A.Suarez's Treatment on a Pope's Formulation for Original Sin's Transmission!

I would be thankful if you could expand a bit more on this.

In my view God knows all possible decisions human can do and assigns outcomes to these decisions. Through these outcomes (we know only partially) God guides the universe to the aim He has established. I don’t see why this action would violate divine omniscience.

I will try and make it clear by using some examples from physics.

We understand that the experiment (and the physicist) are an integral part of QM observations/measurements. In the classical sense however, the QM observations differ, and some then try to deduce outlooks on why this is so.

When we work within an absolute knowledge framework, as opposed to the possibilities facing human observers, we are left with the following:

  1. the experiment simply gives results not encountered in the classical world. A slit experiment at the QM level gives results that differ from the classical experiment. However, we may perform identical slit experiments at the QM level, and we will always be faced with similar, or identical results (albeit different from those of classical experiments. Thus we cannot conclude that God is somehow involved as an “extra” force or agent to produce new or unexpected results. The QM results will be “new” to the first experimentalist - but they are repeatable.

  2. similar reasoning would apply to entanglement, radioactive decay and so on. The human observer would encounter entanglement, the isotope will give radioactive decay and so on. We may be unable to produce a mathematical formula to give us absolute precision in some way, but the physicist is always bound by similar results for similar experiments.

If we assume God is involved in some personal manner, we would be forced to limit Him to a role as an extraordinary agent in the physicist’s world, and in this way diminish Him to a part of His creation (or in the case of QM, He would be a factor that causes the difference between the classical and QM experiments). This is theologically erroneous.

I think we would not “diminish God to a part of His creation” but rather assume He is sustaining His creation incessantly in the sense of Acts 17:28: “For in him we live and move and have our being.”

And this fits with what QM is teaching us: The visible world (including the “classical” one) cannot be coherently explained invoking exclusively material factors working causally within space and time.

All possible histories are present in God’s mind; however we remain free to choose the history we want to live. The evolutionary world can be considered a proof of God’s omniscience and wisdom: Such a world help us to realize that we cannot be like God on our own, and so it was wanted by God because it is convenient for the sake of Redemption in case humans sinned. Had humans not sinned, they would have remained endowed with spiritual capabilities strong enough to overcome the selfish evolutionary mechanisms and natural evil (illness, catastrophes, etc.).

But physics shows us there is a great deal more to understand re the creation - we are not seeing two worlds, the visible and the QM constitutes one world, and causality is perhaps more complicated then we may have thought. I am glad you mentioned Acts, as I read it to mean we cannot “contain” or place God is some area of our choosing or interest, nor do we read God’s mind.

Paul is showing all conforms to God’s will, and thus we should seek the Lord - He is close to us and yet we may choose to not see Him - yet in Him we live and move …

Acts 17:22-29 (KJV)
Ac 22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.

I may add nowadays, that God does not dwell in scientific laboratories.

Apparently your “lawful brain” was not “lawful” enough to coaxing you to endorse Dennett’s position!

Your unique experience (“it dawned on me”) makes plain the following: Brain’s functioning displays many “lawless” periods (say “quantum randomness”) allowing “free mind” to act and generate events that are completely unpredictable on the basis of memories stored in space-time (material “hard disks”). As you very well state: “We won’t find the authentic mind in our 3-dimensional world” (actually 4-dimensional, if we add time).

The brain is a device which does NOT generate consciousness but limit it through random functioning, mainly through sleep: Pure spirits like angels have no brains, they are always conscious and don’t sleep.

While we are awake “free mind” generate purposeful outcomes, meaningful information, as for instance this message I am writing now to you. This message is a sequence of bits (1 and 0). The physiological parameters of my brain impose a certain distribution of bits: e.g.: 40% of ‘1’ and 60% of ‘0’. This would be the quantum mechanical “law”, which allow us to predict the distribution. However there is no “law” allowing you to predict the order in which the bits are uttered, that is, the content of my message before you read it. Additionally, quantum physics establishes that the predicted distributions hold for a large number of outcomes (bits), but nothing is said about how large number of outcomes must be to be considered “large”.

Consequently, it is perfectly possible that the short sequence of bits my meaningful message consists in deviates from the quantum mechanical prediction for large sequences. By contrast while I sleep the short sequence of outcomes may brain produces displays the same distribution as that predicted by quantum mechanics.

Strictly speaking the (quantum mechanical long-term) “laws” governing our brains hold when we behave purposeless, especially while sleeping. By contrast when we act purposefully the short-term sequence of “outcomes” we produce deviate from the long-term “law”.

And this is also the reason why “miracles” do not break any “law of nature”.

Indeed. The message I try to convey is that scientific laboratories and the scientists therein dwell in God. In His mind are contained all possible experiments scientists can perform, to which He assigns convenient outcomes.

Paraphrasing this quotation I dare to claim:
God knew that humans could decide to sin, and in His mercy created an evolutionary world to facilitate humans to atone.

Actually God knew which humans would sin (that being all of us) and in His love prepared our redemption before the universe was even created.

Applying verb tenses to God really doesn’t make sense but it is all our time arrow bound mind can do.

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I think we agree on important theological teachings of the Christian faith, but we may differ on the emphasis we place on scientific knowledge within a theological context, be it QM or ToE. Salvation in Christ was predestined before time began and is after time ceases. As I have mentioned previously, no-one knows the mind of God, so discussing omniscience as some type of ideas in God’s mind, or knowledge on what may be possible as existing in God’s mind, are erroneous ways to discuss attributes of God.

I think I understand why you make the claim, but I must confess that I would not word it the way you have.

Agreed

I would like to add:

Since God created us really free, it was in principle possible that humans didn’t sin. Hence this scenario was also contained in God’s mind before the universe was even created.

Accordingly one could say that all possible histories are contained in God’s mind, but we freely select which history we want for us. Whichever choice we make, the creation will achieve the aim God’s wanted for it. We can only influence the path by which this aim is reached. But from God’s perspective all paths are equivalent in the end.

I am not a big fan of the concept of original sin. What happens is each of us are born in the state of original sinlessness. Our free choice to sin leads to our separation from God. While that is a free choice I believe it is one that everyone makes, with one exception of course. This makes Genesis not a story of a fall but a story of making the wrong choice and living with the consequences.

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The perfect description!

Nonetheless it is important to assert that God’s omniscience is NOT in contradiction with human free will. Hence we have to accept the two following declarations:

  • A:
    God knows certainly which humans will accept Redemption and become saved.

  • B:
    Nobody is predestined to be condemned.

Consider now the following claim:

  • C:
    God knows those who will be condemned.

If we maintain that C follows from A, then we fall into contradiction with B.
Consequently we have to accept that C does not follow from A, and maintain the following statement:

  • D:
    God does NOT know those who will be condemned.

In my view we can maintain D without denying God’s omniscience.

We need to agree that God predestined salvation through His Son before the creation.

With this, salvation is both foretold, and is also told every time we as human beings hear and understand the Gospel.

God also can see what is hidden within a man’s heart, The Gospel shows us Christ died to redeem all humanity. acceptance of this unconditional aspect of the Gospel is a choice we must make.

I am tempted to post a lengthy discussion on human freedom, and limitations of human understanding, but I will simply state that human freedom amounts to a person being totally him/her self, and without restraints from choosing good - the good from God, once chosen, amounts to a human being freely living according to the teachings of Christ.

Now, on what we in our ignorance think God knows - I am of the view that we cannot speak in any manner on knowledge of God - the essence of God, the trinity, and what is, are indistinguishable - this is another reason why Orthodoxy speaks of the essence of God as simple, total, and not compounded, and the energies of God as a separate way that creation came into being and is sustained by the Word of God. We are faced with an inexhaustible range of possibilities, but this is because we are part of the creation. This limits our insights.

To answer your step wise statements - if God wills that all who repent are saved, then there is nothing that we can add.

If the choice is FREE, then humans could really have chosen NOT to sin. Consequently God had certainly contemplated this possibility in His mind and had a plan for it.

Discussing this possibility more in detail may help us to develop a coherent view about the “original wrong choice and its consequences”.

We need to remember that Eve was tempted (and deceived) - this makes the choice different from the way we normally consider choice (by weighing the consequences and choosing freely). Thus Adam and Eve did not make an unrestricted free choice. i.e. [quote=“AntoineSuarez, post:149, topic:35442”]
If the choice is FREE, then humans
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Bill_II, the following answer was intended for your quotation above. Apologies.

If the choice is FREE, then humans could really have chosen NOT to sin. Consequently God had certainly contemplated this possibility in His mind and had a plan for it.

Discussing this possibility more in detail may help us to develop a coherent view about the “original wrong choice and its consequences”.

@AntoineSuarez,

Not if a slightly different premise is used: that sin comes with a lack of perfection.

Even WITH Free Will… can anyone really expect a person to always make the sinless choice? I hardly think so.

Conversely, I would be quick to assert that in the course of human history millions of human infants have died sinlessly.

We only have one example of a human that chose NOT to sin. All the rest of us did, have, and will chose to sin. The decision not to is in theory available, but just because it is available doesn’t mean anyone will actually make it.

Or not make it…

Depending on whether we mean make the decision not to sin… or , in reverse, make a sinful decision.

There are even those times when we think we have chosen the sin-free option… and because of an imperfect mind, we have not correctly identified the son free choice.

If while God created us, He discarded the possibility that we do not sin, then we were created without freedom and predetermined to make the choice of sin.

In my view the only way to save human free will is to assert that in God’s mind there are two possible histories of humanity: one with choice of sin, and another with sinless choice of love. For the first history (with sin) God “in His love prepared our redemption before the universe was even created”. For the second history (without sin) Redemption would not have been necessary, however God in His love could very well have decided to incarnate.

We have freely chosen to sin. Nonetheless from God’s perspective the two histories are equivalent since His aim for the Creation will be reached anyway.

In both histories Incarnation seems to be the completion of Creation, and becomes also way for Redemption in the history with sin.