Power and Choice
Submitted by Wayne on Tue, 2008-09-09 08:26.
Doctrine
If God is all-powerful, can He do evil? This is a logical fallacy stupid atheists--forgive the redundancy--like to pose. Worse, a similar fallacy comes into play in the Person of Jesus, but believers promulgate this one.
Being all-powerful does not mean He must exercise that power in order to have it. For example, I have the power of death. I can take another man's life pretty much at will. I have the power to kill. Does this make me a killer? No, unless I use that power. Just because I don't use it, though, does not mean I don't have the power. Lord willing, I will never use that power and never be a killer, but neither need I be bereft of that power merely to avoid using it. I simply choose.
God can do anything He wants. He chooses, though, to want and do only that which is good and holy. Yes, I understand that is by definition ultimately, but even it weren't, He chooses to do that which has been written down as holy (Bible). This does not make Him any less powerful.
How does this apply to the Person of Jesus, you ask? A similar question has been posed and answered badly by believers: was Jesus capable of sin? Too many believers wrongly answer, "No." He was [is] God and therefore not capable of sin, they say; He could not deny His Divine nature. Of course, this also means He had no true understanding of the human condition. His temptations in the desert were benign, false, meaningless jokes. It also means He had no free will, a trait God gave man--but did not allow His Son? No, those who answer that Jesus could not sin are simply wrong.
Jesus most definitely could have sinned. His choices between righteous obedience and sinful disobedience were very real. At any time, He had the power to choose poorly. He must have had such potential in order for His temptations to have been truly tempting. He must have had free will, the option to sin, or He could not have been human by any measure. Just because He could choose sin, though, does not mean He was sinful. In fact, He was sinless, consistently, perfectly, flawlessly choosing to obey His Father at every turn. He set the model for the rest of us, showing us that such sinlessness was [at least hypothetically] possible for humanity. If His nature was otherwise, His humanity would have been worthless to us, and we would still be separated from our God by the chasm of our sins.
I am not a murderer, not because I don't have the power to murder, but because I choose not to murder. Just because Jesus didn't sin does not mean He couldn't; He simply chose correctly. Just because we do sin does not mean we must; we, too, choose. We all have power we should not use. In the end, it's a simple matter of choice.
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Potential and Choice
What happens when we deny our potential for sin? We grant such sins power, and they can eventually overcome us. No believer is without the potential for great sin, no matter how mature and holy he is. Without perpetual vigilance, our worst sins can sneak into our hearts and lead us to doing great evil.
I believe this is how those in great ministries tend to fall from grace, so to speak. Youth pastors and priests molest children. Televangelists embezzle or commit fraud. School teachers start "relationships" with students. Police accept favors or gifts or "bend" the law to their benefit. Role models commit adultery. Politicians sell out. Power corrupts. These failures are all too easy when their very real potential--even their presence on the stoop--is denied.
I suspect this may be why Billy Graham remains rather holy, considering how many of his cohorts utterly fail. I think he saw his perpetual potential for sin and took steps to avoid it. For example, he was only paid a modest salary, plus one (and eventually two) new suits each year. He said the best way to avoid sin was, when confronted with temptation, run away from it immediately. When temptations are denied as being such (as happens when the potential for sin is denied), there can be no running away.
Perhaps this is where the wisdom of the 12-step program comes from. It is said that an alcoholic will always be an alcoholic, no matter if he's been perfectly sober for the rest of his life. This recognizes the perpetual potential for sin, acknowledges temptations as they arise, and clearly shows when to run away. In this way, we are all sinners, addicted to this most harmful of vices. We must always acknowledge our addiction, be on the lookout for temptations, and run away from them when presented. Otherwise, we can too easily fall back into sinful ways without realizing it until it's too late.