Great reply, alec. Unsurprisingly, I disagree with a fair chunk, but I think it’s now clearer where we differ and why. Although neither of us know the answers to this stuff (who does?), I think your position is not very reasonable (sorry), and hopefully I can show that below.
1 & 2) So you’re arguing that sin is necessary for an individual to become sinless? Given that you apply this to infants, this also means that if a sinless being dies it must be given further ‘chances’ by God directly to sin - either in heaven, or post-resurrection (or reincarnation?). Given the biblical hints of heaven/post-resurrection state being without sin, and given the nature of God, it seems difficult to hold this view. Pastorally, too, I suspect there would be difficulties: one would have to tell grieving parents that their child is still undergoing a process of maturation, one which involves sin - and by consequence suffering - about which you know nothing. Also, it seems odd for God to make sin a necessary educational device. And, another difficulty, seems to be the process itself. How much sin is required in that process before one is perfected? We all have very different levels of sin here in this life without anyone being perfect, so how long does this process continue (with sin being necessary)? Where there is sin there is suffering. And I admit to being sketchy about the details of how the process works: what is this process? It seems from what you imply it must involve that it cannot be simple revelation, repentance, education, collapse of epistemic distance or judgement, because it requires on-going sinning.
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Sorry, my bad - I’m not sure what I was thinking of here. But, just to throw things out for consideration, would you say there are borderline cases in the animal realm of free moral agents? Dolphins, chimps, proto-humans? what happens to them?
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It seems your position would be forced into adopting an angels=God position, but that, whilst possible, I see as being a weaker exegetical position (and theological position) than the traditional alternative. Why have one’s theology force them into a weaker biblical position?
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Does God punish sin? Does God expect free moral agents to choose not to sin? Does God give commands that require that a free moral agent to not sin? When God says, ‘Be perfect’ or ‘Do x’ or ‘Don’t do y’ is it possible for people to keep those commands? It would be immoral for God to have an impossible expectation and make impossible demands - especially if He punishes afterwards (which it seems He does). Can you name a single example of an inevitable sin, one where the free moral agent had no choice but to sin? I cannot think of one, so I doubt such a thing exists.
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No - I don’ take Gen as a straightforward myth (I have little difficulty with an historical Adam, for example, though I don’t think the text makes him the first human), but I’m not sure that it matters much. If Adam was an individual (historical or literary) doesn’t the story, either way, show that God created a human directly, who lived without sin, and to whom God gave a straightforward command which Adam disobeyed? Wouldn’t your position have the added difficulty of having to explain that God issued that command without hope of it being obeyed, and that the disappointment and shock expressed by God afterwards was play acting?
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Your analogy is a nice one, but is not really accurate. The difference between human parents choosing to have children and God creating the universe is too enormous to draw accurate ethical parallels. A) When I have a child, do I know that it will ‘inevitably’ sin? Actually no - no matter how unlikely I hold to freewill, and thus see it as theoretically (though not practically) possible that someone might live a sinless life - all other things being equal (ie given no outside manipulation or influence or coercion) - and there is always the chance the baby will die before sinning. Now, the environment ensures that freewill will be influenced/compromised to such a degree to make a human practically unable to be sinless - but this environment I have no control over - but in creation God did. It is one thing to have a human child in this messed up world, it would be another thing to directly create the messed-up world to place the child into! I might not be culpable if I choose to have a child when I can do nothing about the environment, but I think God would be culpable if He created both a flawed being (inevitable sin) and a flawed environment.
However, I do see the force of your point here, and concede: if parents aren’t guilty due to inability then neither is God. Of course, this begs the questions of whether God was unable to do something, and if sin is inevitable, and if having children is perfectly moral. So, ok, maybe God wouldn’t be acting immorally in creating beings who He knew would inevitably sin and suffer - but it still doesn’t sit well with me, though at the moment I cannot pin-point exactly why. Is it possible that one could argue that if creating a being to inevitably suffer the morality of the act is tied to the degree of the suffering? For example, I think it would be immoral for parents to have children if they knew that the child would be tortured hideously, or if they knew it would live a massively miserable life - don’t you? If this is true, then your position would require not only that you show that God creating beings who would inevitably sin/suffer is permissible, but that creating beings who have sinned/suffered to the degree that they have in history is permissible - this is where I think I’m coming from. I wouldn’t choose to have a child if I knew they’d suffer like some people have - so why did God?
Your position also seems to assume that an educative process will necessarily include sin. Why? Education, and the movement from ignorance to knowledge, or from less than ideal choices to ideal choices, doesn’t equate to sinfulness.
Given the above difficulties with the position that sin is inevitable for all free moral agents until they have completed some mysterious process (except God - interestingly, why is God exempt here?) simply better to adopt another position (or at least look for one) that doesn’t have the same issues. It seems, to me, that open theism + cosmic warfare + universalism + FWD + vale of soul making can offer the same theodicy benefits of your position, but without the difficulties.
I’m not sure I can provide any independent warrant for the argument but will explore some of your objections and possible solutions. I know it won’t be entirely satisfactory to you as the argument continues to be “the necessity of sin”.