Is it our fault?

Question

If God gave us free will to do as we please, isn't it His fault if we sin? If he wanted us all to be good to each other and follow His word, why did he give us the opportunity to choose? Also, I hear people say, "God has a plan for you" or "It is God's will for you to do this." If this is true, why would He punish a sinner? Wasn't it His will? I'm not trying to start arguments. This is something I've pondered for some time. And please don't rebut by quoting the Bible. That will not do anything.

Thank you Misstress

Keb- If that was all we knew, then it would be real to us.

Answer 1

I love how someone asks a thought provoking question and people answer with one liners like "you're ignorant", as if to state that they know all of life's "divine" secrets and treasures.

Answer 2

God gave us free will so we could have joy and happiness. See, without free will there would be no sin and without sin it's opposite, obedience, could not exist and with out obedience there can be no joy. An amoeba can not sin, neither can it do good. Therefore it can have neither joy nor pain. God's plan is never for you to sin so it's not his will that we sin so it's not his fault. That's what free will is all about. When we sin we go AGAINST his plan for us. Even when we do sin we can accept Jesus Christ's Atonement and wash that sin away. That is another free choice God gives us to find happieness even if we are sinners. As far as not quoting the Bible. I have done my best not to quote it directly however the Bible is one of the only books we have that tell us about God, how can we even talk about God without it? We know nothing on our own. Everything we know about God comes from God.

Answer 3

consider this - if i give you the choice to make your own decisions, and then say "please, do not run into traffic. stay here where it is safe." Whose fault is it if you are hit by a car?

God gave us free will - we are the ones who keep screwing up. again and again.

many of your questions can be difficult to answer. in scripture, we learn that the rain falls on both the just and the unjust - sometimes abd things happen to good people. Is it a test of faith? punishment of a sort? i do not know. what I do know is that gGod offers us eternal life as a free gift - rom 6:23. it is not earned or deserved - eph 2:8-9 - it had to be a gift because we are all sinners - rom 3:23. God loves us - in fact, God is love - but He is also just. He will not let the guilty go unpunished. this apparent contradiction is solved thru Jesus - who dies on the cross, rose from the dead, paid the penalty for our sins, and purchased a place in heaven for us. ALl we need to do is have faith in Jesus as our savior - recieve HIm as our lord, and follow HIm.

God never promised us an easy trip - just a safe arrival.

Answer 4

It's unfortunate that you are catching some flack for this, because it's a valid question. I won't try to quote the Bible, but there are a lot of parts that seem to be open to interpretation. For example, I'm pretty sure it's wrong to cast judgment, but many do so "in the name of God." If you believe in God, I don't think it's His fault when people sin. Can you blame automobile manufacturers for fatal collisions (assuming they are caused by the drivers and not by malfunctions of the machines)? I don't know if there is such a thing as free will, but as long as we believe we are making our own decisions, we should take responsibility for them.

Answer 5

According to Christians, God is all-knowing - he knows all the past, all the present and all the future. If this is so, then God must know everything we do long before we do it. This means that our whole life must be predetermined and that we act not according to the free exercise of our wills but according to our predetermined natures. If we are predetermined to be good we will be good and if we are predetermined to be evil we will be evil. We will act not according to our will or choice but according to the way God has already foreseen we will act. Although Christians will insist that we do have free will, God's omniscience simply makes this logically impossible. And that people will act only as God determines is verified in the Bible

If people are evil it is because God has chosen to make them evil (Rom 1:24-28) and caused them to disobey him (Rom 11:32). If they do not understand God's message it is because he has made their minds dull (Rom 11:8) and caused them to be stubborn (Rom 9:18). God prevents the Gospel from being preached in certain areas (Act 16:6-7) and he fixes long before it will happen when a person will be born and when he or she will die (Act 17:26). Those who were going to be saved were chosen by God before the beginning of time (ii Tim 1:9 Eph 1:11). If a person has faith and is thereby saved, their faith comes from God, not from any effort on their part (Eph 2:9-10). One may ask "If a person can only do what God predetermines them to do, how can God hold them responsible for their actions?"

But then again, I know from experience that Christians only believe what suits them from the bible, the rest, they either say is 'Symbolism' or 'Out of context'...hmm, how 'convienient...

;)

Answer 6

God gave us free will so that it could be our decision to be good and not sin. He wants us to strive to be good. He knows we are not perfect but he loves us anyway, if we only try. Sin & temptation come from the devil, not God. But you can fight sin & evil just by trying to do the right thing. It's not that hard. Try to find a church that does not lay a big guilt trip on you and try to scare you with sin & punishment - those church leaders are just people trying to maintain a sense of power. Just try to be a good person all the time, and if you can't, then apologize and make amends, and ask God to help you and be strong.

Answer 7

Technically it's not his fault if we sin, because God was/is human. Thus God want us to take responsibility for our own lives, we don't want to be like robots. That way giving us free will is like, in some ways, i know this sounds bad, is like weeding out the 'bad' ones. Sometimes things do go wrong, but it's not his fault, we are who we are, we are moulded by society, we are meant to be individual otherwise it'd be really boring. sometimes, like i say, he tests us, to see if were up to the challenge. Also how do you actually define sin?
And God does have a plan for us all, but that responsibility lies with us, weather we choose to follow him or not, yes there are many questions about God, but, and as a committed christian i always have and will have questions but you need to stop looking for them, they will come naturally.
As for 'it is God will for you to do this', to some degree that is true, it's about finding a balance.
if you're so intersted in church, get some bible reading notes, or a youth bible, they really work because their geared towards many questions we ask today. Listen to some chritistian bands. Download some songs, it's not all sad 'churchy' songs.

Answer 8

God gave mankind freewill sot aht we wouldn't be like string puppets or marionets. He gave us free will then we chose to sin. After the first sin our faults and iniquities were known to us and we could never get rid of that knowledge. Think of it as sins of the father kind of thing.

Gos is love and he doesn't want us to sin but it is now in our nature, because of the first sin and Adam and Eve, to be evil and sinful creatures.

Freewill is a confusing concept and anyone who tries to explain it with concrete proof will just be even more confused.

No one will ever have all the answers and no ne will possibly be able to fathom ifinity. The best I can do is offer a simple explanation and hope is causes you to onder something further.

Answer 9

While G-d gave us the gift of free will, G-d also gave us commandments to which he wants us to adhere. If we commit a sin (i.e., transgress his commandments), we are voluntarily choosing to use the gift of free will in a negative way. So I don't think it's G-d's fault if we sin.

So then you may ask, is there truly "free will" if we are constrained by G-d's commandments? I think the answer is still yes - we have carte blanche to fulfill on a commandment in any way we choose, to the extent that we are not contraventing any other commandment in the process.

Thus, from a perspective of avoiding punishment, while it may not be obvious that we have free will in relation to the types of acts we could perform (the "what"), I would submit that we certainly have a lot more latitude in "how" we execute on plans whose purpose is to adhere to G-d's will.

Answer 10

God gave us agency because he can force no one to be righteous. it would be against his nature. I personally feel that the option to choose to follow him or not is his greatest gift to me. Think about it, if you were forced to do good and follow God's commandments would it be real?

In Contrast it was Lucifer who wanted to make everyone be good and come back. We would have no choice in the matter. How miserable out experience on earth would be!!

Punishment comes as a natural result to a breaking of a natural law. for example, the punishment of Jumping off a cliff is hiiting the ground and potentially dying. Is that gravity's fault or is it the natural consequence of eternal law?

When we sin we separate ourselves from God because we are living according to the flesh and not the higher law of God. Punishment is the natural consequence of sin, But to conteract our weakness and imperfection, Christ was sent as the Savior to Redeem us IF we would repent and turn to Him. So in essence as we repent and gives our Hearts over to Christ, He takes the punishment for us.

Answer 11

Read :

There's A Spiritual Solution To EVery Problem" - Dr. Dwaye Dyer

There is no such thing as sin, only a "spiritual disconnect" from the Higher Power!