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Those Scriptures doesn't say He can't, it says He doesn't change. You see, if God could do evil by free will choice, those Scriptures can still say there is no variation or shifting shadow. It can still say Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The only thing is, it's saying He freely chose to be the same, and have no shadow of turning.
Why should I be afraid if God has free will? If anything, to love me out of His free will, is even more inexpressible. Again let me ask this question. How do you feel if God loves us because He has no choice? How would you feel if you parents said they had no choice but to love you? Technically, is that real love? Didn't God want us to love Him with free will? How can God give us something He Himself don't have?
That is ridiculous. If God who has never done evil began to do evil then that would mean that His nature changed.
God has stated that He does not change...
Malachi 3:6 "For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
Since God has stated that He does not change, and since He cannot lie, than He cannot change. It is not a difficult thing to grasp. If God were to ever change, then His statement that He is the same forever was a lie. And God cannot lie.
Since God has never changed, and since God is said to be the same yesterday, today, and FOREVER, then He can't change. Again, if God could change, then the statement that He is the same forever would be a lie. And again, since God is truth He cannot lie.
So yes, those passages mean that God cannot change.
You have some strange ideas about God. That's nothing unusual on this forum.
I'll say it again. God has stated that He is the same forever. If He could change at some point in the future, then He lied by saying that He is the same forever. But since God is also truth, He cannot lie. Since God is bound by truth which is a part of His nature, His statement that He is the same forever is a true statement. That means that God is incapable of change.
And I already stated that God has volition. But He cannot choose to be anything other than what He is and has always been. And since God is love, since that is a part of His nature, than yes, God cannot but express His love. But God must also express His justice when His righteousness is violated by His creatures.
I'll present this question to everyone, then I'll give you my thoughts as the topic goes along. Now please, everyone read all of this OP (and I won't make it long) before answering. I don't want the automatic responses of calling me a heretic or something like that, actually think about my question and answer it.
Now, there is no evil in God, and He can't be tempted by evil. (One obvious reason why God can't be tempted that most don't think about, is because He is the creator of all things. How you going to tempt God with something He created? Of course there is the evil thing you can do, and try to tempt God to do something based on His love for you. God won't do evil.) Yet God gave Adam free will choice. I've been wondering if Adam had free will to choose to do evil, that this free will came from God, does God also have free will choice? Could God choose to do evil? What are your thoughts?
Well if that which is born of God cannot sin, how can He that sowed the seed sin?
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Originally Posted by Heavenese
I can definitely understand what your saying. If that is true, it is true. Yet I would like to argue this point. Not that God answers us, but that God holds Himself to that same standard. That He sets the standard of righteousness above Him, which effectively means His word is His bond. That if He went outside of that word, He would no longer be righteous.
My evidence of this?
Scripture that says God esteems His word according to all His name, and the Scripture that says to put God in remembrance of His word. Not that God forgets His word, or of personal opinion that I believe God forgets His word (because I don't personally believe God forgets anything), but that God keeps His word. For that reason, He can't just do anything, anything outside that word, and there not be ramifications.
Another way of looking at it is, what the world was Satan thinking? If God didn't have free will, that He couldn't choose to be evil, Satan got to be even more insane and dumb than we already know he is. So it could be Satan thinks he can get God to compromise Himself, because of His love for us. Satan is trying to get God to mess up, by using us. It's not going to work, God is not going to do evil, but the question is does God have that free will? In other words, on a deeper scale, Satan is trying to do to God, what he did to Adam. It's not going to work of course, but if God had free will then we can understand something more about the Devil's thinking we didn't know previously. Yet if God didn't have free will, that He is righteous not by free will, you can't say how utterly insane Satan is. (You could say that before, but now you can say it again with new meaning)
Those Scriptures doesn't say He can't, it says He doesn't change. You see, if God could do evil by free will choice, those Scriptures can still say there is no variation or shifting shadow. It can still say Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The only thing is, it's saying He freely chose to be the same, and have no shadow of turning.
Why should I be afraid if God has free will? If anything, to love me out of His free will, is even more inexpressible. Again let me ask this question. How do you feel if God loves us because He has no choice? How would you feel if you parents said they had no choice but to love you? Technically, is that real love? Didn't God want us to love Him with free will? How can God give us something He Himself don't have?
To murder means to kill an innocent person. God never killed an innocent person. Of course people will say God also killed children with their offending parents. This gets complicated to understand, and I'll come back and explain later. Basically, the sins of the parents effected their children. Again it gets difficult to explain, but for instance, the sins of the parents shed innocent blood, so as a result their children became victims of their sins. I'll come back again and explain it more in depth.
So the rage God expressed, was righteous because it was against unrighteousness. It's not like our rage at times, where we get angry at someone for looking at us in the wrong way. There is a such thing as righteous anger.
No use explaining I won't understand it.. However I will accept it because he is "god" and he can do whatever he wants and makes whatever rules it wants (and i have to accept it or fear being burned alive for all eternity)...so if he wants to justify killing children because their parents sucked, well thats him, he's has the power and makes the rules.
Yes. But free will doesn't necessarily need to include things that are impossible.
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Now we know Adam was created in the image of God, and Adam definitely had choice. So if Adam was created in the image of God, everything about Adam was a reflection of God, and that includes free will.
Adam was not created as a copy of God. He was created in his image...not as a clone.
That what may be right to one person may be utter depravity to someone else - our view of sin is not sustained?
That's a natural answer to a theological issue.
God has killed, but has not sinned; God has allowed untold horrors but has remained pure...God has done things that we are not do, but His reputation is preserved because He is God and we are not.
Not to sound crass...seriously. His ways are higher than ours, and the tapestry He is looking at spreads out over this universe and all others He may have created. What He's doing right now in your life and mine is above our comprehension and - often times - palatability, but it's needed to accomplish His will in the heavens and the earth.
God is not sinless in His killing of man merely because He is God. He is sinless because His Judgment is Perfect, Holy and True. If God were to kill man for the same reasons that man kills, He would no longer be sinless, for His reason for their deaths would be the same as ours: jealousy, envy, rage, vengence, greed, hatred, etc. But be aware that I'm talking about unjust reasons, God is jealous, He does avenge, He does Hate, He is Wrath, but in all of that, He is still Perfect, Holy and Righteous, and for that reason He remains sinless in taking lives.
But man can also kill and not sin. Capitol punishment was given to man (government) to as a punishment for serious crimes. (Rom. 13:1-7) Thre is also the killing that is done by soldiers as a weapon of the government, and as such those soldiers do not necessarily commit a sin when they kill an enemy combatant. If it were, then Israel would have been guilty of the blood of thousands of people. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that any time a soldier kills someone it is not murder, we are all too aware that murder is committed by soldiers, but that is a whole different topic. Death was also specifically mandated in the Law for certain transgressions (crimes), often by stoning. So that God killed people doesn't really prove anything, other than that He has killed people according to His own wisdom, justice, holiness, etc. (you get the idea). So I'm still not sure what you are trying to say about the fact that God has killed men, women and children. In the execution of His perfect and holy Judgment, He has not sinned.
If you don't mind an unbeliever jumping in, it seems to me that littleelmer is approaching this from a different view point. He can jump in and correct me, but I think his point is that the question is meaningless.
To even answer the question, "Can God sin?", you have to consider morality, or sin, apart from God. If the definition of good is God, eveything He is and everything He does, then there is no external standard of sin to use against Him. God could lie, murder, or cause sickness, suffering, death, genocide for any reason he wanted and it would be right, because He did it. He can command us not to do as He has done, and still be right, because he is God.
So if you apply the standard of sin that is used for humankind to God, then yes He can sin, and probably has. Assuming you believe the Bible, He has ordered genocide, condoned rape, killed people on a bet, and likes to issue arbitrary commands and harshly punish those who disobey Him (pillars of salt, striking people dead, etc...). If He were a man, He would be on trial for gross atrocities against humanity.
If you approach it from the understanding that he definitionally cannot sin, because anything he does is automatically good, then it is a tautology that he cannot sin. It has nothing to do with an evaluation of His character, and really isn't a very meaningful question.
-NoCapo
First, our morality is from God, so we cannot allow ourselves to consider whether or not God can sin outside of that. We are moral (more or less) beings because God is a moral Being. Granted, His Morality is so far beyond ours that we may not be able to consider them the same, but God made us after His own image, and part of that image is His own morality. Not only is the definition of good God, but the definition of God is good. Perhaps you see that as a tautology in itself, but that is the simple truth of the matter: God is good, and Good is God. So the idea that because God is Good because He is God and thus everything He does is Good and without sin is really a straw man argument. Not only is God Good, but God is also not Wicked (bad, unrighteous, etc.) He is not simply Holy, He is wholly Holy in His Righteousness (Justice/Judgment), Goodness, Mercy, Kindness, Faithfulness, Love, Wrath, et al, which make Him not Unrighteous, Evil, Unmerciful, Unkind, Faithless, Hate, et al. Even for God, right is right and wrong is wrong, our very understanding of good and evil comes from Him, not because He is both, but because He tells what good and evil are.
Again, it is not really a question of Can God sin, not the ability to do sin, but is it in God's nature to be Evil, Wicked or Unrighteous? And the question to that is, No!
So I'm still not sure what you are trying to say about the fact that God has killed men, women and children. In the execution of His perfect and holy Judgment, He has not sinned.
I agree that scripture supports what's been said thus far, but I'm going further with the thought; that because God does, thinks or speaks something, it becomes pure just by its association with Him - if I'm explaining myself adequately.
God is holy, and that word or description alone is sufficient to lay a foundation of unequaled stature and kingship - we can't even comprehend the depth of it. But, I can't say this properly - we look at things we do as right and wrong because of Adam, and because it would change us by doing something of varying moral... see? I can't describe it.
As several of us have said, God will not bend - no shadow of turning - so anything He does must change to fit His standing.
I'll ask you this question as well. How do you feel about God saying He has no choice but to love you? How would you feel if your parents said they had no choice but to love you?
I don't really mind God telling me He has not choice but to love His creation. His 'forced' choice (as I see you posing it) is not that He is constrained by anything outside of Himself as we are. I have no choice but to love my wife. I'm commanded to, and she understands that. Wives on the other hand are not commanded to love their husbands, only to honor them. That's quite a difference. Jesus loves the church in the same way, a covenant love.
God loves His children, it is a choice. "Jacob I loved but Esau I hated." God made a choice to love one above the other. We cannot lend our understanding of 'free will' (what a crock in the first place) to God. He is free to do whatever He desires, and yet He confines Himself to doing only that which is according to His Attributes.
But getting back to God being 'forced' to love us, His children. Not only does He love us out of choice, He is also constrained by His very nature (His Attributes) to love us who are His though faith by grace because of His Son's sacrifice. But why is He constrained as such, because He chose to be so constrained. He is not only free to exercise His Will however He pleases, but He is also free to constrain Himself to that which He has purposed. Call it a paradox, tautology, enigma or whatever, but that is the fact of God 'forced' love for us.
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, He cannot deny Himself. (2 Tim. 2:13) God is 'forced' to love us because He cannot lie, He cannot break His promise. If He did, then He would not be who He is: He has constrained Himself to that state.
"I do not change," is very clear, yet it is true that God does not say He cannot change. But why doesn't He change? Is it that He doesn't have 'free will' to do so, or is it from choice, a constraint that He put on Himself. The whole understanding of 'no shadow of turning' is that there is not even a hint that He can or will turn, choose to do that He has chosen not to do, or change the way He is. It actually is a 'cannot' even thought the exact words are not used. When we look at Heb. 6:13-18, we see why God said that He does not change, "in order that by two unchangeable things, in which is it impossible for God to lie, we may have strong encouragement, we who have fled for refuge in laying hold of the hope set before us." These two immutable (unchangeable) things are 'the unchangeableness of His purpose' and 'an oath' (vs. 17) that 'He swore by Himself.' (vs 13) Not only is it 'impossible for God to lie,' but it is impossible because it is impossible for God to change His purpose, it is unable to be changed.
God's 'free will' is constrained by the immutability of His Purpose.
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