# Would a decree of sin be NECESSARY in any world of rational creatures?



## tmckinney (Sep 19, 2009)

When answering this question please take into account:

(1) the manifestation of God's attributes to His rational creatures; and

(2) the specific attributes of God's mercy and justice.


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## au5t1n (Sep 19, 2009)

Just look around at the world. We need to be reminded of what we already know - and often!  Good question.


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## Christusregnat (Sep 19, 2009)

tmckinney said:


> When answering this question please take into account:
> 
> (1) the manifestation of God's attributes to His rational creatures; and
> 
> (2) the specific attributes of God's mercy and justice.



Mr. McKinney,

I would like to respond, but wanted to ask a few questions:

1. What do you mean by necessity? Do you mean to say that necessity binds anyone who is rational? 

2. Are you envisioning other worlds with rational creatures, such as space aliens?

Cheers,


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## toddpedlar (Sep 19, 2009)

I'm also confused by your question. Can you be more clear? Are you asking whether it was necessary for God to decree sin in order to bring about His purposes? Are you asking instead something about rational creatures and their capacity to freely choose good? What's the question behind the question?


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## tmckinney (Sep 19, 2009)

Christusregnat said:


> 1. What do you mean by necessity?



"Necessary"--meaning that in the end, God's rational creatures would get the most complete (as they are able to bear) manifestation of all His attributes. 



Christusregnat said:


> 2. Are you envisioning other worlds with rational creatures, such as space aliens?


"Rational"-- meaning any being that has the capacity to ponder and reason about spiritual things.

Hope that helps.

-----Added 9/19/2009 at 03:09:12 EST-----



toddpedlar said:


> What's the question behind the question?



If God is going to create a world of rational creatures, would He so choose a world to create that would ensure that His rational creatures get the fullest picture of who He is; and therefore, would a decree of sin necessarily lead to that with respect to His mercy and justice?


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## au5t1n (Sep 19, 2009)

I believe I misunderstood the question. Sorry about that. I thought you were asking whether God needed to reveal his decrees of what is sin to us, given that we would already know right from wrong. Nevermind!


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## tmckinney (Sep 19, 2009)

Todd I added something to my earlier post that might clarify your confusion.


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## toddpedlar (Sep 19, 2009)

tmckinney said:


> toddpedlar said:
> 
> 
> > What's the question behind the question?
> ...



God chose to create the world He created. I'm not sure speculation about other worlds of rational creatures is very helpful. He decreed sin, indeed He decrees everything whatsoever that comes to pass - and has ultimately a central purpose of displaying His glory and attributes. His mercy and justice are displayed in part (not in full, but in part) because of the decree of the Fall and so forth. He has done what He deemed in the good pleasure of His will to do - and His glory and His glorious attributes are thereby displayed. I think we ought to rest in that and not try to go further than Scripture goes. That is, trying to figure out whether this is in some sense absolutely necessary in some fictional "other world" is, I think, akin to speculating about the number of angels on the head of a pin.


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## Christusregnat (Sep 19, 2009)




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## tmckinney (Sep 19, 2009)

Todd,

The only reason I bring this up is because some people believe that Christianity is not necessary and that God could have created a world where His mercy and justice would not be on display. If those attributes are not on display in that world, then wouldn't that be a less than ideal picture of who God is with respect to the revelation of His nature?


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## JTB (Sep 19, 2009)

It is not necessary that God create. He is self-sufficient. Yet, having determined to create, all created things/relations are necessary according to that determination. To ask if God could have done other than He has done is also to ask if God could have wanted it differently (i.e. God wanted other than to bring about His utmost glory in creation), which is really to ask about a different God entirely.


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## toddpedlar (Sep 19, 2009)

Okay, well, yes, of course it would be less than ideal... and it would be one in which God would not be able in the same way to show His attributes of justice and mercy. 

But that's not your friend's problem (I assume you're not dealing in an absolute hypothetical here). Your friend will very likely find no more compulsion to accept that the problems of God's ability to display his attributes in this "less than ideal world" has any bearing on whether he should or should not believe Christianity is "necessary" than before you bring this explanation to him. There are deeper issues with his or her understanding than the necessity of a decree of sin.


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## tmckinney (Sep 19, 2009)

JTB said:


> It is not necessary that God create. He is self-sufficient.


Absolutely! But when He freely chose to create, what world would bring about the greatest manifestation of His glorious attributes? I would say that this world in which we live would. Another world where His mercy and justice are not on display would seem to me to be a less than ideal world for God to manifest his glory to, by, and upon His rational creatures; and therefore, back to my original question--Is sin a necessary decree to bring about this? If yes, then doesn't that prove the necessity of Christianity?

-----Added 9/19/2009 at 04:00:43 EST-----

I've noticed that some people on the PB do not believe in the necessity of Christianity. If there are any responses to this I would like to see them.


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## py3ak (Sep 19, 2009)

tmckinney said:


> JTB said:
> 
> 
> > It is not necessary that God create. He is self-sufficient.
> ...



Tracey, seeking for some ground in God that requires that He decree just what He decreed in effect denies the freedom of His will. In deciding to glorify Himself, God doesn't submit to a necessity, and I think that trying to figure out what He could decree to glorify Himself most is a dead end.

Perhaps this quote from Heppe's _Reformed Dogmatics_ will make the point.



> Since then the divine will is the actuosity of the divine being eternally identical with itself, which only to man appears an infinite manifold of expressions of will, it may be said that in the same act of will God may will otherwise but not that He may otherwise will. —Heidegger (III, 69): "Although God wills all things in one most single actus, e.g., to create and to destroy the world, to save some and condemn others, etc., yet we conceive various acts of the divine will by our reason and distinguish them by our conception. He cannot, it is true, will a thing otherwise, i.e., by a different act. Yet by one and the same act of willing He may will differently: e.g., that events should be one way and another and so that different sets of things should exist. Thus God will one things to exist for the sake of another. But that one thing is not strictly speaking the cause by which God's will is inwardly moved to decree the second."


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## toddpedlar (Sep 19, 2009)

tmckinney said:


> JTB said:
> 
> 
> > It is not necessary that God create. He is self-sufficient.
> ...



1) What do you mean by "the necessity of Christianity"? 

2) By what means do you assess that there are some here who deny the necessity of Christianity?

3) What good end is served by speculating about the reasons God does what He does in the good pleasure of His will? This kind of speculation is exactly what Calvin calls "foolish and idle talk".


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## tmckinney (Sep 19, 2009)

toddpedlar said:


> 1) What do you mean by "the necessity of Christianity"?



When Adam asked above what I meant by "necessity" with respect to the decree of sin I wrote:


> "Necessary"--meaning that in the end, God's rational creatures would get the most complete (as they are able to bear) manifestation of all His attributes.



Mercy and justice are two of God's means of communicating His glory to His sinful creatures. If there is no sin, then there is no mercy or justice manifested. If there is no mercy or justice manifested, then God would have two less means of communicating His glory. So therefore, mankind would never know of God's mercy in pardoning love nor of His judicial anger against sin--and as I said before, that would be a less than ideal world for the manifestation of God's holy nature because two of His attributes would not be manifested. 

Where I am going with all of this is to show that Christianity is _necessary_ for that end--that is, the end where all of God's most holy and glorious attributes are on display before redeeemed and condemned creatures. 



toddpedlar said:


> 2) By what means do you assess that there are some here who deny the necessity of Christianity?


Good question. What brought this thread on was a discussion in the forum related to the discussion of apologetical methods (i.e. presuppositional vs. evidential approaches). The title of the thread was "against fundamentalist presuppositionalism." One of the comments in that forum was to knock down the presuppositional approach by arguing against the "necessity of Christianity." The thread has been abandoned for about a month and I felt that the issue brought up there was worthy of a whole new thread of discussion by itself. Now if the moderators believe I have erred by opening up a new thread, then I apologize and maybe we can move it over there to that forum if they agree that is best. I made the judgment, probably poorly, that it was very worthy of a new discussion. 



toddpedlar said:


> 3) What good end is served by speculating about the reasons God does what He does in the good pleasure of His will? This kind of speculation is exactly what Calvin calls "foolish and idle talk".



Notice, Todd, that I have not given any more "reasons" for saying what I have said other than the glory of God. What we can say is that whatever God does is first and foremost for His own glory, so there is no speculation there. I understand that God has other purposes for doing what He does, and I am not prying into those purposes. I am only interested here with God's glory.


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## Mushroom (Sep 19, 2009)

I would think that whatever God has decreed is necessary in that His omniscience and holiness implies that whatever He does is the highest and best of all possibilities.


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## py3ak (Sep 19, 2009)

Brad said:


> I would think that whatever God has decreed is necessary in that His omniscience and holiness implies that whatever He does is the highest and best of all possibilities.



The issue with that, Brad, is that God was perfectly free _not_ to create. Would that have been less good? Well, God would still have been perfectly blessed, so what would have been worse about it? Infinite goodness would still be the case.


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## Mushroom (Sep 19, 2009)

py3ak said:


> Brad said:
> 
> 
> > I would think that whatever God has decreed is necessary in that His omniscience and holiness implies that whatever He does is the highest and best of all possibilities.
> ...


Ah, brother, but then we tread into the area of conjecture, do we not? Yes, God was free not to create, but doesn't the fact that He did imply that any other reality would have been less perfect, in light of His own perfection? Aren't the actions of a perfect God always only perfect?

Maybe that's something I'll have to consider - that there are alternate directions that perfection can take and still remain perfect; but of all possible realities, wouldn't whatever course God has chosen of necessity be the highest and best?


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## py3ak (Sep 19, 2009)

I think the dilemma is taken away when we bear in mind that no cause can be assigned for the will of God, and that God's will _is_ the standard of good.
God wills - because He wills, not on account of anything else. His will is free.
He willed _this_, so this is best. But there was no necessity for Him to will this, no metaphysical constraint. This is best because God willed it, but I think it would be speculative is to say that God willed because it is best.
I don't believe this is actually conjecture at all, but merely the application of Ephesians 1:11. Why does God do what He does? The good pleasure of His will. That is the only answer that can be rendered, and all the answer we need.

Calvin's words on this point are of value.

_Institutes_, I, 14, 1 & III, 23, 2


> Justly does Augustine complain that God is insulted whenever any higher reason than his will is demanded.
> (...)
> If at any time thoughts of this kind come into the minds of the pious, they will be sufficiently armed to repress them, by considering how sinful it is to insist on knowing the causes of the divine will, since it is itself, and justly ought to be, the cause of all that exists. For if his will has any cause, there must be something antecedent to it, and to which it is annexed; this it were impious to imagine. The will of God is the supreme rule of righteousness, so that everything which he wills must be held to be righteous by the mere fact of his willing it. Therefore, when it is asked why the Lord did so, we must answer, Because he pleased. But if you proceed farther to ask why he pleased, you ask for something greater and more sublime than the will of God, and nothing such can be found. Let human temerity then be quiet, and cease to inquire after what exists not, lest perhaps it fails to find what does exist. This, I say, will be sufficient to restrain any one who would reverently contemplate the secret things of God.


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## JTB (Sep 19, 2009)

tmckinney said:


> JTB said:
> 
> 
> > It is not necessary that God create. He is self-sufficient.
> ...



Read my post again. Because God creates according to His desire, and God's desires are essential to God's being, for Him to desire something else would mean a different God entirely.

Because God desired what now is, all that now is, is necessary according to His desire. Not only Christianity, but everything--even the most heinous and unthinkable sin.

Christianity is not necessary in order for God to demonstrate his attributes in any way different that all other things are necessary because God has desired it so.


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