Thursday, April 9, 2009

The Implications of God and Free Will

I received this predictable answer from a creationist earlier today:

> It was man's choice to bring sin into the world.
> They disobeyed.

This is precisely the response that creationists give to any question when they are pushed into a corner. But it is surely very superficial.

Certainly free choice has good and bad implications. But this answer is simply the sort of mindless nonsense that creationism so strongly encourages.

We are often referred to as God's children. Therefore it is reasonable to compare God's actions with how good, responsible human parents treat their children.

A good parent will allow their children to use their free will. They let them try things and fail on occasion.

Parents let their children play in playgrounds knowing full well that those children will likely get the occasional skinned knee or bruised elbow.

But responsible parents don't let their children play with loaded handguns. The potential for serious injury and even death for small children playing with guns is too high to allow that.

Why isn't such an analogy applicable to God's involvement in human activities? Why did God create the physical laws such that atomic bombs are possible? Since God can do ANYTHING presumably it would be possible to create the universe such that those bombs wouldn't be conceivable.

So why did God do that?

Isn't that quite analogous to an irresponsible parent leaving loaded handguns around?

There might be an answer to that question. But the superficial, kneejerk response: "Man fell and thereby created sin" is NOT that answer.

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