Thanks for this interesting topic.
The question: "How does this fit into the Bible?", has its own assumptions built in. (a loaded question)
A better question may be: "What is God's plan for his creation?", what is God about? Did God create humankind in order to punish them for not being like him? Or is God in the restoration business? The answers seems so obvious.
I know this is one of your favorite topics.
Everything needs to start with the objective.
If there is this eternal intelligence it would be at the epitome of the best it could be and not in the process of improvement. It would be the ultimate bad or good but not somewhere in-between. Why be bad when He can be good just as easily? The ultimate “good” would be what is called Godly type Love (to be defined later) and is a totally unselfish type Love. Since this God would be able to direct our thinking, why would He have us think of Him as being totally bad, when He could make us think bad was good and thus, He would be worthy of praise? If God were bad and we praise a “Good God” than we are not praising Him.
The differences and issues begin with misunderstanding of the objective. Most Christians like: Man’s objective is to “bring glory to God” and have scripture references to support that objective, but a person can take any commandment of God given in scripture and have Biblical support for call that command: “Man’s objective”. We are certainly commanded to do that command, so why is it not man’s objective?
There are the two superior commands which all other commands are subordinate to and combined would be like: “Love God (and secondly others) with all your heart, soul, mind, and energy.” That appears to be man’s “Mission Statement”. The huge problem with fulfilling that “Mission Statement” is the fact that the “Love” needed would have to be huge, way beyond anything man could develop, learn, deserve, earn, pay back, be instinctive to man, or somehow just be forced upon humans.
Thus, the reason you have free will, is because it is required for you to complete your earthly objective.
This messed up world which includes satan roaming around is not here for your pleasure, but to
help each of us to become like God Himself in that you have the unique, unbelievable Godly type Love (God himself is Love).
There are just somethings even an all-powerful Creator cannot do (there are things impossible to do), like create another Christ, since Christ has always existed, the big impossibility for us is; create humans with instinctive Godly type Love, since Godly type Love is not instinctive. Godly type love has to be the result of a free will decision by the being, to make it the person’s Love apart from God. In other words: If the Love was in a human from the human’s creation it would be a robotic type love and not a Godly type Love. Also, if God “forces” this Love on a person (Kind a like a shotgun wedding) it would not be “loving” on God’s part and the love forced on the person would not be Godly type Love. This Love has to be the result of a free will moral choice with real alternatives (for humans those alternatives include the perceived pleasures of sin for a season.)
Read the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, the young son was generously given more then he could handle (like most of us today), which the father would realize. The prodigal son returned to his father, not out of “Love”, but selfishly wanting a job he did not deserve or should even ask for. Just because the son became just willing to accept pure undeserved charity from the father he hated, allowed the father to shower him with gifts. God is that way with you.
God has created beings to shower them with the greatest gifts possible, the greatest gift being having a Love like His.
If there is this Creator of the universe out there, His “creations” could not really “do” anything for Him, so this Creator would have to be seen as a Giver (Unselfish Lover) and not trying to “get” something from His creation.
Why would God have a totally unselfish type of Love, since He personally would not get anything out of it? If God’s “Love” is some kind of knee jerk reaction, then it is really meaningless (something like; gravity which is nice to have, but everyone automatically has it). God Loves us in spite of what we have done, who we are or what we will do, so it has to be by His choice.
God would create the right universe for the sake of the individuals that will accept His gift (the most powerful force [Love] in all universes, since that force [Love] compels even God to do all He does) and thus the willing become like He is (the greatest gift He could give).
What keeps the all-powerful Creator from just giving whatever He wants to his creation, eliminating the need for free will and this earthly time.
This Love is way beyond anything humans could develop, obtain, learn, earn, pay back or ever deserve, so it must be the result of a gift that is accepted or rejected (a free will choice).
This “Love” is much more than just an emotional feeling; it is God Himself (God is Love). If you see this Love you see God.
All mature adults do stuff that hurts others (this is called sin) these transgressions weigh on them, burden them, to the point the individual seeks relief (at least early on before they allow their hearts to be hardened). Lots of “alternatives” can be tried for relief, but the only true relief comes from God with forgiveness (this forgiveness is pure charity [grace/mercy/Love]). The correct humble acceptance of this Forgiveness (Charity) automatically will result in Love (we are taught by Jesus and our own experience “…he that is forgiven much will Love much…”). Sin is thus made hugely significant, so there will be an unbelievable huge debt to be forgiven of and thus result in an unbelievable huge “Love” (Godly type Love).
Sin has purpose in helping willing humans in fulfilling their objective. God does not like it but allows it.
Unfortunately, I, along with others, needed to see and know the brevity of life in order to respond sooner than later. Time is not on our side, since we do not get better, but worse. If everyone had at least 60 years, there would be no rush to repent and repenting does not get easier with time. We all tend to spiral down into the pigsty of life (like the prodigal son) and that does help, if when we do come to our senses we turn to the Father, but that does not have to take 60 years.
Let me just give you an example of How God works to help willing individuals.
If the nonbeliever had knowledge of God's existence that person would not need faith in God's existence, but faith is needed for humility and humility is needed to humbly accept pure charity and the only way to get Godly type Love is through accepting it as pure charity in the form of forgiveness.
This also shows a “need” for man to sin.
Let’s talk about “Adam and Eve”:
Adam and Eve were made “very good” by God’s standard (as good as made beings could be made, but not perfect like Christ). They had the same “objective” as you and I have, but what we and they found out was: what would be perceived as an ideal place and condition, was actually a lousy place to fulfill man’s objective. Not sinning meant they deserved all that God was giving them (it was His responsibility to care for His creation). There was no reason for Adam and Eve to humbly accept God’s gifts as pure undeserved charity and they had to be given a survival instinct to give value to life, but that creates a self-concern and a kind of selfishness. They were eventually going to sin, have curses to live with, and eventually die. Is death bad in and of itself? Curses limiting resources also provided a way to experience Love through helping others, and now they had a need for undeserving charitable forgiveness.
I am not wanting to go back to the Garden situation even without the tree of knowledge and satan roaming around, since Adam and Eve sinned in that situation. What would a better situation look like?
This messed up world is what I and others need to fulfill our objective, I need: death, Christ to go to the cross, past sins, work to do, purpose for being here, tragedies of all kinds, hell, guidance to know what pleases and displeases God, Christ’s example, the indwelling Holy Spirit and the Church.
People who do not want to be undeservingly Loved in spite of the way they are, but want only a carnal type Love (to be loved for the way people perceive them to be), would not be happy at the Love Feast in heaven since there is only this Godly type Love. Yes, they might be really unhappy in hell, but the choice is not between the lessors of two evils. People go to hell not to help them nor because God does not Love them, but out of God’s Love for those who are helped by the existence of hell and the fact people go there.
We will not sin in heaven, yet we have the free will to do so, why will we not sin? We know about sin since we have sinned, we know about satan since he has tempted us, we know about Love since we used it, we can not see spiritual things so we not only know the Spirit is with us, but can literally see him at our elbow, we will not have sexual bodies, which can cause us to be naturally competitive, we virtually have everything so there is nothing to covet, the only thing we are not all equal with is Godly type Love, but that only means Paul Loves me more then I Love Him back so who is better off in that situation. I do not have scripture to back this up, but as a Christian my greatest joy comes from helping others, so in heaven I would want to protect and preserve all those that come to heaven without ever having the opportunity to fulfill their earthly objective and thus come with only a wonderful child for wonderful parent type love.
That is an introduction to the huge topic of Love.
