Friday, August 04, 2006

'Author of Sin'

Rebecca has a great discussion of the theological argument-stopper, "That makes God the author of sin." I particularly liked the discussion of Jonathan Edwards's comments on the subject. While they don't use these words, I have seen papers in which philosophers of religion make the same type of equivocation she notes (e.g., by saying, "this makes God the cause of morally bad states of affairs".) That God is (in some sense) a cause of sin doesn't automatically make God a sinner; He can only be a sinner if the way He causes it is itself sinful, as Rebecca rightly notes.