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Hello all. I have another paper I wrote. It deals with Why Adam & Eve (assuming Christian Theism is true) sinned. No one has successfully answered this until me. Also, I show why Libertarian Free Will is metaphysically impossible near the end. Enjoy it! I have attached the PDF as well.
Thanks,
Edouard Tahmizian
How & Why Adam & Eve Sinned
by Edouard Tahmizian
For nearly hundreds of years Christian theologians have had insurmountable difficulties with the how and why aspect of the sin committed by the first humans. Even the great Calvinist thinkers such as Johnathan Edwards, R.C Sproul Senior, Sam Storms, and John Piper have admitted that they have given up on such a task. Many works have been written on this issue with no solution being conclusively demonstrated. I am going to show beyond any and all doubt how and also why Adam & Eve committed their first sin. The sin of Adam is known as Original Sin in Christianity, and all humans have the guilt of Adam imputed (subjectively reckoned) onto them, so they are treated as if they committed that sin, even though they haven't (at least according to the popular view invented by the Church Father Agustine).
Before I discuss why exactly Christians have had trouble with the particular issue of the first sin of the first humans, it will be helpful to show how it is that people are able to choose in the first place. Some may think they can simply make a decision without even needing a reason or motive. “I don’t need any impetus to make my choice, I have free-will!” someone might say. Though it initially can seem that way, this is in fact false. Firstly, it is self-evident that every effect demands a cause (or sufficient cause). Objects fall towards the Earth (effect) because of gravity (cause). Likewise, when people or even animals make decisions, their choice (effect) needs a motivation or inclination to have enabled them to make that decision. If anyone only has one inclination to do something, that motivation will literally determine (cause) their choice. For example, if I am 100% inclined not to eat dog waste and have 0% of an inclination to eat it, I cannot eat it, even if I possess the part of my brain that, if I were to access it, would allow me to eat it - the reason being is that I would then have no motive or reason to eat the waste. It is also helpful to note that nothing would be wrong with my freedom, for I would be free to do whatever I desired, I just would not desire the waste. Since it has now been shown that it takes a motivation to do anything, or to even knowingly do nothing (which would require you to want that first as well), figuring out the sin of Adam & Eve is simple. We will first outline the various types of desires and show their relevancy in the narrative to come:
Good Inclination – Internal motivation towards beneficial actions, like caring for others, respecting people's property, etc.
Evil Inclination – Internal motivation towards negative actions, like stealing, lying (intentionally deceiving), etc.
Morally Neutral Inclinations – Internal motivations to things that would lack a moral import if done, like playing golf, watching a show, etc.
According to Geneses, God (Yahweh) created two humans that were to be his image bearers who were to represent him, in part by willingly being obedient to his laws. God created all types of vegetation life and animals and even gave Adam the privilege to name all the animals (in what language I know not). He then informed them of a certain tree known as The Tree of The Knowledge of Good & Evil and told Adam & Eve that if they ate of that one that they would die that very day (it is debatable what “day” meant in the original Hebrew. The word does not necessarily mean a 24-hour timeframe).
As holy creatures without a depraved nature like us, they were created with a holy disposition to morally good actions and also created with morally neutral desires, like the one to secret wisdom. Since these inclinations originated from their natures it was God who was the efficient cause of them existing in them. Later in the Geneses narrative Adam & Eve were confronted with a talking serpent who tried to persuade them to break the commandment of God and eat of the special tree by presenting the case that God’s real motive for the prohibition was that he was scared that Adam & Eve would know about the concepts of good and evil as much as him and would then get jealous. Adam & Eve were now confronted with a great offer according to their rational judgement – their strongest motive was then to disobey God for the pursuit of secretive wisdom that would make them as wise as God himself. It was there that the great fall of humankind occurred, and the rest was history.
Now to return to the initial issue that was brought up: The problem that has baffled theologians is how exactly Adam & Eve could have sinned if they were not inclined (motivated) to commit sin via a sinful inclination. Luther, Calvin, as well as Roman Catholic theologians believed that the first humans only came about with a sin inclination after they sinned. If Adam & Eve had no sin inclination, they would have had absolutely no reason to sin at all! What makes the problem worse is that they would also have only been inclined to right action, yet with their only preference to do the right thing, they both knowingly and willing did the wrong thing. No wonder Christians don’t know why or even how both sinned. It has been suggested in the past that the inclination to secretive wisdom (which was an ordinate desire) is what enabled Adam & Eve to sin. The reasoning is that the motive to obtain secret knowledge was the cause of their actions. This beyond doubt could not have been the case, and I will explain why in a moment, but I first want to present an analogy to make things easier to understand. Suppose there are two people, an old grandma who is a saint, and a person who recently committed murder. They both have luxurious cars. Say a thief were to consider who he or she would like to steal from more. One thief could think “I would rather steal that murderer's car. I know I don’t have the moral right to take their car just because they killed someone, but I would feel less bad if I stole from them than from that old lady. Come to think of it, even without the murderer to steal from, I would never steal from that old lady – she always donated money to charity and once risked her life to save an abuse victim from their terrible spouse. There’s no way I would steal her hard-earned car.”
What happened here? Here the thief had a desire to take and drive the car, which is a good desire and is not itself the desire to steal, since there is nothing wrong with taking a car in and of itself. However, there was also present within the thief a good inclination which motivated them to respect the property of the person who owned the car and therefore not steal, and there was in addition also an evil inclination that motivated them to disrespect someone (as with the murderer) and take property they were not obliged to have from the owner. Someone could have an inclination to get in a car and drive it and therefore be attracted to the car, yet this would not enable them to take the car if in fact the car was owned by someone else, and the person had only a good inclination to respect the owner and not steal, and no evil inclination to disrespect the owner and steal the car.
Likewise, if Adam & Eve had a desire to take of secretive wisdom that would not and could not have enabled them to sin if they had only a holy disposition to respect God and not steal and no evil inclination to act disrespectfully and steal the fruit which had the gift of wisdom concerning good and evil. Therefore, it is an irrefutable fact that Adam & Eve had an evil inclination to disobedience and proceeded to give into it to commit their first sin. Since dispositions come from one's nature, it was God who created Adam & Eve with an evil disposition as well as all their other ones. It would not even matter if it was only after the serpents tempting that Adam & Eve experienced an inordinate desire – if God had created Adam & Eve morally perfect, they could not have had a sin inclination even if the serpent were to attempt to tempt them into doing evil. According to the Christian New Testament, Jesus never sinned and was not even able to sin, and even though he was still hungry for food when tempted by the devil, this extreme hunger did not even enable him to disobey God. Why? Because Christ (according to scripture at least) was only inclined to do good and obey God and had no evil inclination to disobey God.
I have now, beyond all doubt, solved the unsolvable issue relating to the first sin. To recap: God created Adam & Eve with morally pure natures. Adam & Eve only possessed ordinate good desires until the devil tempted them. When given the pitch by the devil, Adam & Eve then became convinced that, despite God’s prohibition, it was the best thing according to their personal judgment to sin. Their greatest motive was to therefore sin in part due to the sin inclination which enabled them to, and for the first time they were directly motivated towards an evil action, in this case to disrespect God and steal from his property. They, still possessing good natures (more or less) gave into their sinful inclination and then they sinned. The reason Adam & Eve were able to be inclined to evil action is because God made them morally imperfect. This is important to note: It was a moral dysfunctionality, something bad, that gave Adam & Eve the ability to sin, not something good. Christians need to become aware of this. And merely saying that free-will enabled them is nonsensical. What enabled them to use their free will? Motivations, obviously, since without them, you cannot choose, even if you possess a will.
The impressive point I just illustrated is devastating to Christian Theism. We clearly have a sad picture – God created Adam & Eve with a somewhat morally flawed nature, created them with a desire to secretive wisdom, then placed a prohibition on what God himself was the efficient cause of them being motivated to do, and got so flippantly angry at them for giving into the desires he made them with! This is clearly a form of entrapment. The next time a Christian preacher says his hellfire sermon, tell them that God should have made Adam & Eve without a morally flawed nature, since without the moral freedom to do evil, one cannot do evil. If said Christian tells you that Adam & Eve would have been robots if that happened, call them a fool and ask them whether they think their God Jesus Christ was a robot since he could not commit sin.
To add insult to injury, it is not even stated in the Geneses narrative whether God made Adam & Eve with libertarian free will, or the ability to have done other than what they did. The account only mentions that God made Adam & Eve with a will that could make choices, which all determinists (Calvinist Christians) affirm. So, it very well could have been that Adam & Eve’s first sin could have been certain and necessary as well. The Bible leaves it an open question. I have concluded my presentation on the problems regarding the first sin and shown the definitive resolution for them. Before I end my essay, I would encourage readers to check out my Library piece called The Origin of Evil (also featured in A Drop of Reason: Essays from The Secular Web available on Amazon Prime) on The Secular Web run by Internet Infidels. I show that the Calvinist secondary cause defense cannot work, since God is the creator of all things, including the secretive wisdom tree and the being known as The Devil who tempted Adam & Eve, and I also show that since God created Adam, Eve, and The Devil’s desires he would absolutely have to be the efficient cause of sin, not simply the final cause as Calvinists claim. In Calvinism, it is not simply a sole, supreme motivation that determines the will, the greatest motive or inclination determines the will as well, which God was responsible for Adam & Eve having since he made their natures, and he even determined the devil to tempt them as well. One note to end on: There is a severe problem with the concept of libertarian free will. I would need to write another paper to address all its issues, but the central one is the fact that it violates the cause-and-effect principle, where every effect can be traced back to an efficient cause. Some libertarian free-will advocates will pretend there is not an issue and claim that the cause of your choice was you, and the effect of that choice is you willing. This cannot work because of the point I brought up and the start of my paper – one needs an internal motivation to enable them to choose. Without it, a choice would not be metaphysically possible. Take for example the case of Christ. What was the cause of his choice to obey God the Father? Himself? No, it was his supreme internal motivation to good that served as the efficient cause of his doing good. So, the cause of his choice was his motivation, and the effect was his choice to do the good. Why not think that even the greatest desire determines the will to necessarily choose if the only one does?
To conclude, the devastating issue regarding libertarian free will is thus: Say, for instance, an individual has two inclinations, one to go to the usual ice cream store and get rocky road flavored ice cream, the other is to immediately check out the next episode of G-friend goes to Paris (yes, I am a K-Pop fanatic). The desire to eat the ice cream is at 50%, the one to watch the episode is also at 50%. The person chooses to watch G-Friend's adventures in Paris, where they must sing a song without any mistakes to get a free lunch at an expensive restaurant. Since it is obvious that any event (whether it involves rocks falling or a person making a choice) involves cause-and-effect as well as a why explanation, here is the question: Why did the person choose to give into motivation #2 and not motivation #1? No Reason? None of the desires determined the person to act, so what did? You cannot say the person determined their choice, since only motivations have determining power. “They had no reason to give into motivation #2, but somehow chose it”, beyond all doubt, is what a Libertarian Free Will believer could say. They could not simply exclaim “they just did”, because that is not answering why they just did. The person ultimately chose to act on motivation #2 because of nothing! In other words, with Libertarian Free Will, you have an effect (a choice) without a cause (nothing caused or determined you to choice). This is metaphysically impossible and violates Leibniz Physics. I have therefore shown, at least beyond any reasonable doubt, that Libertarian Free Will is impossible, which could only mean that all our choices are determined by prior causes. If this be the case under theism, God would be the cause of everything that occurs, including sin itself. This would make God himself evil, since he would be positively causing it and not permitting it, say, for a greater good. This would be a damaging conclusion to have as a theist, where God not only creates desires in Adam & Eve to sin, but even determines them to give into them where they end up sinning!
I would highly suggest the reader check out my interview with Dr. Richard Carrier on YouTube called Why There Is No Free Will for further details. My last recommendation would be to read the famous Calvinist writer Sam Storms’s work called Fettered Yet Free which was republished by John Piper on his website Desiring God. In the work, Sam shows that a system of divine determinism would have to result in God being the direct cause of sin and not simply the final cause of it as most Calvinists will claim.
Thanks,
Edouard Tahmizian
How & Why Adam & Eve Sinned
by Edouard Tahmizian
For nearly hundreds of years Christian theologians have had insurmountable difficulties with the how and why aspect of the sin committed by the first humans. Even the great Calvinist thinkers such as Johnathan Edwards, R.C Sproul Senior, Sam Storms, and John Piper have admitted that they have given up on such a task. Many works have been written on this issue with no solution being conclusively demonstrated. I am going to show beyond any and all doubt how and also why Adam & Eve committed their first sin. The sin of Adam is known as Original Sin in Christianity, and all humans have the guilt of Adam imputed (subjectively reckoned) onto them, so they are treated as if they committed that sin, even though they haven't (at least according to the popular view invented by the Church Father Agustine).
Before I discuss why exactly Christians have had trouble with the particular issue of the first sin of the first humans, it will be helpful to show how it is that people are able to choose in the first place. Some may think they can simply make a decision without even needing a reason or motive. “I don’t need any impetus to make my choice, I have free-will!” someone might say. Though it initially can seem that way, this is in fact false. Firstly, it is self-evident that every effect demands a cause (or sufficient cause). Objects fall towards the Earth (effect) because of gravity (cause). Likewise, when people or even animals make decisions, their choice (effect) needs a motivation or inclination to have enabled them to make that decision. If anyone only has one inclination to do something, that motivation will literally determine (cause) their choice. For example, if I am 100% inclined not to eat dog waste and have 0% of an inclination to eat it, I cannot eat it, even if I possess the part of my brain that, if I were to access it, would allow me to eat it - the reason being is that I would then have no motive or reason to eat the waste. It is also helpful to note that nothing would be wrong with my freedom, for I would be free to do whatever I desired, I just would not desire the waste. Since it has now been shown that it takes a motivation to do anything, or to even knowingly do nothing (which would require you to want that first as well), figuring out the sin of Adam & Eve is simple. We will first outline the various types of desires and show their relevancy in the narrative to come:
Good Inclination – Internal motivation towards beneficial actions, like caring for others, respecting people's property, etc.
Evil Inclination – Internal motivation towards negative actions, like stealing, lying (intentionally deceiving), etc.
Morally Neutral Inclinations – Internal motivations to things that would lack a moral import if done, like playing golf, watching a show, etc.
According to Geneses, God (Yahweh) created two humans that were to be his image bearers who were to represent him, in part by willingly being obedient to his laws. God created all types of vegetation life and animals and even gave Adam the privilege to name all the animals (in what language I know not). He then informed them of a certain tree known as The Tree of The Knowledge of Good & Evil and told Adam & Eve that if they ate of that one that they would die that very day (it is debatable what “day” meant in the original Hebrew. The word does not necessarily mean a 24-hour timeframe).
As holy creatures without a depraved nature like us, they were created with a holy disposition to morally good actions and also created with morally neutral desires, like the one to secret wisdom. Since these inclinations originated from their natures it was God who was the efficient cause of them existing in them. Later in the Geneses narrative Adam & Eve were confronted with a talking serpent who tried to persuade them to break the commandment of God and eat of the special tree by presenting the case that God’s real motive for the prohibition was that he was scared that Adam & Eve would know about the concepts of good and evil as much as him and would then get jealous. Adam & Eve were now confronted with a great offer according to their rational judgement – their strongest motive was then to disobey God for the pursuit of secretive wisdom that would make them as wise as God himself. It was there that the great fall of humankind occurred, and the rest was history.
Now to return to the initial issue that was brought up: The problem that has baffled theologians is how exactly Adam & Eve could have sinned if they were not inclined (motivated) to commit sin via a sinful inclination. Luther, Calvin, as well as Roman Catholic theologians believed that the first humans only came about with a sin inclination after they sinned. If Adam & Eve had no sin inclination, they would have had absolutely no reason to sin at all! What makes the problem worse is that they would also have only been inclined to right action, yet with their only preference to do the right thing, they both knowingly and willing did the wrong thing. No wonder Christians don’t know why or even how both sinned. It has been suggested in the past that the inclination to secretive wisdom (which was an ordinate desire) is what enabled Adam & Eve to sin. The reasoning is that the motive to obtain secret knowledge was the cause of their actions. This beyond doubt could not have been the case, and I will explain why in a moment, but I first want to present an analogy to make things easier to understand. Suppose there are two people, an old grandma who is a saint, and a person who recently committed murder. They both have luxurious cars. Say a thief were to consider who he or she would like to steal from more. One thief could think “I would rather steal that murderer's car. I know I don’t have the moral right to take their car just because they killed someone, but I would feel less bad if I stole from them than from that old lady. Come to think of it, even without the murderer to steal from, I would never steal from that old lady – she always donated money to charity and once risked her life to save an abuse victim from their terrible spouse. There’s no way I would steal her hard-earned car.”
What happened here? Here the thief had a desire to take and drive the car, which is a good desire and is not itself the desire to steal, since there is nothing wrong with taking a car in and of itself. However, there was also present within the thief a good inclination which motivated them to respect the property of the person who owned the car and therefore not steal, and there was in addition also an evil inclination that motivated them to disrespect someone (as with the murderer) and take property they were not obliged to have from the owner. Someone could have an inclination to get in a car and drive it and therefore be attracted to the car, yet this would not enable them to take the car if in fact the car was owned by someone else, and the person had only a good inclination to respect the owner and not steal, and no evil inclination to disrespect the owner and steal the car.
Likewise, if Adam & Eve had a desire to take of secretive wisdom that would not and could not have enabled them to sin if they had only a holy disposition to respect God and not steal and no evil inclination to act disrespectfully and steal the fruit which had the gift of wisdom concerning good and evil. Therefore, it is an irrefutable fact that Adam & Eve had an evil inclination to disobedience and proceeded to give into it to commit their first sin. Since dispositions come from one's nature, it was God who created Adam & Eve with an evil disposition as well as all their other ones. It would not even matter if it was only after the serpents tempting that Adam & Eve experienced an inordinate desire – if God had created Adam & Eve morally perfect, they could not have had a sin inclination even if the serpent were to attempt to tempt them into doing evil. According to the Christian New Testament, Jesus never sinned and was not even able to sin, and even though he was still hungry for food when tempted by the devil, this extreme hunger did not even enable him to disobey God. Why? Because Christ (according to scripture at least) was only inclined to do good and obey God and had no evil inclination to disobey God.
I have now, beyond all doubt, solved the unsolvable issue relating to the first sin. To recap: God created Adam & Eve with morally pure natures. Adam & Eve only possessed ordinate good desires until the devil tempted them. When given the pitch by the devil, Adam & Eve then became convinced that, despite God’s prohibition, it was the best thing according to their personal judgment to sin. Their greatest motive was to therefore sin in part due to the sin inclination which enabled them to, and for the first time they were directly motivated towards an evil action, in this case to disrespect God and steal from his property. They, still possessing good natures (more or less) gave into their sinful inclination and then they sinned. The reason Adam & Eve were able to be inclined to evil action is because God made them morally imperfect. This is important to note: It was a moral dysfunctionality, something bad, that gave Adam & Eve the ability to sin, not something good. Christians need to become aware of this. And merely saying that free-will enabled them is nonsensical. What enabled them to use their free will? Motivations, obviously, since without them, you cannot choose, even if you possess a will.
The impressive point I just illustrated is devastating to Christian Theism. We clearly have a sad picture – God created Adam & Eve with a somewhat morally flawed nature, created them with a desire to secretive wisdom, then placed a prohibition on what God himself was the efficient cause of them being motivated to do, and got so flippantly angry at them for giving into the desires he made them with! This is clearly a form of entrapment. The next time a Christian preacher says his hellfire sermon, tell them that God should have made Adam & Eve without a morally flawed nature, since without the moral freedom to do evil, one cannot do evil. If said Christian tells you that Adam & Eve would have been robots if that happened, call them a fool and ask them whether they think their God Jesus Christ was a robot since he could not commit sin.
To add insult to injury, it is not even stated in the Geneses narrative whether God made Adam & Eve with libertarian free will, or the ability to have done other than what they did. The account only mentions that God made Adam & Eve with a will that could make choices, which all determinists (Calvinist Christians) affirm. So, it very well could have been that Adam & Eve’s first sin could have been certain and necessary as well. The Bible leaves it an open question. I have concluded my presentation on the problems regarding the first sin and shown the definitive resolution for them. Before I end my essay, I would encourage readers to check out my Library piece called The Origin of Evil (also featured in A Drop of Reason: Essays from The Secular Web available on Amazon Prime) on The Secular Web run by Internet Infidels. I show that the Calvinist secondary cause defense cannot work, since God is the creator of all things, including the secretive wisdom tree and the being known as The Devil who tempted Adam & Eve, and I also show that since God created Adam, Eve, and The Devil’s desires he would absolutely have to be the efficient cause of sin, not simply the final cause as Calvinists claim. In Calvinism, it is not simply a sole, supreme motivation that determines the will, the greatest motive or inclination determines the will as well, which God was responsible for Adam & Eve having since he made their natures, and he even determined the devil to tempt them as well. One note to end on: There is a severe problem with the concept of libertarian free will. I would need to write another paper to address all its issues, but the central one is the fact that it violates the cause-and-effect principle, where every effect can be traced back to an efficient cause. Some libertarian free-will advocates will pretend there is not an issue and claim that the cause of your choice was you, and the effect of that choice is you willing. This cannot work because of the point I brought up and the start of my paper – one needs an internal motivation to enable them to choose. Without it, a choice would not be metaphysically possible. Take for example the case of Christ. What was the cause of his choice to obey God the Father? Himself? No, it was his supreme internal motivation to good that served as the efficient cause of his doing good. So, the cause of his choice was his motivation, and the effect was his choice to do the good. Why not think that even the greatest desire determines the will to necessarily choose if the only one does?
To conclude, the devastating issue regarding libertarian free will is thus: Say, for instance, an individual has two inclinations, one to go to the usual ice cream store and get rocky road flavored ice cream, the other is to immediately check out the next episode of G-friend goes to Paris (yes, I am a K-Pop fanatic). The desire to eat the ice cream is at 50%, the one to watch the episode is also at 50%. The person chooses to watch G-Friend's adventures in Paris, where they must sing a song without any mistakes to get a free lunch at an expensive restaurant. Since it is obvious that any event (whether it involves rocks falling or a person making a choice) involves cause-and-effect as well as a why explanation, here is the question: Why did the person choose to give into motivation #2 and not motivation #1? No Reason? None of the desires determined the person to act, so what did? You cannot say the person determined their choice, since only motivations have determining power. “They had no reason to give into motivation #2, but somehow chose it”, beyond all doubt, is what a Libertarian Free Will believer could say. They could not simply exclaim “they just did”, because that is not answering why they just did. The person ultimately chose to act on motivation #2 because of nothing! In other words, with Libertarian Free Will, you have an effect (a choice) without a cause (nothing caused or determined you to choice). This is metaphysically impossible and violates Leibniz Physics. I have therefore shown, at least beyond any reasonable doubt, that Libertarian Free Will is impossible, which could only mean that all our choices are determined by prior causes. If this be the case under theism, God would be the cause of everything that occurs, including sin itself. This would make God himself evil, since he would be positively causing it and not permitting it, say, for a greater good. This would be a damaging conclusion to have as a theist, where God not only creates desires in Adam & Eve to sin, but even determines them to give into them where they end up sinning!
I would highly suggest the reader check out my interview with Dr. Richard Carrier on YouTube called Why There Is No Free Will for further details. My last recommendation would be to read the famous Calvinist writer Sam Storms’s work called Fettered Yet Free which was republished by John Piper on his website Desiring God. In the work, Sam shows that a system of divine determinism would have to result in God being the direct cause of sin and not simply the final cause of it as most Calvinists will claim.