Board index ‹ God

[Wasabio]

Hey, I was having a conversation with a couple of buddies yesterday concerning God's responsibility for human actions and I did not know quite how to respond. There question was, essentially, "If God claims that he responsible for the good actions people perform, then why is he not responsible for the evil actions?" I came back with something along the lines of "we have to be able to choose to perform good actions or evil, and when we choose the latter, it is not God's responsibility but ours." But couldn't the same argument be made for good actions? They are not God's but ours? Or perhaps he is indirectly responsible for them, since he created in us with a capacity to good... which begs the question: who gave us the capacity to do evil? Hope you can shed some light on this.

[jimwalton]

> "If God claims that he responsible for the good actions people perform, then why is he not responsible for the evil actions?"

Let's start here. I don't think there's any warrant for saying God is responsible for our good actions. We have free will. He shows us what the good is, he invites us to do it, and he instructs us that doing the good is the better choice, but he is not responsible for the good actions people perform. We have free will to choose the good or the bad, the right or the wrong. If we were unable to choose the bad but were forced to choose only among the good options, that's not really free will. But the reverse is also true: if we couldn't freely have just as much option to choose the good by ourselves, that wouldn't be free will either.

God is responsible for instructing us in what is good, and he certainly has options to bless, test, discipline, or judge, but he is not responsible for the good actions we do. We are free agents.

> since he created in us with a capacity to good... which begs the question: who gave us the capacity to do evil?

Let me put it this way. God is uncreated, by definition. Anything created, therefore, is not God and is less than God. God is righteous and perfect, by definition. Anything created, therefore, has the capacity for unrighteousness and imperfection. In other words, our free will can go in both directions, while God's can't. Righteousness is His nature, not ours.

Therefore the option to do evil is intrinsic to our nature as being not-God. We have that capacity by requirement, since only God is righteous by nature.

Feel free to talk more.

[Wasabio]

> I don't think there's any warrant for saying God is responsible for our good actions.

Ah. I thought there was something wrong with the premise there. While good actions may reflect the nature of God, they are not directly caused by Him. Although I could see the argument being made that because he is the definition of good, then without him these "good" actions would not have even been possible, making him indirectly responsible for the existence of the "good" actions, but not the prosecution of such actions by a free being. If that makes sense.

> Anything created, therefore, has the capacity for unrighteousness and imperfection. In other words, our free will can go in both
directions, while God's can't. Righteousness is His nature, not ours.

But when we get to heaven we will not have the capacity for unrighteousness and imperfection, even though we still remain created beings. And we will still have free will, albeit not the same free will we have right now (it will be like the free will God has). Isn't this a counterexample to your argument?

Given this counterexample - If we are created beings in Heaven and have this divine sort of free will, then why didn't God just make us like that in the first place? I understand that if my counterexample is addressed, then your argument renders this question obsolete.

[jimwalton]

God is the definition of good, which does mean that he is responsible for the existence of good. Without God, there would be no such thing. But that doesn't mean, then, that he is the causal force behind every good action, making him responsible for those actions. Free agents bear both the responsibility and the accountability for their choices and actions.