We agree there, but that's not what I'm asking.


We agree there, too.


That conclusion requires some unspoken premises added to the ones above, which I don't want to address this time around.

Anyway, do I understand your position correctly, that when God said, "He shall bruise your head," God wasn't 100% sure that was actually going to happen?

Tom, what do you hear Sister White saying in the following passage as it relates to what the angels knew about God before rebellion broke out?


She plainly says the angels knew God as well as they could know Him, that there was nothing else God could do more than He already had done to reveal something new about Himself that would prevent them from doubting or rebelling.

Is this true? Or, did God reveal something about Himself at the cross that the angels didn't already know about Him?

If so, does it serve to make them secure against evil than they were before Lucifer rebelled?

If so, why didn't God make Himself known to the angels in this way before they rebelled?

If not, why do you think the cross made the angels more secure against evil than they were before Lucifer rebelled?

Thank you. It came to me in the middle of night last night. I had to write down before I could get back to sleep. Do you have any answers?

No answers at this time that don't require invoking God's perfect foreknowledge.

Perhaps the unspoken premises are necessary to address to adequately answer your question.



We're agreeing that Christ could have failed, right?. We also agree that God knew this was the case, right?. Therefore God knew it wasn't 100% certain that Christ would succeed, since if that's what the word "risk" means, right?

(Please pardon the repeated "right?" I'm including them to try to pin down what it is you are disagreeing with. It seems to me these points all follow one right after the other).

You're question is assuming that the destruction of the evil angels occurs because of God rather than sin.



Destruction takes place when God "leaves" Satan and his followers. It is God's actions which keep them alive. God keeps them alive so that the Great Controversy can be played out.

Anyway, your question is assuming a false premise.



Do you mean if Jesus Christ hadn't died? We don't know. I know of one person who believes Christ would have died anyway, for precisely this reason. However, I believe God could have communicated the truths necessary to secure the universe without Christ's death, but we don't know how, because we, as human being, could understand it in no other way. I believe that just because there's no other way that we could understand, it doesn't follow that there was no other way that other beings could understand it.

So how do you understand the following?



I haven't been able to understand your point, MM. Do you think she is wrong here? Do you think she is saying something different than what she appears to be saying? If so, what do you think she is saying? If you agree that she means what she appears to be saying, that without the cross they would be no more secure against evil than were the angels before the fall of Satan, then doesn't it follow that they were more secure after the cross than before it?

There are two parties to the controversy. The chapter deals at length with the unmasking of Satan. Since Satan was portraying God as having his (Satan's) own character, and himself as having God's, unmasking Satan simultaneously opened their eyes as to God's true character.

She starts out:



Later we read:



If they viewed this with "amazement," then clearly aspects of God's character were being revealed to them (otherwise they would have viewed it with expectation rather than amazement).

Even the Scriptures tells us that the prophets wrote of things that angels longed to understand.



If this were the case, the future wouldn't be open.



Yes, this is what the future being open means. The options have not yet been determined, and this is what God knows.



I'm a bit surprised, since I've said this so many times, but I'm thankful for the feedback, as it gives me a better indication as to what is effective in communication.



The answer to this to seems like it should be obvious. I'll give an analogy in terms of the game of chess, and hope that you can see the use of foreseeing options and be able to apply the analogy to answer your question.

Say you're playing a game of chess, and you could foresee ever possible option until the end of the game. Then you would never lose, even to the World Champion, or the best possible computer.



I don't know how to communicate the concept in a meaningful way, since we are limited in time and think in terms of time.



No, God is not limited as we are. The issue has never been God, but the future. The future is limited, or rather not, being open, both for God and for us.



I don't see why you're saying this.



I'm not saying that your limits how God communicates with us, but that how God actually has communicated with us contradicts your view. IOW, if your view were correct, Scripture would not say what it says. For example:



This doesn't agree with your view.



Nor does this.



Nor this.



Nor this.

Many more could be cited.

This could be true if God didn't communicate with us, but He does and He has. When He tells us things like



we can make inferences regarding how God views the future. (I cited references from Scripture for MM which bear this out as well).



Yes there is! God communicates with us.



I didn't say this! Not at all! I didn't say the future is the same for God as it is for us, but that the past is fundamentally different than the future, both for us and for God.



How do you figure? It doesn't seem the least bit similar to this at all.

Both the Scriptures and the Spirit of Prophecy present God as reacting to circumstances. I've already presented many examples of this.



If I knew they would die at a specific time, when that time came, I, as a finite being living in time could indeed still experience sadness, but how would this apply to God? Wouldn't God have already experienced this sadness? How would His experiencing the sadness the moment something happened be any different than His having experienced it beforehand or afterwards?



If God knows with certainty something will happen, wouldn't you agree that the probability of that thing happening is 100%? Wouldn't you also agree that if a thing has a 100% probability of happening then it follows that the negation of that thing can't have more than a 0% chance of happening?

Or, to put it another way, please explain to me how both of the following can be true:

1.God knew with certainty Christ would not fail.
2.Christ failed.

I'm sure we will eventually need to hash out every premise. But my question for now is purely on your conclusion, not the premises or the logic behind it. In short, I only want to confirm that I understand what you arrived at, not how you arrived at it.


My answers: Yes, yes, no.

Your answers are, "yes, yes, yes," correct?

We seem to differ on the relationship between what can happen and what will happen. In my view, the existence of multiple options that can happen does not eliminate the possibility of someone knowing what will happen.

IOW, I reject the analogy to quantum mechanics, but look at it more like chaos theory. And as far as QM goes, just because most physicists currently believe that the universe is probabilistic does not mean that it is. There was a time when all physicists believed that it was deterministic.

Anyway, I believe that when God promised, "He shall bruise your head," He was 100% certain of it. God's word is sure.