#1007 Inevitable Sin?

Dr. craig’s response

I suspect that many Christians are troubled by similar doubts, Daniel, because their theology is infected with the sort of necessitarianism that characterizes your question. Over and over again, words like “inevitable,” “necessary,” “unable,” and so on, crop up in your question. These words betray a necessitarianism that I would reject.

So I would deny right off the bat your claim that “God has knowingly and deliberately created the specific conditions in which people inevitably choose to sin.” You need to excise the word “inevitably.” God created the conditions in which people would freely choose to sin, not in which they inevitably sin. (I hope that you are not laboring under the delusion of theological fatalism, according to which everything foreknown by God necessarily happens.) Again, you should not characterize the circumstances in which God holds us morally responsible as “conditions that make sin more likely or inevitable.” Yes, they can make sin more likely, but they do not make it inevitable. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (I Corinthians 10.13). The circumstances in which God holds you morally accountable for your choices are always freedom-permitting circumstances (or the result of freedom-permitting circumstances).

You recognize that “a sinless world may not have been feasible or more preferable for God to create.” But then you fallaciously infer, “if that is the case, then sin seems to be a necessary part of this world.” No, there may be an indefinite number of sinless possible worlds that are infeasible for God. So sin is not a necessary part of the actual world. If people were to choose differently, as they are able to do and as God wants them to do, then there would have been a sinless world. People by their own free choices help to determine which world is actual.

If “God knew that under these conditions individuals would be evil, . . . then why hold humanity responsible?” Because they freely choose to resist God’s grace and disobey Him, thereby incurring moral guilt, which is deserving of punishment.

“Are humans freely capable of achieving sinless perfection on their own in this world?” Of course not! Only God is morally perfect. God does not require us to achieve moral perfection, which is probably metaphysically impossible for finite creatures, but simply to live sinlessly. Humans cannot even live sinlessly on their own without God’s help. But as we have seen, God promises His help in every morally significant circumstance.

If humans are not capable of achieving sinless perfection, “then how can they be justly condemned for sin?” Because living sinlessly does not require perfection. Think of the story of Adam and Eve prior to their fall into sin. They were innocent but not morally perfect. God is not “like someone commanding you to have perfect vision,” since He does not command us to be morally perfect.

What about the atonement? By now I think you realize that I deny that God knowingly put in place the very conditions and circumstances “which lead to the inevitable failure” to meet His standard (which is not in any case moral perfection). Rather, in every morally significant set of circumstances in which we find ourselves, God supplies sufficient grace to avoid sin.

Finally, concerning the tragedy of apostasy (which I agree is possible), certainly God knew that in certain circumstances people would freely turn away from Him, but I emphatically deny that these circumstances present obstacles that “they couldn’t handle” and a standard that “they are unable to meet.”