That's like saying "I hate sin, but sometimes it comes in handy...I don't like to steal, but I send my kids to steal for me." How virtuous is that? We don't believe in the same God.
While I agree that we may well believe in different Gods, I disagree that your above is like what I said. The question is whether God ever uses sin to accomplish what He wants. If not, then God's role on earth is nothing more than to minister to believers. Everything else that happens is by chance, random luck.
If God influenced any event or any outcome of almost any activity of any non-believer, then it would involve sin to some degree. Sin is THAT prevalent in this world. So, if you believe that does not happen, then your God is even weaker than I thought. :) That God would basically be leaving His creation to its own devices and He would clean up the mess later, not caring what that mess was.
I just can't get over the fact that you believe that the meaning of the crucifixion is that the Romans USED Jesus to instill fear among the people (with the salvation thing being a lucky byproduct), instead of Jesus USING the Romans to save His elect. But, since it involved sin I guess your rule for God is hands off. It must have been random chance and we got lucky.
Usually, the response is that it wasn't luck because God foresaw it, but that's a non-answer. If you tie God's hands behind His back, then whether He foresees anything or not, it is still just luck and in the control of man.
Kosta: Was it not the purpose of the reformed God's creation of Adam and Eve that they sin?
FK: No, none on my side have ever said that. Only your side says that.
Kosta: Really? So, for what reason, if not God's desire to fulfill His "plan," did they fall, according to the reformed theology?
Well, you switched the subject. The purpose of God creating Adam and Eve was to bring glory unto Himself. He did that by using them to accomplish His plan. Part of that plan involved the Fall. Another part of that plan was to populate the earth, etc. But the Fall was not the PURPOSE for creating them.
God "needed" sin in order to be glorified?
No, but the manner of His glorification is really up to Him. He would know. I don't presume.
If God planted the tree in order for Eve in and for the serpent to deceive her, then God's intent was to make sure they sin and He succeeded. This is like me setting up conditions for my child to fail in school and then kick him out of the house for failing.
Well, if your kid was 28, then that might not be a bad idea. :) The point is that there is no way to discern the wholeness of God's plan for allowing sin into the world. We can't understand all of it, but He obviously DID it, so we can only surmise there was a good, Godly reason for it. There is no arguing that God set the conditions. It was man and woman who did not know the difference between good and evil VERSUS pure evil itself. I can't imagine who wins that contest. :)
Where is Christ in this?
Without the Fall, what need have we of Christ? That's where Christ is in this.
But you make it sound like the heart is not really yours. It's either devil's or God's but not yours.
What have I that does not belong to God? Even I am not my own, I was bought at a price.
Dear FK,As Kosta pointed out recently,this including sin as something planned by God is Manichean heresy that many protestant sects have adapted,especially calvinism.
Our Lord is a Redeemer of those who come to Him sinful and sorrowful with contrite hearts. He is NOT a sin planner for the elect.
Here is a few more From Blessed Saint Aquinas
That there is not any Sovereign Evil, acting as the Principle of All Evils
A sovereign evil should be without participation in any good, as that is the sovereign good which is wholly removed from evil. But there cannot be any evil wholly removed from good, since evil is founded on good (Chap. XI).
2. If anything is sovereignly evil, it must be evil by its very essence, as that is sovereignly good which is good by its essence. But evil has no essence (Chap. VII).
3. That which is a first principle is not caused by anything. But all evil is caused by good (Chap. X). There is therefore no evil first principle.
5. The incidental must be posterior to the ordinary. But evil happens only incidentally and beside the intention (Chap. IV). Therefore it is impossible for evil to be a first principle.
Hereby is excluded the error of the Manicheans.
That Evil is not a Nature or Essence*
Evil is nothing else than a privation of that which a thing is naturally apt to have and ought to have. But a privation is not an essence, but a negation in a substance.
5. Every essence is natural to some thing. If the essence ranks as a substance, it is the very nature of the thing. If it ranks as an accident, it must be caused by the principles of some substance, and thus will be natural to that substance, though perhaps not natural to some other substance. But what is in itself evil cannot be natural to anything: for the essence of evil is privation of that which is naturally apt to be in a thing and is due to it. Evil then, being a privation of what is natural, cannot be natural to anything. Hence whatever is naturally in a thing is good, and the want of it an evil. No essence then is in itself evil.*
6. Whatever has any essence is either itself a form or has a form,* for by form everything is assorted in some genus or species. But form, as such, has a character of goodness, being the principle of action and the end which every maker intends, and the actuality whereby every subject of form is perfected. Whatever therefore has any essence, as such, is good.
7. Being is divided into actuality and potentiality. Actuality, as such, is good, because everything is perfected by that whereby it actually is. Potentiality too is something good: for potentiality tends to actuality, and is proportionate to actuality, not contrary to it; and is of the same genus with actuality; and privation does not attach to it except accidentally.* Everything therefore that is, in whatsoever way it is, in so far as it is a being, is good.
8. All being, howsoever it be, is from God (B. II, Chap. VI). But God is perfect goodness (B. I, Chap. XLI). Since then evil cannot be the effect of goodness, it is impossible for any being, as being, to be evil.*
Hence it is said: God saw all things that he had made, and they were very good (Gen. i, 31): He made all things good in his own time (Eccles. iii, 11): Every creature of God is good (1 Tim. iv, 4).