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Question 6

Clement of Alexandria says, “Each one of us sins with his own free will and thereby chooses punishment,” placing blame on the sinner and declaring “God is without blame”; what parts of contemporary Christian culture (sermons, counseling, social media) tend to shift blame away from the will, and what would change if Clement’s assumption were taken seriously?

Another way to ask: Clement says we sin by our own free will, so the blame is on us, not God. Where do sermons, counseling, or social media shift blame away from personal choice, and what would change if we took Clement seriously?

Direct Answer The transcript’s main point is that blame for sin and punishment belongs to the person who chooses evil, not to God; it doesn’t map modern examples, but it implies we should stop excusing sin as something forced on us.

Support from Transcript:

Clement: “Each one of us sins with his own free will and thereby chooses punishment.”
The conclusion is explicit: “So the blame lies with the one who chooses evil. God is without blame.”
This fits the broader theme that God is not the author of wickedness: “God was not the author of Pharaoh’s wickedness.”
Origen similarly places responsibility on human response: hearts harden when they treat God’s kindness “with contempt and disrespect.”
Even where God “hardens,” the lesson says it is because people “had hardened their own hearts,” and “each individual… was responsible for his own hardening.”

Discussion Follow-ups The transcript doesn’t name sermons/counseling trends, but what would repentance look like if we stopped explaining away choices and instead owned them as willful?

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