things, simultaneously. The sheep in me hears God’s voice and happily obeys. The goat in me does neither. By its very nature, it cannot. The day of judgement, the refining fire, will sever these persons once and for all. The weeds will be destroyed. The wheat saved.

“Choice” is the tussle between sheep and goat. The sheep is free to hear God’s voice, and will hear it. It’s impossible for a sheep to do otherwise. The goat hates God’s voice and rejects it. It’s impossible for the goat to do otherwise. Guilt is the revulsion felt by the sheep at the deeds of the goat. Fear and rebellion is the revulsion felt by the goat at the love and trust of the sheep.

#4

Hi Chris, I’ve been enjoying reading you and Bob go back and forth. I’ll drop a thought here…You said “become less free to be bad”. These semantics are hard to work out. What one calls free, another calls bondage. Sometimes I wonder if we don’t set up false dichotomies when we say things like this. For example, if I say a pyschopath is free to do murder, in what sense is he free? Are good people simply the ones not free? It seems to me that freedom has it’s roots in God and that we actually are free as we grow in the image of God. So to say evil people are free is strange indeed. Is it no wonder Paul and Jesus speak about setting captives free?

Yet I can’t also help but to appreciate the view that you can’t seem to have one without the other. When Paul writes that God bound all men over to disobedience, it had never crossed my mind that he can’t show us mercy unless there’s transgression. So for us to experience mercy, we had to “fall”.

My last thought is that I also wonder if we don’t paint “sin” improperly. Perhaps it can be much like how the word “works” is used in the new testament. There is that strange verse where John writes “I do not speak of sins that do not lead to death”. I’m not certain what John means by this verse so maybe I’m totally misreading him, but it seems there are some sins that lead to death and some that don’t. Could the word sin mean different things?

Thanks again for the great discussion.

#5

“Compatibilistic freedom” is an oxymoron. People no more have the ability to choose in compatibilistic theory than they do in deterministic theory". In both systems no event could have been otherwise than it actually was.

The thinking of such people presupposes that, because of free will, it is possible for people to resist God’s influence FOREVER, and that at least some will do so. If that were possible, wouldn’t that imply that these people have a will as strong as that of God?

While I admit that it is theoretically possible to resist God forever, I hold that it is practically impossible.
An analogy would be to believe that you could throw 100 dice in the air forever and NEVER get all sixes. Though this is theoretically possible, practically it is impossible. In fact it is LIKELY that 100 sixes will turn up at least once if the dice are thrown (6 exponent 100) times.

#6

Given good information and a good brain, a good person cannot make a bad decision. Our actions must express our nature. A good person cannot do bad, no more than he can flap his arms and fly.

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit. A good person is bound to do good. A bad person is bound to do bad.

I am in Adam and in Christ. Twice born. Two natures in superposition. I am the old and the new. Chaos and cosmos. Water and spirit. I am a bad person who knows how to do good. I am a good person who knows how to do bad. If I was bad, there would be nothing worth saving. If I was good, there’d be nothing in need of saving. If I was bad, I’d refuse to repent. If I was good, I’d have no need of repentance.

“Who shall rescue me from this body of death?” Who shall rescue Paul from Saul? Salvation is the death of the old, the end of Adam. Adam dies on the cross. Being bad, he ceases to exist. Christ rises from the dead. Being good, he is immortal.

I am Schrodinger’s cat, both alive and dead. On the Day of Judgment, God will open the box and look in. And because he is the God of the living, not the dead, the cat will live.

#7

I wonder how Boyd accounts for the goodness that brings about man’s good choice to follow God?

Is it really that some people are “just” good and some people are just bad? What accounts for their being evil. IMHO we’re bad because of defects often not our own. Bad parenting, social interactions gone sour, abuse, bad DNA…the list goes on and on. But I reject ECT or ANN because they can’t account for a loving God who breaks through the arrogance of a proud person yet the person rejects God??? That makes 0 sense.

God humbles the arrogant yet the humble (broken, soft-hearted) person rejects God?

If Boyd or Olson or anyone can explain this I’m all ears, but nothing I’ve read even comes close to Universalim’s approach to dealing with these issues. God loves you and your fate is not in your own hands, but in his.

#8

I’m not so sure I agree. Would you say that it was not “you” who are breathing in oxygen right now, simply because such a choice is not libertarian?

#9

But woudln’t Talbott disagree that sinners (deceived) are making a free choice since their proclivities are already distorted? Again, if Talbott is right, and I think he is, that true freedom is found in God - for God sees things as they really are - then how can the lost be said to be making “free” choices to reject God? How we define freedom matters and perhaps that’s where the real disagreement lies.

#10

Auggy,

Thanks a lot for taking the time to think about and wrestle with this topic. It seems to me that there are two different ideas of freedom among Universalists (and Talbott) and free willed theists (like Walls). The latter maintain that a certain ambiguity - that is, a certain hiddenness of God - is a necessary condition for true human choices to occur. In other words, for a human choice to be free and meaningful, indeed for it to be the only kind of choice God values, it must be such that God’s presence in the mind of the person is not so overwhelming that the ability to do otherwise is revoked. And therefore, if creatures are ever going to accept God or come to him (in a meaningful way), God cannot “enlighten” the persons mind such that there is a guaranteed choice to accept him. Now I think Talbott would say that, while such ambiguity may be necessary for the emergence of moral beings, and while it may serve a temporal purpose, it need not be the case that it’s necessary for it to remain, forever. It seems to me that Talbott and other universalists (particularly MacDonald) would hold that God is bound to enlighten the creature, even to such a degree (if necessary) that there is no more epistemic room to do otherwise than to come to God. What I find interesting here are several things, but, most notably the idea that libertarian freedom serves a purpose and is perfected by compatibilism.

To put it shortly, it may be that, given the type of creatures all sinners would be if they were given free will, it is a great good for God to grant them that free will, allow them to sin, and rescue them from themselves by showing them the error of their ways, rather than

a) not create them at all
b) create them without ever giving them free will and therefore never allowing them to sin (this would be a sort of divine deception because the creature would never really know itself)
c) create them and allow the ambiguity to remain forever

What I want to avoid doing is saying anything like humans “had” to “sin” or that we “can’t help it” every time we sin. This to me has two main difficulties:

  1. It conflicts very strongly with my own experience.
  2. It removes any guilt attributed to creatures and places it instead on God and makes him the author of sin.

At any rate, that’s as far as I can see at the moment.

Thanks again for the comments! Looking forward to hearing from you.

#11

This is a post in response to some points Bob brought up in a related thread.

The implication of compatibilistic freedom is this: a choice is made by the agent such that he or she could not have done otherwise, yet the act performed is not one in conflict with the will. The classic example is faith in Christ which is given by God’s irresistible grace (- the Reformed doctrine.) In other words, the person’s will itself experiences a change which makes him want or desire something that he did not want or desire before. This would happen in cases, also, where the mind necessarily leads the will to assent to the good of its object.

This is important because it is not the same thing as a libertarian choice - that is, the motives which move the will do not do so necessarily. There is epistemic “room” to perceive the good in question one way or another.

I believe that it is most consistent with Talbott’s universalism - and indeed a Biblical universalist understanding - that God for a time (or at certain times) grants libertarian freedom to his creatures, but I do not think he allows them to have such indefinitely. It seems perfectly possible to me and consistent with God’s nature that he grant it and then perfect it, by changing the creature’s mind and will compatibilisitically. This is the only way I can see that would make sin impossible and guarantee it never to occur in his perfected universe.

I don’t have children, so I am perhaps biased in the regard. But sin’s universality - at least among the human species - doesn’t mean, as far as I can see, that it was necessary. Let us suppose that every human who is capable of being aware of God’s law, however it is manifest to him and in whatever capacity, will sin. Let’s say that is the best sense we can make of revelation and human experience. How does that show that, if there were other rational species in the universe, they too must have sinned?

A notion I think possible which may explain sin’s universality and not its necessity is a consequence of the idea that God has middle knowledge, meaning he knows the truth value of all counterfactuals of possibly existing free minds or souls (to say “beings” or “persons” seems biased - it appears to me entirely possible that other rational species could exist and look nothing like humans). If this is true, it could be that he simply decided to make a large number of these free souls human. Indeed, he could have made it so that every soul united to a human body was a free being who would sin, not necessarily, but contingently. It may even be that all such created humans are also beings which, by their own free will, will not come to God, and that they therefore need irresistible graces. If this were true it would solve the problem of us taking credit for our coming to God (because we are such that by our own libertarian free will we won’t.) It also tells us how we - and not God - is responsible for sin (though God is responsible for permitting it.)

Although Molinism and the doctrine of middle knowledge is key to all this, I take no issue with it. In fact, the more I study the doctrine the more I see how it provides light on otherwise impenetrable puzzles.

#12

Chris,

Thanks, I’m understanding your ideas better! Your compatibilistic ‘freedom’ wherein you say it “makes” us want to do what we do (and used when God ultimately acts to deliver us) is indeed what Reformed teachers taught me operates all the time. I recoiled against it because its’ non-libertarian nature didn’t sound like we had any real choice, and yet based on our blind misguided choices God was going to damn most people! So universalism relieves a lot of my angst over such a supposed understandings of ‘free’ will.

Of course, you differently also want to say that we start out with libertarian ‘freedom.’ And while I Want to say that we are responsible for real choices, I don’t see how to articulate this. I don’t see how speculating that God could have done it differently somewhere changes my ability to explain our own actual condition. You point to Molinism, but in my feeble grasp of it, that sounds like a word game, where what we will do, will be as inevitable as in any deterministic system. I guess that if indeed, God chose to have us in a condition where we all will inevitably sin, then it seems to me that the nature of freedom must somehow be articulated as one having a quite limited meaning, not the ability to make contrary choices wherein our motives don’t shape our choices.

On terminology, what does “free” being mean if you agree God “made it so that Every soul would sin”? When sin is universally inevitable, what does rejecting the word “necessary” reject? What does sinning “contingently” mean?

#13

I look in vain for the concept of free will in this passage.

In v7, we’re told the one who does righteous deeds is righteous, just like God is righteous. ie. This person is not a sinner choosing to do good, but someone who is good by nature.

In v8, we’re told the one who sins is of the devil, and will soon be destroyed by Christ. Not converted, but destroyed.

In v9, we’re told the righteous person is by nature unable to sin, being begotten by God.

In v10, we’re told the distinction between these two persons is absolute.

In v 12, we learn that both persons exist in the loins of Adam. Adam is Everyman. Cain and Abel exist in Everyman. Cain kills Abel (ie. we are dominated by our evil self), but Cain’s days are numbered. The blood of Abel cries out from the ground. Christ, who is the resurrection, will raise him from the dead. ie. Those of us who believe have literally been raised from the dead. This is why Saul changed his name to Paul.

“Awake, O Sleeper! Rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” Again, not much talk of free will and choice.

#14

Allan,

If there is no free will, how do you maintain the “guiltness” of sin? In what sense is a person an independent cause of his or her own actions, opposed to an instrument that is determinately and infallibly moved by God?

#15

I really think you would get a lot out of Molinism if you studied it. William Lane Craig called it “the most powerful theological concept” he’d ever encountered.

What it means if it is true is, briefly, that what God knows in his middle knowledge before his decree to create is absolutely beyond his control. So if he knows the free actions of certain beings, he knows this independent of his will causing those actions. If this is true it means that there are all sorts of “possible” worlds that are not in fact “feasible.” In other words, some worlds are truly possible because beings truly have the power of actualizing certain choices in them, but God infallibly knows that such beings will not in fact do certain things they’re able to do, thus making certain worlds not “feasible” for him to create.

If Molinism is true, the “facthood” of an act exists entirely dependent of its contingency. Similarly, if I flip a coin and it lands heads - or if I flip a million coins and they all land heads - this has nothing to say about whether or not I “could have” flipped tails. If you look at it from the end, so to speak, or just the result you could (erroneously) conclude that since all the observable flipped coins (to us) have landed on heads, and therefore tails was impossible. But I’m suggesting, based on God’s middle knowledge, he may have created all humans with similar free natures in that he knew all of them would sin.

To deny the independent causation - i.e. the free will - of creatures seems to me to make God the author of sin. Or, at the very least, he is responsible for creating independent beings under conditions which gave rise to sin necessarily. I suppose this is possible. Perhaps the only way to make rational creatures separate and apart from God - perhaps the only way God could “throw them off himself” as MacDonald said - was to make it so that they were necessarily “selfish” and “for themselves.” And then, perhaps the only way he could bring them to himself is by destroying this selfishness. So perhaps in this sense sin is an inevitable and necessary part of God making us independent rational minds. This seems to destroy my notion of selfhood, though. If I truly do not have the ability to do other than I do, it’s difficult to say in what sense “I” even exist. In what respect can I look back on “my” sins as “mine”? The Reformed tradition will say that “I” have sinned because at the moment of my acts I possessed “intentionality.” But it is hard for me to see a connection between the “I” I experience as an independent, causal agent, and the “thing” (body, brain, etc.) that possessed that intent at the time in which an act was committed. Without the notion of “it is I who am about to commit this, though I need not,” and unless this is true, the notion of intentionality seems to me nothing more than something that “happens to” me, in the same way that a cold would.

And anyway, I can’t deny at least the feeling of “I don’t have to do x” or “I need not have done x,” particularly when it applies to my sins. So in this sense it seems I have free will. Neither can I deny the fact, present to be with just as much force, that the good I do, or rather the sins I avoid, are the result of such evilness being “taken away” from me. In this sense, it seems all grace.

As unsatisfying as it is, I’m forced by experience to hold these two seemingly contradictory positions. At least until I can see further. The conviction I feel about these two things are stronger than any synthesis of them that may rule one out.

#16

I also don’t understand how relevant a command or any sort of appeal, made either by God or another person, is if “I” really have no causal power MYSELF to do anything.

#17

Chris, We’ve agreed that puzzlingly we feel both that #1 we have a self which bears responsibility for our choices, and that if conditions of our existence made some sinning inevitable, such responsibility or guilt is hard to understand. #2 when we are truly good, it seems God’s grace has “taken away” our evilness. (I’ve added that it seems that the strong influences on our choices encourage us to doubt that people have significant ability to make contrary choices.) My conclusion is that how human will works remains mysterious. So I asked, what does ‘free’ mean? You seem to respond, (Craig’s) Middle knowledge is what explains the nature of the will.

As I earned my doctorate, I perceived that theology Ph.D’s think all sorts of differing things are true. I;ve read much of Craig, and he seems to think many things make sense that most thoughtful people find strange (e.g. what God ‘knows’ requires that he endlessly torment most people). But I don’t grasp his Molinism, or even your simplified summary. You clarify it as “what God knows” before creating (i.e. the ‘free’ actions of certain beings) “is beyond his control.” How can a being who doesn’t yet exist even have “actions”? Would not any potential actions be affected by the nature, conditions, and knowledge given to the potential agent? What does it mean for God to discern what someone will do who is not even yet designed? And even IF I somehow found this convincingly intelligible, how would believing that God determined that all of us would be folk who most certainly would sin help me feel better about our inevitable failure?

#18

Bob, that’s my caveats with Molinism - determinism seems to be a part of Molinism. Calvinists often argue that as soon as God knows a choice of a creature, it is rendered certain that when the time comes for the person to choose, they cannot do otherwise.

If God actualizes a world where bob would choose A over B, then when the time comes for Bob to choose, is it a real possibility that he will choose A? Sounds a lot like Calvinism with a different wig.

#19

A person who is good by nature is free to do good. The set of good acts is infinite. A good person is free to eat any of the fruit in that boundless garden. There’s no determinism here.

The knowledge of good and evil is a good thing, since God also possesses it. It can be freely chosen, and Adam did so. Because it is such costly knowledge, and because Christ did not desire to drink the bitter cup, Adam was forbidden to eat the apple. The knowledge of good and evil is a good thing, and is therefore desirable, but the gauntlet of pain that even God must run to obtain this good thing is far from desirable. The best things may well be the most difficult to achieve. (God rested on the 7th day.)

In Christ, God’s knowledge of good and evil was perfected. Christ didn’t experience evil abstractly, but personally. Like us, he carried a Christ-shaped shadow-self around in his head. Unlike us, however, Christ ruled his Satan, whereas we (but by grace) are ruled by ours. In Adam, in the old Everyman, Cain rules Abel. In Christ, in the new Everyman, Abel rules Cain.

I mentioned earlier that I think we’re like Schrodinger’s cat, both alive and dead until God opens the box. I meant it. Good and evil are two discordant notes being played in my being. In a journey NW, I somehow move both N and W simultaneously, without tearing apart. In my spiritual journey, I move both heavenward and hellward simultaneously, without tearing apart.

The good me, being made by God, is the real me. The evil me is a shadow. Like all shadows, it’s not real, but the absence of the real. From this shadow I learn by bitter experience the meaning of evil. Guilt is the revulsion the good me feels at the thoughts and deeds of the evil me. “Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”

#20

You did ask that question Bob. I should have responded, but was pressed for time. I will say what I can below about libertarian freedom.

As far as the metaphysical aspect of the question - that is, the coherency of the concept of true free will - I’m not sure how to articulate it. I’m not even sure it is intelligible. I only postulate its existence due to the experience I have of certain feelings we’ve already mentioned: e.g. “I really don’t have to do this” and/or “I could choose not to sin now.”

Now, it may be that these feelings are really only us misunderstanding our experience of reality. They could really point to some other truths, such as:

a) Our bare contingency itself, in relation to God or some outside “necessary” existence which we do not possess
b) Our lack of foreknowledge of what we really will, in fact, do (a guy who used to post here suggested this to me.)
c) A sort of partial revelation, the first step of which is to show us our utter difference and existential independence from God.

As far as I can see, perhaps all the above may be true and not imply “the ability of an agent, under the exact same circumstances, to act other than he does.” So maybe the experience of freedom does not lead to the conclusion that we could have done otherwise. Perhaps that simply doesn’t follow.

But, if it doesn’t follow, and if, when we sin, we truly could not have done otherwise - if, that is, our sins are necessary parts of God’s creative act in bringing us to him - we must have a shift in understanding in certain other concepts we apply to human acts: particularly human guilt.

As far as Craig goes: I don’t, contrary to popular opinion, find him particularly sharp. I do think he’s an extremely learned scholar and researcher. But I doubt whether he’s had many “aha!” moments of, as it were, independent conviction in argument. It doesn’t appear to me he writes from his own truth, or the truth as he lives and knows and feels it, but rather from a systematizing of other men’s truths. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course. But he is rather like a textbook than a trailblazer. And while I very much admire the thought of the ancients, I do not deny the need for trailblazing. New questions are being asked in our day. Latent difficulties are surfacing from the implication of certain premises. If the old truths are true, they must rise and answer these difficulties, but they must be expressed adaptive to the new questions.

So I don’t put much opinion on his theology. I only mentioned his name to give credibility, in some respect, to the philosophical intrigue of Molinism.

I’m not even convinced of its possibility, and to be honest I don’t want to argue for it here (though I will say that it denies determinism because the outcome of people’s choices, though dependent on God’s will for their actualization, are not dependent on his will for their truth value.) I was only bringing out a way in which theologians have tried to maintain creaturely free will (and hence the radical contingency of sin) and God’s universal providence.

I think we must look at the implications in maintaining the necessity of sin: what that means regarding God’s authorship of it and responsibility for it, and his power over whether or not it needed to occur in the first place.