"It's true that the destruction did not actually take place right then, but this point is treated in GC chapter 1." If we are going to include actions Jesus took after His sojourn here to demonstrate what God is like, why not include actions before His incarnation?

The whole point of His being incarnated was to clear up the misconceptions people had about God. He became a human being so that we could see what God, as a human being, would look like. God was totally misunderstood.

But if we do this, what good is Sister White's comment about Jesus demonstrating what God is like during His earthly sojourn?

This would indeed be an argument not to do that. What we should do is understand that all that we need to know about God, or can know about Him, was revealed during Christ's incarnation, as Sister White said. Now we have a complete picture. We can go back, and read the Old Testament, in the light of that complete picture.

Besides, when did Jesus demonstrate, while here, that God's glory is a consuming fire, that it causes things infected with sin to burn up and turn into ashes?

When you ask me these questions, it seems to me your argument is running like this.

a.There are some things that God does that Christ didn't do.
b.Therefore EGW's statement that all that we can know about the life and character of God during His incarnation is incorrect.

Rather than reasoning this way, I would suggest you reason as follows.

a.All that we can know about God was revealed in the life and character of His Son during the incarnation.
b.How can I use this knowledge to correctly interpret some act of God I'm interested in.

You are starting from the point of view of doubt (doubting her statement is true, and seeking reasons to verify that doubt). As long as you have this mindset, you will never accept her statement as truth.

Instead I suggest coming at this from the point of view of faith. Assume that it is true that all we can know about God was revealed in the life and character of His Son during His incarnation. Then work from there, and you will be able to see the truth of the statement and verify it. That worked for me anyway. This statement of hers just blew me away the first time I became aware of it. That all that man needs to know about God was revealed is amazing enough, but that all that man *can* know about God was revealed is absolutely astounding.

Say you have a child, and train that child perfectly, as perfectly as God Himself could do. Yet the child chooses to do bad things. Say you had no reason beforehand to believe your child would act this way. Are you responsible for the bad choices your son made? Could someone level charges against you for your decision to have a child? God's responsibility is akin to yours, in this hypothetical analogy.

1. "...the death of the wicked is something which takes place because of *their* initiative." Sinners die the first death because God will not allow them to eat the fruit of the tree of life. The reason for this is because Adam and Eve sinned. So, yes, what they did initiated what God did.

God didn't cause their death. Sin did. This is a fundamental difference in our points of view. In my perspective, God says to us, "Sin will kill you. Let me save you from its deadly effects." whereas your perspective has God saying, "If you don't do what I tell you to, I will torture and kill you."

"To suggest that it's the glory of God that destroys the wicked is fine..." So, it is the glory of God's character that causes sinners to die. And they wouldn't die if God continued to veil His glory, right? How can you say, then, that sin causes sinners to die?

God is love. There's no reason why love should kill anyone. This goes to show what a terrible thing sin is.

Say there were some poison you could put in a plant that would cause the plant to die as soon as it were exposed to sunlight. It can survive for awhile without the sunlight, but eventually it needs sunlight because that's how it was created. When exposed to the sunlight, it dies. You are wanting to blame the sunlight for its death instead of the poison. The poison is responsible for the death of the plant, not the sunlight! Similarly the poison of sin is responsible for the death of the sinner, not the sunlight of God's marvelous character.

2. "This isn't a question I can answer in a sentence or two." From what you've already posted about it, I hear you saying the glory of God reacting with the sin in sinners, in the lake of fire, causes sinners to burn up and turn into ashes with their sins. Before the final judgment, God destroys sinners by withdrawing His protection, by allowing evil angels to decide how to appropriately and justly destroy them.

Does "before the final judgment" mean during this life? The post I have in mind is one where I discussed the final judgment being like a job interview.

3."If God didn't do anything, and people died as soon as they sin, which they would if He didn't do anything, no one could be saved." If sin causes sinners to die, why does God need to expose them to His unveiled glory, in the lake of fire, in order to destroy them? Why not simply allow sin to do it?

Read the above analogy regarding sunlight and the plant, please, as an answer to your questions here.

Tom, you have adequately addressed my questions. Thank you. I have nothing further to add or ask.

Ok. Let me ask you, if you don't mind, how do you see God's responsibility in this? ("this" being the existence of evil) Do you see it differently than what I laid out?

I believe God takes responsibility for the great controversy. Not in the sense that He caused it to happen or wanted it to happen, but in the sense He created the FMAs which He knew in advance would rebel and require the plan of salvation to resolve.

I realize you do not agree with this way of looking at it. I do not blame God for the great controversy, for the existence of evil. On the contrary, I wouldn't be here if God hadn't taken on the responsibility of managing the great controversy.

God could have chosen not to create FMAs. He could have chosen not to implement the plan of salvation. Instead, because God is loving, He chose create FMAs and to save those who embrace Jesus, and to punish and destroy those who reject Jesus.

Thanks for your answer, MM. It makes sense, given your presumptions.

If you take the position that God started into motion a course of events with an inevitable outcome then that surely makes God responsible for the outcome. I don't see how you could get around the fact that this would make God to blame for evil. It's also hard to see in what way it is loving for God to bring sin into existence, by starting this course. Wouldn't it be more loving to not do this?

Why not simply create a Lucifer who wouldn't choose to sin, or an Adam and Eve that wouldn't choose to sin? Before the fact, neither Lucifer nor Adam and Eve had any more right to exist than anyone else God could have thought to create. God surely could have thought of an archangel who wouldn't sin, or human being who wouldn't. Why would God choose to create beings that would sin over beings who wouldn't?

Even if we assume the idea is true that God foresaw, before He created FMAs, all of the possible outcomes - it still begs the questions you raised above. The idea that God had no idea which outcome, good or bad, would play out and yet chose to create FMAs anyhow is reckless at best. That's why I believe it is better to believe God knew in advance exactly how things would play out and made provision to deal with it. It means the advantages out weighed the disadvantages, that He loves us too much to have not created us.

Here is how Sister White describes why God chose to create FMAs even though He knew in advance certain angels and humans would rebel and die in the lake of fire:

God did have an idea of how things would play out; He expected His creatures not to sin, as all of the millions of worlds chose not to do, except for one.



It's a million times better than the alternative you are suggesting!

Let's consider an example. Let's say you have a certain gene for some terrible disease, but don't know if your spouse has it. If she has it, then your child will get the disease. Let's say she has a 1 in a billion chance of having the gene. You decide to have the child, even though you know there's a 1 in a billion chance it will inherit this terrible disease.

Now let's say you know for sure that your wife has the disease gene, so that if you have a child it's 100% certain that your child will get the terrible disease. What you are suggesting is analogous to preferring the scenario where your child has a 1 in a billion chance of getting the disease to be certain to get it!

What you call "reckless" is a one in a billion chance, vs. what you prefer, which is something certain to be horrific.



He couldn't have loved us, because we didn't exist.

If you couch things in terms of risk, then God's choice makes sense. If you have a scenario where God created man, setting in motion a scenario where man was sure to sin, you have a scenario where God comes out looking very bad. He does something unspeakable awful in order to show that He loves us. It would be like you beating up your kid to the point of death, so the child needs to be on life-support, and then touting how good you are because you sacrifice to keep your child alive.

Regarding the SOP quotes, I think you are interpreting them incorrectly. Please consider, for example, the following quote:



This brings out the proper way of looking at things. Just as our bodies are able to heal, should the need arise, so the plan of redemption was able to heal, should the need arise. The remedy is provided, ready to be applied if needed, before it is needed. That's the point. Not that God started in motion a chain of circumstances that would inevitably lead to sin. That portrays God very negatively, and doesn't harmonize with the idea that God is innocent regarding the existence of evil.

It also logically negates that we have free will, under the definition of free will as being able to do A or B. Under the scenario you are suggesting, we would only be able to do A (if that's what God knew would happen). Now it's true that God's knowing A will happen doesn't cause us to do A in the sense that we are forced to do something against our will, but logically it is not possible for us to do something different than what is certain to happen. If God knows we will do A, we will do A. We may not know this, but God does. But the fact that we don't know we will do A does not give us free will! It does not give us the ability to do B. We may have the ability to do B in the sense of physical capacity, but from the standpoint of logic, it is not possible for us to do B, because we cannot do something different than that which is certain to happen.

So these are two problems I see in the scenario you are suggesting, the first one having to do with portraying God's character in a negative way, and the second having to do with a problem of logic. A third problem I see is that it contradicts statements from the Spirit of Prophecy and Scripture. For example, there are statements from the SOP which speak of the risk that God took in sending Christ to redeem us. She uses the phrase "at the risk of failure and eternal loss." Obviously if God knew Christ would not fail, He didn't take any risk. Similarly she writes elsewhere that all heaven was imperiled for our redemption. If God was certain that heaven was not under in danger, obviously it wasn't imperiled for our redemption. So there are contradictions here as well.

TE: God did have an idea of how things would play out; He expected His creatures not to sin, as all of the millions of worlds chose not to do, except for one.

There's a 1 in a billion chance.

MM: "He expected" and "chance" implies He didn't know. Did God know? What do you believe?

TE: What you call "reckless" is a one in a billion chance, vs. what you prefer, which is something certain to be horrific.

MM: Jesus knew for certain, before His incarnation, that He would drink the cup of trembling - a horrific death. Knowing this He chose to go through with it. There was nothing reckless about it. Not knowing (an uncertainty) would have been reckless.

TE: He couldn't have loved us, because we didn't exist.

MM: I disagree.

TE: Regarding the SOP quotes, I think you are interpreting them incorrectly.

MM: I disagree. The following is too clearly worded to misunderstand or require interpretation: "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." (quoted above)

TE: Not that God started in motion a chain of circumstances that would inevitably lead to sin.

MM: God created FMAs in spite of the fact He knew in advance exactly which ones would choose to sin. Knowing this ahead of time "did not deter him from carrying out his eternal purpose". Why? "For the Lord would establish his throne in righteousness."

TE: If God knows we will do A, we will do A.

MM: Amen! It is easy to love a God who knows the end from the beginning. I trust Him implicitly.

TE: ... we cannot do something different than that which is certain to happen.

MM: Cannot? I prefer will not.

TE: She uses the phrase "at the risk of failure and eternal loss."

MM: Can you support this idea from Scripture? If not, is it possible you are misapplying it? Does it really mean God didn't know in advance if Jesus would fail or succeed on the cross? Please support it from the Bible.