Free Will and the Eradication of Sin at the Second Coming

A million years post-Second Coming will it be impossible to break God’s law and sin in an otherwise perfect, sinless universe ? Since we have God-given free will won’t it be theoretically possible to break Gods law thus rebooting the power struggle between Good and evil again?

Let’s hope goodness and loyalty to God’s Laws of Life endure ad infinitum but if Evil and rebellion against God’s control of his beautiful creation reappear would Jesus Christ or another member of the Triune Godhead sacrifice himself on a future—newly created—Garden of Eden inhabited by an artless ‘Adam and Eve’ couple to once again restore order to our universe?

Redefining God

If God is sometimes perceived by some unbelievers, as well as believers, as not being as good as we'd like him to be, then we have to be as good as we think he should be. Sometimes we attribute to God partial blame for the unpleasant experiences we see all around us, e.g., suffering, death, hunger, poverty, etc. While it is true that he doesn't cause these terrible things, he allows them since he could prevent them if he wanted to. Or he could have avoided all of them by not creating the world and humanity in the first place.

I wouldn't save the entire human population--the good with the evil--if I were God, but I'd give them a million life times to make a decision in my favor. If after a million life times they still would not want to love me, I'd give them a million more chances. At some point they would tire out of having to do it all over again, and they would throw up their hands and say, "Okay, you win, I'm on your side, as well." 

On the other hand, I'd be unfeeling, in a sense, to allow someone who made some truly horrific mistakes in his or her lifetime, e.g., Hitler, Stalin, Nero, etc., to live again and again, with the possibility that they might well make the same kind of mistakes time after time. Perhaps there is some benevolence after all in letting individuals only live once and make a choice for good or evil.

On the other hand, I would never destroy what I have created. It would be an admission that I had made a mistake in creating mankind in the first place. And, of course, we know that God does not make mistakes. Otherwise he would not be God.

Or perhaps there are other explanations like the traditional Great Controversy theme that Joseph Bates developed and Ellen White wrote about in the book of the same name. In that explanation as to why there exists good and evil in this world, it boils down to man possessing freedom of choice. 

Another factor put forth in the Great Controversy theme is that the other created intelligences in heaven and other worlds need to know that God is a God of love and who will not destroy those he's created in his image. He provided a way out for those who rebelled against him by coming and suffering in their place the death that should have been theirs at a great risk to himself. God, in the person of Jesus Christ, could have failed in his mission to live a sinless life in place of sinful humanity. Had he failed it would have been an imaginable disaster on a cosmic scale:  the very creator of the universe doomed to eternal oblivion for violating his own moral law. Few mention this unthinkable potential result of Christ's sacrifice in becoming God with Us.

Other explanations as to why we live in an imperfect world have, no doubt, been put forward by philosophers, theologians and scientists, and by other individuals who are perplexed by the inconsistencies of life as we see it.

In spite of these observations, I still choose to live my life with a desire to know God and to seek his face. It's better than looking at reality through totally humanistic eyes.

Postmodern Belief

A wonderful being such as God should exist, must exist and, therefore, does exist.

God exists because one chooses for him to exist.

For those who choose for God not to exist, he simply does not exist.

Whether he exists or not is immaterial.

The choice is yours.

Now one can go on enjoying life with this new found belief, a belief of choice.

God and free will, part 2

Since God is truly a free being is it possible that in the same way that he was free to give the moral law, the 10 commandments and other laws associated with them, he could also take them away, or at least some of them? Yes the bible says that God does not change. The bible also says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

But if it is impossible for God to undo a law that he gave on Mt. Sinai, i.e., the 10 commandments or any part of them, is he then not free? Is he forever bound by his own inherent goodness and resoluteness of purpose in having given those 10 commandments?

Of course, most if not all, of those commandments are an expression of himself. It is said that God is love. I, personally, wouldn't want "thou shalt not kill" or honor thy father and thy mother . . ." to ever be done away with. But could not God, if he wasn't feeling so "jealous" as the bible says he was in giving the commandment about not having "other gods before [him]", decide well, he would prefer that the creatures he created only worshipped him, but if they wanted to worship other gods, for whatever reason, then they have been given free will, and could possibly worship other gods as long as they did not harm each other or themselves? Of course, this is only hypothetical. In ancient Israel, and in modern applications of the command against idolatry, there is more to worshipping idols than bowing down and focusing your fondest thoughts on graven images, etc. There were the orgies and such that probably was the main, though not the only, alluring aspect of idolatry, then and now.

The commandment about the day of rest is another one that, theoretically, he could decide, well, six thousand years ago that one day was set aside to commemorate either creation or freedom from slavery, but if those he had created wanted to worship him on another day, or--not worship him on any given day, then what would be so universe-shattering about that? Does not a mother have at some point to let go of her child, and the child let go of his/her mother as they both get on with the essence of living their lives?

I've always thought that to be required to obey God in order to not be destroyed doesn't sound like freedom of choice. If there were a third option, as long as it did not harm either God or others he created, then one could say that one truly had freedom of choice. If one could truly choose or not choose to obey God, but would still be free to live out your life as freely as one chose to do so, wouldn't that be true freedom of choice?

Or imagine the ultimate freedom of choice of being able to decide to follow God or not follow God and still live forever? Such an option would have to have some fail safe mechanism in place to provide free beings who live outside of God's system the impossibility of interfering with those who did choose to live within God's way. But then, that wouldn't be true free will, would it?

Of course, since God is God, he could very well state that in order to live forever you had to do it his way. God has to be in control somehow. After all, he created the cosmos to begin with. He could also choose at any moment to uncreate it. But if he did that, he wouldn't be a loving God, would he?

Is God free to change his mind regarding some things? Or is he forever bound to go along with statutes or commands or decisions that he outlined thousands or millions of years ago?

Does God have Free Will?

God gave us humans free will. For that we are grateful. We'd never have known that we didn't have it had we been created to do only what he wanted us to do.



As I sat in Sabbath School this past Sabbath the thought just popped into my mind. Does God have free will like we have free will? The thought startled me. I was even more concerned when the following text came to mind: "And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. . . Genesis 3:22. Now this probably means that God learned about evil, not from first hand experience, like Adam and Eve learned about it, but by being acquainted with Lucifer and his originating of the concept of evil.



Now, of course, I wouldn't want to suggest that God is capable of evil if he wanted to, being a free moral being that he is. But then I thought that since he is good because he is God and can only be good and never evil, then we are more free than he is by being able to choose good or evil. Of course, having chosen the latter, as it turns out, is not so pleasant, after all.



If you don't use the bible as your yardstick for matters of good and evil--bear with me for a bit---then an objective observer might think that God in wanting to destroy all he had made because humanity had turned to evil--except for Noah and his family--was less than good. Also, a very clinical observer might think these humans, although evil, were the work of God's hand. How could he be good if he wanted to destroy them all because he had regrets for having created them in the first place?



Now a subjective reaction to this might be that since God created humanity in the first place, he had every right to destroy it just as a potter has a right to reshape a pound of clay into something more perfect. Of course, the potter could also decide after he had finished the jar or glass vase, or whatever other work of non-living art, that it was imperfect and though he loved it a bit, it was better to destroy it and start again. After all does not the artist or the potter have every right to do what he wants with something he creates?



I read a while ago, that the Jews at one time attributed all of the vicissitudes of life to God. The good with the bad. The verse from Job, "the lord giveth and the lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord" addresses this issue somewhat. Later on, Jewish thought attributed the bad things in life to Satan (the accuser) and the good things in life to God only.



Do we attribute only good qualities to God because that's what we would prefer him to have? Of course, there's the matter of violation of his law and the need to punish the guilty which most religious people feel that God is justified in doing.



These issues suggest, to me at least, that matters involving free choice and good and evil are more complex than many people facilely state they are.