What's inconsistent is you're thinking that God's not creating creatures He knew would sin would prevent sin from existing. There's no more reason why this would prevent sin from existing than God's knowing that Judas would not repent would mean that Judas couldn't repent. This is exactly the same thing.

Look at it from the point of view of the creatures who exist (assuming that God didn't create the ones He knew would sin). If God's knowing that Judas would not repent does not mean that Judas could not repent, then God's knowing the creatures He created would not sin does not mean that they could not sin.



I understood this. My point is that you can't just look at one person's future. The future consists of everything that everybody is doing. While one person has made a decision, another person is in the process of making a decision, so what this person will do is not fixed, so the future is still in a state of flux.

The difference in the two models involves the character, or essence, of God's knowledge, and the number of possible options. Under your view, there is only one possible option (possible in the sense of being able to come about in reality) and God's knowledge does not change. Under my view, there is more than one possible option, and God's knowledge changes as certain possible futures become impossible, based on the choices FMA's make.

So, for example, in regards to EGW's statement that Christ could have come 'ere now in the 1850's, in my view, this is something which could have happened. In yours, it's not, because God always knew from all eternity exactly the one thing that would happen for each moment of time during the 1850's, and He knew Christ would not come then. It wasn't an option that could come about in reality, just an option that hypothetically could have happened if things had hypothetically been different (which, of course, in reality they couldn't have been).



If Christ's coming could happen earlier or later than the time God knows it will happen, then the date that God knows Christ will come could be wrong. Conversely, assuming God can't be wrong regarding the date that He knows Christ will come on, His coming can be neither later nor earlier than that date.



This doesn't work as an analogy because your knowledge is fallible. You're just making an educated guess. It really is possible, in this analogy, for your son to do the dishes in 20 minutes. He might have felt bad about something he did towards you, and decide to make it up by doing the dishes as fast as he can.

However, in the case of God's knowledge of what will happen, there can be no variance between reality and what God knows, under your view. Since reality is what God knows it to be, if God knows Christ will come on a certain date, reality is that He will come on that date. Reality is that He will not come on some other date. So His coming, in reality, can neither be hastened nor delayed.



When you talk about "from the creature's side" this is expressing exactly the point I've been communicating, which is that we have the illusion of free will, the illusion of options, but not the reality. We cannot, in reality, do anything different from what God knows we will do. We are not forced to do what He knows we will do, in the sense of His exerting some sort of force over us, but in reality we do not have the ability to bring about a different scenario than what God has foreseen.

Our free will (from a libertarian standpoint) is based on ignorance. It's an illusion. It's not reality. Reality is what can really happen, which is what God perceives; it's not necessarily what we think we can or can't do.



She says "God permitted His Son to come ... at the risk of failure and eternal loss" (DA 49), which is what I've been saying (except I said "sent" instead of "permitted to come".)

That Christ took a risk in coming here means He could have been lost. He could have failed. In reality. Not just hypothetically. But to say that Christ could have, in reality, sinned is incompatible with EDF.

The episode described in EW 126 is so incompatible with EDF that it's ridiculous. Three meetings to "decide" to allow Christ to do something God always knew He was going to allow Him to do? Christ's pleading for permission? Come on! This couldn't possible be real, under EDF. The whole thing would have to be for show.



God doesn't change His mind in terms of being fickle like a man is, but He does change His mind based on what His creatures do. There are dozens of Scriptures which bring this out. One example that pops to mind is God's adding 15 years to Hezekiah's life. God responded to Hezekiah's request. If He didn't, then it can't be said that God "added" any years to Hezekiah's life.

In Jeremiah 18 the people were complaining that because God had prophesied against them, there was nothing they could do. God said that if they would change their ways, He would change His mind about what He was going to do.

I'd be interested in what it is in Scripture that you think teaches that God will not change His mind, when there are so many texts which say that He does. There is Numbers 23:19 which says:



This is obviously speaking to man's being fickle, promising one thing and doing another. But this is not the sense we are talking about. We are talking about God's intending to do one thing, and then changing His mind, because of circumstances, to do another, which happens in dozens of places in Scripture.



How could this refer to earth? The heavenly courts are not on earth, but in heaven. Otherwise they would be called "the earthly courts".

The point is that, which in the heavenly courts (in heaven, not on earth) Christ made the decision to leave heaven and come to earth, in so doing taking the risk of failure and eternal loss.

It doesn't make any sense to apply this to any decision that Christ made while here on earth. How could it? On earth, He had already made the decision.



Of course! The risk was that Christ would sin, which is a possible result of being tempted. Where else would the risk have come from? How else could Christ have been lost other than by failing to meet a temptation?

What else would you expect the risk to refer to?

The point is, if my point of view were true, Ellen White wrote *exactly* what one would expect her to have written. On the other hand, if your point of view were true, what she wrote is very odd, odd to the extreme that (excluding her for the moment) I cannot think of a single individual to have written what she wrote who has your view of foreknowledge. Can you?

Every person I can think of who speaks of risk in terms of God or Christ has an Open View of the future.



You don't have to be tempted to take a risk.



That God is being portrayed as taking a risk here is clear as sunlight. Note the comparison to a human father yearning over his son, trembling at the thought of life's peril.

Regarding Christ taking a risk at the moment He was born, that's not correct. He took the risk *before* He was born, in making the decision to be born!

If there is risk associated with being a human being, because one is subject to temptation, then the decision to become a human being involves risk. How could it be otherwise?

The post just above this one is the one I was referring to that I forgot to send.

Regarding the question that God perceives reality as it is, the consequence of this is that we do not have libertarian free will, because if God perceives that we will do a certain thing at every moment in time, then reality is we will do that certain thing only, which contradicts the definition of libertarian free will.

I mentioned some other implications of the fact that reality is what God perceives it to be in the post previous to this one.

No, it’s not. In the first case God is doing something to ensure that a certain result will (or will not) happen; in the second case He isn’t doing anything.


Sorry, but this argument, to me, is just a subterfuge. We are speaking about the decisions of a given person, and about an individual future, which is what Ellen White also speaks about, as I have already mentioned.


Sure, under my view there is only one possible option – possible in the sense that it will really happen. But what I hear you saying is that in Peter’s case, for instance, in all “possible” futures Peter would deny Christ. This, to me, is a fixed future, no matter what you may say to the contrary, for just one outcome is possible.
If you had said that there were two possible futures for Peter (to deny or not to deny Christ), and that God didn’t know exactly what Peter would do but was calculating the probabilities – which seemed to be your position in previous discussions, I could still accept that (though not agreeing), but I can never accept what you are saying now as something reasonable.


How do you know that? How do you know that in all possible futures God wouldn’t have seen that this wouldn’t happen? What is the criterion which makes God see, in some cases, the same thing happening in all possible futures (sometimes with hundreds of years of antecedence, as in the case of Josiah), and not in others? Frankly, this does not make the least sense to me.


What I do, and the church in general does, may make Christ come earlier or later, this is obvious. Like in the illustration, if it’s not raining the train will arrive earlier, if it’s raining it will arrive later. But the date of Christ’s coming is already taking this into consideration. I don’t know what kind of problem you have with this, since it’s a simple concept.


We do have the options, and so do have free will. But since you don’t consider this is possible, that’s why I’m saying you are now defending a contradictory viewpoint. If we don’t have free will because we don’t have the ability to bring about a different scenario than that what God has foreseen, then it’s clear Peter didn’t have free will, because in all possible futures God had seen that he would deny Christ, so of course he wouldn’t have the ability to bring about a different scenario than what God had foreseen. Some seconds sooner, or some seconds later, he would deny Christ. Where is his free will? In it happening some seconds sooner or some seconds later? Come on! Free will is the freedom of choice between two options (denying or not denying), not between two or more times.


He met the peril of sinning. But of course God knew He would be victorious. Now let me ask you, if God saw in all possible futures that Christ would be victorious, how could He have, in reality, sinned?


The plan of salvation was made in eternity, therefore God saw, in all possible futures, that He would give His Son and that Christ would come to save humanity. Or was there a possible future in which God wouldn’t give His Son and Christ wouldn’t come to save humanity?


He doesn’t change His mind based on what His creatures do. He will always reward virtue and punish sin. Obviously if His creatures change from sin to virtue or from virtue to sin, God will act accordingly towards them.


Of course He responded to Hezekiah’s request. This doesn’t mean He changed His mind. Answering prayers is part of His plan. Hezekiah’s sickness was going to lead him to death. He asked to be healed, and God answered his request. “It is a part of God's plan to grant us, in answer to the prayer of faith, that which He would not bestow did we not thus ask” (GC 525).


Tom, come on! How could Christ become an exile from the heavenly courts in heaven?


Christ made the decision, in heaven, to meet the risk of failure on earth.


We have already discussed this at length. I’ll repeat what I said at the occasion.

The text makes it crystal clear that Ellen White is speaking of the risk for Christ, on earth. She doesn’t say God took a risk:

“Yet into the world where Satan claimed dominion God permitted His Son to come, a helpless babe, subject to the weakness of humanity. He permitted Him to meet life's peril in common with every human soul, to fight the battle as every child of humanity must fight it, at the risk of failure and eternal loss.
“The heart of the human father yearns over his son. He looks into the face of his little child, and trembles at the thought of life's peril. He longs to shield his dear one from Satan's power, to hold him back from temptation and conflict. To meet a bitterer conflict and a more fearful risk, God gave His only-begotten Son, that the path of life might be made sure for our little ones. "Herein is love." Wonder, O heavens! and be astonished, O earth!”

Due to considerations of length, I'm splitting this into two posts.



Yes it is. Forget about the creatures that don't exist. Consider only the creatures that exist. God did absolutely nothing to curtail *their* freedom of choice. The situation between *them* and Judas is identical. If Judas can repent, even though God knows he won't, then these creature can sin, even though God knows they weren't.

Just think about the implications of your position a moment. If it were true, it would mean that the creatures that God knew would not sin would only have free will if God created other creatures whom He knew would sin. It should be clear, upon a little reflection, that this is an absurd idea.



It's not a subterfuge, it's reality. You're wanting to consider a situation that doesn't exist. I think the problem may be that you are accustomed to considering the future as one fixed thing. If the future were a fixed thing, you could think of it like a movie, and freeze frame it, and consider one particular part of it, which would be analogous to what you are doing in considering the future of an individual without respect to anything else that's happening.

But the future isn't like that. It's not just one thing. It's a mosaic of many things, including things certain and things uncertain, including decisions made and decisions yet to be made.

At any rate, my view does not become fixed by simply considering it from the standpoint of a small point of time. The view considers the future to be *ontologically* different than under your view, not *epistemologically* different. That is, we are postulating two different views of reality.

This is a key point I've been trying to get across. It's not simply a matter of how the future is observed, of what's it appears to be, but of what the future is really like. What is reality? Is reality that there is just one future, or is reality that the future is comprised of possibilities?

If God perceives reality as it is, and your view is correct, then reality is that the future is just one thing (since that is how God perceives it to be).

Under my view, the future is not just one thing, no matter how much you slow time down. Eventually, if you took an infinitesimally small slice of time, you would get down to just the present, and *that* is just one thing. But as soon as there is any time at all, and the future jumps into the picture, then, immediately, it is not just one thing anymore.



Not in the sense that it will really happen, but in the sense that only it CAN really happen. (speaking with your view in mind) There is no way that something *can* happen which is different that that which God knows will happen.



The chess analogy explains this. You have a chess player who, in all scenarios, will choose the move Be2. However, in some scenarios, he takes longer to come to this decision than in others. The futures are different, even though he comes to the same decision insofar as what move he's going to make. This doesn't imply there is anything fixed. It's just that he's going to make the same move, because in his analysis of the position he's looking at, he comes to the conclusion that this is the right move to make.



I only know it because that's what EGW said.



Because then it wouldn't have been possible for Christ to come, and God wouldn't have communicated to Ellen White that it was.



The question of Josiah, and Judas, is admittedly a more challenging concept to grasp. I'm a bit hesitant to discuss it, because if the easier concepts are not being grasped, then I'm not sure how fruitful it would be to discuss more challenging ones. So I'm going to pass here, and just say there is an explanation which makes sense. If you want to press me on this, I'll be happy to explain it however.



What is obvious is that this is not the case. If the date of Christ's coming is certain, then obviously neither we nor the church can do anything to make that date be any different. This is because that's what the phrase "the date is certain" means. All we could do would be to fulfill the rolls that God has foreseen we will fulfill. This is a different concept than hastening or delaying.



The simple concept is that if the date is certain to be one thing, then it can't be some other thing.

In the train example, the arrival time of the train was neither hastened nor delayed. It was known that it would occur at a precise moment in time, and it occurred at just that moment. The rain and good weather were simply contributing parts of the process. Every process has contributing parts.

I agree that we have options, and have free will. It's not correct that I don't consider this possible. I don't consider your view of the future to be possible. Under your view, there's only one possible future. If there's only one possible future, then we have exactly one option.

You are mixing to different systems together, and coming up with logically inconsistencies. If there is only one possible future, then what Luther wrote is logically correct. What God knows will happen must necessarily happen, and there is no (libertarian) free will. I'm going from memory here, but that was Luther's argument. And it's logically sound.

You're wanting to simultaneously affirm that God knows the one thing we will do, but we have options available. These can't both be true. Here's why.

Assuming that God perceives reality as it is, then reality is such that we only have one option available. Where confusion comes in is when the issue is considered to be an epistemological one rather than an ontological one, which is to say the issue, in fact, involves the underlying reality, not the perception of that reality.

The one question that one needs to come to grips with is what is the reality of the future? That is, it's nature, it's essence. Is the future, in reality, the one thing that will happen? If that is the case, then we have no options, ontologically speaking. We can only do the one thing that will happen, because that is the reality of the future. In order for it to be possible, in reality, for us to do different things, the future must, in reality, consist of possibilities, not just the one thing that will happen.

Think of a flower, laid on its side, with the stem on the left and the blossom on the right. Time is moving from left to right in this illustration. In my view, the stem blossoms into the flow at the moment of time between the present and the future. In your view, there is no flower, there is just a stem. The real question that needs to be resolved is what the future is like. Is it like a flower, or like a stem? (that is, is there branching that takes place from the present to the future, or does the straight line that we have from the past and the present continue into the future, the straight line representing that there is only one possibility for the past and present, which is what already happened or is happening).



Free will is the ability to choose between options. Making a decision after thinking about it for 10 seconds is a different option than making the same decision after thinking about it for 10 minutes.



Then, of course, there was no chance Christ wouldn't be victorious, and Christ undertook no risk. Also, how could there have been any peril of sinning if there was 0% chance that Christ would sin?



What makes you think that God saw in all possible futures that Christ would be victorious? God permitted Christ to come at the *risk* of failure and eternal loss. There was risk involved, which means some possible futures weren't successful. That's what "risk" means; the possibility of failure. The fact that there was risk involved is why it is so amazing that God permitted Christ to come.



From EW 126 we see that Jesus had to plead for permission to come, and that the decision was a "struggle" for God, so it is clear that there was the possibility that God would decide not to permit Christ to come. This is understandable, given the risk involved.

From your view, not only does the whole episode of EW 126 not make sense (why 3 meetings, why meetings at all, why pleading, why was permission necessary to be obtain, why a struggle), but, in particular, if there was no risk involved in permitting Christ to come, it doesn't make sense that God would be so reticent to permit it.



Sure He does! That's exactly what He says in Jer. 18. If they would repent of their evil, then He would change His mind about what He had prophesied.



Correct. And this is what Numbers had in mind when it says that God is not a man that He should change His mind.



Which is what Scripture means when it says He changed His mind. God changed His intentions from what they were previously to new intentions based on the actions of His creatures. Jonah's prophesy against Nineveh is a perfect example of this, where God changed His mind even to do something different than what had been prophesied.



It does if the idea that God added years of life to Hezekiah is true. If God did not change His mind, then no years were added to Hezekiah's life.



Right, prayers are a part of God's plan. He will do things because we prayed that He was not going to do. He will (at times; sometimes He says "no".) change His plans. Our prayers actually have an impact on the future.



When did Christ make the decision to become an exile from the heavenly courts? Obviously He made this decision when He was *in* the heavenly courts. If He had not made the decision when He was in the heavenly courts, He never could have left.



This decision was a risky decision. That Christ was willing to take this risk is what is praiseworthy. Not only did He agree to be an exile of the heavenly courts, but He took the risk of failure and eternal loss. Not "met" but "took".



Again, that God is being portrayed as taking a risk is very clear. Just look at the comparison to the human father who yearns over his son. Why is he yearning? Why is he trembling? At the thought of life's peril.

It makes no sense whatsoever to portray God as trembling at the thought of life's peril in the case of Christ if He was 100% sure that Christ would be successful.

Rosangela, in the above 2 posts, to be complete, I answered all of your points. Because it becomes too lengthy to continually answer every point, abbreviating things by not responding to everything becomes expedient.

From my point of view, there are two things I'm asking you to respond to, which are the long blocks in each of the two above posts (there is one long block in each post).

Regarding the other comments, I'm happy to respond to any points you wish to make.

How can it be said that God did nothing to curtail their freedom of choice? God gave them just the option to choose right, because He eliminated from the universe the possibility of existence of the option to choose wrong.
What I’m saying, in essence, is this: God, in His wisdom, could have created only creatures who would choose not to sin, if He deemed this appropriate. However, He couldn’t say that He had given them free will, for free will presupposes that God will respect the possibility of existence of both choices. If God does something to ensure that a certain choice won’t exist, this means He doesn’t allow that choice to be made.



How come it doesn’t exist? I have a life, which is not my father’s life, my husband’s life, or my son’s life. It’s my life, which has a past, a present, and a future. Other people may have interacted with me in my past, but it was my past, which is distinct from theirs. And the same is true of my present and my future.


Well, the future, to me, is comprised of choices, but God knows what these choices will be - so, you would classify it as just one future.


Yes, it occurred at just that moment, but that moment could have been earlier or later, according to the weather – that’s the point.


The future to me is linear, just like the past. And in terms of past events, the fact that the outcomes of my choices are known is entirely compatible with those choices having been free-willed choices. And the same applies to the future.


I don’t see things this way. If, however hard I think, I can make just one move, then it doesn’t matter how much time elapses before I make that move, the move will be the same.


The prophecies (about His resurrection, His second coming, the new earth, etc., none of which would be possible without His being victorious). If your conclusion that in all possible futures Peter would deny Christ is based on a prophecy, my conclusion that in all possible futures Christ would be victorious is also based not in one, but in several prophecies. Besides, Ellen White confirms that Christ foreknew He would be victorious.


This has to be seen in the light of other passages from the Bible and Ellen White which say that the plan of redemption was made in eternity, and in the light of passages which say that God doesn’t change His mind. By interpreting this passage as saying that God would change His mind, you are creating a contradiction with other passages.


Who said that it was God’s “plan” that Hezekiah would die at that moment? If this had been His plan, God would have said “No” to Hezekiah’s request.


Of course, but when Ellen White speaks of “risk,” I don’t see her referring to Christ’s decision, but to Christ’s conflict on earth.


The text says, “we shall remember that Jesus left all this for us, that He not only became an exile from the heavenly courts, but for us took the risk of failure and eternal loss.” She says that Jesus left the glories of heaven, became an exile, and took the risk of failure. She isn’t speaking about the decision. She doesn’t say, “He decided to leave... to become... to take.” She is speaking about what happened on earth.


The text says, “The heart of the human father yearns over his son. He looks into the face of his little child, and trembles at the thought of life's peril. He longs to shield his dear one from Satan's power, to hold him back from temptation and conflict. To meet a bitterer conflict and a more fearful risk, God gave His only-begotten Son.”
Of course God longed to shield His Son from Satan’s power, to hold Him back from the fierce temptations, from the bitter conflict – much greater than the conflict and the risk our children could face. Jesus’ temptations were real, the peril was real – it was no pretence.

Tom, I'll travel on Saturday night for my mother's house for the holidays. On Saturday the forum will be closed down and tomorrow I'll have many things to do, so I don't know if I'll be able to post a reply. If not, thank you for the discussion, and happy holidays!

Ok. Thanks to you too. Happy holidays. I'll try to be patient until you get back.

Not really. I mean, that's not what free will presupposes. Free will isn't about what God respects, but about our having options available.

You have argued that God's knowing that Judas would repent did not mean that Judas could not repent. If that's the case, then God's knowing these creatures would not sin would mean that they could sin, just like Judas could repent. What God did or did not do to any other creature has no bearing.

I actually agree with your affirmation here, that these creatures could not sin. You're right about that, but wrong about the reason, which has nothing to do with creatures that don't exist. They wouldn't have the option to sin not because God didn't create other creatures, but because it is impossible to do something that God is certain won't happen.



God's not creating creatures He knew would sin just ensures that those creatures won't sin. The creatures He did create could sin just as much as if the other creatures didn't exist. Otherwise you wind up with the abusrd situation that the creatures who do not sin are dependent upon the existence of creatures who do sin in order to have free will.



When you say, "to me," that means "as I perceive things." But your perception, our perception, of reality is imperfect. God's perception of reality is perfect. God perceives reality as it really is. Therefore if God perceives that there is one future, then, in reality, there is one future. If there is one future, we do not have libertarian free will. We can have the illusion of such, we can say "to me" I have more than one option, but in reality, we don't.



The train could never have been any earlier or any later given that the weather that happened was certain to happen.

The real question that needs to be resolved is what the future is like. Is it like a flower, or like a stem?



That your choices are known is not the salient point. That there is only one future is. If the future is linear, just like that past, like a stem in my analogy, rather than a flower, then there is nor more than one option for the future any more than there is more than one option for the past.



But there's more to the future than just the move you make. How much time you spend to make it is extremely important, as any tournament chess player knows. If you are going to make the same move no matter what, you'd be much better off making it right away, the sooner the better, to have more time left on your clock to think about the moves to come.



I don't know what the last sentence is referring to. When Waggoner taught that Christ could not fail, because he had perfect faith, Ellen White corrected him. She repeatedly emphasized the reality of Christ's being able to fail. She could have expressed this point no more clearly then saying that He took the risk of failure, that He risked all, and so on.

If you know something for certain something bad will not happen, you are not taking a risk that something bad will happen. This is so obvious, I don't know how this could not be seen. It would be like me having a 2-headed coin, and "risking" that tails will come up. It is for this reason that insider trading is illegal, because it eliminates risk. You cannot have perfect foreknowledge (EDF) and risk. It's impossible. These concepts are diametrically opposed.



You are misapplying the passage in Numbers (I assume that's the one you have in mind) if you are trying to apply it to this situation because it has nothing to do with this, which I addressed previously. This passage is speaking about God not being fickle.

Regarding the prophecies of success, in the light of Ellen White's revelations about risk, these prophecies were clearly conditional upon the risk Christ took not coming to pass as failure.

You haven't made any attempt to explain EW 126. It's pretty obvious that pleading for permission, having 3 meetings, struggling to make a decision, and finally allowing Christ to come does not portray the idea of the future you have in mind. How can you make sense of EW 126?



God did. He told Hezekiah to get his things in order because he was going to die.



No, that's not right. It's God's plan to do things He would not otherwise have done because we ask Him. Hezekiah asked God to extend his life, so He did. He added 15 years to Hezekiah's life. If God did not change His intentions, if God were not really planning to allow Hezekiah to die, then He did not add any years to Hezekiah's life.

I think you're not getting the real point of this, which is that God added years to Hezekiah's life. In order for the adding to be real, there *had* to be a change of intent on God's part. Otherwise there was no adding.



The risky thing was what would happen on earth, as Christ was in no danger in heaven. But Christ took the risk when He made the decision to come to earth. How could this possible not be the case? It's always true that you take a risk when you decide to do something that's risky. Can you think of a single exception to this?

Not only did He agree to be an exile of the heavenly courts, but He took the risk of failure and eternal loss. Not "met" but "took".



Correct. "Took," not "met".



He decided to leave when He was on earth? No, He decided to leave when He was in heaven. That's when He took the risk. He didn't decide to leave, and then take a risk at some future time. He took the risk when He decided to leave. To take a risk means to make a decision that involves risk.



Well, if your view of the future were true, there would be no peril, and no risk, because it would have been impossible for Christ to have failed, because no one can do something different than what God knows will happen. That's impossible. All you could say is that Christ, as a human being, felt as if He could fail, felt as if He were taking a risk.

Let's consider this part of the quote again:



How (from your perspective) could this possibly apply to God, given that God was 100% certain that Christ was under no danger?