Is Man's Weakness God's Fault?

Man suffers a great deal with guilt. Why does he feel this guilt? What is the source of this guilt? Who inspired this guilt? Isn't it God? Isn't it God who inspired this guilt in Man? God's rules are so antithetical to Man's essential nature. Man is essentially a rebel. Man is born in rebellion against God. And all his life Man finds it difficult to live according to the rules of God. And his suffering comes from guilt. Human suffering is born of guilt, the terrible guilt that issues from not living according to God's rules. So, isn't God really the cause of Man's sufferings? If God is indeed responsible for human suffering, then Man is not responsible. If God is responsible for Man's fallenness, then Man is not responsible. Man can be exonerated. Man is free from blame. Man should not be blamed for the way he conducts himself. Is this a justifiable position? It does seem that God did not create Man perfectly. It does seem that God came up with rules that are contrary to Man's nature. All this seems wrong. It seems like God made a big mistake. But did God make a mistake? Is Man really not to blame?

Man is the creation of God. God is the Creator. The Bible admits that. Man is also a flawed creation. The Bible acknowledges that. There is a flaw in human nature. It is said that Man was made in the image of God.  But if one were to consider a human being, one may not find much of God in that person. Sometimes one may not see anything of God in a certain human. Still it is said that Man was made in the image of God. Then why does Man have a problem with being like God? Shouldn't it be effortless for Man to be like God? Yet Man finds it difficult to be like God. Though Man was made in the image of God, he has forsaken that image. He has forsaken and forgotten that image. When God created Man he looked very different from the way he looks today. How we human beings look today is very different from how we used to look before we fell. And we fell.

Man fell from a certain lofty place. When God created Man, Man existed at a certain level. And Man fell from that level. Man disobeyed God. Man did not just disobey God, he also wanted to make his own rules. Above all he wanted to be like God. That was the temptation at Eden. The temptation was not to eat a certain fruit. The temptation was to be like God. That is what led Man to his fall. Man forgot his place. He forgot the fact that he was a creation and wanted to be like the Creator. Is Man not responsible for his fall?  Can Man say, "Look, I have been created imperfectly. That's why I fell. The person who programmed me did not do a good job. That's why there was an error."  I don't think he can.

God gave Man the entire world, in fact the entire Garden of Eden. Man was free to eat from any tree in the garden except one. God forbade Man to eat from a certain tree. Man was given the freedom to do anything he wanted except to eat from that tree. But it was the fruit of that tree that Man desired to eat above everything else. He chose to disobey God. He chose to give up all his privileges for tasting the fruit of that tree. He ate that fruit believing that it would make him like God. This was a conscious decision that Man made. So Man then could not say that it was not possible for him to say no to the temptation. The truth is that he could have said no, but he actually said yes. And that has remained the way of all flesh. Even now humans do what God told them not to do. Even now human beings say yes when they ought to say no.

Is God responsible for Man's fall? Or is Man responsible for his own fall? The Bible clearly presents Man as guilty. It presents Man as responsible for his fallenness. Man was given a certain privilege. He was given the freedom to choose. And he chose what God forbade. And that is what all human beings continue to do. We humans often choose evil. It is not that we are powerless to choose good. It is that we prefer evil to good on many occasions. We choose evil because we prefer evil. Evil appeals to us more than good does. The Bible clearly states that Man is guilty. And I believe that Man is guilty because Man has the power to say no to evil, and yet he says yes. He chooses to do evil. Every time Man does evil, he chooses to do it. And it is he who is responsible for his action.

God did not create Man to behave like a robot. He did not want humans to obey his rules without understanding and acceptance. He wanted us to understand and accept his goodness. This is the power that he gave Man -- the power to judge and to know. All human beings have been given that power. Adam had that power. But he preferred to do what was evil. And that tendency has stayed with all of us, his children. When Adam, our father, chose to do evil, he knew it was evil. He knew it was not what God wanted him to do. And yet he did it. He did it knowingly. So he was responsible for his actions. He could not say, "I was too weak. God made me so weak that I could not resist the temptation." That was not the way it was. He could have chosen not to eat the fruit that was forbidden. But he chose to eat. Even today we, his children, could chose not to do many of the lamentable things that we actually do. Yet we do them anyway. We do them knowing well that we should have acted differently. As long as we know that, we are responsible for our actions. So we are responsible for the way we are. We suffer because of the mistakes that we knowingly make, not because of how God created us to be. Therefore it is not God who is culpable, we are.


Samuel Godfrey George