Actually that was as much for your benefit as anyone else's.

Pardon me, I will be more direct.
Mountain Man, do you think it is proper to insert and switch words which convey a different meaning then expect others to support that altered meaning?

Thank you.

No.

Can I assume, then, that you agree with my summarization of what you think about the angels? That is, they "incorrectly" expected God to wipe out the sinners instead of correctly expecting Him to send Jesus as a babe, and that they got this wrong idea from watching God employ the "withdraw and permit" method of causing death and destruction?


Why not quote what she said? Why leave out key words? "All that man needs to know or can know of God has been revealed in the life and character of His Son." The phrase "needs to know or can know" to me means Jesus revealed only those traits and attributes of God that 1) we are capable of comprehending and that 2) we need to know to experience salvation. That Jesus did not reveal everything there is to know about God is clear to me from what Jesus Himself said about it - "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth."


Please explain your answer.


Thank you for answering my question. How do you describe this method? What all does it entail?


Please explain .


I assume you are referring to the ones who watched them die. But what about the ones who died? What was God's "will and purpose" concerning them?


Do you think we can substitute the word "God" for the word "justice" in the following sentence? "Justice demands that sin be not merely pardoned, but the death penalty must be executed.” If not, why not?


On this point we disagree.


I didn't use the word "manipulate". I mean it in the following sense:

"The depths of the earth are the Lord's arsenal, whence were drawn weapons to be employed in the destruction of the old world." {PP 109.1} "God controls all these elements; they are his instruments to do his will; he calls them into action to serve his purpose. These fiery issues have been, and will be his agents to blot out from the earth very wicked cities. Like Korah, Dathan and Abiram they go down alive into the pit. These are evidences of God's power."

"He had used the Philistines as the instrument to punish Israel, and He employed the ark to punish the Philistines." {PP 585.5} "The bowels of the earth were the Lord's arsenal, from which he drew forth the weapons he employed in the destruction of the old world. Waters in the bowels of the earth gushed forth, and united with the waters from Heaven, to accomplish the work of destruction. Since the flood, God has used both water and fire in the earth as his agents to destroy wicked cities. {3SG 82.2}

Ellen uses this concept in the opposite way, too. "Men are instruments in the hand of God, employed by Him to accomplish His purposes of grace and mercy." {GC 343.2} "His resources are infinite, and He employs them all in accomplishing His will." {Ev 250.4} "He employs the heavenly intelligences to bring divine power to combine with our human efforts." {2SM 123.4}

Since you don’t know of any inspired passages that explain why God commanded Moses to kill the Sabbath-breaker and the blasphemer I assumed you disagreed with the view I posted above. My bad. Let me ask instead – Do you believe, as some do, that God was forced to commanded Moses to kill the Sabbath-breaker and the blasphemer to accommodate the ignorance and hardened hearts of Moses and the Jews, that He had to do it to retain their respect and attention long enough to show them the "right way"?


But we’re not talking about shapes and socks. We’re talking about God.


Did you also miss the note? The apology was in the box you omitted. The quote in 3SG 80 is the focus on the question. I cannot omit it. You have not answered the new and improved question. Here it is again: Do you agree with me that God does indeed do these kinds of things [in the quote you omitted]?


If Augustine happens to agree with the truth then it doesn’t surprise me that our views agree. But you didn’t answer my question. Here it is again: Do you agree that everything God causes or permits is the result of His absolute perfect “will and purpose”? If not, does it mean you believe sometimes things get out of hand, that things happen that exceed His established limits and boundaries? If not, please explain what you do believe. Thank you.


Are you implying, then, that sometimes the word “jealousy” doesn’t mean something sinful, that the immediate context determines whether acting or feeling jealous is sinful or not? Can sinners act or feel “jealous” without sinning?


So, you agree with me that Satan cannot exceed the limits enforced by God. How does He enforce the limits? And, why? What does He do to prevent it and what does He do to permit it?

Regarding the second part above. So, you do not believe it was God’s “will and purpose” for Peter, Paul, John, and Jesus to suffer and die the way they did? Why, then, did they suffer and die the way they did? Did Satan exceed the limits established by God? If not, then please explain why they died the way they did. Why didn’t God intervene and prevent it from playing out the way it did? What were God’s limits in each of their cases? How did God envision them dying? Why didn’t ensure it played out according to His “will and purpose”?

You seem to be "summary-challenged," in the sense of being able to summarize things in a way I would agree with. No, I don't agree with your summary.

Ellen White wrote:



I quoted this. I don't know how you got from this to your summary. I agree with what she wrote here. The angels had a misunderstanding here. They expected one thing but another happened. My point is that if even the angels were not understanding things correctly until the cross, because of Satan's sophistry, why should we think that men can do better?



I could ask the same thing of you. At least my paraphrase doesn't change her meaning. "She wrote that all man needs to know or can know of God was revealed in the life and character of His Son." It seems clear to me that she started to write, "All that man needs to know of God has been revealed in the life and character of His Son," and decided to strengthen that thought to "or can know of God," which is a far stronger statement than simply "needs to know of God."

Your idea limits she said significantly, to a very small subset of what her statement actually says. The very next thing after her statement is a quote of John 1:18, which says that Jesus Christ came to show us what God is really like (CEV). There's nothing in John's statement or thought which limits Christ's work to covering only what is essential to one's salvation. Nor in hers. Certainly Christ's work of revealing the Father includes the purpose of enabling one to be saved, but it's not limited to that.



Your question is pretty vague. I think what I had in mind is that in certain cases, such as in the 3SG passage, God could have a specific purpose or purposes in mind, such as those she pointed out, and other times not have such a specific purpose or purposes.



I think God had the same will for them, that they repent and be saved.



No, because I think it would convey a meaning which could be better expressed differently (Specifically, the quotes I've repeatedly presented of Fifield's in regards to what I understand this quote to mean conveys the thought well).



I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with here. Are you disagreeing that MH 417 says that God is not active in sustaining the life of man?



You have in the past. "Micromanage" you've used as well.

"Employed" I understand to be synonymous with "made use of." This could be either active or passive.

No, I don't disagree with your view because of some specific inspired text dealing with this specific instance, but on the basis of general principles that inspiration teaches.



No. Who did you have in mind?



No on both accounts. We're talking about choices.

There's no reason to believe that God is always constrained to one choice. He could have more than one viable choice available to Him. There's no reason to suggest otherwise. The fact that God is perfect in no way implies that *choices* He might make must be limited. There could be more than one valid choice available. We can rightly assert that there is no *better* choice that God could make than what makes in a given circumstance, but not that there is no choice which is as good.



What box did I omit? Could you repost it please?



He obviously did the things mentioned in 3SG 80 in the circumstances that quote referenced.



I'd suggest looking into this; that is, if Augustine agrees with the truth.



No to both questions. Your question is based on an Augustinian paradigm, which is itself inspired by Hellenistic thought. The concept of "absolute perfection" that you referenced is Platonic. This would take quite a bit of time to explain adequately, which I cannot do right now. Basically you're assuming that everything that happens has a specific purpose on the part of God. But many things happen which are not God's will, nor something God permits for some specific purpose. They are just evil things which happen because evil beings choose to do these evil things. They do not occur because of some will or purpose of God.

However, that being said, in spite of these evil things which God permits to happen, against His will, God is able to accomplish His will and purpose. Thus God can make evil to accomplish His will and purpose even though the evil itself was not God's will or purpose.



No. The phrase "even without considering the assumption upon which it is based" makes clear this is not being implied.



Obviously. How could this not be the case?



Regarding how, I know of no communication from God where He informs us how He does this. We know that force is not a principle of His government, so we can rule that out.

Regarding why, if He didn't, as I've stated a number of times, Satan would destroy everybody. As to preventing it, this looks to mean the same thing as "enforcing the limits." If so, I addressed these questions immediately above. If it means something else, you'd have to explain what.



No. It was Satan's will that they suffer and die the way they did.



Because evil beings inspired and committed evil deeds.



How would this be possible?



Because evil beings did evil things.



This could be answered in respect to any bad thing that happens. When a child dies, this is a natural question. Why did God permit this to happen? On a case by case basis, I don't think we can know these types of questions until the judgment when we have access to all the information that God had access to when He made the decisions He made.



What?



Not sure what you're asking here?



This gets back to the question I asked you above, which you didn't address. How can God force people to repent?

Mountain Man,

Was it God or Jesus in the old testament?
More specifically, who do you believe was in the pillar of fire?

Jesus.

So, I'm curious what your thoughts are on Jesus representing Jesus.

I don't know if I'm asking it correctly. Maybe another way is, do you see Jesus behaving one way in the Old testament, but yet in a totally different way in the New?