Here's another statement to consider:



The Plan of Salvation was ready if needed, just as our bodies are ready to begin healing an injury if needed. The DA statement is expressing a similar sentiment as the Education statement.

She could have said that, and that would have been perfectly normal. But what she said was stronger. She said God saw sin's existence. She didn't even say that God saw that it will exist. He already saw its existence.

To say that she never taught it is to discount this data point. Your theory sounds nice, but fails to explain all phenomena.

You left out d.

d. The Godhead would be sundered as it has never been and never will be.

Knowing what will happen actually makes the struggle that much harder.

Of course, for sinners like us, being separated from God is no big deal. We do it all the time. But for the Father to separate from the Son was not an easy thing to do, I think.

No, it is not.

The Ed statement says that God made a remedy ready. The DA statement says that God saw that a remedy was needed. They are talking about two different aspects.

In Gen 3:15, God said, "it shall bruise thy head." Did He mean that Jesus was certainly going to defeat Satan, or that Jesus might possibly defeat Satan? Does God know the end from the beginning, or does He only have a list of possible scenarios but no knowledge of which one will play out? IOW, does God ever say, "Whoa, I didn't think THAT was going to happen"?

No, it's not discounting the "data point." It's taking a statement which can be interpreted in different ways, and doing what she suggested, which is to compare what she said here with other things that she wrote on the same subject.



Arnold, you're not getting the point here. If the future and foreknowledge is as you are suggesting, there could not have been a struggle at all. A struggle implies the possibility of different alternatives, but your viewpoint does not allow for this. It only allows for one possibility. Indeed "possibility" isn't even the right word. It only allows for certainty, that which God knows will happen. "Struggle" cannot exist in this view of things.



Your manner of putting things is making fun of the possibility that things might be different than how you see things, but there is ample evidence for this. Here are just a couple of texts, of which many more could be added:







You didn't address my question, that I could see, regarding the EW passage. Let me try to make clearer the problem.

In the EW passage, it is presented that Jesus approached the Father 3 times, and that after the third time the Father made a decision. He agreed to do that which Jesus was persuading Him to do. The important point here is that the Father had to be persuaded, and actually was persuaded, and actually made a decision. None of these things are possible according to your view!

It is not possible for the Father to be persuaded to do anything, according to your view, because there is no time in which He was unsure as to what He would do. He always knew, from all eternity, and including the time when Jesus Christ was "persuading" Him what He would do.

So what was Jesus doing? According to your view, it is not possible that Jesus was persuading the Father of anything, nor that God was struggling with any decision. He always knew what He was going to do, and the decision had already been made.

Your view does not coincide with the description of the even in Early Writings.

Excuse me for jumping in here after not reading where this discussion has gone. But I do believe that we are saved by the keeping of the Law. If Jesus had not kept the law ... I would not be saved. He kept it for me so that I am not condemned by it. Only those who don't accept Him are condemned by it.

, I Am His, to the Maritime forum.

Good point you made in your post here.

If God only foresaw the possibility of sin and rebellion happening, how is that any better than Jean Dixon seeing the possibility of something happening? What you're saying doesn't improve God's position. If you create a nuclear bomb, knowing there is a possibility someone will use it to kill thousands of innocent people, how are you less culpable than the guy who detonates it?

Even if God foresees all of the ways things can turn out, do we really have a choice? Are we free to choose a way God did not foresee? If so, how can God be all knowing?

And, if God truly does know the "end from the beginning" are we free to choose a way He didn't foresee? If so, how God can prophesy how the future will certainly play out? Or, is the outcome described in the Revelation only one possible way it might unfold? Is it possible God got it wrong in the Revelation?


What you are describing involves chance. There was a chance they would choose to rebel. The fact God foresaw it happening eliminates the element of chance. He created them in spite of knowing which ones would sin and rebel; in spite of knowing Jesus would die to redeem those who chose to repent and be saved.


No it doesn't. It says nothing about them being created insecure. Please quote a passage which substantiates your position. Thank you.


It sounds like you are saying angels were created insecure, that they were not secure in God or in His law.


What you wrote doesn't answer my question. What were the angels unsure about *before* Lucifer began to sin and rebel?

Amen!

Bump for Tom.