Correct.

I think you're using "real probability" a bit oddly. I would say the "real probability" in the case of the risk to Christ was 0, and the "perceived probability by fallible beings" is greater than 0. But the "real" probability should correspond to reality, not to what is imagined, shouldn't it?

That is, we, because of our ignorance, would perceive that God sent His Son at the risk of failure and eternal loss, hence we would, in our ignorance, assign a probability of greater than 0 to that event. However God, according to His greater knowledge of the situation than we have, would assign a probability of 0. Since God's perception of reality is the truth, and ours is flawed, that "real" or "true" probability that Christ was fail, as of 1000 B.C., was 0.

To put it another way, disregarding how we would view the situation, the actual chance that Christ would fail when He would come around 1000 years later, as of 1000 B.C., was 0.

TE: My question is a yes or no question. Either it was possible for God to create angels that wouldn't sin, or it wasn't. Please answer my question.

MM: No.

TE: What we can assert is that there is no choice available which would have been better than the choice that God made.

MM: This implies there were other equally as good options available to God. But I disagree. But even if it were true it means sin and death were equally inevitable. God did not purposely avoid choosing an option that would not have included sin and death.

If Jesus had failed to save us, heaven would have been imperiled in several ways: 1) Jesus would not have been allowed to return to heaven, 2) Satan's accusations would not have been disproven, 3) the last link of sympathy in the hearts of loyal angels toward Satan would not have been eliminated, 4) the seed of rebellion would have infected the rest of God's FMAs, and 5) God would have been forced to eliminate all FMAs.

Tom, God's ability to know the future like He knows the past does not in least diminish the risk Jesus took. In the same way, just because the 144,000 know they will not die it does not diminish the risk or the threat of death they experience during the time of trouble.

TE: My question is a yes or no question. Either it was possible for God to create angels that wouldn't sin, or it wasn't. Please answer my question.

MM: No.

If it's not possible to create angels that wouldn't sin, doesn't that suggest a design flaw? Why should sin be the inevitable result of creating angels? That doesn't make any sense to me. Even if this were the case, why wouldn't God simply have refrained from creating angels, and just stick with the millions of other world, including trillions of beings that wouldn't sin?

TE: What we can assert is that there is no choice available which would have been better than the choice that God made.

MM: This implies there were other equally as good options available to God.

No, it doesn't imply this. It implies there MIGHT be other options which were as good.

But I disagree.

There's no reason to assume there weren't other options equally as good. There could have been. How would you know?

But even if it were true it means sin and death were equally inevitable. God did not purposely avoid choosing an option that would not have included sin and death.

Wow, that's like a triple negative. God did not avoid choosing an option that would not have included sin and death. That's quite a sentence.

You are asserting that God had no option which would not include sin and death. What about simply not creating Lucifer? Or not creating angels? Why should that have resulted in sin and death? (I'm expecting a circular answer to be forthcoming).

I'll ask you the same question I've been asking Rosangela. As of 1000 B.C., what was the probability that Christ would fail? Was it 0? Or greater than 0?

Wrong. What were the chances for that woman to get pregnant? 100% or less than 5%? If you say that they were 100% you are implying that something extremely easy, instead of something extremely difficult, happened.
As the author says, "If I say I have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 6 on a fair die, and every time it happens, you say 'Haha, see, you were wrong, the chance was 100%', and then you ignore the 5 times in 6 that it does happen, well, I'm just not going to be your friend any more."
The threat to Christ was real - therefore the risk was real.

Tom:That is, we, because of our ignorance, would perceive that God sent His Son at the risk of failure and eternal loss, hence we would, in our ignorance, assign a probability of greater than 0 to that event.

Wrong. What were the chances for that woman to get pregnant? 100% or less than 5%? If you say that they were 100% you are implying that something extremely easy, instead of something extremely difficult, happened.

As the author says, "If I say I have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 6 on a fair die, and every time it happens, you say 'Haha, see, you were wrong, the chance was 100%', and then you ignore the 5 times in 6 that it does happen, well, I'm just not going to be your friend any more."

The threat to Christ was real - therefore the risk was real.

You're confusing concepts here. The post hoc probability is based on a fallacy of reasoning, which has to do with confusing something which has already happened with something about to happen, and after the fact attempting to assign a probability to that event. In discussing the possibility of Christ's failure or success, we are not discussing anything after the fact, but before the fact, so the post hoc fallacy does not apply. I am not saying that because Christ did succeed He had to succeed. This would be the fallacy you are referring to.

What I am arguing is that given that everything that God knows with certain will happen, will indeed happen, if God knew Christ would succeed, then there is no chance Christ would fail.

We can apply this to the case of the woman getting pregnant. Given that God knew the woman would become pregnant, the chance is 100% that the woman would become pregnant. This is exactly what happened with the Virgin Mary, Elizabeth, and Sarah. Here we have not only cases where it was difficult for a woman to become pregnant, but impossible (apart from divine intervention). Yet the chance was 100% it would happen. One could state with certainty that these women would become pregnant.

Here's another example. Let's say there's a movie you haven't seen, but someone else has. In the movie is a game of some sort between two teams. From your perspective, there is some probability that one team or the other would win, say 50/50. However, someone who had already seen the movie could tell you 100% who would win. The chance that the other team would win is 0. You don't know this because of your ignorance. Your assignment of a 50/50 probability is based on that ignorance. The true, or real, probability was 100%.

As of 1000 B.C. there was some probability that Christ would succeed or fail in His mission. If God saw in the future that Christ would certainly succeed, and He sees the future like a T.V. rerun, then there is as much chance that Christ would fail as that the other team in the movie example I gave would win, which is to say none at all. As a person unfamiliar with the movie would not know how to properly assign the probability of an event that is really 0 or 100, so we could improperly assign probabilities to events that in reality have a probability of 0 or 100%.

In fact, given the way you perceive the future to be, every event has either a 0 or 100% probability, and God could could tell you what that probability was, for every event. For God, from your perspective, there are no events which are uncertain; something is either certain to occur, or to not occur. The concept of risk, in reference to God, from this standpoint is nonsensical. It makes no sense to say "God sent His Son at the risk of failure and eternal loss" under this scenario, given that God knew Christ would succeed and there was no chance Christ would fail.

Here's another way to look at it. Let's suppose that there really was a chance the Christ would fail. If that were the case, say as of 1000 B.C., then God, as of 1000 B.C., would certainly have foreseen that possibility.

When we take away the idea the future is like a T.V. rerun, consisting only of one given certainty, the logical problems here go away. We can speak of God's sending His Son at the risk of failure and eternal loss, because there really was a risk of failure and eternal loss, which God knew and foresaw. God foresaw the risk, but agreed to send His Son anyway, which is to God's everlasting glory.

TE: If it's not possible to create angels that wouldn't sin, doesn't that suggest a design flaw? Why should sin be the inevitable result of creating angels? That doesn't make any sense to me.

MM: No, it doesn't suggest a design flaw. The fact two-thirds of the angels choose not to sin and rebel is proof.

TE: Even if this were the case, why wouldn't God simply have refrained from creating angels, and just stick with the millions of other world, including trillions of beings that wouldn't sin?

MM: We could also ask, Why did He create humans on the same planet He banished the evil angles?

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TE: You are asserting that God had no option which would not include sin and death. What about simply not creating Lucifer? Or not creating angels? Why should that have resulted in sin and death? (I'm expecting a circular answer to be forthcoming).

MM: No other option could be better than the one Jesus employed, and I assume one that did not include sin and death would be better.