Day 129 - What is "could" ?

Tonight at the cell group an interesting question came up: "If Jesus was tempted, does that mean he could have sinned?" I've heard this question several times before, but tonight I realized something.

I think the key here is the word "could". What is "could"? It's normally taken to mean something like "possesses the ability to". It implies potential. But what is potential? What does it mean if that potential is never realized? Was anything really there in the first place?

Potential energy is not energy. It only becomes energy if certain conditions are met. If those conditions never are met, the potential energy is irrelevant, and it would be the same as if there was no potential energy at all.

I submit that the word "could" is a way of describing our uncertainty about the future. For something with a known outcome, the only possible outcome (under given conditions) is the one that was. We don't know the future, so we can talk about the future in terms of "could" or "might". But if God does know the future, there really is nothing that "could happen" or "might happen" from his perspective. There's only what WILL happen.

Here's a question that might help explain. If God knows that you will do something, and has perfect knowledge that you will do it, can you do otherwise? The only possible answer is "no". You can challenge whether or not God knows what you will do (that's a discussion for another time), but the fact remains that IF he knows, you can't possibly do otherwise. You may have the physical or mental ability to do otherwise, but that ability will not be used, and thus is irrelevant.

Now apply that to the original question. Assuming that Jesus did not sin, it follows that he could not have sinned. Any discussion of his ability or potential to sin is irrelevant because those words, like "could", only describe situations for which the outcome is not known.

posted by Matt @ 11:26 PM