Tackling the Questions, Starting with the First
Monday, April 13, 2009 at 5:08PM 
Finally, finally, and after it’s already dropped off the main page, I’m getting around to replying to the questions and comments left on the last post in my theological soap opera, I Started a Fight. I’ll just go right down the line and respond in the order the comments were received. In this post I tackle the very first question, the one from Catez, and I’ll address the rest as I have time.
My question is how do you make this compatible with God not being the author of sin? We can say God chose and Adam chose - but God’s plan preceded Adam - so wouldn’t this make him the author?
First, let me say that I don’t know exactly what it means to be the author of sin. I’m not unfamiliar with the phrase, but I’ve never seen it defined. And it isn’t a phrase found in scripture, so we don’t have a verse that says, “God is not the author of sin.” What we do have is almost everyone agreeing that God can’t be the author of sin, but no settled definition that means. (I’ve written on this phrase previously in more detail.)
A better way to go about thinking through this question might be to look at the “not” statements about God’s relationship to sin that we find in scripture. The main one I can think of is from James 1 where we are told that God does not tempt anyone. We know that God put the tree in the garden and forbade the eating of the fruit, and obviously, if there is no contradiction in scripture, that by itself does not constitute tempting Adam and Eve. In the Genesis account, the actual tempters—the ones who urged or enticed others to disobey—were the serpent and then Eve.
And yes, as stated in this question, God’s plan preceded Adam and Eve’s sin. God chose to permit the fall as part of his plan of redemption, and because of that permission, sin would, to quote Jonathan Edwards (see the above linked post), “most certainly and infallibly follow.” However, since Adam and Eve did not know that God had planned for the fall, God’s planning was not the stimulus for their sin. His planning did not make the fruit more attractive to them. Their desire for the fruit came from within themselves. Eve, we are told, saw the fruit was good to eat and wanted to be wise as God is wise. She desired to be like God in a way that was forbidden to her.
This is how I begin to fit God’s sovereign plan for human history and responsible human choice together in my mind. (And that’s the question that seems to be at the heart of this question of God’s authoring of sin. ) This is about as far as I go in putting them together. Further than this, I hesitate to go, and I don’t think I need to. God’s plan and responsible human choice are both in scripture side by side, so I accept them as compatible.
Besides the post linked above, this really old post at the really old blog on Isaiah 10 and reconciling God’s sovereignty and human responsiblity might help you think through some of the issues raised by this question.
Reader Comments (3)
Ah! Thankyou for taking the time to write a whole post in response. After reading this I would say we are probably on the same page: "However, since Adam and Eve did not know that God had planned for the fall, God’s planning was not the stimulus for their sin. His planning did not make the fruit more attractive to them. Their desire for the fruit came from within themselves."
What you've raised about the "author of sin" phrase is interesting. In my mind it meant something like the one who wrote it into existence first - or something. Not that I've ever thought God was the author of sin. This all makes much more sense for me when I think of God planning for the fall. One thing I have often thought about was the difference between Adam and Eve compared to us before they fell.
Good stuff Rebecca.
This all makes much more sense for me when I think of God planning for the fall.
As long as when you state it that way you're not meaning to say that God made a plan he would put in place if humankind fell. Like I might plan for rain on a sunny day by taking an umbrella along just in case a sudden storm came up.
I don't see how it could be if because he knew it would happen. But saying he knew it would happen and planned for it is different to me than saying he planned it to happen. I think there is that tension there that arises for us when we look at some of these compatibilities.