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Question of the Week 6 - Why did God allow us to disobey?

Breakpoint Parents Guide 1

This question has a simple answer from BreakPoint: God has made us free and responsible moral agents. The introduction of evil's possibility is the condition of our being free and responsible, both the gift and the price of human dignity.

I agree with that perspective. Each person is an integral part of the universe and his/her actions affect his/her environment just as he/she is affected by it.

However if we are free and responsible beings then there can be no master plan and there must be no intervention by God in human affairs. A master plan implies all decisions and events were already known so they were not free. With a master plan, one's destiny is determined before birth so that person is not responsible for one's own fate.

If God intervenes for someone to reduce their suffering, perhaps caused by their own decision(s) or perhaps as a consequence of an unethical decision by another, then that means by omission God is not relieving the suffering of all others that did not benefit from intervention. In that case people are not responsible for their conditions because God is.

Therefore God allows us to disobey because He cannot participate in our lives. If He acts then our lives become meaningless because our lives are subject to the whims of His actions.

The original link in case the article ever returns to Breakpoint:

(http://www.pfm.org/Content/ContentGroups/BreakPoint/Columns/ Worldview_for_Parents/200311/Question_of_the_Week6.htm)


created - Dec. 2004
last change - 12/30/2004
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