Omniscience and Predestination- Can't Have One Without the Other

SemperReformanda · Sep 25, 2002

seebs-

"Saying that I have "only one choice", which is to live until I die, does not deprive me of choice in the matter of whether or not I wish to jump in front of a truck. Not everything that can be summarized as if it were a single decision really is; this is a linguistic problem, not a logical one."

No, not if that's what I was saying. But, it isn't. You've deleted a step. I'll continue your analogy, to help clarify.

If God, from all eternity, foresaw you dying from eating buttermilk and cherries together on a hot day, then it DOES preclude you from jumping in front of a truck and dying. One day, you WILL freely choose to eat cherries and buttermilk on a hot day, of your own free choice. You will do NOTHING differently from what God has foreseen. That doesn't mean that you aren't making choices, but it does mean that you will make the choices that were foreseen. Likewise, Adam was never going to make a decision any differently than what God had foreseen.

Offtoou777-

It's nice to meet you. Thanks for your thoughts. Welcome to the Forum and all that, I'm new here too...

SemperReformanda · Sep 25, 2002

Ben-

When you have time, please respond to the "lonely God" thing. That thesis is still amazing to me.

Here's a re-cap:

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.

This is interesting, in light of the fact that we are commanded to "be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect." The word there means "complete", and is much better rendered in the Russian where they translate it exactly thus. It's interesting that we're commanded to be something that Ben doesn't think even God is.

The speciousness of this thinking is immediately evident when we remember that God is trinitarian. There is perfect, infinite love and fellowship among the Trinity. And it is a fellowship of equals. It's interesting to imagine Ben thinking his limited fellowship with God is anything but a pale reflection of the fellowship that Father has with Son, Son with Spirit and Spirit with Father. We DO have fellowship with God, but the idea that God is lonely, and thereby incomplete, is sub-Christian.

SemperReformanda · Sep 25, 2002

Ben-

"To say that by choosing to create an Adam that COULD fall, GOD CAUSED THE FALL, violates the reality."

I agree, which is why I would never say anything so foolish. I said that God created an Adam who invariably WOULD Fall.

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?

"This issue really boils down to, "who is CAUSAL in man's actions?"

No, it doesn't. I've maintained from the beginning that Adam was culpable in his own fall. Nevertheless, his Fall was an inevitability.

"But, my opinion, is that God had only one option, to accomplish creation exactly as He did."

I'm still waiting to hear from you on how an omnipotent God was forced to create this precise world. Was the omnipotent God unable to make photosynthesis take place through a substance that was blue rather than green? Was this God unable to create a species of flightless bird that our present world has never known? Was God incapable of directing the Gulf Stream in a different direction than the one it takes? More on this after your response.

If so, then your belief in God's omnipotence is very different than mine.

SemperReformanda · Sep 25, 2002

Squalid Wanderer-

Very cool to have you on the thread. I very much appreciate your questions. I also appreciate you helping me to clarify my propositions-- Being intuitive, it's always good to have a helping hand with my logic.

"In post #17, proposition #4, you state "God was entirely free in His decision to create mankind, as well as in His decision to create the particular people He created." My first question is what is the basis for this proposition?"

The first is His universally-recognized attribute of aseity--His independence, His self-existence. Everything else is dependent upon HIM. Secondly, His solitariness. He pre-exists all of creation, and all things that were created came into existence completely according to His good pleasure. Part of His freedom consists in that He was solitary. There were NO external forces in existence militating anything that He did. Thirdly, this conclusion extends from His sovereignty--nothing outside Himself could ever force His will. Fourthly, and specifically in regards to the "particular people" section, we have God's omnipotence. An aspect of this is omnicompetence--the ability to do all things. God has not only the POWER to do all things, but the ABILITY as well.

So, in conclusion, God was alone (in His tri-unity) in His decision to create, He was independent in His decision to create, He was sovereign in His decision to create, and He was able to create as He chose.

"My second question is why do you not think that proposition 17:3 (God is limited only by His moral nature.) has some bearing upon 17:4?"

Absolutely. Please amend #3 to "Absolutely free of external constraints and subject only to His moral nature in His decision to create mankind, as well as in His decision to create the particular people He created."

"Proposition 17:5 "God, being infinitely creative, could have created an infinite number of different people."--- It appears that you derived proposition 17:5b from 17:5a. However, 5b is not logically necessitated by 5a, since 5a is in fact limited by 17:3."

I'll confess to not being a math major (as Ben has already helped to demonstrate...) There would certainly be a subset of things God would not create because of conflict with His moral nature. So, what would be the proper term for an incomprehensibly large number of things that would be infinite were it not for the subtraction of a subset?

While I appreciate the clarification, however, I still don't think it affects the overall argument. Even excepting this subgroup, the infinite mind of God still isn't bound to create the (comparatively) tiny group of people that will come to live on this Earth.

SemperReformanda · Sep 25, 2002

Squalid Wanderer-

"How is 5b derived then and what other presupposition are you using in its formation to arrive at 5b?"

First, I began with the presupposition that God is the Creator, and that each individual human creation is an act of God (Scripture to follow.) Human life is not merely the result of a mechanistic process that is in any way random. Secondly, God is omnipotent. Once we accept that human life is an act of God, then God's omnipotence has direct bearing upon this act. We impinge upon omnipotence the instant we say that God COULDN'T create a different person than He did (except for those acts of creation which would in some way conflict with His moral nature.)

"Proposition 17:9 "None of these people can do anything differently than what God has foreseen, because then He wouldn't be omniscient."

I accept the proposed amendment. "Can" shall henceforth read "will." (As a side note, I'm only accepting the Free Will position for the sake of the discussion. I believe only God ever had true free will, and that we shed whatever semblance we had of it in the Fall.)

"Finally, proposition 17:11 "The choice of creating these specific people was entirely the sovereign choice of God, and He was in no way bound to create these particular people."---This proposition, like that of 17:5, seems to assume the answer of 17:4 which is questionably affected by 17:3"

I don't see the connection, actually. To say that God's decision to create something is subject only to His sovereign will (with His moral nature being implicit in any statement of His sovereignty) seems to me to just be accepting the common definition of "sovereign." I DO, however, see 11 as redundant, given the existence of 5.

This list was created as a tool to help seebs and Ben see my point, I didn't pull it from the Summa Theologica... Definitely still a work-in-progress. Please get back with me on this when you can, and thanks for the critiques.

SemperReformanda · Sep 25, 2002

Appendix A- God and Procreation:

I see nowhere in the Bible where procreation is presented as a "natural law" that operates mechanistically and independently of the providential operations of God. Some here in this debate are what could fairly be called functional Deists. This conception of God in no way coincides with the God of the Bible, who is an immanent and extremely "hands on" sort of God. Procreation is presented as something we certainly take part in and enjoy, but in which God is directive.

Psalms 22:9-- "Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb;"

Psalms 127:3-- "Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward."

Psalms 139:13-- "For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb."

Ecclesiastes 11:5-- "Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things."

Isaiah 66:9-- "Shall I bring to the point of birth and not give delivery?" says the LORD."Or shall I who gives delivery shut the womb?" says your God.

Jeremiah 1:5-- "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you"

The Squalid Wanderer · Sep 25, 2002

Dear SemperReformanda

Thank you for your response. You are indeed correct that the number would still be infinite, even as there are an infinite number of positions within a one-inch span.

Just for clarification, how do you see 17:3 affecting 17:5b? How much limitation is there? This is one component which must be considererd very carefully in considering your proposal.

The second component is the nature of free-will, and this must be considered since your position has been developed from a free-will perspective. How do we define free-will? What are it's essential characteristics?

By combining these two sets of questions we then cut to the heart of the matter. Does Gods moral constraints coupled with essential characteristics of free-will which must be preserved in order to have free-will combine in such a fashion so as to dictate the creation of the specific population which in fact has been created? If not, then do these two factors (God's moral restrainst and essential characteristics of free-will) so limit the range of creation that it would necessitate the creation of individuals who will not have saving faith, or are the parameters derived from the equation sufficient in scope as to include possible variations in which all would come to faith and salvation?

Again, thanks for your time.

Ben johnson · Sep 25, 2002

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&#150 &#150O · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
· / · · · · \ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
·/ · · · · · \ · · · · · · · · · \ · · · ·
O ·(ice)· O · · ·<=> · · O · · · ·(one water molecule)
·\ · · · · · / · · · · · · · · · / · · · · ·
· \ · · · · / · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
· ·O&#150 &#150O · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·

(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...

seebs · Sep 25, 2002

I'm afraid I can't contribute to this as much as I'd like; I'm a full-time writer right now, and my left pinky is starting to have random pains, which is a sign that it's time to type less.

I will just say that I think it is perfectly reasonable to believe that God's choices, while infinite in variety, may not have included the creation of any specific world we might imagine, such as a world in which everything else is the same as it is in ours, but in which ice sinks, or a world in which a single, specific, person's soul meets a different fate.

This is because God is infinitely just, and justice implies consistent laws; if the laws are to be consistent, they must stay consistent, which means that the same rules that govern everyone else's fate govern mine too. If we accept that God, in His mercy and justice, created the world to have certain consistent qualities, it is quite possible that no set of qualities would have produced such a subtle change - and thus, it may be that God cannot, consistently with His other qualities, change whether or not a single person achieves salvation. Thus, while I agree that God chose to create this particular world, I don't think that He exercises any control over our specific choices or paths; we, in the end, are responsible for our fates. God gave us free will, and made sure we could be saved; accepting His offered help is truly up to us, and He does not make that decision for us.

seebs · Sep 25, 2002

Originally posted by SemperReformanda
[
If God, from all eternity, foresaw you dying from eating buttermilk and cherries together on a hot day, then it DOES preclude you from jumping in front of a truck and dying. One day, you WILL freely choose to eat cherries and buttermilk on a hot day, of your own free choice. You will do NOTHING differently from what God has foreseen. That doesn't mean that you aren't making choices, but it does mean that you will make the choices that were foreseen. Likewise, Adam was never going to make a decision any differently than what God had foreseen.

The problem here is simple.

If I write a biography, *after* your death, no one would claim that this is "predestination".

If I write a biography, *before* your life, and it is just as accurate, we tend to call it "predestination".

This is not because it's *TRUE*. It's because, in the natural world we are part of, causality only goes one way in time; a later thing cannot cause an earlier thing.

God is not "in" the same set of times and events that we are. He is outside the time we experience, and can violate what appear to us to be natural laws.

When I write the biography, it is certainly true that, being already dead, you cannot choose to do anything different from what you *ALREADY* did.

The reason we cannot do other than what God forsees is not that His sight determines anything, or that our behaviors are "predestined"; it is that He sees things which haven't yet happened. He no more predestines us to a single path than a camera "postdestines" the events it recorded to happen!

"Predestination" is a conclusion we reach through erroneous application of our understanding of time to God.

Ben johnson · Sep 25, 2002

Very good, Seebs---exactly the point I was trying to make with the "travelling back in time to early Eden, to before the fall".

That which exists, exists---it is viewable in time, from both directions.

Take for example, Christ---we look back in time to the CAME Messiah---yet those under Law, practiced blood-sacrifice, looking towards the COMING Messiah; in all of time, there still was only ONE Savior.

Did He have a CHOICE to die on the Cross? Yes-and-no. He struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane---but then God said "Jesus was predestined from the beginning". He was bound by love to walk the course set before Him...

SemperReformanda · Sep 28, 2002

Squalid Wanderer-

Just for clarification, how do you see 17:3 affecting 17:5b? How much limitation is there? This is one component which must be considered very carefully in considering your proposal.

I think the main limitation is that God's nature precludes Him from working evil directly. God always USES evil for His own purposes, but He never is the primary actor. It is clear that He ordains it, but it is always through secondary causes. Examples in the Bible would include His sending a lying spirit to tempt someone, and His clear ordination of the crucifixion, the single greatest sin in human history. His moral nature would seem to preclude Him from creating people who were evil without any sort of probation. Which explains the Garden.

These are my initial thoughts on the subject. I'd be interested in hearing yours.

How do we define free-will? What are it's essential characteristics?

For the sake of the discussion I've been assuming the definition that seems to be popular with the de facto Pelagians around this place-the ability to choose between two options with total equanimity at all times, in all moods, regardless of personality or personal history, genetics, original sin, residual sin, slavery to sin, slavery to Satan, spiritual deadness, hearts of stone, personal opinions, physical limitations, natural laws, etc. You know-- absolute free will, the type that's written about all over the Bible in gobs of places. Well, perhaps not, but we're pretending for the sake of this discussion

Does Gods moral constraints coupled with essential characteristics of free-will which must be preserved in order to have free-will combine in such a fashion so as to dictate the creation of the specific population which in fact has been created?

I see nothing unique in the current population of people that is any different than myriad other people I can imagine. There is nothing that I can see that would have necessitated these particular people. And I think the burden of proof would be on the opposition on this point, as once we say God COULD not do something, we run headlong into omnipotence. Ben has provided absolutely nothing as for why the world had to be created exactly as it was, as he maintains.

As far as the moral restraints, I see nothing in them that necessitates these exact people being here. It would be an interesting moral calculus that said God was ethically obligated to create several billion people whose death in unbelief was absolutely foreseen.

As for the Free Will argument, I'll treat that in my next paragraph. For now I'll just say that it in no way necessitates these exact people. God could easily have created 6 billion different people with equally intact free wills.

If not, then do these two factors (God's moral restraint and essential characteristics of free-will) so limit the range of creation that it would necessitate the creation of individuals who will not have saving faith, or are the parameters derived from the equation sufficient in scope as to include possible variations in which all would come to faith and salvation?

Again, it is an interesting view of moral restraint that sees God as obligated to create people who would not have saving faith. Once accepted that God had unlimited freedom in whom He created, I think the conclusion that the equation is sufficiently elastic to include everyone coming to saving faith is self-evident. The creation of 6 billion people with foreseen faith is no different than the creation of 6 billion with mixed foreseen belief and unbelief.

I appreciate your questions, and I would like to hear more of your thoughts when you have time

--John

SemperReformanda · Sep 28, 2002

Ben-

But the natural mechanism is God-designed, and operates mechanically as it was designed.

I understand that you are a functional Deist, and that's your right. I'm assuming that you're joining Seebs and allegorizing the multiple passages of Scripture which talk about God knitting children together, giving delivery, and that children are a specific blessing and reward from Him? That's fine, but that doesn't change the fact that the Bible teaches all of these things.

Further, your concept of procreation being a mechanistic process completely divorced from the providence of God only extends to the human body. I think the spirit is much more significant in this discussion. Unless you are a Traducianist? In Hebrews 12:9 the Bible refers to God as the "Father of our spirits." My understanding from this is that God is the "Father" of our spirits, as it is written.

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.

I think that this sort of thinking is indicative of your point of view, actually. The sense in which you use "craves" seems to imagine God as this lonely old man who needs His creation to fill some empty place in His heart.

My God doesn't NEED worship, His very Being DEMANDS it. Just by nature of who He is. Worship is nothing more than acknowledging God as God. God commands worship, He doesn't sit in Heaven hoping for it like some child who wants a loli. The Creation itself praises God, because that is what it was created to do.

SemperReformanda · Sep 28, 2002

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"...

First of all, you have a very limited understanding of the Trinity if you cannot see the perfect communion, interaction and fellowship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Either that, or you have some sort of modalistic misunderstanding going on, which sees the Persons of the Trinity as different masks God puts on? Because otherwise I'm having trouble understanding how you could make the above statement It's something a Oneness Pentecostal might say.

I never denied that God had a desire for relationship with humanity. I simply denied that He was in any way IN NEED of it. It may just be imprecise terminology on your part, but it was an essentially unchristian viewpoint. God does demand worship, and He does want relationship. He just wouldn't be any less complete absent them.

As for my questions about the nature of the universe, I appreciate you answering them, despite their rhetorical nature. What you failed to answer, though, was why God was in any way obligated to create the universe EXACTLY as He did, as you maintained earlier.

Yet, to create a man who COULD NOT FALL, I assert that premise violates a principle of truth.

Here we have a need for clarification. My question is why God was unable to create a representative who WOULD NOT Fall.

Do you comprehend the nuance there? There is an enormous difference between someone who CANNOT do something, and one who WILL not do something. So please, explain why God was limited from creating a representative who WOULD NOT Fall.

SemperReformanda · Sep 28, 2002

seebs-

While I appreciate your thinking on the "natural laws" of this world, they don't bear on the discussion we're having, as I see it. You're thinking within a closed system. I'm operating outside of that box. I'm not asking "Could God have changed the acidity of lime juice and thereby redeemed all of humanity?", but rather, I'm speaking of the people themselves which God created.

You said: "I don't think that He exercises any control over our specific choices or paths"

Proverbs 21:1
"The king's heart is in the hands of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases."

Proverbs 20:24
"A man's steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?"

Proverbs 16:9
"In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps."

I think these verses would disagree with you, but I don't see your point as relevant to the discussion we're having. I've already said that for the sake of discussion I'm pretending that man has this unbounded free will.

Also: "God gave us free will, and made sure we could be saved"

I find this interesting, in light of the fact that the greatest portion of humanity dies never having heard the one means of salvation that God has provided--the Gospel. This in itself is an incontrovertible example of predestination in action.

But that's a debate for another thread. I'll happily accede, for the sake of discussion, that somehow God pretends that everyone has had a chance to hear the Gospel and then saves accordingly, somehow in His mind squaring that with Romans 1 (which is entirely in the context of General Revelation being a grounds for JUDGEMENT) and 10 ("Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved How, then, can they believe in the one whom they have not heard?")

SemperReformanda · Sep 28, 2002

seebs-

The reason we cannot do other than what God forsees is not that His sight determines anything, or that our behaviors are "predestined"; it is that He sees things which haven't yet happened. He no more predestines us to a single path than a camera "postdestines" the events it recorded to happen!

Again, you're engaging me on an argument we aren't having. I'm outside of this box right now. The question we're dealing with right now is not on the nature of pre(or post-) destination I've conceded (only for this discussion) everything you just wrote. Repeatedly. The "biography" analogy is a good description of this view, and I'll continue the metaphor. The question is why God was in any way forced to create the particular people that He did.

Why was He in any way constrained from creating different people with different biographies, as you seem to imply? Specifically, biographies in which they chose obedience and faith. What FORCED God to create people with biographies that included unbelief and eternal punishment (whether real or allegorical)? What prevented Him from creating different people whose biographies (which were equally free and unforced EXACTLY as you've described) included faith and obedience?

And, once it's admitted that nothing outside the will of God FORCED Him to act as He did, you've come round to my exact point in post 1.

Ben johnson · Sep 28, 2002

I understand that you are a functional Deist, and that's your right.

I assume you mean by this, that I believe "God created the Universe but asserts no further control over it"---in a sense, I do believe this. One need look only at wonderful things as Auschwitz and Daccau---perhaps the most heinous places on Earth---but then again, perhaps not---Hitler only killed millions, while Stalin killed TENS of millions. And yet, God DOES interfere in the affairs of man, sometimes---it was HE that toppled Jerico, though arguably from the faith of Joshua. It was GOD Who chose the time and place for Jesus' birth, He sent the flood, certain things He interferes in. I also have this weird belief that prayer moves God---so I earnestly pray for many specific people, that God would be real to them, their hearts melted and their pride crushed completely on rocks---that they will come to understand and receive Him as their own Savior. I believe my prayers do have an effect.

My God doesn't NEED worship, His very Being DEMANDS it.

I don't see the difference---He is Perfect and complete, so we can hardly call it a NEED, can we? But we agree perfectly, that His nature demands praise and worship---and He accepts it. (This is fuel in the debate for Jesus' deity---Jesus accepted worship, too. Jehovah's Witnesses hate to discover this in Scripture...)

Here we have a need for clarification. My question is why God was unable to create a representative who WOULD NOT Fall.

Why did some angels choose to rebel, and some did not? Were some created so that they WOULD not fall? No. I submit, that they were all created in the same way. Why did some fall?

Because of free will.

If God had created a man who WOULD not fall, then God would have installed some kind of device within the man's makeup, to prevent him from falling. Something molded in his very psyche that prohibitted it. And this is what I do not see in Scripture---man is very much created with free will, sentient. "I will take out their hearts of stone and give them hearts of flesh, so that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances; and they will be My people and I shall be their God." The end? Nope---the thought continues: "But as for those whose hearts go after detestable things and abominations I shall bring their conduct down on their Heads". Looks very much like free will to me---those who turn to God, He gives them flesh-hearts instead of stone. But they can choose NOT to turn to Him, and go after abominations---and pay the price. (This from Ezk11...)

There are many verses that I believe are presented, based on assumptions. Take the Philip1:6 verse---"For I am confident of of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion". Is that not presuming that you BELIEVE? And REMAIN believing? In fact, I read verse 9 as a prayer for JUST THAT! So too are verses about us being "chosen in Him"---the presumption is that we are chosen by/through our own faith/belief. There are passages that actually STATE this premise, such as 2Thess2:13; and I believe the parable of Matt22:2-14 intends to convey this exact message.

I confess, I have not quite figured out your purpose in this whole thread.

Do you think the thread is productive?

SemperReformanda · Sep 28, 2002

Ben-

You said: Did He have a CHOICE to die on the Cross? Yes-and-no. He struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane---but then God said "Jesus was predestined from the beginning". He was bound by love to walk the course set before Him...

Acts 2:22-
"Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know-- this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.

Acts 4:27
"For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur."

We're using "predestined" to mean "Magic View Finder" for this discussion, but I did want to point out that the passage you cited only reinforces how bankrupt that position is Biblically.

Far from it being "predestined" (or post) exclusively out of God's unlimited foreknowledge, it's tied directly to God's "predetermined plan" and "Your hand and Your purpose."

Predestination is according to the "good pleasure" of God; according to His "plan"; His "will"; His "eternal purposes."

Thanks for allowing the digression, I'll go back to the main topic now.

Question: Was the crucifixion a morally GOOD thing for those Jewish leaders and Roman soldiers to do?

If not, then how do you avoid saying that God ORDAINED evil, since "preordained" and "predestined" are identical, and it's clear that God "predestined" the crucifixion? That pillar of your position seems unfounded, to me.

SemperReformanda · Sep 28, 2002

Ben-

I think this thread is extremely productive. If you're having doubts, no one is forcing you to post here. It would be more productive, though, if you would engage me on Adam more directly.

Using seebs' very good "biography" analogy, please, finally, answer me on the creation of Adam.

Why was God in any way constrained from creating a different representative, with a different foreseen "biography" than the one He did?

Anyway, I've RL work to do today, I'll post further this evening.

Ben johnson · Sep 28, 2002

Using seebs' very good "biography" analogy, please, finally, answer me on the creation of Adam.

Why was God in any way constrained from creating a different representative, with a different foreseen "biography" than the one He did?

Finally answer? I thought I had already answered?

I do not know what paradigm you strive to construct---do you intend to convey, that God, knowing the future, had an array of choices from which He could choose, so that Adam's fall was GUARANTEED (if God chose the correct "branch" that led to the Fall)?

I do not believe that to be the case. Logically, such a determinate action would equate to God sculpting Adam's will---for it will still be God who CAUSES the fall (by selective creation).

Once again, in a discussion of theology, I request that we discuss Scriptures. Do you believe that salvation is by free will, or it is determined in any fashion by choices God makes? Does He "foreknow", or "forecause"? Speculation is enjoyable, but not terribly useful in "presenting pure doctrine"---I am constrained to believe the Bible. I do not know the mind of God, He is infinite, and I am very finite and flawed. But I do have the words He inspired---and I believe what they say.

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