The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Double predestination

B57 states that God is the Author of Sin. He is a liar! This is blasphemy!

While one would admit that the existence of sin in the universe is under the jurisdiction of God who is infinite in His wisdom, power, holiness, and justice, this does not make God sin’s author. One impugns the very nature of God by suggesting such. Westminster is careful to safeguard the character of God from even a suggestion of evil. Sin is referred to the freedom which is given to the agent, and of all sinful acts whatever they emphatically affirm that “the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is. nor can be the author or approver of sin.” (V. 4.)

As Boettner says in The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, While one cannot entirely explain how God in His secret counsel rules/overrules the wicked acts of men, we know that whatever God does He never turns from His own perfect justice and thus He is never sin’s author. God is HOLY <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bow.gif" alt="" />, not the author of sin. God permits sin, but hates it with a perfect hatred. The motive which God has in permitting sin and the motive which man has in committing it are thoroughly different. Many persons are deceived because they fail to judge righteously that God wills righteously those things which men do wickedly. The Scriptures tell us that God is perfectly righteous. Since in all of His acts upon which we are competent of passing judgment we find that He is perfectly righteous, we trust Him in those realms which have not yet been revealed to us. We can rest assured that the Judge of all the earth will do right (Gen 18:25).

The fall of Adam was not by chance, but was so ordained in the secret counsels of God. However, God in no way compelled man to fall (to sin) and thus is not the author of sin. He created man perfectly. God simply withheld that undeserved constraining grace with which Adam would infallibly not have fallen. However, God was under no obligation to bestow it. Adam acted as freely as if there had been no decree, and yet as infallibly as if there had been no liberty. God’s decree does not take away man’s liberty; and in the fall Adam freely exercised the natural emotions of his will.

Edwards answers you B57: "If by 'the author of sin,' be meant the sinner, the agent, or the actor of sin, or the doer of a wicked thing . . . . it would be a reproach and blasphemy, to suppose God to be the author of sin. In this sense, I utterly deny God to be the author of sin." But, he argues, willing that sin exist in the world is not the same as sinning. God does not commit sin in willing that there be sin. God has established a world in which sin will indeed necessarily come to pass by God's permission, but not by his "positive agency." God is, Edwards says, "the permitter . . . of sin; and at the same time, a disposer of the state of events, in such a manner, for wise, holy and most excellent ends and purposes, that sin, if it be permitted . . . will most certainly and infallibly follow." Thus in one sense God wills that what he hates come to pass, as well as what he loves. Edwards says,

God does not delight in evil as evil, as an author would do. Rather he "wills that evil comes to pass . . . that good may come of it." (Gen. 50:20)

As Calvin states,


How is God the author of something (i.e. sin) that Job did not even do? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/igiveup.gif" alt="" /> The other part of the phrase is explained above by Calvin. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/hello.gif" alt="" />