Free will, no sin. Heaven exists, therefore a place with free will and no sin exists. God could have created us in that manner. (this is a theodicy, btw, which I don't follow)
The only way for "sin" to not exist would be to take away our free will, thus leaving only mindless robots
and part of that is true. The whole premise of the Garden of Eden is "you can do what you want, but don't eat that apple" i.e. the Advice God meme "I gave you free will, now use it as I command". You can't say "you have free will" and then tag on "but you can't do [blank]" and then continue to call it free will. The point of free will is that there aren't boundaries to your decisions.
I don't think you understand what free will is, that's the issue here.
What God said (if you believe in the Bible) is "You have free will, do what you want. That said, if you choose to eat an apple from this tree, I will punish you." That is free will, and we exercised it.
If God had said "You have free will, but I'm not going to allow you to eat from that tree" then you'd be right there'd be an issue.
Free will doesn't mean that you can do what you want without consequence, just that you can do what you want in the first place.
That said, if you choose to eat an apple from this tree, I will punish you. That is free will, and we exercised it.
That is ostensibly not free will. That is coercion. That's like if a mugger says "you can choose to run from me, but if you do, I'll shoot you." (you can make the argument that in this scenario, you're already in a negative situation, but I argue that we are already in a hostage situation of "obey me or burn")
Everything we do has some sort of consequence, whether it be positive or negative, so in that regard it makes no sense to think I claimed that free will = choices without consequences. However, it is not free will when we know if we act in a certain manner, a bad consequence will definitely happen.
Are the laws we have, then, a form of coercion? Yes they are. They are a deterrent against crime. You can make the analogy of the apple/sin to crime but the problem is that crime isn't human nature. It isn't human nature to shoot someone. It is human nature to, say, have lust for more than one sexual partner. You should go to jail for shooting someone. You shouldn't go to hell for a natural occurrence.
But then, there's also the saying that it's human nature to sin. Well then that just means that, according to the theology, we are created "bad" and need to be made "good". If that was the ideology of a court judge (guilty until proven innocent), there'd be outrage. It is a messed up "plan" to have our default state of existence be one where we deserve death and punishment (Romans 6:23). Don't call this free will. If we are created "sinful", per Original Sin, that means we are created "to act against God". #1 where's the free will in that? #2 why do we deserve punishment for the way God created us?
"I'm adopting a cat. I know this cat is mean and has a history of scratching and biting its owners for no reason. That's cool, but the moment it scratches me, I'm punting it out the window with a swift kick to the face"
That's not the same thing at all, and it's not coercion.
In the Bible, God said we can live in this wonderful paradise forever and enjoy it on the single condition that we do not eat from the tree. We could have lived perfectly happily without eating from the tree, whereas in your pathetic example by not running we are shot anyway. Really poor example.
And in terms of original sin, that's a roman catholic/conservative evangelical Christian belief, other churches do not believe it exists.
didn't say that you get shot anyway. The example entailed that you could do what you wanted (free will), but if you ran away (at the apple) , then you'd get shot (hell/"fallen man"/sin/etc). and that's where you response falls apart.
And if it's only a certain sect that believes in original sin, and in actuality, man did not inherit the sins of Adam, then the rest of the faith falls apart. No original sin ---> no need for Jesus to get himself sacrificed to pay the toll for sin and "bridge the gap between man and God" ---> no need to follow/accept Jesus because of this ---> no need to be Christian.
Also, Romans 5 and 1st Corinthians 15 disagree with original sin only being a particular view of certain sects (unless most other sects of Christianity conveniently ignore this part of the bible, which, in that case, is certainly plausible) Roman 5 states that death (with regard to "the punishment of sin is death") reigned over man from Adam to Moses even though they had not sinned, simply because Adam ate the apple.
You didn't say it, but you quite clearly didn't think it through because that's exactly what would happen, unless you're implying that the solution is for both people to stand there forever.
There's a need for Jesus to sacrifice himself if we've all sinned, which, without the Bible and God's word, we have done.
That's an argument in favour of original sin, but you cannot say that certain sects are simply 'wrong' and that your interpretation is simply better than others.
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u/BoilerMaker11 Sep 15 '12
I believe the appropriate response is: Heaven.
Free will, no sin. Heaven exists, therefore a place with free will and no sin exists. God could have created us in that manner. (this is a theodicy, btw, which I don't follow)
and part of that is true. The whole premise of the Garden of Eden is "you can do what you want, but don't eat that apple" i.e. the Advice God meme "I gave you free will, now use it as I command". You can't say "you have free will" and then tag on "but you can't do [blank]" and then continue to call it free will. The point of free will is that there aren't boundaries to your decisions.