If God's options included other ways of saving penitent sinners which did not involve Jesus dying ten certainly He would have opted for one of them. But we agree Jesus' death was the only way. So, obviously, it was God's will for Jesus to die. Yes, circumstances made it so, but what difference does it make? It was God's will to redeem penitent sinners, right? Therefore it was His will to let Jesus pay our sin debt of death on the cross.


God does not "choose" to "have" a child abused. Instead, He chooses not to intervene and prevent the abuser from abusing the child. Why do you think God chooses not to intervene and prevent these kinds of things from happening?


True, but God can exert a powerful influence which causes sinners to do or not to do certain things. Balaam and Cyrus are examples.


Again, God will not prevent people from making choices, but He is not stuck with the natural consequences of their choices. He manages precisely how each and every choice will play out.

For example, putting a pistol to someone's head and pulling the trigger will result in the bullet entering the body and causing death. However, God has the right to intervene and prevent the bullet from doing what it would normally do. The bullet does not have rights God must avoid violating. So, whether or not the bullet fires properly or causes damage or death is entirely up to God. It is His responsibility to determine the outcome of our choices.

Of course, God is not happy having to manage the outcome of the poor or evil choices people make, nevertheless, He is not sitting back doing nothing about it or the consequences of their choices. He is actively involved in managing the outcome of their choices.

It's not only not obvious, it's not even true (unless you mean God's permissive will).



What is "it"?



Yes, this is what God's will was, to redeem sinners.



This is an acceptable way of putting it. It was His will to "let" Jesus do what He did. The "let" is key.

Regarding God's not intervening, to do so would interrupt the demonstration of what happens when people choose Satan's way.



This is either a very poor choice of language or something worse. God does not manage precisely how the abuse of an innocent child will play out.



Does He? How so?



Oh. This explains it? God has the right to intervene because a bullet was used. If a person sent a sentient being to kill someone, instead of using a bullet, then God could intervene?

The argument that God has the right to intervene in an attempted murder is because the bullet has no rights strikes me as odd.



How about how the gun was made? Or aimed? These factors have nothing to do with it? Surely you must agree that they do. Assuming you do, it is clear that the damage or death caused by the bullet is not entirely up to God.

What is the motivation for wanting to make God responsible for these evil acts? I'm not understanding this.



I don't know what this means. It sounds like you are saying that God is making sure the bullet gets to its intended target.



The outcomes follow from the choices. This is cause and effect. This is not something special God is causing to happen.

For example, smoking may cause lung cancer. God doesn't go, "Oh, MM is smoking. I will smite him with cancer!"

If I may cut in....

One example of what this could mean is that "all things work together for good to those who love God." If God's child is the intended victim of murder or even the actual victim of child abuse, God will manage the outcomes of those evil choices such that "all" things, including these evils, work out for his/her good. Without God's active participation, evil begets only evil. But with God, all things are possible, even making good come from evil.

As long as we don't get the idea that the evil things themselves that happen are God's will, I certainly agree that God is involved in all the events of our lives, whether good or evil.

Why do you need to qualify the type of "will" it is? After A&E sinned it was the Godhead's will and desire to die to redeem mankind, to pay their sin debt of death. The Father didn't merely "permit" the Son to die for the human race. He had no other option. There was no other way for God to refute Satan's accusations and to demonstrate the truth about His law and love so that rebellion would not arise among the loyal angels and all other FMAs. To not ransom man would have required God to destroy the holy angels and all other FMAs. So, again, it wasn't merely God's permissive will, it was His deepest desire and greatest need.


The fall of man made it necessary for God to pay man's sin debt of death in order to secure the universe against rebelling in the future. Of course God was more than happy to do it. He didn't do it grudgingly. He did it willingly and eagerly.


I'm glad we agree.


I see no reason to emphasize the Father letting Jesus die to redeem sinners. It implies the Father was not as willing and eager to save sinners as Jesus was, which is totally false. I know you agree.

Also, God did intervene. We both agree the plan of salvation prevents sinners from dying the day they sin. He protects them from experiencing the full force of their sin and shame and guilt; otherwise, it would crush out their life.


God does not sit back and watch sin run wild. He is actively involved preventing our choices from derailing the GC. There are a million ways He can intervene without violating the abusers freedom to choose. For example, God could stop keeping his heart beating just before he abuses the child.

If God doesn't act in one way or another to prevent abuse it means He allowed it to play out the way it did. No, it wasn't His will or desire for the abuser to want to choose to abuse a child; but, God is in control of the outcome of his choice. It is God who decides whether or not to stop his heart, or whatever, just before the abuser carries out his evil designs.


Yes, of course He does. Because the bullet does not have rights He must avoid violating.


Even under your scenario, God has the right to intervene. For example, He could allow the assassin to have a heart attack just before he carries out his evil designs. His heart does not have rights He must avoid violating.


Even under all the different ways you can think of, the outcome is entirely up to God. God could have intervened in a way that the gun was defective from manufacturer. He could have caused the aim to be bad. There are ways God can do these things without violating anyone's will or freedom. He could even prevent the assassin's finger from pulling the trigger by allowing it to cramp up.


Understand, Tom, I'm not saying God wants people to choose to make bad decisions. He is not responsible for the evil plans they devise. Instead, God is busy managing the outcome or consequences of the evil choices people make. If God is not in control then we are forced to ask, Who or what is? Is natural law in control? Is sin or Satan in control?

To suggest anything or anyone is in control other than God Himself is to rob God of His rights and responsibilities as Sovereign of the Universe. To win the GC God must win the GC. He cannot stand back and merely let sin or Satan lose the GC. Letting sin or Satan lose the GC does not mean God wins the GC. God cannot win the GC by default. The honor and glory of God is at stake. That's why it concerns me.


Not necessarily the assassin's intended target. The bullet will end up wherever God thinks best. He decides the best outcome. Whatever way it plays out in the end is how God wanted it to play out. No, He didn't want the assassin to fire the gun.


No, God is not bound by natural law, by the normal cause and effect relationships. It is His right and responsibility to manage the outcome of our choices so that it best serves the GC. God leaves nothing to chance or natural law. True, He might allow natural law to run its course. He is intimately involved in the myriad of details that happen during the unfolding of the GC.

Again, it is not God's will that people come up with evil ideas. However, the way it plays out as they attempt to act upon the evil ideas they come up with is entirely up to God. The way things play out are not always how the person intended. Yes, sometimes it is. But only because God choose not to intervene to force it to play out a different way. In this sense it is definitely God's will how things play out when people set out to do something evil. The outcome is God's will.

I'm guessing from your previous comments that you're simply not being clear in your phrasing of things here. The way "it plays out" is not entirely up to God, but up to the ones carrying out their evil intentions. I think what you mean to say is whether or not these evil acts will be permitted to occur is up to God.



Absolutlely not! An evil outcome is never God's will.

Where in all of Jesus' teachings did He ever suggest what you are saying here, MM? Where did Jesus, even once, ever attribute any evil event as being God's will? Jesus always attributed these events, without exception, as due to the evil one. For example:



Jesus never said something like "a descendant of Abraham whom God has kept bound ..."

In the Lord's prayer, Christ taught us to pray, "Thy will be done." If God's will were being done, Christ's teaching here doesn't make sense.

In Gethsemane Jesus did say, "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." There may be some wiggle room as to what the "cup" was exactly, but I think we can all agree it was something Jesus wanted to avoid. Yet, it was God's will that He go through it.

Close, but with this change - "I think what you mean to say is whether or not these evil acts will be permitted to [play out a certain way] is up to God." God decides how the outcome will play out after the choice has been made.


In a world of sin, when sinners make evil decisions the outcome may or may not be as evil as it might have been. It depends on how God orchestrates the outcome. For example, if God intervenes and prevents the bullet from entering the innocent victim's head, the evil of murder doesn't happen. Instead, other forms of evil are permitted to play out.


Please consider another way of looking at it. God permitted the Devil to bind the woman for 18 years instead of allowing something different to happen to her. God's options were many. For example, He could have prevented her from becoming sick. Or, He could have allowed her to die soon after becoming ill rather than allowing her live in agony for 18 years.

Regardless of the outcome, God is control of how it plays out. He either causes it to happen, or He commands holy angels to cause it to happen, or He permits evil angels to cause it to happen. How God chooses to manage the consequences of good or evil choices doesn't change the fact He is ultimately responsible for the outcome, for how it plays out. He leaves nothing to chance or natural law or sin or Satan.

In the following case Jesus makes an important point:

WM 21
"As Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." ... {WM 21.1}

It was generally believed by the Jews that sin is punished in this life. Every affliction was regarded as the penalty of some wrongdoing, either of the sufferer himself or of his parents. It is true that all suffering results from the transgression of God's law, but this truth had become perverted. Satan, the author of sin and all its results, had led men to look upon disease and death as proceeding from God -- as punishment arbitrarily inflicted on account of sin. Hence one upon whom some great affliction or calamity had fallen, had the additional burden of being regarded as a great sinner.... {WM 21.2}

God had given a lesson designed to prevent this. The history of Job had shown that suffering is inflicted by Satan, and is overruled by God for purposes of mercy. But Israel did not understand the lesson. The same error for which God had reproved the friends of Job was repeated by the Jews in their rejection of Christ. {WM 21.3}

The idea that God arbitrarily causes sinners to become sick is a perversion of the "truth". It is not based on an outright lie. The truth is, there is nothing arbitrary about the way God manages the outcome of sin and sinful choices. True, "suffering" is caused by Satan when God permits it. But how they "suffer" is "overruled" or determined by God. It is not left up to Satan to decide.

It is also true that God sometimes commands holy angels to cause suffering or death as punishment for sinning. He doesn't always employ His enemies to accomplish His purposes. "God will use His enemies as instruments to punish those who have followed their own pernicious ways whereby the truth of God has been misrepresented, misjudged, and dishonored." {LDE 242.3}

God has, on a number of occasions, commanded holy angels to punish and destroy impenitent sinners. "Under God the angels are all-powerful. On one occasion, in obedience to the command of Christ, they slew of the Assyrian army in one night one hundred and eighty-five thousand men." {DA 700.5}

"God's judgments were awakened against Jericho. It was a stronghold. But the Captain of the Lord's host Himself came from heaven to lead the armies of heaven in an attack upon the city. Angels of God laid hold of the massive walls and brought them to the ground.--3T 264 (1873). {LDE 243.1}

"The same angel who had come from the royal courts to rescue Peter had been the messenger of wrath and judgment to Herod. The angel smote Peter to arouse him from slumber. It was with a different stroke that he smote the wicked king, laying low his pride and bringing upon him the punishment of the Almighty. Herod died in great agony of mind and body, under the retributive judgment of God.--AA 152 (1911). {LDE 243.3}

"A single angel destroyed all the first-born of the Egyptians and filled the land with mourning. When David offended against God by numbering the people, one angel caused that terrible destruction by which his sin was punished. The same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God commands, will be exercised by evil angels when He permits. There are forces now ready, and only waiting the divine permission, to spread desolation everywhere.--GC 614 (1911). {LDE 243.4}

Tom, did you overlook post#102208 above on this thread?