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Saying that God makes man sin is like saying that because you allowed your teenage son to drive the car, and he has an accident, that you caused him to wreck the car; or, because you allowed your daughter to go out on a date, and she has sex and gets pregnant, that you caused her pregnancy.

And you know the response I get back from the Calvinists here?

Could I have stopped the wreck? After all, I could've prevented him from driving the car, couldn't I?

So I must've wanted him to have the wreck and must've wanted the daughter to get pregnant.

Right?

Wrong!! Here's the answer you get from this Calvinist (assuming that i have correctly understood the post):

i'm sorry, you were offered a faulty example, my deepest apologies.

Unlike the parents given in the above example, (in blue text), God knows all future events. The parents in the example have no idea or future knowlege of the decisions and actions that their children will make, and the contingencies made by the rest of the "environment" that they will come into contact with. In short good fellow, man is finite, limited in knowlege. There is no way that this situation should have been presented as an anology to the actions and knowlege of an infinite, All-knowing, and all powerful God.

What we are dancing around is the question of the origin of Evil and Sin. All should agree that it did not start with man. Satan rebelled before the Earth was created according to most theologies.

The argument of choice of the creature gets us ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE! How does the creature choose what does not yet exist in the Universe?

This argument of the origin of Evil/sin is the most solid argument AGAINST the existence of one God...it is also the greatest argument for the existence of one God. Of course, to avoid being accused of contradiction, let me state that the two arguments are different relationships.

If God exists, it does not follow that evil must exist, but if evil does exist, THEN God MUST exist! As for how it got here, i don't know, and neither do you. When we walk into That arena, we end up "killing off each other", because it is the fatal flaw to any Monotheistic system.

"If God exists, it does not follow that evil must exist, but if evil does exist, THEN God MUST exist!"

Evil, which opposes the direct will of God, cannot exist without the direct will of God. For without the direct will of God, nothing can be!

I originally had heard the above quoted of Calvin, but I have not been able to verify that.

Similarly, Luther said, "Even the devil is God's devil!"

Jean

i'm sorry, you were offered a faulty example, my deepest apologies.

I never intended to try to hold up this example as a perfect illustration. It was to illustrate the faulty reasoning that was being employed to say that since God gave man the ability to choose (Pre-Fall), that since man chose poorly, God caused him to do so (set him up, so to speak). The analogy was to address that faulty reasoning, by giving an example that employed the same faulty reasoning to show how faulty it was. It was analogous to a parent allowing a child to do something, the child getting into trouble, and then saying that the parent CAUSED the trouble the child got into. There is a direct line of reasoning between the two that I was attempting to refute.

Sorry you didn't see it that way...