Was the fall necessary and pre-ordained?

[renniks]

So if He’s not subject to time, then He can see the future, but can’t necessarily be in the future?

Im not sure where you are getting that. I just said he couldn't see what isn't decided if he's subject to time. That by definition is everything in the future.

 

[renniks]

think it relates because that’s how the Bible describes Him. There’s no biblical support for God’s “seeing” into the future—

Are you serious? What about hundreds of prophecies?


When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

How?

 

[renniks]

If God can do anything, why isn't he capable of getting bored?

Because boredom is a consequence of imperfection.

 

[Derf]

Im not sure where you are getting that. I just said he couldn't see what isn't decided if he's subject to time. That by definition is everything in the future.

I still think you’re making a mistake in thinking there is something in the future to “see”. But I deny that “everything” is unknowable in the future if God can’t see it. For instance, God knows that Satan will be judged and thrown into the lake of fire. God knows that lesser demons will be tormented at some time in the future, assuming Legion was not blowing smoke. God even knows what Satan will attempt to do when God removes restraint on him. Does He know these things because He can “see” them in the future? Or does He know them because He understands Satan and his evil desires, as well as His own plans to deal with Satan and other demons?

Let’s say for now it is the former. Could God change the outcome, and decide to have mercy on Satan? If so, then whatever God was “seeing” was incorrect, and God is shown to not be omniscient.

Let’s say now that the latter is true. Could God have mercy on Satan and not throw him into the lake of fire without damaging His credibility? Think about it while I answer the next part.

Are you serious? What about hundreds of prophecies?


When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

How?

”How” is an excellent question. Let’s start with your answer, that God can “see” into the future. And seeing into the future, God predicts that Nineveh will be destroyed in exactly 40 days. Nineveh’s king tells all his people to repent with fasting and humility. God already knows that Nineveh will be destroyed…Can He stop the destruction without damaging His credibility, not to mention the credibility of the glasses He’s using to “see” into the future?

There are at least two kinds of prophecy: warnings, from which the subject can escape, and the other kind. Maybe you can tell the difference before the event prophesied either comes to pass or doesn’t, but I don’t know that I can, at least not always. Nineveh was given the contingent kind. But there’s no indication in the message Jonah delivered to them that it was contingent. We do know that It was God’s plan to destroy them, and He changed His plan:
Jonah 3:10 (NKJV) Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.

That verse tells us how God knew they would be destroyed, so at least in this instance, we know that God “knew” the future because He decided what the future would be. But He decided it contingently, meaning that He reserved the right to change the future. Which means that the future, as a fact, was not something anyone could “see”, even God.

Your verse about the Spirit of Truth also affirms that it isn’t based on “seeing” the future, because the verse says He does not speak of His own authority. Yet if the Holy Spirit is God, He could just look into the future, there’s no need to get permission from the Father to relay something of the future that is part of “all the truth”. That also suggests the Father may not have made up His mind about everything at that time.

 

[SuperCow]

The remaining possibility in all that is that it is possible that God could see both or multiple futures, depending on the choices of the recipients of the warning.

 

[RDKirk]

Nothing that is created is necessary or else it would violate the Christian teaching that God freely made all things, so no it is not necessary. Was it going to come to pass? Most certainly, for God knew what really would occur and be chosen by them, and what He knows is.

I dunno about that teaching.

God the Father had an end-state in view before anything was created through God the Son. Everything that has been done, everything that will be done, is necessary to reach that end-state.

The only discussion, then, is whether God's view of His desired end-state was necessary to Him. But once He determined that end-state, everything that followed toward that end-state has been, is, and will be necessary to reach that end-state.

God does nothing trivial.

 

[RDKirk]

I don't see why such creation excludes free will, neither do I see prophecy as excluding free will. How do you define it? Also if God doesn't know the future and all things in His own world I can not fathom how He'd be omniscient.

And if He's just going on His "best guess," if He is capable of being caught by surprise, then He's not completely reliable, either. That would leave the possibility of Satan finally getting the better of Him.

 

[Abaxvahl]

I dunno about that teaching.

God the Father had an end-state in view before anything was created through God the Son. Everything that has been done, everything that will be done, is necessary to reach that end-state.

The only discussion, then, is whether God's view of His desired end-state was necessary to Him. But once He determined that end-state, everything that followed toward that end-state has been, is, and will be necessary to reach that end-state.

God does nothing trivial.

I agree with this, but the question is of the end-state: was it necessary that it be as it is, and why? If God is free why could it not have been different? I think it could be different and it is God who sets what it is. Once it is set (and I think it is the Incarnation personally, which is the greatest of all things which has ever been done, the height of all things ever wrought) He will set what is necessary to achieve it, and so it will occur, but I am saying that God is not bound to have made anything that was made as it was made.

 

[RDKirk]

I think you all are missing the point of the poster (or what should be the point) and slipping into paradoxical answers. If God knew Adam and Eve were going to sin before he created them, then his act of creation excludes the free will of the recipient, or at best it's a phony choice, because you were already given the disposition to sin upon your creation. We would all be part of an elaborate algorithm that is preset for every living thing.

God set up the situation that made sin possible.

Why then plant the tree and give the command except to make sin possible?? Why create a tempter except to tempt?

If God had never given the command, sin would not have been possible. Paul acknowledges this in Romans 7. In fact, Paul goes so far as to say that by giving the command, God made sin inevitable.

 

[RDKirk]

I agree with this, but the question is of the end-state: was it necessary that it be as it is, and why? If God is free why could it not have been different? I think it could be different and it is God who sets what it is. Once it is set (and I think it is the Incarnation personally, which is the greatest of all things which has ever been done, the height of all things ever wrought) He will set what is necessary to achieve it, and so it will occur, but I am saying that God is not bound to have made anything that was made as it was made.

That depends on whether you think God would be satisfied with just any old end-state, or whether He would be satisfied only by the singularly optimum end-state.

If we believe that God would be satisfied only by the very best end-state, then that end-state is the necessary end-state to please God. In this case, the "perfect" is the enemy of the "good enough."

 

[RDKirk]

Because knowledge isn't causation. If he caused thier rebellion then it would be pre programmed but that's not in scripture.

He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. -- Psalm 147

Various theories of quantum mechanics (Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and others) suggest that no event actually happens, even at the subatomic level, without a rational observer judging that it happened.

 

[RDKirk]

That's the problem with these absolute ideologies, because their rigidity demands one or the other, when both is a completely reasonable position. It's entirely likely based on different elements of the Bible that God has been causative in some situations and open in others.

You have been describing a purpose-built mechanism that is zero tolerance in some points of operation, but with some degree of tolerance in other points of operation.

 

[timothyu]

Man is predictable with our original sin of self interest. It is only a matter of time we self interest ourselves out of existence. God's biding His time, being aware of that... as we should be.

 

[RDKirk]

Not intending to complicate the discussion, but if anyone but Jesus performed what he did in the gospels, would not most humans of most ages consider it a kind of sorcery? Jesus probably would have been hung or burned alive in the Salem witch trials.

Well, the religious rulers even at the time attributed His miracles to what later people would call witchcraft.

 

[RDKirk]

This assumes time exists before creation. Which is highly unlikely.

But the mind of God did exist before creation.

 

[RDKirk]

Is not time in our existence that we can comprehend linked to the movements of the planets etc. as was spoken about the usefulness of the lesser heavens? *seasons, years, new moons etc. Our concept of time didn't even exist in Jesus' time. We have no idea if time exists in God's Heaven or if there is anything there that could be linked to time like here

I would say that our concept of time is essentially the same as it has ever been for man. Man knows time according to perceptible and reliable periodic events of nature. For early man, those were gross events such as the changes of the season and the movements of celestial bodies. Today, we count the emissions of subatomic particles. But it's essentially the same thing: We measure time by the change in creation, and we cannot conceive of time except by the change of creation.

That means that time as we can possibly conceive it did not exist prior to creation.

 

[renniks]

He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. -- Psalm 147

Various theories of quantum mechanics (Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and others) suggest that no event actually happens, even at the subatomic level, without a rational observer judging that it happened.

The verse just says he numbers and names stars. Not sure how that applies.

 

[RDKirk]

The remaining possibility in all that is that it is possible that God could see both or multiple futures, depending on the choices of the recipients of the warning.

Wouldn't God know which future was certain from all those that were "possible?"

If God does not know the certain future, that would make God simply a successful gambler...less than a clever card-counter.

If God does know the certain future, then those other futures were not actually "possible" at all.

 

[renniks]

But the mind of God did exist before creation.

Of course.

 

[timothyu]

That means that time as we can possibly conceive it did not exist prior to creation.

Nor would it be the same in God's personal universe as His is not and has never been the same as ours in nature regarding seasons or subatomic particles