Since we cannot know for certain what would or wouldn't happen, I suppose one speculative guess is as good as another. There is no harm in wondering so long as we do not become dogmatic. As for me, I do not wonder if God had to do something unnatural or supernatural to prevent the Flood from naturally occurring. I believe nature was obeying the laws God was sustaining. I do not see nature as chomping at the bit to return to its former worldwide state. Instead, I see the flood happening in obedience to God's command and control. In this sense, the forces of nature are obeying the command of God, yielding to His control. I do not see God withdrawing and allowing nature to do as she pleases as if she had a will and mind of her own, or was following a higher, former, original set of laws. But who can be certain?


Again, we cannot know for certain what would or wouldn't happen if God suddenly stopped sustaining the laws that regulate and control the forces of nature. Most likely everything would simply vanish and cease to exist. God would not surrender control and stop upholding the laws of nature. He can, though, employ the forces of nature to accomplish His will. I doubt there are default laws nature would instinctively obey if God decided to take a break. God is always and forever in control. Nothing is left to chance or chaos.

Must God now unnaturally or supernaturally hold back the coal and oil and fires under the surface of the earth to prevent them from instinctively escaping and burning everything up? Again, who can know for certain? The following passages provide insights which indicate the forces of nature above and below the earth will once again obey the voice of God when He commands them to cause worldwide destruction. Rather than withdrawing and abandoning the laws of nature, it makes more sense to me to believe God will employ the laws of nature to accomplish His purposes.

You are going to have to help me out here. Because that seems to conflict with what you said that you requoted

along with your present text

Are you saying God is sustaining the physical laws rather than God sustaining against the physical laws?

Do you disagree with my quote from the Great Controversy and Patriarchs and Prophets?

But, a more important question, which I asked before, is that if you are saying God changed His physical laws, can God change His moral laws?

That is, in the beginning, God created the Sabbath. Now, after the cross, He has changed that law to honor His resurrection. He has implemented new laws to maintain a new order of things because the old order was finished. Would you agree with that? Why or why not?

1. God upholds, sustains the laws of nature and through them He maintains law and order. Nature does not have a will or mind of its own. It is not straining against God trying to return to its former state (i.e. an under water rock).

2. Yes, of course, I agree with the content of the GC and PP quotes you posted. How do you relate it to the laws of nature, the Flood, and the final conflagration?

3. God's law is eternal. It is forever unchanging. However, the condition and changing circumstances of sin forced Him to adapt and apply the law to accommodate sin and salvation. For example, originally God commanded mankind to observe the Sabbath in honor of His creative love and power (rest from work). Later on, He included the Exodus (rest from slavery), and then He added the redemption and recreation of sinners (rest from works of self-righteousness).

4. Rather than withdrawing and abandoning the laws of nature, it makes more sense to me to believe God will employ the laws of nature to accomplish His purposes during the end time punishment and destruction of impenitent sinners. Do you agree?

Regarding nature, entropy is a principle of nature. It takes an intelligent mind (if you don't believe in evolution) to produce effects contrary to entropy. If an intelligent mind does not impose its will to act against entropy, a random, disordered end is what results.

The idea is not that God withdraws and abandons the laws of nature, but that God stops counteracting certain specific laws of nature. That's one explanation for natural disasters. Another, which early Christians had, but has been largely set aside in our scientific age, is that evil angels, headed by Satan, are responsible for natural disasters. Some modern Christians have questioned if the early Christians might have been right after all.

You had asked to support with inspired passages the idea that God acts supernaturally to prevent entropy, whether it be the flood waters returning or any other natural laws. I feel I have. If you disagree, then what would be needed to meet the requirements?

From the PP quote:
It was God's power alone that had preserved them in "that great and
terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions,
and drought, where there was no water."

Every day of their travels they had been kept by a miracle of
divine mercy.

Their feet had not swollen in their long journeys, neither had their clothes
grown old.

Sounds like a direct counteraction of entropy.

God had subdued before them the fierce beasts of
prey and the venomous reptiles of the forest and the desert.

Sounds like direct protection from the natural forces that were there.

If with all these tokens of His love the people still continued to
complain, the Lord would withdraw His protection until they
should be led to appreciate His merciful care, and return to Him
with repentance and humiliation.

Doesn't sound like God would send fierce beasts and venomous reptiles, but would withdraw His protection from them.

Because they had been shielded by divine power they had not
realized the countless dangers by which they were continually
surrounded.

Surrounded, not sent.

and now the Lord permitted death to come upon them.

Permitted, not sent.

As the protecting hand of God was removed from Israel, great
numbers of the people were attacked by these venomous
creatures.

God removed His protecting hand. The surrounding reptiles attacked.

This, to me, disagrees with your statement #1, and #4. As Tom said, God doesn't withdraw laws of nature, but stops preventing it from happening. He doesn't employ nature to maim, kill, or torture people. He stops preventing it from happening.



From the GC quote:

Their sufferings are often
represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct
decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to
conceal his own work. By stubborn rejection of divine love
and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be
withdrawn from them, and Satan was permitted to rule them
according to his will.

We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the
peace and protection which we enjoy. It is the restraining
power of God that prevents mankind from passing fully
under the control of Satan.

The disobedient and unthankful
have great reason for gratitude for God's mercy and
long-suffering in holding in check the cruel, malignant power
of the evil one.

But when men pass the limits of divine
forbearance, that restraint is removed. God does not stand
toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against
transgression; but He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to
themselves, to reap that which they have sown.

The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from the
sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil
passions of the soul, and no protection from the malice and
enmity of Satan.

what are these, in contrast with the terrors of that day when
the restraining Spirit of God shall be wholly withdrawn
from the wicked, no longer to hold in check the outburst
of human passion and satanic wrath! The world will then
behold, as never before, the results of Satan's rule.

Like Israel of old the wicked destroy themselves;
they fall by their iniquity.

By a life of sin, they have placed
themselves so out of harmony with God, their natures have
become so debased with evil, that the manifestation of His
glory is to them a consuming fire.

I think that is pretty clear. I believe that addressed your #2 and #4.

Regarding #3, you seem to be saying that God's law (meaning one portion of His laws) is eternal (mostly), while another portion (physics) is not. And again, I am disturbed by your implication that we no longer observe the Sabbath in honor of His creative love and power. Though you did say, "add". Maybe I'm failing in thinking you are addressing my question of, if "God changed His physical laws, can God change His moral laws?"

Regarding #4, as was pointed out, it is not withdrawing the laws of nature, but restricting, restraining, working and acting against them, applying intelligence in a direct and active way. And no, I don't agree God "employs" laws of nature in a direct and active way as you are intending in order to "punish" the wicked nor to destroy them. It happens as a natural result of withdrawing not nature, but protection from it, from themselves, from Satan, and from His "glory".

Otherwise, I would have to disagree with the GC quote.

I can accept these explanations, Tom. There is a third explanation that makes sense to me, too. God commands holy angels to employ the forces of nature to cause death and destruction. On a another note, God has also commanded humans to kill sinners.

Thank you for putting so much time into addressing my points. I appreciate it very much. I know how long it takes to create a post like the one you posted above. Again, thank you.

However, the quotes you posted did not address the Flood or the final conflagration. They did, nevertheless, very nicely support the idea that God has caused death and destruction by ceasing to enforce certain laws and allowing others to play out naturally.


Which natural laws does God cease enforcing and which ones does He permit to play out that result in Satan leading beast-marked sinners to hunt down Sabbath-keepers with intentions of imprisoning and/or killing them? Also, the quotes you posted did not address the Flood or the final conflagration.


I do not think, though I cannot know for certain, that water would return to its pre-creation state if God were to cease preventing it from doing so. Also, please rest assured that I believe honoring God's creative love and power are still reasons why we should observe the seventh-day Sabbath. Plus, God has not changed His moral law. He has been by forced by the condition and circumstances of sin to adapt it to accommodates sin and salvation, something He would have never done had FMAs remained loyal. Nor do I think God changed the laws of nature. It's just that certain laws no longer apply because the conditions they applied to no longer exist (i.e. the state of things before God spoke the planet into the existing state).


As you know, I agree that one of the many ways God causes death and destruction involves Him ceasing to enforce laws that prevent other laws from causing death and destruction. However, I also believe God employs the forces of nature to cause death and destruction. I realize you think this idea places God in an unfavorable light.

However, in practical terms, I do not see a significant difference between these two methods of causing death and destruction. The results are the same, namely, people suffer and die when nature behaves in a certain way. I also see no significant difference in God commanding holy angels, or permitting evil angels, to employ the forces of nature to cause death and destruction. Again, the results are the same.

Plus, there is no natural cause and effect relationship between the sins committed and the disasters that cause sinners to suffer and die when God commands or permits it. For example, none of the sins committed by the antediluvians caused the forces of nature to react in a worldwide flood killing everyone save those nestled safely in the Ark. The fact God chose to cause a global flood to destroy sinners, instead of a global conflagration, or a global plague, or whatever, was a matter of choice.

In other words, the sins committed by the antediluvians did not dictate how God could and could not destroy them. He could have just as easily decided to destroy them in a zillion other ways. The choice was His to make. How He chose to destroy them was not dependent on any specific sins they committed. The method did not have to match the sin. There was no requirement that the method be related to the sin in a natural cause and effect way.

The point is - The means and method God chose to destroy the antediluvians was arbitrary in the sense it did not follow any normal or natural cause and effect laws. That is, none of their sins, none of their activities, none of their behaviors, etc, impacted or negated any of the laws that God was upholding to prevent a global flood from happening naturally.

I don't accept the last two as possibilities, because to do so I believe is out of harmony with God's character. I realize I'm in a minority to think this way, but I just see God as being like Jesus Christ was; unassuming, gentle, non-violent, humble; all these things that Jesus Christ was, I see God as being.

At least twice Jesus Christ addressed the issue of commanding angels to destroy. The first time He was urged to destroy by His disciples, and He responded that they didn't know of what spirit they were. I think this is a key point. It is not the spirit of God to destroy, but to save. This is just what Jesus said.

Now what did He mean by this? Did He mean that it's never the spirit of God to destroy? Or just sometimes?

The SOP said that Satan is the destroyer, and God is the restorer. Sounds like what Jesus said. The same questions come to mind. Did she mean sometime Satan is the destroyer? Sometimes God is the restorer?

The SOP said that force is not a principle of God's government. Did she mean some of the time? Or all of the time? She said the Lord's principles are not of this order, that His government is a moral government, and the principles it uses to influence are not force, but love. Did she mean some of the time? Or all of the time?

The second time Jesus addressed this was with Peter in the garden, where He told Peter to put aside his sword, explaining that if He wanted to, He could send legions of angels to physically defend Him. He told Peter that those who live by the sword die by the sword.

Jesus' whole life He counseled against the use of force. He never used it Himself to resolve any conflict, and He never taught that His followers should engage in such behavior. By both word and deed, Jesus presented God as One who does not use force or violence to get His way.

The SOP comments:



Unfortunately, to my view, Satan has been extremely successful at this tactic, which has been his tactic all along, to present God's character in a way it is not. Virtually the whole world, including Christians(!), view God is One who uses force and violence to achieve His purposes, in spite of the fact that Jesus Christ Himself both taught and acted contrary to this idea.

I really like what kland said in regards to assumptions and the interpretation of data. I assume that God is like Jesus Christ, and always has been, and interpret the data that way. You have different assumptions, which allows you to interpret the data differently.

I disagree with your assumptions. I don't think arguing over the data will be any fruitful than when Creationists and Evolutionists argue. One looks at the Grand Canyon and sees the work of the flood. Another looks at it, and sees the work of eons of time. Both see evidence of their point of view, of their assumption.

To get at the core issue would involve discussing the question, "What is God really like?" This is a point kland has been making. Can we accept a "kinder" view of God?

i disagree with the bolded. a minor point, perhaps, but the intention of God was to cleanse the earth of all the bloodshed and violence, same at the third coming. so in that regard God was "limited" as to what method "He" would use, or allow to be used. again, it may seem a minor point, but it may not be. how many times have we have ever studied why the earth needs cleansing, or do we assume the answer is self-evident?



i am in the middle on this, tho i do tend towards the "God does not destroy" side. but im not willing to get too deep into speculation as to how what is attributed to God could have really occured, except in a limited way.

i think toms sentence "satan destroys, God restores" or something similar to that, is a very important key to seeing all the events of the bible.

there are such good, conscientious people here, that it seems a shame subjects couldnt be approached from different angles to make it easier for each to see the opposing sides point of view.

Regarding the difference, please consider the following:



The difference is that the points in the above paragraph would not be true, if God actually directs and causes the destruction to occur. God *would* be the executioner of the sentence against transgression.