This hardly sounds like the coming of Christ is a fixed date that we can't affect.

EGW tells us that Christ was disappointed that He couldn't come in the 1888 era, I think it was in 1903, and Christ is omniscient now (at least, it's my belief that He is).

At any rate, none of these are moral questions, like the two examples I gave. (Free will -- libertarian definition, and God's responsibility for the existence of sin).

If I flip a coin, look at it, and then ask you to call it, what are the odds that the coin is heads? From my perspective, the odds are either 1 or 0, because I've seen the result. For you, the fact that I've seen the result doesn't change the fact that you don't know what it is, so for you the odds are 50/50. If I hadn't looked at the coin, that wouldn't change the fact that the outcome was already set. So the odds are not based on some inherent variability in the outcome, they are based on our personal uncertainty about the outcome. Likewise, one's hope regarding one's fate is not based on what God already knows, but on your own degree of certainty or uncertainty.

He is a charismatic figure and gifted speaker who was lucky enough to assume the government of the country when inflation was already under control and who captivated the poor population with the "Family Allowance", which is a controversial program,

If I flip a coin, look at it, and then ask you to call it, what are the odds that the coin is heads? From my perspective, the odds are either 1 or 0, because I've seen the result.

Second, it would raise the question as to why God would create a creature that He was certain would sin. There's really no answer to this. Some say that if He didn't create Lucifer/Satan, that would be violating his free will, but that's ridiculous since a creature who doesn't exist doesn't have free will. Another argument is that God wanted evil to exist so that His goodness could be manifest, but that has implications which are negative as well. What it would come down to is that God preferred a universe that had sin in it to one that didn't.

Something interesting I've just found on the Internet:

"If I flip a coin, look at it, and then ask you to call it, what are the odds that the coin is heads? From my perspective, the odds are either 1 or 0, because I've seen the result. For you, the fact that I've seen the result doesn't change the fact that you don't know what it is, so for you the odds are 50/50. If I hadn't looked at the coin, that wouldn't change the fact that the outcome was already set. So the odds are not based on some inherent variability in the outcome, they are based on our personal uncertainty about the outcome. Likewise, one's hope regarding one's fate is not based on what God already knows, but on your own degree of certainty or uncertainty."

M: Tom, your view of God makes it impossible for FMAs throughout the Universe to believe with absolute certainty "affliction shall not rise up the second time."

T: No it doesn't. Before I respond to this again, you've raised this point in the past, and I responded. Do you recall what I said?

M: You said something to the effect God knows all the possible future outcomes based on all the possible choices everyone might make for eternity and knows with absolute certainty none of the choices will result in rebellion.

T: Very good! So it (my view) doesn't make it impossible for FMAs (free moral agents) to know with certainty that sin won't arise again (unless you think it's impossible that God can see every possibility, or that in none of the possibilities does sin arise again). There's also the judgment to consider. The character of all will have been revealed.

M: Tom, is it safe to say it defies your understanding of logic and time and space if it is true God knows the future like history?

T: No ...

M: What then? Is the opposite true? That is, if God knows the future like history it supports your view of the future and time and space?

T: Why "time and space"? Also, you left out logic. My previous answer (which you cut off) addressed the logic part of the question. If the future really consists of only things that must happen, but of which we are ignorant (but God knows), as opposed to including possibilities, and being such that we can impact it, then I'm wrong about that.

M: Thomas, can you explain how God created everything out of nothing (i.e. nothing existed before God created it) using human logic and natural law?

V: As I said before, it cannot be explained through natural law (as far as I am aware). Logic is a method of arguing where you cannot contradict yourself and conclusions must follow from your premises. If the premises are that Gods omnipotence allows Him to create out of nothing and Gods love urges Him to create beings to love, then there is nothing illogical about creation.

Put another way, reality is how God perceives it to be. That's what's important. If He perceives the future as fixed, then the future is fixed, and our perception that it's not fixed is a delusion based on ignorance.

MM, since you have not responded to the repeated request of a response to the following, shall we conclude that you do not think Tom's comment was worth giving a response to?



In what way is it not worth responding to?

Risk refers to the fact Jesus took upon Himself the ability and freedom to sin, fall, and fail and that He could have sinned, fallen, and failed. As an aside, do you think risk included the possibility Satan might kill Jesus?


I was referring to unfallen angels living after the great controversy began. From that time forward they have never doubted God will win and Satan will lose. So, in what sense, before Jesus succeeded on the cross, were they in peril?

To answer your questions above, obviously it is possible to go from feeling certain to feeling uncertain. Why did one-third of the angels rebel? I suppose that's a mystery we won't understand until Jesus explains it to us in heaven.


Yes, the Godhead knew in advance, before they created anything, which angels and humans would rebel and be destroyed in the lake of fire. Why did the Godhead create them anyhow? The following passages provide an insight:

The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was a revelation of "the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal." Rom. 16:25, R. V. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God's throne. From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He foresaw its existence, and made provision to meet the terrible emergency. So great was His love for the world, that He covenanted to give His only-begotten Son, "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16. {DA 22.2}

The purpose and plan of grace existed from all eternity. Before the foundation of the world it was according to the determinate counsel of God that man should be created, endowed with power to do the divine will. But the defection of man, with all its consequences, was not hidden from the Omnipotent, and yet it did not deter Him from carrying out His eternal purpose; for the Lord would establish His throne in righteousness. God knows the end from the beginning. {AG 129.2}

The fall of man, with all its consequences, was not hidden from the Omnipotent. Redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam, but an eternal purpose, suffered to be wrought out for the blessing not only of this atom of a world, but for the good of all the worlds that God had created. {ST, December 15, 1914 par. 3}

Precisely. Probability has to do with ignorance, and if God also doesn't know how the future will play out, we are ignorant are He is, too (neither we nor He have seen the coin). But how can ignorance be called omniscience?