Is blue easy to read?

One of it's problems is that God is powerless to affect the future. He can see what will happen, but He can't do anything to affect it.

I completely disagree. If God knows that the plane I plan to board is going to crash, He can prevent me from boarding the plane if He so wishes.

No, He can't. (again, this is speaking logically, not in terms of physical power). He has seen from all eternity what will happen, including His own action. If He were to have acted to prevent it, He would have seen that too. All that remains for Him to do is exactly that which He has already seen that He will do.

Quote:
Because the Second Coming can be hastened!

Then Ellen White’s statement is not always true.

I'm not following this. She said it could be hastened.



She says it is our purpose NOT ONLY to look for Christ's coming, but to *hasten* it. Why would the fact that she says Christ's coming can be hastend mean that Ellen White's statement is not always true?

In relation to the second coming God’s purposes can know haste and delay.

The First Coming and Second Coming are not the same event. We have a prophecy in Daniel telling us when the first coming would be. That's the coming her statement referrs to. Why would you throw out a statement dealing directly with the Second Coming ("It is the privilege of every Christian not only to look for but to hasten the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ") in favor of one which is dealing directly with the First Coming?


Quote:
That doesn't make sense given that a)Ellen White often wrote that Christ "could have come before now" b)We have the privilege of hastening Christ's coming. If the date were fixed, neither of these things would be possible.

Christ could have come before now - if the church had been ready before now – this is perfectly true.

There's no way the church could have been ready before now if the date was fixed in the future! If God has seen from all eternity that the church would not be ready at a previous time, there's no way it could have been ready. This is simply logic. It doesn't have to do with cause and effect in the sense of God's seeing what will happen coerces the free will of the church; it's simply a logical impossibility.

It's not logically possible for something to happen which God has seen for all eternity will not happen. Doesn't this make sense? If not, please provide me with a counter-example.

You are suggesting a premise which is not possible. You are saying, IF the church had been ready for Christ to come, then He could have come earlier. But the problem is, given that it's not possible for something to happen which God has known for all eternity will not happen, the probability of the event occuring is precisely 0.

Look at it this way. If you were to ask God in 1840, what was the possibility that Christ would come before the late 1850's, if your ideas about the future were true, He could, if He chose to do so, tell you the truth, which is "0". The fact that He could tell you that there was 0 percent chance of Christ's coming before 1860 means that Christ could not have come before 1860! The fact that God chooses to tell or not tell someone what the date of Christ's coming is doesn't change that date. Surely you see that, don't you? If the date is fixed at 2020, or whatever, then the probability is 100% that it will occur on that date, and 0% that it will occur on some other date, or could have occured on some other date.

We have the privilege of hastening Christ’s coming – the date of Christ’s coming depends, partly at least, on His church – if the church reflects Christ’s character, this will arouse the persecution of the world, humanity will be divided into two classes, and the world will get ripe for Christ’s coming.

You're arguing out of both sides of your mouth here. If it is true that "In relation to the second coming God’s purposes can know haste and delay." then there is nothing the church can do to hasten or delay it, even partially.

But God already knows when all this will occur, so He determined the date for Christ’s coming based on this knowledge, or foreknowledge.

This is the simple foreknowledge view that I linked to before earlier. Again, this suffers the logical weakness that God, and anyone else, including the church, is powerless, from a logical standpoint, to change the future.

Here's a formal presentation of the logical argument:

Using the example of the proposition T, the argument that infallible foreknowledge of T entails that you do not answer the telephone freely can be formulated as follows:

Basic Argument for Theological Fatalism

(1) Yesterday God infallibly believed T. [Supposition of infallible foreknowledge]
(2) If E occurred in the past, it is now-necessary that E occurred then. [Principle of the Necessity of the Past]
(3) It is now-necessary that yesterday God believed T. [1, 2]
(4) Necessarily, if yesterday God believed T, then T. [Definition of "infallibility"]
(5) If p is now-necessary, and necessarily (p ? q), then q is now-necessary. [Transfer of Necessity Principle]
(6) So it is now-necessary that T. [3,4,5]
(7) If it is now-necessary that T, then you cannot do otherwise than answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am. [Definition of "necessary"]
(8) Therefore, you cannot do otherwise than answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am. [6, 7]
(9) If you cannot do otherwise when you do an act, you do not act freely. [Principle of Alternate Possibilities]
(10) Therefore, when you answer the telephone tomorrow at 9 am, you will not do it freely. [8, 9]

(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/)

This is a bit more difficult to follow than the less formal way I have presented it, I think, which is simply that if God has known from all eternity that a given thing will occur, it's not possible for that thing to not occur.

Now, one of EGW's quotes, for instance, says that God hasn’t given us the knowledge of the time of Christ’s coming because we would not make a right use of it if He did. Another quote says that Christ could not make known the day or the hour of His second appearing because He wasn’t at liberty to reveal this. These words make no sense if God doesn't know the day and hour of the second coming.

We know from other quotes that Ellen White believed that we can hasten and/or delay Christ's coming. We also know she believed that Christ could have come before 1860. The quotes you are mentioning need to be interpreted taking into account other things Ellen White wrote on the subject.

Ellen White also wrote that God sent Christ at the risk of failure and eternal loss. She wrote that all heaven was imperiled for our redemption. These concepts do not fit with a deterministic view of the future. It's like trying to get a square peg into a round hole. If the simple-foreknowledge view were correct, then

a)God would have looked into the future, seen that Christ would be successful, and known there was no risk.
b)God would have looked into the future, seen that Christ would be successful, and known that heaven was in no danger.
c)God would have looked into the future, seen exactly when Christ would come, and not tell us that we could do something to affect that date. He would have told us it was fixed, and to be ready for it whenever it happened, not tell us to work to hasten it.

TE: Truth is not determined by majority. My comments regarding your "views" have not been directed towards your ideas, but your methodologies.

MM: I assume you think everyone else who disagrees with you are also guilty in your mind of employing bad methods? Do you think there is wisdom in the counsel and testimony of the majority?

TE: For example, you say the date is not flexible. Yet both Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy tell us it is. For example:

MM: Nothing you quoted proves God does not know the precise date Jesus will return. You keep arguing God does not know the exact day and hour Jesus will return and yet you have posted nothing to substantiate God's supposed ignorance.

TE: Truth is not determined by majority. My comments regarding your "views" have not been directed towards your ideas, but your methodologies.

MM: I assume you think everyone else who disagrees with you are also guilty in your mind of employing bad methods?

No. Rosangela, for example, usually uses a very sound methodology. She stays on point regarding an argument, tries to identify where exactly it is that we disagree. She rarely misrepresents my viewpoint. And her arguments are usually sound. Where we disagree are generally on the premises taken.

To suggest that common words like "risk," "sin," "repent," and so forth must mean something different than they normally mean is a very weak methodology, and one which can lead to one believing anything they want. Where does this end? When Ellen White writes that salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ alone, do we say "alone" must not mean what it normally means? Nothing is provable using this methodology.

Do you think there is wisdom in the counsel and testimony of the majority?

If that were true, we'd all be Catholics, wouldn't we? There is wisdom in the counsel of spirit-filled believers.

TE: For example, you say the date is not flexible. Yet both Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy tell us it is. For example:

MM: Nothing you quoted proves God does not know the precise date Jesus will return.

It does using ordinary logic. Let's say we plan to have a picnic to celebrate some achievement. We will have the picnic a week after the accomplishment. I can encourage workers to hasten our picnic, because the picnic shortly follows the accomplishment, and we have control over how quickly the accomplishment occurs. The date of the picnic is not fixed. If it were fixed, we couldn't hasten it.

Now let's say we will have a picnic on your birthday, which is, say, July 15th. Now suppose I were to say, "Let's hasten the date of the picnic!" That would be nonsense. The date is fixed, because your birthday isn't going to move. It's July 15th. Fixed date = can't hasten. Simple.

You keep arguing God does not know the exact day and hour Jesus will return and yet you have posted nothing to substantiate God's supposed ignorance.

My argument is that you have misunderstood the nature of the future. It is not epistemological but ontological. I've pointed this out many times now. You keep trying to frame the problem as an epistemological one, but it isn't. That's simply misunderstanding the issue.

Tom, here is just two recent examples of what you think of Rosangela's posts: "Also your logic is backwards." "That doesn't make sense..."

Your picnic example does not address the issue. God has known from eternity the day and hour of Jesus' second advent. Many, many inspired statements have been posted to substantiate it, and yet you continue to argue against them. Why? Nothing you have quoted says God does not know when Jesus will return. Nothing!

Tom,

1- Your problem is that you mix too much philosophy into theology. Things are very simple. God has many times prevented His children from boarding planes that will crash and from suffering other disasters – this is a fact. Saying that all God can do is what He has already seen He would do may make sense philosophically speaking but not theologically speaking. As I said previously, omniscience cannot annul omnipotence. Both must coexist.

2- “God’s purposes know no haste and no delay.” Is this statement true:
(a) always
(b) sometimes
(c) never?

3-
You don’t seem to have understood this concept, although I’ve explained it many times. When I say the church could have been ready before, I’m referring to the church’s ability to achieve this goal.

When I say that I could have had many children, I mean I had the necessary conditions (physical, mental, or whatever) to have many children. However, I chose to have just one child. This concept doesn’t have anything to do with God seeing or not seeing the future. Suppose He had seen that I would have just one child. When you say that it was impossible for me to have had many children you are referring to the fact that God saw that I would have just one. But when I say that it was possible for me to have had many children, I’m referring to my ability to have had many children (that is, I'm not sterile. I could have had as many children as I chose to.)
It’s in this sense that I’m saying that the church could have been ready before, although God knew that it wouldn’t have been ready before. If the members had chosen to dedicate themselves entirely to God, Christ could have come earlier.
Now if the majority of members choose to dedicate themselves entirely to God, the church may be ready next month. But suppose the majority of members don’t make this decision, then the church will be ready only in ten years. It could be five years, or 25 years, or 100 years – this depends on several factors and is related to the free will of the members. But God knows when the church will finally be ready, and He fixed the date having this in view.

Tom, here is just two recent examples of what you think of Rosangela's posts: "Also your logic is backwards." "That doesn't make sense..."

I don't understand why you're posting this. She writes things like this to me as well, even more pointed. If your taking issue with me regarding this, why not her?

I'm sticking to the argument she's making, as she does when speaking to me. I wasn't taking issue with her methodology, but with her logic.

Arguments have premises, and from those one reasons to a conclusion. If the argument is unsound, it's because either the premise is faulty, or the logic is. I didn't say Rosangela's logic was perfect. I said "usually" when we disagree, it's because of a difference in premise.


Your picnic example does not address the issue.

It does address the issue. In fact, it addresses the issue so well, you have no response for it.

God has known from eternity the day and hour of Jesus' second advent.

In which case it is 100% certain it will occur on the day and hour God has known from all eternity, right? In which case, it can't be changed, either hastened or delayed.

Many, many inspired statements have been posted to substantiate it, and yet you continue to argue against them. Why? Nothing you have quoted says God does not know when Jesus will return. Nothing!

I haven't claimed that God does not know when Jesus will return. Again, the issue is ontological, not epistemological. You keep wanting to frame the issue epistemologically, but that's not the issue!

God knows things perfectly, as they are. Now how God sees the future is not necessarily according to how you envision the future. You envision the future as fixed, like a T.V. rerun. But God is not limited to your understanding of the future; He has a broader vision.

Kevin,

I've read the whole chapter. All the promises for Israel there are for the new earth. Ellen White says clearly that there was NO promise for them to be established again in Palestine.

Tom,

1- Your problem is that you mix too much philosophy into theology. Things are very simple. God has many times prevented His children from boarding planes that will crash and from suffering other disasters – this is a fact. Saying that all God can do is what He has already seen He would do may make sense philosophically speaking but not theologically speaking. As I said previously, omniscience cannot annul omnipotence. Both must coexist.

This particular topic is one which has been dealt with at great detail in Christian philosophy, which is simply the application of logic. Being logical is good!

To say something makes sense philosophically is simply to say it makes sense logically. And I agree! However, theology (if you're not Lutheran) is logical. (I'll explain the Lutheran reference if it's not understood, if desired.)

2- “God’s purposes know no haste and no delay.” Is this statement true:
(a) always
(b) sometimes
(c) never?

Are you speaking specifically in reference to the timing of an event, such as Christ's coming? If you are, then I would say "sometimes." That is, sometimes He has a fixed date in mind, which cannot be hastend or delayed (such as, by the time of Daniel's prophesy, Christ's first coming), and sometimes He has a purpose in mind whose time is affected by the self-determining creatures He has created, such as Christ's second coming. We know the timing of this event is not fixed because it can be hastened, it can be delayed, and it could already have happened.


3-
Quote:
There's no way the church could have been ready before now if the date was fixed in the future! If God has seen from all eternity that the church would not be ready at a previous time, there's no way it could have been ready. This is simply logic.

You don’t seem to have understood this concept, although I’ve explained it many times. When I say the church could have been ready before, I’m referring to the church’s ability to achieve this goal.

But this is not what I've been talking about! Sure, the church has the physical ability to do some hypothetical thing, but they do not *logically* have the ability to do so. In other words, it's not an event which could actually have happened. It's not possible that the church could have been ready in the sense that it's something which really could have happened. From all eternity, God has known it wouldn't happen. Nothing that God has known from all eternity will not happen can happen.

Think in terms of logic, not in terms of physical ability.

When I say that I could have had many children, I mean I had the necessary conditions (physical, mental, or whatever) to have many children. However, I chose to have just one child. This concept doesn’t have anything to do with God seeing or not seeing the future.

Right!

Suppose He had seen that I would have just one child. When you say that it was impossible for me to have had many children you are referring to the fact that God saw that I would have just one.

No. I'm refering to the ontological nature of the future; i.e. if it is single-threaded vs. multi-threaded. You're making the assumption that it's single-threaded. I don't believe that to be the case.

Actually the example of having another child may not be the best one, because it's possible, for example, that God knows that physically you cannot have another one.

At any rate, what I'm saying is that if the future is single-thread, and if in that future you do not have any more children, then you can't, *regardless of whether or not God tells you about it or not*. You're simply ignorant about what will happen. But you can't change what will happen, in a single-threaded future universe. You will, 100%, do what the single-threaded future shows you will do.

But when I say that it was possible for me to have had many children, I’m referring to my ability to have had many children (that is, I'm not sterile. I could have had as many children as I chose to.)
It’s in this sense that I’m saying that the church could have been ready before, although God knew that it wouldn’t have been ready before.

There weren't any SDA's in the 19th century that thought this way. They all believed that they could actually hasten Christ's coming, not simply possed the theoretical physical possibility of doing so.

If the members had chosen to dedicate themselves entirely to God, Christ could have come earlier.

But there was no chance they would do so. None. Therefore there was no chance Christ could have come earlier. Therefore the statement that Christ could have come earlier is simply false.

Now if the majority of members choose to dedicate themselves entirely to God, the church may be ready next month.

But this isn't a real possibility if it has been known by God that this won't happen until 2025.

But suppose the majority of members don’t make this decision, then the church will be ready only in ten years. It could be five years, or 25 years, or 100 years – this depends on several factors and is related to the free will of the members. But God knows when the church will finally be ready, and He fixed the date having this in view.

If the future is single-threaded, then there is only one possible future, which is what will happen. Nothing different than is possible. So you're listing a bunch of hypotheticals which can't happen (except for the one which actually will happen). That is, you say "if the majority of the members don't make this decision, then the church will be ready only in ten years." But if Christ won't come for another 30, there is 0 chance that this hypothetical "if" will happen.

Now we're ignorant of what will actually happen, so to us it *seems* that we can make a difference. But we can't. Our "free will" is simply an exercise of ignorance. We can't really affect when Christ will come, but God keeps us blissfully ignorant, because if He told us the truth, that wouldn't be good for us.

Now I'm confused, I have not said anything about them becoming established again in Palestine, or that the promices are not for the new earth. I think I've just gotten you confused and that we are talking about completely different things and have no idea what the other is saying. I'm sorry. I don't think I've ever said anything about them becoming established except for the conquest under Joshua and the return from the Babylonian exile. I think you are taking my coments about the Hebrews returning from Babylon to the land at the end of the 70 years of exile, and have me somehow placing that way in the future. No, we are waiting for Jesus to come to take us to the heavenly promiced land.

If you are reading the correct chapter, it is full of promices that God WANTED to do to Israel/Judah, the plans that God was WILLING to do for Israel/Judah, and that you seem to not want to look at those words. The chapter sounds very similar to the chapter "The Role of Israel in Old Testament Prophecy" (which is based on that chapter.) and everything that I am saying here is built on those two chapters.

What I'm trying to say is God raised up the family of Abraham for a reason, with blessings that he was willing to give them and a plan to evangelize the world through them. When the conditions for these promises were not fulfilled the promises and plans were re-applied. It is wise for us to know what God wanted to do, how God's people failed, so that we can do what should be done for us to fulfill the conditions.

You are (rightly) defending God's foreknowlege, but your defence of that truth, and looking at the evidence over how God has applied the promises, have gotten us into a place where you appear to be arguing that everything is set in stone and that we just passively have to wait until Jesus comes at the pre-determined time.

My argument is that God does indeed know when the perfect time for Jesus to come, but it has not been revealed to us. What has been revealed is what God wants us to do, God tells it to his people in a way that offers them the possibility to fulfill the conditions, and God's people through history have gone through issues very similar to what God's people at the very end will go through, and as we study what they faced, we will see the principles that we will face. Instead of passively waiting, we can actively prepare through studying the scripture.

In the 1800s there have been two different approaches to prophecy: There was the view of the Dispensationalists, who said that the prophets wrote as if all the things were close, but actually there was a long path, sort of like seeing mountains where it looks like one mountain range, but in reality it is two mountain ranges with a long valley in between. The prophets only saw the mountain tops and did not realize there was the valley so discribed as if one mountain range, and that our job is to untangle what was back then and what is future.

The second is a firm holding to Historism which has guided the church faithfully through the centuries. Historisism sees it more like the exodus. God lead his people to the promised land. They sent spys and the spys gave their report. After hearing the spy's report the people felt that they could not get into the land. Joshua and Calab argued that they could get the land, but the people refused to listen to them. Therefore God lead them out into the desert for that generation (except for Joshua and Caleb) to die off, then brought them back to the border and this time they went in.

Now God knew that the people were not going to enter the promised land until the next generation, but does that mean that he did not give the generation he brought out of Egypt the chance to accept Joshua's and Caleb's message? If that generation said "Joshua and Caleb make sense, let's trust in God and get the land" would God have replied "WAIT, The choosen day for you to enter the promised land is in 40 years!"

In the same way as God was leading a generation to the border, then in the wilderness and another generation back to the border, so through history God has lead his people to the true promised land of heaven, and willing to lead us in continued life on earth and let entering heaven be offered to latter generations. Historisism sees how God has lead us through history, how God was willing to work with former generations. to see how he WILL work with the generation that finally enters the promised land.

Sadly in the 1900s Adventists have tended to accept the conclusions of the historisists, but the methods of the dispensationalists. This is what I see you as doing.

So God has often lead his peo

Tom,

I’m definitely in favor of logic, for it was God who has given us the ability to reason and think, but God transcends human logic. We cannot try to place the Deity inside the box of human logic. So, saying that all God can do is what He has already seen He would do, may be humanly logical, but it poses a conflict between omniscience and omnipotence, and God cannot be in conflict with Himself.
Some concepts cannot be completely understood by us, and that’s the reason why we are having this discussion.


But this is not what Ellen White says. She says, “Like the stars in the vast circuit of their appointed path, God's purposes know no haste and no delay.” She didn’t say “some of God’s purposes,” nor “God’s purpose in relation to Christ’s first coming,” but “God’s purposes”.


This is how you see the matter: if God knows that things will happen in a certain way, then things must happen in that way. Like Arnold, this is how I see the matter: if things will happen in a certain way (for whatever reason), then God knows that things will happen in that way.
We simply can’t see things in the same way.