Free Will and the Fall of Man: A Contradiction

[Transplanar]

I have heard many thiests say that God gave mankind the gift of free will. But I got to thinking just today: when did we recieve this gift? Were we immediately given free will at the moment we were created, or did it come later? The story of Adam and Eve and they're eating of the Fruit of Knowlege complicates this.

If we assume we were given free will at the moment of our creation, then that means that we possessed free will before we had knowlege of good and evil, and therefore it is proven true that free will can exist in the absense of evil (contrary to what Christians claim).

If we did not have free will before the apple, then there are two problems that come out of that. For one, that means that our choice to eat the fruit was not a choice. But disregarding that, let's say for the sake of arguement we did not have "true" free will until we ate the fruit. Assuming that, there is still the problem of why we were punished for that, when free will is supposed to have been a gift. That's like handing someone a present then punching them in the face for taking it from you. It does not make sense, then, that God would punish us for something he presumably was giving us out of the goodness of his heart. It also implies that God did not intend for us to have free will (the OOG concept makes this even more complicated).

Your thoughts?

[Malachi151]

This is what happens when people overthink ancient myths....

First of all, the whole "free will" idea in relation to this story came from the Christians, hundreds of years later, after the concept of "free will" had been developed in Greek philosophy.

It is, again, trying to backread something into a story in which it never origionally existed.

[dongiovanni1976x]

I have heard many thiests say that God gave mankind the gift of free will. But I got to thinking just today: when did we recieve this gift? Were we immediately given free will at the moment we were created, or did it come later? The story of Adam and Eve and they're eating of the Fruit of Knowlege complicates this.

If we assume we were given free will at the moment of our creation, then that means that we possessed free will before we had knowlege of good and evil, and therefore it is proven true that free will can exist in the absense of evil (contrary to what Christians claim).

If we did not have free will before the apple, then there are two problems that come out of that. For one, that means that our choice to eat the fruit was not a choice. But disregarding that, let's say for the sake of arguement we did not have "true" free will until we ate the fruit. Assuming that, there is still the problem of why we were punished for that, when free will is supposed to have been a gift. That's like handing someone a present then punching them in the face for taking it from you. It does not make sense, then, that God would punish us for something he presumably was giving us out of the goodness of his heart. It also implies that God did not intend for us to have free will (the OOG concept makes this even more complicated).

Your thoughts?

:notworthy:

"A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man's sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man's nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched. Yet that is the root of your code. Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a 'tendency' to evil. A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, his will is not free."
- Rand, A. (1961). For the New Intellectual. New York, New York: Random House

[dongiovanni1976x]

free will can exist in the absense of evil (contrary to what Christians claim).


Can you provide an example of one of these claims...?

[Joan of Bark]

If we assume we were given free will at the moment of our creation, then that means that we possessed free will before we had knowlege of good and evil, and therefore it is proven true that free will can exist in the absense of evil (contrary to what Christians claim).



There was no absence of evil at the time of the Garden of Eden:

"but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ... "
Gen 2:17

"and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
Gen 3:5 (NIV)

I assume what you meant is that free will can exist before the knowledge of evil. Adam and Eve were punished for disobeying God's command. But then, how were they to know that it was wrong to disobey God?

[Transplanar]

Can you provide an example of one of these claims...?I'm merely citing an arguement thiests frequently use, saying that evil is neccesary for us to have true free will, for without it we cannot appreciate the goods of the world.

I assume what you meant is that free will can exist before the knowledge of evil. Adam and Eve were punished for disobeying God's command. But then, how were they to know that it was wrong to disobey God?I assumed that without knowlege of evil, one cannot do evil (at least most malicious evils, they obviously can make mistakes at the expense of others, etc). Even if they could do evil, as you say, they wouldn't know it to be evil, so it's a lose-lose situation regardless.

[trivium]

From a Christian perspective I can tell you that even Christians disagree about this issue (I'm sure many of you know that). As Transplansar mentioned, he has heard Christians say that "God gave mankind the gift of free will." As someone who believes the Bible, I can tell you that does not appear in Scripture. Some Christians believe in what is known as "Libertarian free will," while others like myself believe that free will is limited, in the sense that it is only as free as the nature is free. In other words, our will is free to express our character.

On the issue of Adam in the garden: Technically, Adam is the only person who had true free will (free in the sense that his decisions were uninfluenced by a sin nature), every one born after Adam is a sinner by nature (Eph.2:3), by choice (Rom. 3:23), and lastly, by divine declaration (Rom. 3:9).

What many (even Christians) misunderstand, is that sin is a condition and not just a transgression.

[JamesABrown]

I assume what you meant is that free will can exist before the knowledge of evil. Adam and Eve were punished for disobeying God's command. But then, how were they to know that it was wrong to disobey God?

What's more, if Eve had no knowledge of good or evil, then how did she know that the fruit was "good for food (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%203:6;&version=31;)"?

[Transplanar]

Some Christians believe in what is known as "Libertarian free will," while others like myself believe that free will is limited, in the sense that it is only as free as the nature is free. In other words, our will is free to express our character.Could you elaborate on that?

That still leaves the problem of why God would give us such freedom and then punish us for what he knew we were bound to do anyway. What purpose does it serve to create so many souls and then waste so many to send them to hell/not-heaven (I say that because there doesn't seem to be a consensus on what hell actually is like, if it exists at all (as opposed to "outer darkness")).

[trivium]

Sure, I can elaborate on Libertarian free will. Basically, libertarian free will says that a person is fully able to perform some other action in place of the one that is actually done, and this is not predetermined by any prior circumstances. They believe man is totally and completely autonomous. His actions are not influenced by ANYTHING, not even his wants or desires. Therefore, when asked what caused the person to choose one action over another, they will answer that a free act is when NO CAUSAL, ANTECEDENT, LAWS OF NATURE, DESIRES OR OTHER FACTORS are sufficient to incline the will decisively to choose one option or another.

I believe this is wrong because the will must have its roots in moral causation in order to produce character. I believe, that as Charles Spurgeon said, "The will is not an independent mechanism in the head, but a function of a character." Thus, because man is in bondage to sin, his will ALSO is in bondage to sin, and therefore he has a sinful NATURE. And since nature cannot act above itself, man cannot choose that which is outside of its nature.

[Chili]

What's more, if Eve had no knowledge of good or evil, then how did she know that the fruit was "good for food (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%203:6;&version=31;)"?


It was the woman who saw that the fruit was good for gaining food, wisdom and beauty. Eve was not created until the man took the serpent to be his wife and it was he who first called her Eve.

[Chili]

Your thoughts?


God never gave mankind the gift of free will because he created man in his own divine image and that includes free will. In other words, free will is native to man as a created being.

The fall of man occurs in Gen.3 when he wanted to be 'like god' instead of just God and have a mind of his own.

The fall is what made him earthly instead of heavenly and therefore temporal instead of eternal wherefore the prefix hu- was added to identify the dual nature of man now as human. It is therefore that humans die but man will never die [without a mind of his own] wherefore the woman was taken from man to be without a mind of her own so she could affort to never die. And so on.

Aristotle called this a condition of being that pertains to the being but is not an intrinsic part of the being. It therefore has no incarnate (hereditary) right to partake from the TOL until the human condition is subdued by the woman, etc.

[JamesABrown]

It was the woman who saw that the fruit was good for gaining food, wisdom and beauty. Eve was not created until the man took the serpent to be his wife and it was he who first called her Eve.

Let me read this back to make sure I've got this right. According to the Genesis myth, God created Adam from mud, then showed him around and laid down the ground rule. Adam didn't like that all the other animals had a mate (ignoring those species that reproduce asexually, or bees, or any other species that don't have male/female pairings, but anyway...) so God anesthetized Adam, withdrew a rib, and created a serpent? And when Adam woke up he took one look at this serpent? and fell so deeply in love that he decided to take the serpent? to be his wife, and he called her Eve? And in Genesis 3, Eve had a multiple personality conversation with herself and convinced herself to disobey God's only single rule? Do I have this right?

If so, I'd be very curious to see your scripture references for all this.

[Chili]

Do I have this right?

If so, I'd be very curious to see your scripture references for all this.


No you don't. God created man after his own image and it was Lord God who took woman from man to be his partner for life. From this follows that man has a created essence that goes before him which is retained by the woman who goes beside him. She'd be his backbone, so to speak, which left a void in man that was replaced with flesh and it is therefore that she is his bone of bones and flesh of flesh or womb of man here now first called woman.

As an aside to serve as an apology, there is also a female created in the image of God and she is no less and therefore equal to man as the image of God since from her also the woman is taken. It therefore can be said that womanity (the woman condition) in humans is a gift of God but since this only comes into effect after the fall of man it is not part of Gen.2.

So here we have man fully alive with woman being the fullness of man. Together they have a mind of their own but are naked to wit and therefore felt no shame.

It is not until they consumed from the tree of knowledge that knowledge and beauty add an additional image to man wherein they now are divided and therefore felt shame. This image later becomes known as their persona or ego awareness wherein only shame can be conceived to exist.

This image was first called Adam by Lord God in "Adam where are you?" To this man responded and it was then that the Lord said "Who told you that you were naked" to identify the ego that he called Adam earlier.

So Adam is the name of the persona and he took the serpent to be his wife and called her Eve in Gen.3:20. This serpent or Eve later becomes known as Magdalene who presides over the tree of Knowledge while the woman presides over the Tree of Life. They are at enmity with each other in Gen.3:15 where the woman will strike at her head while she strikes at Adam's heel. This would be how the persona is motivated, etc.

So Adam and Eve are resident of the conscious mind while man and woman (later called Christ and Mary) are resident of the subconscious mind (also called the upper room). The crucifixion and resurrection in the NT deals with the crucifixion of the ego (first Adam) that must be raised and become subservient to the second Adam or Christ identity that needs to be exposed.

[Unbeliever]

God never gave mankind the gift of free will because he created man in his own divine image and that includes free will. In other words, free will is native to man as a created being.

How could an omniscient being have free will? I don't think the divine nature could possibly include free will, if it also includes omniscience. If a being knows literally everything, then it has always known exactly everything it will and will not do, and it can never choose to do otherwise, or it would have always known of that choice, and so could've made no different choice.

[James Madison]

Sure, I can elaborate on Libertarian free will. Basically, libertarian free will says that a person is fully able to perform some other action in place of the one that is actually done, and this is not predetermined by any prior circumstances. They believe man is totally and completely autonomous. His actions are not influenced by ANYTHING, not even his wants or desires. Therefore, when asked what caused the person to choose one action over another, they will answer that a free act is when NO CAUSAL, ANTECEDENT, LAWS OF NATURE, DESIRES OR OTHER FACTORS are sufficient to incline the will decisively to choose one option or another.

I believe this is wrong because the will must have its roots in moral causation in order to produce character. I believe, that as Charles Spurgeon said, "The will is not an independent mechanism in the head, but a function of a character." Thus, because man is in bondage to sin, his will ALSO is in bondage to sin, and therefore he has a sinful NATURE. And since nature cannot act above itself, man cannot choose that which is outside of its nature.

I appreciate what you have articulated here and agree with much of it but I reject your assumption libertarian free will and your understanding of free will are mutually exclusive.

Your mischaracterization of libertarian free will is what has led to this dichotomy. Libertarian free will is defined as, "Free will is affected by human nature but retains ability to choose contrary to our nature and desires. Now under this meaning, man has the ability to occasionally, perhaps most of the time, act contrary to his "sinful nature". In fact, the bible is inundated with a examples where men are characterized as "righteous" because of their decision not to sin. Job Noah just to name a few qualify as "rigtheous" men which unequivocally made decisions contrary to their sinful nature.

So it is accurate to say our sinful nature influences our decisions but does not necessarily make us decide to conform to it. Whether or not we make a decision which conforms with or departs from our sinful nature is "our" own choice.

[Chili]

How could an omniscient being have free will? I don't think the divine nature could possibly include free will, if it also includes omniscience. If a being knows literally everything, then it has always known exactly everything it will and will not do, and it can never choose to do otherwise, or it would have always known of that choice, and so could've made no different choice.

That will depend on your definition of omniscience and free will. As I see it to be omniscient you must know your own self for which you must be of one mind and that automatically gives you free will.

Like, it is silly to think that an omniscient being knows exactly how many trees exist in the world at any moment in time or even know what he will be doing tomorrow. All he needs to know is what he is doing today and for this he needs to know the he/she who is doing it.

[Julian]

This sounds more like philosophy to me, so we'll try it over there...

Julian
Moderator BC&H

[sweetiepie]

If we assume we were given free will at the moment of our creation, then that means that we possessed free will before we had knowlege of good and evil, and therefore it is proven true that free will can exist in the absense of evil (contrary to what Christians claim).
Depends on the theist. You might be wise to point to Gabriel-- or various other angels that didn't fall-- as having choice but always choosing good. But the creating of things that choose to be evil isn't itself necessarily a bad thing, as, of course, such things might want to be made. Not to mention, at this point there's the whole devil problem, which, by most christian standards, was aroudn before the fall.
And then all of this aside. You might simply argue that the eating of the apple was teh first bad choice. That having free will means you will-- eventually do evil-- and the apple is the first noteworthy evil of mankind.

If we did not have free will before the apple, then there are two problems that come out of that. For one, that means that our choice to eat the fruit was not a choice. really it was all a setup. i mean who the hell sticks an apple tree in a garden run by insolent humans and EXpects them not to eat?

But disregarding that, let's say for the sake of arguement we did not have "true" free will until we ate the fruit. Assuming that, there is still the problem of why we were punished for that, when free will is supposed to have been a gift.
Words words words. Gift-theft. Same thing. If he wants people to have free will, but doesn't want them to be good on their own-- then what can you expect. It's more like telling your stupid child-- I'll let you choose to eat all your halloween candies in one day-- but I can't promise you'll like it.

It also implies that God did not intend for us to have free will
He clearly expected em to eat teh fruit. He's not dumb.