The world defines freedom as the ability to do what one pleases or the ability to do what one chooses. A lot of Christians define freedom in the same way.
The definition is not terrible, but I do not think it is correct. The reality is that it causes the ability to sin to be part of the nature of freedom.
God in this definition is hard to see as free. Also it in many ways appears by this definition that man is more free post-fall than pre-fall.
The knowledge of good and evil did not make man more free it rather made him a slave to sin.
I have come to the conclusion that true freedom is the ability to do what pleases God. To be truly free is to follow God.
The reality of life is that man was more free when he simply did not know what evil was to a large extent than when man knew what evil is.
A lot of effort is being poured into attempting to teach people the difference between right and wrong. There is some value here, but I believe the frequency of serious wrong doing out of actual ignorance is very low (claimed ignorance is probably more of an excuse than a reality in general).
Showing posts with label ignorance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ignorance. Show all posts
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Friday, October 21, 2005
What to Say About Ignorance Being Blamed for All Great Injustices Today
Ignorance is blamed for all great injustices today. If we knew more about poverty we would be moved to help. If we truly understood hunger we would feed the poor. If we truly understood racism we would fight against it. The ‘problem’ is that we just don’t know enough.
What should we say about this?
The more major issue though is sin. Christian’s actions are meant to flow out of their faith. When we give Christians emotional reasons to act without first grounding these actions in Christ we set them up to disobey the bible. The bible says all actions must flow from faith. We must look though Christ to deal with sin in any pleasing way for God. It helps to be informed of need so that our efforts may be the most fruitful, but it is not the root of the issue. The root is that if our faith was deep enough we would count all things as rubbish compared to Christ and his kingdom. When all things in the world become rubbish to us then we will be prepared to fight with all our hearts for God. Education to eliminate ignorance might produce ‘works,’ but those works will be despicable to God if they come from anywhere else than our satisfaction in what his son has done for us. For this reason elimination of ignorance is a very distant secondary issue compared to the elimination of sin.
What should we say about this?
The more major issue though is sin. Christian’s actions are meant to flow out of their faith. When we give Christians emotional reasons to act without first grounding these actions in Christ we set them up to disobey the bible. The bible says all actions must flow from faith. We must look though Christ to deal with sin in any pleasing way for God. It helps to be informed of need so that our efforts may be the most fruitful, but it is not the root of the issue. The root is that if our faith was deep enough we would count all things as rubbish compared to Christ and his kingdom. When all things in the world become rubbish to us then we will be prepared to fight with all our hearts for God. Education to eliminate ignorance might produce ‘works,’ but those works will be despicable to God if they come from anywhere else than our satisfaction in what his son has done for us. For this reason elimination of ignorance is a very distant secondary issue compared to the elimination of sin.
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