Daryl, thank you for making your position clear. I agree with what you posted. Although, I doubt sin would have happened again and again if God fails to meet it perfectly this first go around. I believe He would have been forced to destroy all FMAs, throughout the universe, if Jesus hadn't successfully dealt with sin and death 2000 years ago.

Tom, I believe you are mistaken regarding the foreknowledge of God and the freedom of choice. Since God knows the future we can trust that things will turn out the way He says it will, namely, He will win the GC and sin shall not arise again. Amen!

John, why Lucifer choose to rebel is a mystery God hasn't revealed to us yet, therefore, we cannot know why he choose to rebel. Neither can we know why God choose to created him in spite of the fact He knew he would sin and rebel.

Daryl, I thought your post was very clear. I agree with much of it, but have a big problem with the sin being inevitable part.

For several reasons. First of all, from a philosophical standpoint, why would God do such a thing? This is not at all in harmony with what the Scriptures present about God. That is, why would God create a universe in which sin is inevitable? This just doesn't compute. I would have created a universe with no sin. Wouldn't have you? Why not God? (He's infinitely better than we are, and even we, being evil, wouldn't do such a thing.)

Secondly, the Spirit of Prophesy says that sin is a mystery for which a reason cannot be given and that God is not responsible for it entrance. If God created a universe in which sin is inevitable, then He *is* responsible, and a reason for it can easily be given: God created the universe such that sin is inevitable. Easy!

Thirdly, God has revealed to us through the Spirit of Prophesy that God sent His Son at the risk of failure and eternal loss. This only makes sense if the result was uncertain. This means that God cannot have exhaustive definate foreknowledge, which is no way limits of God, but speaks to the fact that the future is not fixed.

Fourthly, the whole description in EW 126, 127 points to the fact that the fall of man created a crisis. It in no way suggests a situation where sin was a foregone conclusion or inevitable. Christ went before the Father 3 times, and only after the third time was the decision final. The angel says it was not without a struggle that God allowed His Son to come. If all these things are known in all their details from eternity, what sense does any of this make?

Of course God knows everything. That's not in dispute. The question is whether the future is fixed. Inspiration reveals that it is not. A small sampling:

* God regrets how things turn out: Gen. 6:6; 1 Sam. 13:13, 1Sam. 15:35
* God changes His mind: Jer. 1 -10; 1 Chron. 21:14, 15; 2Kings 20:1-6; Jer. 26:19; Ex. 32:14; 1 Sam. 2:30, 31; 2 Chron.12:5-7; Jonah 3:10
* God asks questions about the future: Num. 14:11; Hos. 8:5
* God speaks of the unexpected: Isa. 5:2-5; Jer. 3:6,7,19,20;Jer. 19:5
* God expresses frustration: Ex. 4:10-15; Ezek. 22:30,31
* God tests to determine faithfulness: Gen. 3; Gen. 22:12; 2
Chron. 32:31; Deut. 8:2, 13:1-3; Jud. 2:22; Ex. 16:4 (These texts do not speak of the purpose of the testing being that those tested being that the ones being tested would know their own heart, but to know what they would do)
* God speaks in terms of what may or may not be. Ex. 4:1-9; Ex. 13:17; Jer. 26:3
* Christ's coming may be hastened: 2 Pet. 3:9-12

Regarding the SOP, several times she indicates that Christ came at a terrible risk. Risk means uncertainty of outcome, which means the future is not fixed. Also there is the quote in EW 126, 127 which shows that sin was not inevitable. (unless God and Jesus were play acting -- the angel told EGW it was a "struggle" for God to allow Christ to come. This makes no sense in an EDF world.)

Tom wrote.

That is, why would God create a universe in which sin is inevitable?

Unquote.

I think, to show his love to his creation, and to prove that he is a loving God, that Christ is a loving God equal with him. By creating intelligent living beings with free will choice, sin is inevitable, for there is a possibility that his creation would choose something against God’s will that resulted in unrighteousness, self-love.

Were the angels created with the knowledge of good and evil? We knew that Adam and Eve were not created with this knowledge. What is then the effect of being created without the knowledge of good and evil? They must find out for themselves what is good and what is right, they must find out for themselves whether God is good or not and this would rise the possibility of choosing the wrong choice which is against God, which is loving themselves more than their love to God, satisfying their own desires that is against God’s character.

If sin is inevitable than God must be responsible for the existence of sin, but that is exactly what happened, I think. Because by planning and preparing the way of salvation he has shown his responsibility not only his unselfish love. Why? Because, we could blame God for being born in sin and must die, we didn’t ask to be born in this condition, while Adam and Eve were created in holiness for everlasting life. An UNFAIR and UNJUST situation is happening in the world ever since Adam and Eve fell in sin. And if God didn’t do anything to fix it and make it right, he has no responsibility for what had happened to his creation.

Car fabricant shown their responsibility by pulling the defect cars from their customers when a defect was found in their design, how more God would act, when a defect was found in his creation. He must do something to fix it and make it right.

This is my view.

In His love

James S.

Tom wrote,

quote:

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Of course God knows everything. That's not in dispute. The question is whether the future is fixed. Inspiration reveals that it is not.

---

Tom, you can't have it both ways. Either God knows everything, including complete foreknowledge regarding all possible future outcomes, or He does not. One or the other.

Above, you posted,

quote:

---

God cannot have exhaustive definate foreknowledge...

---

By any rational understanding of the English language, that would mean that God has limited knowledge of the future, and/or of all possible future outcomes.

Yet Inspiration declares again and again that God is "omniscient" and "infinite." There is nothing, indeed there can be nothing, that He does not know. And that includes any possible variant future outcomes based on present choices of action.

If "God cannot have exhaustive definate foreknowledge," as you've previously said, then that makes Him *finite*.

But the God of the Bible is called "the Infinite One" by His latter-days prophet, again and again. A two-minute SOP search will show that. And the prophet David wrote,

"Great is our Lord, and of great power: His understanding is infinite." Psalm 147:5

God never has had, does not presently have, and never will have, any limitations whatsoever on His knowledge of the past, present, or future. An Infinite Being by very definition can't have any such limitations.

That you would think to characterize Him as having any such finite limitations is troubling.

Tom: The question is whether the future is fixed.

John: Either God knows everything, including complete foreknowledge regarding all possible future outcomes, or He does not.

JohnB: There is no conflict in your statements. Both are saying the same thing. To know the possible outcomes does not mean knowing or predetermining which outcome it is going to be. That is what it means whether the future is fixed.

There is a responsibility and authority given to the creation which has bearing on which outcome and when. While the possible outcomes are known, which outcome and when cannot be known in the individuals realm or else it is not in that individuals domain. The question is not whether sin was possible but whether it was was known that it will be.

In that case you may think as James Sapteno proposes. That God purposely created a known flaw, so that he can look good.? In which case there is no flaw at all but all things are working as they were designed to do, including the designed breakdown.
In such case there is no such thing as sin, nor the ability for it, hence no salvation either.

Shalom

Jer 2:21 Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?

Tom wrote.

This is exactly the problem I see with the idea that sin was inevitable. If sin was inevitable, then there must be a reason for God to have created it. Any such reason makes God into a monster.

Unquote.

Why did you think, that God by creating intelligent living being with the free will to choose, knowing some of them would chose sin instead of righteousness, is making him a monster?

I think differently, God knew sin would arise and ad prepared the way out even before he began with creation of the 1st thing. But continuing with his plan of creation doesn’t make him a monster, if he did create angels and men without the power of free will choice, he become a monster.

Thus, I think, why did God continue with creating even though he knew sin would arise, making Christ must come as a man in fallen nature to safe men by his painful death on the cross? Because he is going to prove him self and Christ as an unselfish loving God who is willing to take the risk of creating. Maybe this is a test for him self and Christ, maybe because Christ was his first creation, a duplicate of his own, and are going to test him. Who knows!

In His love

James S