“Does God want humans to sin?”
Years ago I used to leave pocket change lying around the house where anyone could see it. My
father, concerned for the constant temptation loose coins posed to his then-six-year-old grandson, suggested I should put them somewhere less obvious.
It wasn’t a
bad thought. After all, I didn’t want my son violating his conscience,
did I? Why tempt him unnecessarily?
A Quick Rethink
Then again,
by testing my son’s character in a controlled environment, perhaps I could
help him better prepare for the temptations he would later encounter in life. There is always money lying around somewhere in the world, inviting
shrewd people to make off with it ... IF they do not have well-ingrained convictions
about the morality of their actions and the effects of their behavior on
others. If my son could learn to experience temptation and reject it, perhaps that is an even better state to be in than
not having experienced temptation at all.
So our question
for today is not as silly as it may at first sound. Genesis 2:9 prompts it;
indeed, it makes it almost obligatory to consider it. Why put a tree in Eden,
the fruit of which mankind was never to eat? If God didn’t want humans to sin,
all he had to do was eliminate the option. Doesn’t the existence of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil in Eden at very least raise the possibility that
that God wanted the events of Genesis 3 to play out just as they did?
Sinning and Choosing
I’ve been
thinking about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for a very long time,
and the answer I’ve come to from my reading of God’s word is something like
this: God doesn’t want humans to sin,
but he definitely wants humans to choose.
And if conferring the ability to choose allows for the possibility of sin
occurring, God is willing to risk that possibility in order to enjoy the
company of creatures possessed of genuine agency; men and women capable of
intelligently examining the entire spectrum of possible options open to them,
then deliberately and lovingly choosing those which please God rather than
those which don’t.
If you want
your child to learn to share, it means you first have to give him something
others around him don’t have: a $20 bill, a chocolate bar, a set of toy
cars. But in doing so, you are allowing for the possibility that he is a horrid
little monster interested only in his own pleasures, and that he will end up
hoarding his treasures or flaunting them in the faces of other children. Your
little test could result in a demonstration of character that might be very
disappointing to a parent. On the other hand, the opportunity may result in
exactly the sort of happy outcome you are looking for. The only way your child
can demonstrate what sort of person he is inside is when you give him the
option of doing something desirable … or something quite undesirable. Both
options must be on the table in order for that demonstration to occur.
Who Needs to Know?
But another
consideration arises: If God knows already knows whether I will choose
good or evil, no real-world test is necessary. The marks for the entire class
are already in the hands of the teacher long before the exam is passed out.
So let’s
play with that “exam” analogy a bit. It is readily agreed that if the object of
taking an exam were only to inform the teacher how much each of his students
had learned, omniscient teachers would never give out exams. But providing data
to teachers is not the only object of exam-taking. We all know it doesn’t
end there: the next step after marking is always for the teacher to hand back
the marked exams to his students.
So then, one
further object of the exam is for the student
to find out how much he knows and how much he doesn’t, so he becomes aware of his
deficiencies and what he needs to do to remedy them (or, in a sadder situation,
why exactly he has failed his year and is being held back). Yet another purpose
for examining students is to grade them and rank them for third party observers.
And indeed, others around us have a stake in knowing how we are doing at choice-making.
Future wives care about the demonstrated character of potential husbands, and
vice versa. Future employers look for evidence of character that might prompt
them to choose one potential candidate over another. (I am not saying that
all the metrics used by employers in the present environment are wise or useful
ways of measuring potential on the job, of course, but the fact is that such
standards do exist; your level of education and your success or lack of success
in studying matter to human resources departments everywhere.)
Sure, the
omniscient teacher could just tell me what I would have done on the test,
and the omniscient teacher could tell all the relevant third parties how
I would have done. But I can tell you right now how I would feel
about that: not very good. The first thing out of my mouth when told I had
failed a test I had never taken would be this: “But it didn’t really happen!” And if I didn’t say it,
someone else would, because it’s a good point.
Justified in His Words
In order
for the results of a test to be indisputably fair and binding, they need to happen somewhere
other than just inside God’s mind. God knows this, and from the beginning he
has been interested not just in assessing men and judging their conduct, but in
demonstrating the appropriateness of his judgment to the world, “that
you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.” It is
not enough that judgment occur in private and be technically correct, but it is
also necessary for that judgment to be out there in the open where everyone can
see it and acknowledge its rightness and appropriateness.
If you want
to produce a truly loving human being, you have to allow for the possibility
that he will act hatefully. If you want to produce joy, you have to allow for
the possibility of bitterness. The effort to produce self-control admits the
chance that you might get crazed self-indulgence instead. Encouraging me to be
generous opens up the possibility that I may decide to hoard everything
I have been given.
So no, God
never wants humans to sin. But he does want us to choose, and he wants those
choices to be genuine and meaningful.
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