Procreation is presented as something we certainly take part in and enjoy, but in which God is directive.
Nonsense. Certain actions lead to pregnancy---not engaging in those actions, prevents procreation. Catholics view it as you do, that it is GOD who decides, and therefore prophylactics are sinful. But the natural mechanism is God-designed, and operates mechanically as it was designed. I do not see any evidence, either Scriptural or laboratory, that evinces Divine directivity in this matter.
Ben managed, in no time at all, to reach the conclusion that God was LONELY and needed to create mankind to satisfy this need. While it is his perfect right to believe this, we have at this point ceased to speak about the God of the Bible. God's perfection is one of the universally recognized attributes of His Being. Ben has managed, with a brief series of keystrokes, to portray God as imperfect and incomplete...
Imperfect and incomplete? This is
your opinion. My statement was pure conjecture, presented as only a
possibility. Because I am an engineer by profession, I know the joy of designing something that
works. I strongly suspect this is a joy that God also experiences---I believe part of why He created us, was that
creation was fun.
It is a fact that God craves worship and praise---it is part of our nature to worship Him. Would you call Him
imperfect for this too? I think not.
The desire for communion, interraction and fellowship, is not a weakness nor a fault---but it is strength. One who does not desire social relationships, might properly be labeled, "sociopath"...
Was the omnipotent God unable to make photosynthesis take place through a substance that was blue rather than green?
I do not pretend to know all of the nuances of physics. Why is the Universe
quantized? ("Quantum Physics") Why does water float? I know only
part of why---electron resonance. Electrons orbit at exact distances in an atom, and
nowhere in between ("quantized"). The first orbital, "S1", is spherical. S2 is spherical. The next orbital is NOT spherical, but appears rather like 6 pears impaled stem-first on a large, child's toy jack. Hydrogen bonding on these orbitals with oxygen form little boomerangs, of exactly 120° angles (the two hydrogens electrostatically repel, bending the 90° to 120°) so that when water freezes it forms the six-sided honeycomb figures, two-dimensional, that give rise to familiar six-sided snowflakes, make ice LIGHTER than water (nearly every other material is HEAVIER when it solidifies), so ice floats, and water has all of the unique properties
that make life as we know it possible. What is electron resonance? I don't know---it may well be that the entire Universe is
tuned to function as it does. Could photosynthesis occur with blue rather than green? Green is the color that leaves REJECT---the other colors are ABSORBED. There is a "red-plumb-tree", with red leaves. I do not think it violates any principle of truth to make a purple tree with blue and orange polka-dots...
· ·O– –O · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
· / · · · · \ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
·/ · · · · · \ · · · · · · · · · \ · · · ·
O ·(ice)· O · · ·<=> · · O · · · ·(one water molecule)
·\ · · · · · / · · · · · · · · · / · · · · ·
· \ · · · · / · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
· ·O– –O · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
(This would be easier if it would PRINT all of the spaces---pretend the dots aren't there)
Yet, to create a man who COULD NOT FALL, I assert that premise
violates a principle of truth.
Unless you're saying that there was a "chance" that Adam was going to make a different decision than He did? Are you going to go on the record now and say that, in spite of what God foresaw, there was a chance that Adam was going to make a different decision? Is there an element of randomness in the universe that God cannot foreknow?
There was every chance that Adam would not fall. All Adam had to do, was to obey God. Yet Adam DID fall. This is a reality that we cannot contradict, as we sit here, looking backwards in time. And it is just as much of a reality if we time-travelled to early Eden, and sat there looking
forward in time. But God did nothing to CAUSE Adam to fall. God, outside of time, sees the fall---but God did not CHOOSE nor did He in any way ORCHESTRATE it...
No, it doesn't. I've maintained from the beginning that Adam was culpable in his own fall. Nevertheless, his Fall was an inevitability.
This seems to be the crux of our discussion, which you seem to be laboring to avoid. The fall was
NOT inevitable---lucifer fell, he could have chosen NOT to. Plenty of angels DID CHOOSE NOT TO FALL. I agree with you that Adam was culpable---but if you maintain that it was inevitable, then you remove Adam's culpability.
You see, inevitability equates to a philosophy known as, "Fatalism"---the belief that
every action we take has been determined by the past. Thus, we are but flotsam & jetsam in the river of time. Every choice we make, every preference and direction, has been determined by that-which-brought-us-here. This view totally denies sentience, the ability to make free will choices.
The Bible does not teach "Fatalism"---but responsibility. Over, and over, and over again. We are to be DILIGENT about our calling and election, so that when we have done the will of God we will receive the promise. All of it choice, none of it by
determinism. (Look up "fatalism" and "determinism" in the dictionary...)
It is precisely because of our own
culpability that "Predestined-Election",
MUST BE REJECTED. God is sovereign---and we are
responsible...