Thanks to everyone for the input. I'm very busy, but will respond to things as I can.



Greg Boyd speaks of the "blueprint" perspective, or paradigm, where everything that happens is for a purpose (i.e., God is behind it). This perspective can indeed lead to the types of questions you're asking. This would be as opposed to the casualties of a war zone perspective, from what he calls the "
"Trinitarian warfare" perspective, better known by us as "the Great Controversy."



When God has to choose between Himself and someone else, He always choose the someone else over Himself. This is seen in the gift of Christ for man. Consider the difficult choice He made revealed in the Early Writings passage we've discussed previously. This same choice is wonderful described in the chapter "Gethsemane" in "The Desire of Ages."



He's still lying. He misrepresents God's character. This the secret of his power.



The question addressed wasn't whether Satan was deserving of death, but that had God permitted him to die, that event would have been misunderstood, as the angels did not yet understand that death is the inevitable result of sin. This is right in the paragraph. There's no discussion in regards to deserving death.



It made clear that Satan had been lying in regards to his own purposes, and also in regards to the misrepresentations regarding God's character and the principles of His government.



He doesn't have to ever directly cause destruction. This has been a key point I've been making. The SOP tells us that the use of force is not a principle of God's government, that it is only found in Satan's government.

I've been asserting that this principle did not exist before sin came about (I think there should be agreement on this point), and also that it was not added afterward (it is probably here that we would disagree, with perhaps you and others of your persuasion, seeing it included temporarily as an emergency method).



This would be using force to compel people. If you threaten to use force to kill people if they don't do what you say, that's using force to compel them.



God did permit His Spirit to strive against them, but they persistently resisted His Spirit, and that's why God permitted the things to happen against them that did. They chose their will over God's will. That's how they destroyed themselves.



Jesus Christ did all He could to save them. In the beginning of His mission, He spoke plainly, but, because of the opposition, He changed His approach. At the end of His mission, He spoke plainly again. At all times He did all that He could to save them. He did nothing to contribute to their destruction. As He said, He came not to destroy but to save. When it was suggested that He destroy, He replied that those making the suggestion did not know what spirit they were of.



You're saying that actual Biblical truth is that God forced Moses to do what was right by threatening to strike him dead, right? But didn't you earlier say that God doesn't do this? (i.e. compel people to do what's right)



If God acts consistently, it makes perfect sense that one development can illustrate how God always acts. The only way this wouldn't make sense is if God sometimes acts one way, and sometimes acts another.

For example, Jesus said, if someone strikes you on the cheek, to turn the other cheek. If someone asks you for your coat, give him your shirt as well. Is this how Jesus Himself acted? Did He consistently act like this, or only sometimes? If He always acted like this, then wouldn't any episode in His life demonstrating this principle be an illustration of how He always acted?

Does God act like Jesus Christ? If what Jesus Christ said was true, that when we see Him we see the Father, wouldn't this have to be the case?

Above all, the cross demonstrates how God always acts. Whether considered from the standpoint of the Father or the Son, it's an incredible demonstration of self-sacrificing love. This revelation is a revelation of God's character, of how God is in His core being. He always acts according to the description of "The Destruction of Jerusalem" (or, better yet, according to the description of the cross) because of who is He is.



How did Jesus Christ teach that we should treat our enemies? Does God treat His enemies differently than what Jesus Christ taught?



If by "fear of God" you mean being afraid of God because of what He will do to you if you don't, that's precisely what the statement is addressing. Here's another one:

Then He didn't reveal all we need to know of God.



It wasn't understood.



The things He had yet to share weren't in regards to God's character. He said "it is finished," which was finishing to reveal God's character, as ST 1/20/90 states.



I've tried for years and written hundreds pages. What makes you think anything else I could write would help?



I can't write any clearer than what I've written. I can refer to writings on line that explain these things in ways very similar to what I think. Or send something to you. I'd be happy to do so.

Everything that happens is indeed for a purpose that we will come to be aware of during especially the ‘Millennium books reviews’, however that does not stop many people now to ask these “why” and ‘Divine-demeanor/intent’ questions. Job candidly and sincerely clearly asked them eventhough he never gave up faith in God (e.g., Job 19), as did others in the Bible, and that is because God does punish the wrongs of even His people. So when no personal wrong is known, one, even the Believer, usually, almost knee-jerkedly, asks such Divine Character probing questions. It really takes an achieved stoic character to, effectively, emotionlessly (or at least unnaturally, emotions wise) accept whatever happens to you without such questions, however not only do I not see this in the Bible, e.g., Psa 94, but I do not believe that God expects this of even Believers. Refusing to obey God or opposing Him and His cause because of such assumed wrongdoings on His part is another thing, but sincerely questioning them is quite normal.



Seems to me that this scenario skirts the actual issue at hand here by narrowing it down here, though actually “spuriously”, to: ‘God Himself vs. others (directly)’. Is not God’s Will just as much a part of God as He Himself is?? Then my question above still remains. I.e., e.g., when God says for, or directly, causes the death of an individual or a group of people, is He not choosing between Himself = His Will vs. that person and their will. Indeed, in the GC context, the two are inseperable, just like a soldier in a [u[war[/u] is bound by laws of war to no kill defenseless civilians but will self-defensively seek to “neutralize” as the need is, a uniformed combatant, indeed even just because he is in that enemy uniform. In the GC war both God and sinning men are in their respective uniforms on this battlefield and thus the two (the individual and the uniform) become ideologically inseparable and share in the same warring fate.



That should go without saying, doesn’t it?!... My point was that God indeed did not want Adam and Eve to know good and, that was actually a truth. The lie was that it was not for the reasons that Satan appendedly claimed.



The angels did not see that Satan “sin” was “sinful”, i.e., deserving to be put to death just for having decided not to continue to obey God’s law. If Satan then had been immediately destroyed, the Angel surely would have known that it was because of that act of rebellion which God would have surely stated was “sin”, if they did not already know that definition themselves. What they would not have understood was “why”, i.e., why did Satan have to be destroyed for that “new “lawless” way that he was proposing. It was then to be shown in the GC how Satan’s way was indeed deserving of death as it was not a better way, but one that would lead to suffering and death. That was seen long before the cross, e.g., by the Flood.

What was “finished” at the Cross was literally the opposing arguments in this GC and not a long ago demonstrated knowledge that sin is deserving of death. Indeed had God not barred access to the tree of Life, sinners would not even have died, but lived a perpetual life of sin. So it was even not to prove/show that ‘the inevitable result of sin is death’ that the GC was permitted to go on, or else one can easily make this Tree of Life removal objection. It was to show how wrong the course of Satan was that it was indeed deserving of being eradicated along with anyone who wanted to adhere to it.



As DA 761.2 states, in seeing the root of Satan’s controversy: i.e., out of jealousy of Christ and not out of consciousness for the freedom of God’s created beings, the Angels finally came to see and understand Satan’s real, even hopeless purposes here and probably felt quite duped for having given him a partial benefit of the doubt, even being ‘sympathetic’ to his cause. However the knowledge that sin and sinners were deserving of death was long ago settled. Yet this complete “umasking” of Satan could only be tangibly proven by what God had allowed to happen at the Cross, and there indeed, Satan proceeded to completely expose and betray himself.



How then did Sodom and Gomorrah and surrounding cities “naturally” get destroyed? The inhabitants ignored the customary “brimstone and fire” precipitation??? (Gen 19:14b, 24, 25). Same with the Flood, or the Egyptians in the Red Sea. I can name a plethora of Biblical examples along this “non-natural” lines.



Indeed it was not as there was nothing to so “forcefully” oppose, if not destroy, in God’s universe.



Indeed I disagree for from the time that God “organized” a war fo “strength” (Rev 12:8b) (and not merely for expulsion Rev 12:8b, 9) in Heaven so that the winner would indeed “take all”, God has had, and occasionally does, make use of force in this GC.



Making use of force to effectuate a judgement is not at all “using force to compel people” nor ‘threatening to use force to kill people if they don't do what you say’.

All I said that God used force to bring about these non natural calamities. Case in Point:

The Flood:



Sodom and Gomorrah:



That all sound to me like “force”, even violent force to achieve this level of destruction.



What I meant here was ‘Striving with them to the end’. Of course at a point they had silenced the voice of the Holy Spirit and God did not act against this resolute will.



How is “doing all He could” not inclusive of such a large portion of His ministry, indeed this middle part. The disciple who heard these parables did not even understand many of them, if any, unless Christ explained it to them. Jesus, as indeed directed in Isa 6:9-13, was working to hardened these inceptively rebellious Jews in their unbelief. Then at the end, His clearer pronouncements, which were actually, as I see it, His judgement pronouncements in Matt 23, just fell on this already completely hardened soil, and thus brought forth no fruit in most.



Such statements were pointedly made in regards to outsiders such as these Samaritans. However the Jews were not as in the dark as these people. Which is why Jesus spoke to these Jews veiledly for the most, and crucial portion of His Ministry. (Cf. DA 582-586). It actively was by God no longer blessing the Jewish nation that they had come to be destroyed. Their unbelief had caused this withholding of God which tangibly effectuated this destruction.



Fair enough in surface part. So I’ll defer to the SOP here which states that the sent Angel, though making it unequivocally clear that Moses was going to be killed, said absolutely nothing, but Moses was left to recall/figure out why this threatened destruction was being made.

Full SOP statement:



So indeed on this Great and Spiritual Mission, Moses was surely a dead man if he did not adhere to God’s requirements and God here made this clear.



That is not the way that I engage in exegesis. When two seemingly opposite developments manifest themselves and upon deeper exegesis reveal to indeed be exactly as rendered, then I longer see an either/or choice here, but a both/and. So you may want to only consider instances where you think that God did nothing to force a judgement, I, including all pertinent episodes, as in this issue, see that God can and does use both natural and forced developments to effectuate judgements. I therefore build my Theology on that comprehensively harmonized conclusion rather than only a preferred single side of episodes. Again that is the only way of doing Biblical exegesis vs. the opposite which is actually eisegesis.



Notice that despite this, Jesus does not instruct us to be pushovers, but to also demand, as much as possible, fairness, even justice, to the end. So when going to the Garden of Gethsemane, he instructed his disciples to take their swords (Luke 22:35-39). He even twice demonstrated that He could terrace that arresting mob if he wanted to. When He was struck in the Judgement hall, He demand to know exactly why.

Interestingly enough, the counsels of Christ that you cited (Matt 5:39) above were made for ‘when dealing with an “evil” person. I.e., it would be almost suicidal to resist such an evil person. As people are similarly told today, when someone is robbing you, do not put up a fight. Turning the other = engaging in a confrontational fight vs. self-defensive acts.



I’ll further add that all that was done in the OT was tangibly done through Michael/Christ. E.G. the Heavenly visitor who came to down to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah was the incarnate Michael/Christ. And so I do not have a dichotomy between what was done by God in the OT vs. what was done in the NT. So they are all contributive to this theological understanding here to me and not, effectively, “mutually exclusive”.



The self-sacrifice that was demonstrated at the Cross was mainly because there was, at least potentially, one person that could/would saved by it. So that ‘giving of His “life” (psyche) for his friend, even a single person, was indeed solely for that reason. However in the Destruction of Jerusalem 40 years of delay and thorough preaching had demonstrated no such redemptive potential. Indeed all those who would be redeemed had already long fled the city back in ca. 67 A.D. So no self-sacrifice and forbearance was demonstrated here instead but the complete removal of God’s Spirit, leaving man, on both sides, to follow their own passions resulting in that utter physical destruction and slaughter of life. Had a similar complete mercilessness been expressed on the Cross, Jesus would, at the very least, struck all of His enemies dead, while still dying for the relatively faithful/believing others.



‘Do good to them until it no longer is worthwhile because of their recalcitrance.’ (E.g., Matt 10:13-16; 11:20-27; 18:15-18). Again here, a teaching/theological understanding is not to be built around a single verse, and that to the exclusion of all of the other applicable ones.



In one part the word “fear” in both the OT and NT only mean “being (variously) afraid of ...”. It also further seems to me that this fear (even if of what God can do in punishment e.g., Matt 10:28) is indeed the beginning of this walk towards God that naturally soon will transform itself into love as God then begins to enter into a relationship with this “approached fearful” person. That is a “fear” that most people in the world do not even have and thus they persist in sin and rebellion. So fear is only a beginning here and indeed that is the most logical thing to expect when dealing with a God that most have not personally seen, because a claim of ‘inceptive love’ here in such an effective case of ‘blind dating’, prior to that meeting on that first date, would at best be hypocrisy. The truth inceptively drawing emotion here is “fear” and then (relational) “love”.



Again, as repeatedly confirmed in my Biblical/Theological studies, the God I have more fully/accurately come to know, and indeed love, and deeper at that, -because of that fact, is Real; and that in every single aspect of His Person, His Governance and His Creation and all that He as revealed in His Word and the SOP resolutely point to that fact. That is why trying to fit God into a Theological box rather than letting that “realness” speak for itself actually impedes that Great “Loving” Revelation of Him. As in any relationship, one prefers to be dealing with someone who is “real” rather than someone who is illogically/unaturally “artificial”.

God could only prevent evil by restricting free will. Satan is the author of sin and all its results. Satan is responsible for evil, not God.



I'm not understanding your point here. My point is that Satan is responsible for evil, not God, and that Satan's argument is that God is responsible. It sounds like you're saying that God is responsible for evil, and that it is not Satan's argument that God is responsible for evil. Well, if God is responsible for evil, then since Satan is a liar, one would expect Satan to argue the reverse, that God isn't responsible for evil.



I agree this is an argument of Satan's. In reality, man cannot live independently of God, and even if the the Tree of Life had not been removed, man could not have lived forever independently of God.



This is overly complicated. Satan simply misrepresents God's character, presenting Him as One who is responsible for evil, because He looks after His own interests in preference to those of His creatures, in addition to being harsh, severe, and arbitrary.



People are not upset with God because they think God removed the Tree of Life (very, very few think in these terms), but rather because they don't trust God, perceiving Him wrongly to be concerned with Himself, and responsible for evil. And not just evil in general, but the specific evil which happens in their own lives.



You didn't close the quote mark. This is a very difficult sentence to understand. I'll just comment on the "as He can easily prevent it" part. God cannot easily prevent evil. If He could prevent evil, He would, as that His character. God hates evil, and is doing all He can to bring it to an end, as quickly as possible. The judgment will reveal that God has consistently been working towards this end. All of His actions have been motivated by bringing evil to an end.

To bring evil to end it is necessary to reveal the character of the enemy, and the character of his government, as well as the character of Himself and His government. The parable of the wheat and the tares addresses this.



I agree that God has allowed evil to occur, and one can argue that there is responsibility inherent in that, and I believe God recognizes and accepts that. However, the alternative would be not have created creatures with the ability to love and be loved. Loved requires risk. God was willing to understand this risk, and God has paid for the risk in the sacrifice of His Son.

Although God could be said to be responsible in a certain sense for having permitted evil to occur, His responsibility doesn't go beyond that, and, again, the only alternative would have been a Universe without sentient creatures capable of love.



Agreed.



This doesn't counter the point, that people who smoke may, and do, get cancer according to the principle of cause and effect.



This is irrelevant to the point that cigarette smoking causes cancer.



Right!



These are the result of sin. You're way of looking at things seems to make God responsible for disease, since He removed the tree, instead of putting the blame where it belongs, which is on sin and Satan.



Pharaoh hardened his own heart. That's written half a dozen times or so. God didn't force Pharaoh to do something against his will.

The way people traditionally see the plagues is that God employed more and more force until God forced Pharaoh to do something against his will. This would certainly bean "act of compelling," as you put it.



Spirits of Pharaoh?



Ok, I'll put it this way. I believe the exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government. I believe compelling power is found only under Satan's government.



What I'm asking is the following. God was always merciful, although this was an aspect of God's character which had not been revealed, as it was unnecessary until sin came about. We could also say that God was always violent, but this was also an aspect of God's character which was not revealed until sin came about. It sounds to me like this is what you are saying.

So the principle that all that we need to know of God, or can know of God, was revealed in the life and character of His Son during His earthly ministry is false.

Since these questions are coming out of the blue, I'm guessing your train of thought is the following. If it were true that everything that we can know of God was revealed in the life and character of His Son then it would follow that we would know everything it is possible to know about God the moment we saw Jesus when He comes? (Or, in 3.5 years in Heaven with Him). Otherwise I don't see why you would ask these questions.

I don't think this is a valid argument, as the fact that Jesus Christ revealed all that man needs to know of God, or can know, in His life and character does not contradict the idea that God is infinite in love and goodness, and that even eternity will not be enough to exhaust the knowledge of His wonderful character.

I'll treat this part separately.



This isn't the issue discussed in the DA chapter.



This isn't at all what the statement says. Or, more accurately, the statement says nothing at all like this.

What it says is that God gives an opportunity to develop character, and that those who rebel against Him develop a character so out of harmony with Himself that His very presence to them is a consuming fire. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them. The angels did not understand this. Had God left Satan and his follower to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished, but the angels would not have understand that this is because the inevitable result of sin is death.

This is precisely what the statement says.



Again, this wasn't the issue discussed.



It wasn't seen then. The chapter explains that it wasn't until the cross that it was seen that there was no truth in Satan's accusations. Elsewhere it is written that apart from the cross, the holy angels were no more secure than they were when Satan stared his rebellion. The cross safe-guarded the universe by making clear what the character is of God and His government in contrast to that of the enemy. The Great Controversy will continue until this distinction is seen by all.



Sin being deserving of death isn't something discussed at all. The point made wasn't that sin was *deserving* of death, but that sin *results* in death. That's in important distinction.



No way! The time before the flood demonstrates this clearly. Men at this time could have lived to almost the age of a thousand, but few did, because of all the violence in the world. With so much violence, it would not have taken long for men to have killed each other. This is the essence of sin. You have to be number one. The only way to be number one is to get rid of the opposition.

At any rate, this wasn't discussed in the chapter.



That was *a* reason, and a very important one. Had God left Satan and his follower to reap the full result of their sin, it would not have been understood that their demise was the result of their sin, but would have appeared to have been an arbitrary act of power on the part of God. This would have created a seed of doubt in regards to God's character.

This is explained in the paragraphs under discussion.



This wasn't discussed.



No. Not at all. Not one word was mentioned along these lines.

Not everything that happens is for a purpose. There's a reason God has made the decisions that He has made, choosing to allow certain things to happen (like the Holocaust, for example) but this does not mean that God *purposed* for these things to happen. God's allowing certain things to happen, and purposing that they happen are very different things.




Would God want such a thing? Is this what we see from Jesus Christ?



Agreed. God welcomes sincere questions.

More later.

Tom, in response to the following two questions, here's what I remember what you've said thus far.

1. In the OT, why did Jesus command godly people to kill ungodly people in battle?

The reason you believe Jesus commanded godly people to kill ungodly people in battle is because 1) the Jews failed to trust Jesus to defeat their enemies in a godly way, and 2) the Jews expected Him to think and behave like a pagan god.

2. In the OT, why did Jesus command godly people to kill ungodly people through the execution of capital punishment?

The reason you believe Jesus commanded godly people to kill ungodly people through the execution of capital punishment is because 1) the Jews failed to trust Jesus to punish them in a godly way, and 2) the Jews expected Him to behave like a pagan god.


You believe Jesus was willing to think and behave like a pagan god in order to gain the trust and respect of the Jews long enough to wean them off such ungodly expectations.

Do you believe anything else about it?

What were Jesus' options in cases like the Holocaust?