Even if God knows of the possible existence of every future person in the world (in fact this does not make sense), He has no way of knowing how each person will respond to His influence. He can only have an idea about this if the person is alive and He knows the person, but He can have no idea about how a person who still doesn't exist will respond to His influence. After all, if He had any idea about this He wouldn't have created Lucifer nor Adam and Eve, would He?

MM: I do not believe the GC was "necessary" in order for God to be able to guarantee FMAs will never rebel again. Instead, I believe GC was inevitable because God chose to create FMAs in spite of knowing some of them were going to rebel.

Even if we agree with Tom Ewall, that is, if we believe God chose to create FMAs knowing they might rebel but hoping they wouldn't, we are forced to conclude God thought the risk was worth it, that even if FMAs chose to rebel He would deal with it. He would implement the plan of salvation, eventually win the GC, and in the end the remaining FMAs will live happily ever after.

But to say the GC was "necessary" is drawing conclusions that misrepresent the character of God. Why FMAs chose to rebel is unexplainable. It is mysterious. God foresaw it (my perspective) or He foresaw it as a possibility (Tom's perspective), either way God chose to create FMAs and ended up having to deal with the GC. But the GC was not "necessary" in order to safeguard the future.

Do you agree?

R: After all, if He had any idea about this [how a person who still doesn't exist will respond to His influence] He wouldn't have created Lucifer nor Adam and Eve, would He?

MM: Good question, Rosangela.

Even if God knows of the possible existence of every future person in the world (in fact this does not make sense),

Sure it makes sense. If you have married someone else, and had children with that other person, God would know what those children would have been like. Why not?

He has no way of knowing how each person will respond to His influence. He can only have an idea about this if the person is alive and He knows the person, but He can have no idea about how a person who still doesn't exist will respond to His influence.

This doesn't make any sense. Of course God can know how a person will respond to His influence without the person existing.

Look at the resurrection for example. There's a whole group of people that do not yet exist, yet God knows how they will respond.

Why should a person have to exist in order for God to know something about that person? God knows all contingencies as well as if they were a reality. He sees any possible thing that can happen just as clearly as what is actually happening or has already happened.

After all, if He had any idea about this He wouldn't have created Lucifer nor Adam and Eve, would He?

First of all, there's no reason to assume that God had "no idea" how a creature He was going to create would respond to His influence. Just because God does not know exactly, specifically what a person will do in each and every decision that a person will ever make does not mean that God has "no idea" what a person will do in a specific circumstance. This is terrible logic.

Secondly, actually I guess there is no secondly. Your whole argument here falls apart because the hypothesis that God has "no idea" what the response to His influence will be has no foundation.

Butting in here, I agree from my perspective, but not from yours. From my perspective, it is possible (even likely) that FMAs could not sin. If FMAs had not sinned, I believe God could have safeguarded the universe in some other way than the Great Controversy (since there wouldn't have been any controversy).

However, from your perspective, sin was inevitable, and since the Great Controversy is the only way to resolve the sin problem, it was inevitable too, and therefore the only way to safeguard the future.

MM: Tom, you are assuming God was forced to implement the plan of salvation, as if there were no other options. In truth, though, He could have chosen, from your perspective, to allow A&E to suffer the immediate consequences of sinning - instant and eternal death. Thus, the GC was not necessary. He would have disproven Satan's accusations in some other way.

MM: Tom, if God can know precisely how certain beings will, hundreds of years before they exist, respond to His influence under certain circumstances, why can't He know it under all circumstances? What is the thing that prevents Him from knowing everything about everyone?

And, since, from your perspective, He knew there was a chance Lucifer and A&E would sin, why did He choose to create them? Why didn't He just leave them uncreated?

DA 22
From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He foresaw its existence, and made provision to meet the terrible emergency. {DA 22.2}

I dont know what way. However, considering that the option is that Judas would have been damned from his mothers womb (simmilar to Jeremiah being chosen as Gods prophet from his mothers womb), that simply does not fit with the God I see in the bible. God do not wish for anyones destruction. Judas always had a choise not to betray Jesus. A real choise which means that until the moment when he kissed Jesus in the garden, he could have ended his life not having betrayed Jesus. Maybe as did ten of the other diciples, through a persecution against the apostles or something.

It makes no less sence than having God sitting outside of time looking at it all in one eternal now. Like a frozen air bubble in a pice of ice.

There is a context to my sentence that you have missed here. What I agreed the GC was necessary for was the prevention of the reappearance of sin. Not until we had started exploring the alternative to Gods leadership were we forced to complete the investigation. If sin had never raised its ugly head, then of course no GC would ever have been needed. But now sin did happen and we are daily suffering for it. We are daily learning the futility of the ways opposed to Gods ways. We will remember for eternity. Yes, words to remember.