If God hates sin, why would he create humans with a propensity to sin?

Faith & Science Conversation
61

Incorrect. The point of natural law is that God runs the universe with fixed mathematical laws (easy to predict and manipulate) and not according to whim. It is demonstrable that these natural laws are discoverable by the methods of science.

If all you mean to say is these laws of nature are not something which exist by necessity but are created by God then I certainly agree. But I very much disagree if you mean the laws of nature are only mathematical because God is mathematical (easy to predict and manipulate). No. The laws of nature are mathematical because God employed a principle of automation in running the universe. And He did so because this is a building block of the phenomenon of life and free will.

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62

Interesting that you say “incorrect” but then just restate what you call incorrect.

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63

Incorrect. I explained why what you said was incorrect. Natural law is NOT just a human term for “how God runs the universe.” Natural law says something about how God runs the universe. It was like responding to an explanation of commutative property of addition by saying that this is just another term for arithmetic. Just as the commutative property speaks to how we do arithmetic, natural laws points to how science can discover these laws without talking about God at all.

If you are going to nitpick then you should be prepared for nitpicking in return.

64

That’s what I said. You called it incorrect.

That’s not relevant, any more than talking about how a car performs on the highway has to mention the driver.

If natural law is anything but how God runs the universe, the implication is that someone else is involved in running the universe.

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65

I think the problem is the use of the word “runs”. It implies a control that most of us do not think God employs.

It is one thing to have mechanisms in place that function, and another for Him to be controlling those mechanisms on a daily or even minutia basis.

Richard

66

God planned ahead. Evolution results in a deep set, wired in interest in staying alive and producing offspring. Every Single Ancestor managed those two things. God’s universe was implicit in the opening verses of Genesis - we learn that God invented time, space, matter, and light. The Holy Spirit writing over Moses’ shoulder, so to speak, is winking at the age of science, which has named Day One of Creation the Big Bang.
Evolution is God’s tool. It produced beings capable of moral awareness, or in other words In His Own Image. In the 20th Century a famous novel introduced the concept of a Catch-22. God’s equivalent of that was to meet holy perfect righteousness (justice) that met the demand, blood payment for unholiness (sin), with holy perfect mercy in the form of Jesus. He “showed up in the flesh” and became sin in our place. Psalm 22 depicts crucifixion with agonizing clarity, yet ends with reconciliation. Jesus “read it into the record” by uttering the opening line of that psalm, “My god, my god, why have you rejected me?” so that later generations would see the connection. Grace brings reconciliation between sinful souls and Holy God.
“Propensity” is the same as “ability to choose.” In fact inability to feel emotion (medical records, a man who lost a tiny connection area in the brain could no longer feel emotion, was sent to the store to buy cookies, and had to be rescued hours later because "none of the spoke to me, I couldn’t choose) shows that emotion runs everything - we learn civilized behavior because our sins disturb our parents. We learn not to incur wrath. We fail to understand that God’s wrath is far more comprehensive than that of our parents. Only Jesus can embody being cast out from God’s presence and paying a blood debt on behalf of every human that ever has lived, does live, and/or will live.
God’s universe is ancient beyond our ability to grasp. It is vast, massive, energetic, and so forth, well beyond our ability to grasp. Its tiniest inner workings are ditto. God created a mechanically perfect universe, so utterly perfect not only does evolution serve His purpose, but abiogenesis as well. ((ask yourself how perfect it would be if abiogenesis were somehow left out of the original design))
Net net, the “propensity to sin” arises from our ability to choose, plus our imperfection as an evolved species.
Go back 3.5 million years and our forbears walked upright but looked and acted just about identically to what we see today in a chimpanzee. So what? Nothing frustrates God’s purpose. We can reason, we can perceive ourselves enough to know our own faults, and in general we are able to see ourselves, very dimly, as God sees us. In short, we are “in God’s image” in that we know right from wrong. That is a major point in the story of Adam and Eve - knowing right from wrong proves out own sinfulness, and primes us to worship Jesus or Lord for the gift of Grace. God is LOVE. Cleansed souls are the entire purpose of the universe.

67

Since God does not have a speaking role in cosmology, subatomic physics, or any other pursuit of science, clearly the universe operates as designed. Science studies the design and marvels at that beauty.
The key (in my own opinion) is that facts are devoid of morality, purpose, meaning, value, or any other such thing. Truth and fact do not live on the same street. I use “truth” not to cover what 2+2 is, but how that sum weighs on spirit - taxes are numeric, paying them is fraught with meaning. Sums lack relevance outside a human context - a school exam, a budget, and the like.
God is spirit. Soul involves God attaching spirit to matter such as when sperm and egg merge to form a new single-celled human.
Death of the material being detaches that spirit, thence to judgment. Science has, for instance, no immediate answer for Near Death Experiences (NDEs.) These occur in every culture and every religious milieu. Christianity has no patent on the bright white tunnel. Since science (so far) has not leverage whatsoever to peer into and explain this phenomenon, NDEs serve as a good way to reconcile matter and spirit as separately observable phenomena.
Analogy - thousands of engineers perfect the design of an automobile, as well as the machinery (robots) that make a million copies of their design. The engineers do not “run” the auto. It runs itself, with a few nudges from the spirit (driver.) Why should we require God to pull strings on every quark, lepton, meson, gluon, etc. in the universe? It was designed to a purpose. All glory to the Creator who brought it into being.

68

So, soft deism.

69

So, soft pantheism.

71

… almost as bad as yours about soft deism.

It is like calling white… soft black.

Deism is the belief that God does not interact with the universe. Either He does or He does not. There is no in-between. Making the universe nothing but God’s dream (where everything is just God and nothing else) is not the opposite of Deism – that is more a version of pantheism or panentheism.

72

Evolution? maybe. (scientific) TOE? No. There is none of God in TOE. TOE could not produce anything specific. It does not have that sort of control.
There is no mechanism in TOE to produce moral control. Morality would not appear to be a genetic trait. Morality goes beyond instinct, in fact it contradicts it.
If humanity is indeed unique in creation for having a moral code then something caused that beyond a simple genetic deviation. Then there is at least one means of change that science has not identified, even if it is not God. Which makes TOE incomplete at best.

Richard

73

This statement is false. If anything, the reverse is true. For instance the basic question Is GOD Good or evil? Since the vast majority of people hold on to life as good, then life must be good. The proof is in the pudding Since GOD is the Author of life, GOD must then be Good.

Good conversation, everyone, but first I think that we must address the initial question. If God hates sin why would He create humans with a propensity to sin? If humans have a propensity to sin, they also have a propensity to love. Humans have the freedom of choice unlike other creatures which makes us humans.

No ability to sin means no ability to love. No ability to sin means no free choice. No free choice means no humanity. GOD creates human because GOD loves us, loves the sinner, hates the sin…

There are two kinds of evolution. one is deterministic and the other is not. Darwinian evolution is mechanistic, competitive, and deterministic. It does not involve freewill.
Ecological evolution, taught by the National He4ographic Socierty, is organic, interdependent, and nondeterministic. It involves freewill. GOD uses ecological evolution give humans freewill.

74

Science merely follows the evidence without imposing theological or philosophical preferences – it is how it discovers new things nobody expects. Saying God cannot use scientific evolution is like saying God cannot use a building or book that doesn’t have the word God written in it. God can use whatever He chooses. This sounds to me an awful lot like your attempt to control God and make Him your exclusive tool.

Do you also say… there is none of God in medicine?

Your exclusion of God from anything which does not include people preaching God all the time only reveals your lust to put religionists in charge of the world. Over and over again we see you preference for a medieval society ruled by inquisitors demanding ecclesiastic control over everything.

That is not the scientific TOE, that is some strawman built from Darwinist philosophy which chants “survival of the fittest.” But when you follow the evidence, you know that the greatest advances in evolutionary history come from the evolution of communities which always produces moral control over the individual so it can cooperate with others.

Incorrect. In herd and social animals morality is instinctual. The correct observation is that morality in human beings CAN go beyond instinct and yes even contradict it. That is because we have a mind which governs us with ideas… ideas which can not only give us morality contrary to instinct but also give us immorality contrary to instinct. This is in fact one of the dangers of religion gone bad (take for example the Jim Jones cult).

75

This is a simple misreading of the fact that natural selection IS adaptation. Control is an illusion. Perhaps I would understand you better if you could point to what you call “control.”
Yes, morality arises - - - because it provides a healthier group environment. Groups with altruistic members outcompete those that do not. There is a case to be made that, below a certain level of perception, altruism is not selectable. The difference in brain areas includes the prefrontal cortex, unique to humanity. This area actually supports the development of some limited (initially) forms of altruism because other group members connect the altruism of others as a benefit to be protected. One of the hallmarks of human development is seen in fossils showing broken limbs that have healed - a sign of care for the wounded.
“Morality goes beyond instinct, in fact it contradicts it.” This is simplistic, and doesn’t survive close examination - see immediately above.
I treasure these exchanges, Richard.

76

TOE is based on a random generation of deviations, right?

Now whatever your definition of random is, it is not predictable, or in anyway controlled, as in the nature or timing of any deviation. Therefore the can be no specific direction in development. Each change is a one off, and survives or not according to survival pressures.
There is no goal. There is no consciousness. There is no specific direction. If the change is advantageous it stays, if not it does not. And in theory the same change could recur again and again or never be repeated, You cannot predict it. Therefore it is out of control.
For God to use this He has completely relinquished any control of the results. It is not even a watchmaker, letting go, because a watch is itself being controlled buy its make up. There is no such control in TOE.
People talk about the development of limbs as if it is deliberate. That nature is building them. But that is not TOE. There is no logical sequencing. The necesary nerves to control the new limb may never be “found”. A deviation that is appropriate in one situation will not work in another and there is no means to insure the right change happens at the right time.

TOE does not care what it makes. There is no Love. There is no specific creating. it is soul less, mindless, and completely chaotic. No matter what view of God you have, I doubt that you would call Him Soul less, mindless and chaotic. IOW the mechanisms of TOE are an antithesis of how we view God. For God to use TOE in the form science claims God is no longer being God.

What has that got to do with it?

I mam not talking about medicine. I am only talking about TOE. And that is a very specific view of evolution.

Sigh,

It has nothing to do with me or anyone else trying to control,or dictate. That is just religious intollerance.

I wonder where you have seen this? Not from me.

Waat has human intollerance got to do with the mechanisms that control evolution?

So where is the morality in a hive of bees?
We have shown that nearly every creature has some sort of communication ability, so why does it not develop morality?
Chimps have show traits that we would call immoral, like prostitution, THey also show care within the community, but is that morality or just beneficial to the survival of the community. Morals are indepenent of survival, or self preservation

And where do those ideas come from? genetics?

We don’t even know what generates any particular thought. There is a point where the physical explanation is not enough. Science cannot identify motivation or philosophical elements of development. Thee i no obvious data to record or manipulate.

To understand what I am talking about you have to understand the principles behind the system. It is like understanding how a petrol engine works but not being able to dissect it (and rebuild it) or tune and adjust it. You have to understand the balance of fuel and air and exhaust and… You have to understand the principles that control an engine. And what happens if you change one part.

You change the way deviations are generated in TOE and you change the dynamics. If God is making the changes then it survives by His will and not due to natural forces (forces not directly from God) or survival.

People here know the mechanics of evolution, but are unable to look beyond that. Which is why they throw up medicine or cosmology or gravity. As if all science works the same! Evolution has a specific dynamic that is incomparable to the forces that govern gravity, or the identifying of disease.

TOE is incompatible with the identified (Believed) Nature of God. It is not the He can’t use it, just that if he did He would no longer be showing the trait of Love or have any say in what He was creating.

I guess ,at the end of the day it depends on your definition of God, which opens a completely new can of worms.

Lets just say that My definition of God is a loving one who cares for His people. That includes how they are made, and the parts that make them up, IOW He would specify them. TOE cannot do that. That is why I think God cannot use TOE (NB TOE not evolution in general)

Richard

77

What mechanism(s) do you propose God used instead?

78

No idea

You won’t be able to identify them anyway

Richard

79

He used the same providential means that he uses to answer prayer. Yes, they are scientifically undetectable, and they do not break any natural laws.

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80

You are the one equating a failure to mention God with an absence of God. God isn’t mentioned in medicine any more than it is in TOE.

When you treat something without equity that is called prejudice and a double standard. Why is God incapable of using evolution but still capable of using medicine when God is no more mentioned in medicine that in TOE?

Logical coherence requires the one thing which should not be tolerated is intolerance. Guarding against an intolerance of science and evolution is not intolerance.

What has a mention of God in medicine or TOE have to do with whether God can use them?

Bees sacrifice their life for the safety of the hive when they sting.

Why do you suggest it does not? Just because it is not our morality doesn’t mean it isn’t morality.

You mean like humans then?

So your argument that morality cannot come from selection for survival advantage is to define morality as something which does not come from survival advantage? :roll_eyes:

Humans are certainly different. They are not just biological organisms. They have a whole other system of needs and inheritance in the mind and language.

It comes from a great variety of things: invention and communication from others (which some like myself believe includes God).

Why should an explanation for the origin of our biology have to identify motivation or philosophical elements any more than an explanation of chemistry and physics? Its like expecting a printing press to explain where the ideas of a book came from.

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