Sin and Free Will

I recently had a conversation regarding the constitution of sin in general, what is sin really? Some hold sin to be the breaking of God’s Ten Commandments, others implement more stringent rules based on Biblical references. I think that it is very simple; sin is disrespecting God or anything that is God’s. We are God’s and have been lent our bodies and spirit. Since we belong to God, being disrespectful to each other constitutes sin. The Ten Commandments outline specific disrespectfulness toward each other (stealing, slandering, coveting, etc…). Before the conversation got too far I thought it important to further investigate sin and its origin. 

The Application of Free Will

The application of free will in the universe by God meant that eventually in the scope of time there would be a decision made to rebuke him. If you give something the opportunity to fail, inevitably it will. Mathematically this is true. Yes, God could have created everything to worship and love him without flaw. He could create a pseudo free will which would give his creations a “free will” but create them without the desire to do so. God does not want control of our actions; he wants us to choose him (truth and righteousness) over sin. The other side of the coin (the devil, Satan, whatever you want to call him) is who to blame for the horrible things done, because he wants you to choose against God, and is fighting to cause us to do these things.  Our entire human existence is the unraveling of nature, morality and righteousness at the expense of free will. When it is over, the lessons learned from this time and the consequences will be known for eternity.

Sin and God’s Will

Sin itself is an outcome from the concept of free will. If you have a decision to choose one thing or the other, in this case it is between God’s will and truth or man’s nature. Sin is the choice of doing man’s will. Most people sound like defiant children when speaking of God and his will. As a parent we know that our children are making mistakes or choosing poor options, and they sit back and tell us that our opinion doesn’t matter or “It’s my life, I’ll do what I want”. Yes, free will gives us this ability. The only thing we can do is watch them go through all of the things that come from these poor decisions.

Some believe that pain and suffering are the direct consequence of sin.  The belief that God punishes us for sinning against him.  Good fortune happens to those who sin, and those who don't.  Pain a suffering happen to those who sin, and those who don't.  If God stepped in on our behalf every time something bad was going to happen, would that be “fair” to the party trying to prove God is wrong?

Pain and suffering on behalf of sin for a human lifetime of 60-100 years is small when considering the implications of this process in the scope of eternity. By this logic 10,000 years from now a person would not remember the individual pain suffered from a moment in time. They will have a “scar” of what happened for eternity though.

Choosing God

I believe that the Bible helps us to know and understand the difference between right and wrong (or righteousness and sinfulness). We were never set up to fail; we as humans chose to fail because we sinned. In the society we live in today, it has become tougher to choose right as time goes on because of the number of people who choose to sin and accept sinful behavior. I do not claim to be above these things and sometimes it seems unfair to have the burden of sinful thoughts on our conscience.

We have become the society we are today because of thousands of years choosing sin little by little.  It is not God that burdens our conscience and tempts us to do these things, and suffering on earth is not a punishment for sinning. It is an earthly death that is the one and only punishment. Pain and suffering is the mechanism used by the other side to put blame on God and separate us from him.  When everything is accomplished we will know the outcome and consequences of sin, and all of creation will learn from what we have endured.