Tom, on the "True Conversion" thread you and I agreed that God imputes repentance, or salvation, in cases involving people who die before they are able to repent. Can we apply this same truth here?

Also, your hypothetical possibilities divorce the fact God knows who will repent if they had lived long enough. Thus, God knows who will choose to be save and who will not. Accordingly, He chooses the best time and place to cause or allow them to die.

In view of this, what do you think of the hypothesis you said I am suggesting?

I'd like to repost a quote Arnold posted in the thread "True Conversion described":

Rosangela, I'm not sure where we are. Here's what I understood your original argument to be.

1.God chooses the best moment for everyone to die.
2.Choosing the best moment means that no one who is saved God will allow to be lost, if the person could remain saved just by dying.

It's sort of a "once saved always saved" idea, but with a different implementation. It's not that a person couldn't lose their salvation if they so chose, but God doesn't allow them to do so. Out of mercy, He has them die before they could make this choice.

Did I understand you correctly on this?

I was discussing logical problems I saw with this hypothesis. For example, you mentioned the children of SDA parents having a 100% chance of being saved, but that percentage lowering a lot as the children mature. This seemed to me to be providing evidence against your hypothesis. Are we on the same page here?

The following is for MM as well (even more so, at the end)

Regarding the timing of people's deaths, I don't think we have enough information to say too much, other than that God will act in harmony with His character of mercy and compassion. However, we live in a world of sin, where unjust things happen. People die of horrible, painful diseases, which I don't believe is God's will. God can work through these things, to bring good out of evil, but I don't believe it was God's will that the Jews be killed in the holocaust. God did not choose the moment for these Jews to die; Hitler did. God allowed it, of course, and we can suggest reasons for it, but it's a bit like the speculations of an ant as to what's happening in the world of humans. We know so little, that are speculations are likely to be missing a great deal of information. This seems to be the lesson (or a lesson) of Job, where God asked Job, "Where were you ..." etc. The job of being God is complicated, we just see a small bit of what is happening. It's our tendency to want to simplify things so that we can understand them.

When a question comes, why did this bad thing happen to so and so? the answer isn't always easy. When we see Jesus asked these types of questions, *not once* did Jesus attribute the illness or death to God's will. God's will was revealed in the healing of the sick person, in the resurrection of the dead one.

God allows some bad things to happen, and intervenes in others. Sometimes we have a good idea as to why, other times we have very little clue. We can trust that God will do what is right, but we cannot conclude that because such-and-such happened, that this was God's will. Job is the poster boy for this.

Job suffered the misfortune that he did because of Satan's will, not God's. God did not ask Satan to do these bad things, but rather God allowed Satan to carry out his purposes. God is able to make good come from evil, but we shouldn't confuse Satan's will for God's.

I've mentioned the thought of the first sentence many times. It's similar to this:



The above accounts for the cases where Satan would destroy. However, many deaths occur which are not directly due to Satan's influence.

Tom, on the "True Conversion" thread you and I agreed that God imputes repentance, or salvation, in cases involving people who die before they are able to repent.

I've not said God imputes repentance or salvation to these people. I said they weren't in a lost condition.

Can we apply this same truth here?

I don't think this works. I'll explain in detail at the end of this post.

Also, your hypothetical possibilities divorce the fact God knows who will repent if they had lived long enough. Thus, God knows who will choose to be save and who will not. Accordingly, He chooses the best time and place to cause or allow them to die.

I don't think you're looking at this the right way. God looks at the heart, and sees what the person is actually like. He doesn't look in to a hypothetical future to see what the person might have done, and judge the person according to that. He makes judgement based on knowing a person's character, not on the basis of foreknowledge.

Here's what I hear you saying. In the case of a CBTAOA, God looks to see what that child would have done had he or she lived, and if, at some point in its future, say even as an old man or woman, he or she would have accepted Christ, then God includes that person in the first resurrection. If I have this wrong, please correct me, and you can ignore the rest of this, but this is what I'm hearing you say.

There are many problems with this theory, including it's not being ethical or fair, but I'll leave those, and just deal with some problems invovling logical inconsistencies.

You could apply the same logic to any people who die, not just children. Say a person dies, for whatever reason, and God sees that the person would have accepted Christ had he lived another ten years. Does God take that person to heaven, even though he never actually repented or accepted Christ. He would have, had he lived, so is that good enough? If not, why is it good enough for children?

One can consider the case of infants and fetuses as well. Is a fetus alive? If so, can God do the same thing as for other CBEAOA, and look to see what the fetus would have done had it lived? If it would have accepted Christ, then it is saved? Where does one draw the line? How about a zygote? Can God see what a zygote would have done, and on the basis of that, take it to heaven? How about a pre-zygote? Can God look at a sperm cell, and an egg, and see the zygote that would have formed, and see that it would have developed into a person who would have accepted Christ, and take the sperm cell/egg to heaven? Where does one draw the line, if one reasons along these lines?

No. My original argument was:

1. God chooses the best moment for everyone to die (in terms of opportunity for salvation, within the circumstances of each person).
2. He will not allow someone to die unsaved if this person could be saved in the future.

Wouldn't this idea agree with the quote?

Here's the quote:



This is speaking about Satan destroying someone. It's not speaking about a person destroying himself, or others. It's not saying God will unconditionally supernaturally keep people alive if they could be saved. That's reading *way* more into the quote than she intended. Also, it doesn't work, for the reasons we already discussed. Using this principle, as you seem to be suggesting, would imply that all young children of SDA's (assuming these are all saved as infants) would die while still in a saved condition, if they could be lost in the future, but this is not what happens.

I thought we have been through this and agreed on this point.

Perhaps I've found the correct way to express my view. My point is that every person who is judged in the final judgment will have had, in some way or other, the opportunity to see the light (even in a very limited way) and be saved. If they are not saved it's because they chose not to follow the light they had. They are without excuse. Therefore, God will not allow a person who has reached the age of accountability to die without having had an opportunity to see the light.

I think this is an interesting idea. Before discussing this, are you agreeing that the statement that God chooses the best moment for everyone to die is false?