Does God will sin?

Does God will sin?

We must not be intolerant of homosexuality, a correspondent remarked to me some months back, because God is omnipotent and therefore everything in this world is as he wants it to be, including the behavior of homosexuals. I begged to disagree. Here is the exchange:

Correspondent to LA:
The electorate clearly wants being gay to be a private matter: no special rights, no special burdens. The electorate does not “approve” of being gay, but it doesn’t want people persecuted for it either. Republicans will lose votes if they take any other position. They will gain votes if they defend the culture against efforts to obtain special rights and privileges for gays (including same-sex marriage and the “right” to serve in the armed forces).
I was in my 40s before I knew anyone personally who I knew to be gay, so I have led something of a sheltered life. However, to state the obvious, being gay can’t be a choice—no one would choose it. It seems to me that the essence of being gay is that you are turned on sexually by members of your own sex. I don’t think that anyone has any conscious control of what turns us on sexually—I sure don’t. So what, exactly, do Conservatives want gay people to do (this is not a rhetorical question)?
I was raised a Roman Catholic. The Catholics believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, eternal (not in time) God. If you postulate such a Creator, then you are forced by simple logic to the conclusion that everything about this world is exactly the way He wants it to be (although obviously not necessarily the way we want it to be). This includes gays. So, as we struggle to create the future we want (He already knows how it will all come out), it is a little weird to tell ourselves that we are doing it for Him. Obviously, He can look after His own interests, and presumably has.
LA to correspondent:
According to your reasoning, when someone commits murder, God wants him to do it. Puleeze.
It is totally offbase to believe that Christianity says that everything that happens in the world is God’s will. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray, “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” The obvious implication is that God’s will is NOT ordinarily being done on earth.
Correspondent to LA:
Think about the meanings of these words and their implications. I am well aware that Catholic doctrine maintains that God needs our help in making His world the way He wants it to be, but this is (at least to me) obviously nonsensical if the Creator is omnipotent, omniscient and eternal. You can maintain one position or the other, but not both. And yes, God “wants” murders to occur—otherwise they would not. But we don’t, and therefore use our free will to do our best to stop them as our points of consciousness move through the time that God sees all at once. (“Free Will” and “Predestination” are not logically inconsistent. They are a matter of the point of view adopted.)
BTW, I am not saying that “Christianity” says that everything that happens is God’s will. It definitely says no such thing. But, as I say, Christian doctrine in this area is hopelessly at odds with the Christian belief in an omnipotent, omniscient and eternal God. This does not (at least to me) invalidate Christianity as a guide to living a good and moral life. I have no problem with the idea that God wants us to fight against evil, even though He obviously created it for reasons of His own.
LA to correspondent:
Among other things, you are failing to make the fundamental distinction between God’s plan and God’s will. (I forget the theological term for this idea.) God creates a world in which evil can occur, but it is not God’s WILL that evil occur. God’s will is wholly good.
You’ve also missed the basic idea of freedom, that God created man free to choose. Once man is created he is an independent being who is free to use his freedom to turn away from God. That’s why Christ had to enter the world, to bring man and the creation back to the Creator.
You are taking the word “omnipotent” in a literalist sense suggesting that if a murder is committed, God wants it to be committed. I don’t know where you got such a notion but it certainly wasn’t from the Church or from any of the Church fathers.
Corresondent to LA:
I know the doctrine, but step back for a moment and look at the whole system from God’s point of view. Obviously, all of this: Good, Evil, us, them, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, heterosexuality, homosexuality, is designed to serve some purpose of His. What is it? Why create the world this way rather than some other way?
I’ll leave it there.
LA to correspondent:
God is God. He is not involved in evil at all. The universe comes out of him, with its ultimate destiny being to return consciously to him. But once this universe and the creatures in it come into existence, they create their own evil false actions. But God knows nothing of that. He does not will it. He only sees us in the light of his perfect children whom he wants us to become. That’s who we really are, that’s our real being, our real destiny. God exists in the realm of the real. All the evil we engage in is the result of our turning away from God. It is not ultimately real because it does not partake of God’s being.
As Augustine said, evil does not come from good, evil is the absence of good. Since being comes from God, evil is the absence of being. That’s why it’s not a contradiction to say that “omnipotent omniscient God” neither wills evil nor knows evil.
The notion that God creates evil or wills evil is incompatible with Christianity.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 05, 2003 01:59 PM | Send

Comments

Perhaps one example would be Balaam. First he’s told by God, “Thou shalt not go with them [Balak and the Moabites].”

But after Balak persists, Balaam asks God yet again if he may go with them, even though he’s already learned the mind of God on the matter.

“And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them … And God’s anger was kindled because he went…”

Num 22. God revealed his _directive_ will the first time, but as Balaam still wanted to go anyway, God made known his _permissive_ will, what he would allow — with any consequences resulting therefrom.

Namely — “Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.”

The important point is that in every case where God’s will appears to be thwarted, His purposes ends up being carried out anyway. Thus, Balaam was ‘hired’ to curse the people, but ended up blessing them. :-)

There are of course many other examples of this throughout the Scriptures, but this is always the one that I think of when the subject is raised.

Posted by: Joel on October 5, 2003 4:09 PM

“Why create the world this way rather than some other way?”

Ah, the problem of evil comes up again.

Other worlds presumably can be (and perhaps are) created. But only this world produced me; and I am a contingent product of this world’s precise history including all of the evil things in it.

So this world was literally made just for me, because God loves me, and it has all of the logically necessary flaws that are antecedent to and constitutive of me. The evil in the world is something that is necessary FOR ME to exist; it has nothing existentially to do with God, and everything existentially to do with ME. For me to express the wish “I wish God had not created anything with evil in it” is to ask for my own death, and for the retroactive destruction of everyone and everything in *this* world.

Put differently, Voltaire’s critique of Liebnitz suffered from a lack of perspective. This is most certainly the best of all possible worlds _for me_, because it is the only one in which I arise from the dust at all. Even the baby in the dumpster (and his friend Candide) is better off to exist and ultimately come to experience the Beatific Vision than to have not existed at all. Indeed all the things that are precedent to the Beatific Vision are as nothing; a thousand years of constant suffering would be (and perhaps will be) an immaterial price to pay.

Posted by: Matt on October 5, 2003 11:32 PM

I’m not coming at this as a Christian. I no longer think that everything is good. Typical of Buddhists I regard good as whatever leads away from suffering and sickness, so the degree to which homosexuality will harm the health society is the degree to which it is bad. On the other hand, the sum of reality must be perfect. Parts taken in isolation are necessarily imperfect by virtue of being parts. Ordinary conciousness involves a lot of contraries, like I am *not* happy. This is *not* bliss. On the other hand perfection implies a state where there are no contraries at all, including *no imperfection*. Therefore reality taken as a whole is perfect and has no parts to be imperfect. But if we are not one with that reality we have no business declaring every *thing* to be perfect.

Posted by: Sporon on October 6, 2003 12:15 AM

Sorry that came out as a scrambled mess. My thoughts are very clear, but my writing ended up being a mess, because i typed that out very quickly and hit send. In buddhism the very existance of things within conciousness implies Samsara which is a state of imperfection. So I was attempting to say that saying “reality is perfect; therefore everything i see is perfect.” is actually an incorrect argument. I’m not saying that my comments are welcome on this blog but I’m trying to explain my own perceived wrongess of a position which some people take based on wrong knowledge.

Posted by: Sporon on October 6, 2003 12:24 AM

I have no idea what Sporon means. Did I or anyone say “Reality is perfect; therefore everything i see is perfect”?

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on October 6, 2003 12:34 AM

No, but its an argument commonly used by homosexuals to defend their lifestyle (e.g. “God doesn’t make mistakes so homosexuality cannot be wrong”). Its also an argument used in many other contexts. Not that I am taking a definitive position on the wrongess/rightness of homosexuality.

Posted by: Sporon on October 6, 2003 12:38 AM

Calvinism holds that evil has a part in God’s plan (after all, He foreknew the Fall of Man, but created man anyway), and that everything that occurs on Earth happens in accordance with God’s will, yet nevertheless, humans are simultaneously 100% morally responsible for their actions, and thus 100% accountable for them, too. So when we sin, we are going against what God would have us do, and it that sense against His will, yet all events occur with divine concurrence. (This seems self-contradictory to most non-Calvinists, and even to Calvinists like myself it can seem so, too; but we hold this inability to comprehend this to merely be a human limitation, one which God, being omnipotent and the Creator of all things, obviously transcends…)

The bottom line is, as Mr. Auster ably pointed out, Mr. Auster’s correspondent is wrong; gays, (or would-be rapists, would-be murderers, alcoholics, etc.) do have a choice, despite their inclinations, to not engage in gay sex (just as would-be rapists don’t have to rape, would-be murderers don’t have to kill, alcoholics don’t have to drink, etc.).

As Joel said, “in every case where God’s will appears to be thwarted, His purposes ends up being carried out anyway”.

Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Posted by: Will S. on October 6, 2003 1:47 AM

One more thing, by way of clarification and/or explanation - it is true that we Calvinists don’t believe in free will; but we do believe in free agency, the ability to make moral choices. Our lack of free will pertains to our inability to choose Christ unless our eyes are first opened to the true nature of our spiritual condition; God has to act first. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t responsible if we don’t choose to follow Christ, or for any other moral decision, either - the gay man is morally responsible when he chooses to indulge in homosexual acts.

Posted by: Will S. on October 6, 2003 1:53 AM

Is gay LOVE a sin as the bible never once comments on gay love as being wrong at all.

BRIAN

Posted by: brian on February 17, 2004 11:55 AM