Cause verses Allows

You're still making these attributes ends in themselves.

The question has no answer, evidenced by:

And there it is. We can't understand it. the only difference, is that you build a further premise, which leads to more contradictions (God caused sin), and then only plead ignorance when questioned why. So I just take it back a step and say you can't know even that much. All of these versions of divine determinism interprets the scriptures in light of preconceived premises.

If you or any other man can understand and articulate that much, then His ways must be our ways. Of course, you know all of the other possible combinations of events and ways to do things in the uiverse, and that none were even equal to this one (even if we can't say they would be better).

 

Steaver, the test you set up for me with this statement causes your own argument to fail. You have a few logical arguments that you are using to make your case that are built upon some theological assumptions, but you are not providing us with direct scripture that states what you are arguing for.

Do I have a direct scriptural statement that demonstrates what I am arguing for? No. But if that is what is required then you and I both should simply shut up because God does not directly give answer to these questions. In fact, if the book of Job teaches anything, it teaches that God has his own reasons for doing things that he does not reveal to us and He may not even reveal them in eternity!

Having said that, here are two elements that I find in scripture that I think are pretty clear that Adam had a more intimate fellowship with God prior to the fall than he had afterward.

First, before the fall, God came as walked in the garden with Adam in the cool of the day and they had fellowship. Afterward, God came to Adam, not in fellowship, but in judgement. He passed judgement on Adam, Eve, and the serpent and barred all three from the place of fellowship that they had enjoyed--the garden.

Second, Paul teaches that, as to our relationship with God through Christ, "now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face". So, something is going to occur in the future that will give us greater knowledge, understanding, and fellowship with God than we have now. I assume that Adam's fellowship was closer prior to the fall to that future fellowship we will have than his fellowship was after the fall or our fellowship is now.

That's really my argument. It's that simple and that sparse. And it's really not my argument, it pretty much the view of every theologian that I have ever read.

 

And, let me respond to these arguments:

I think the problem you are raising actually goes back one step.

Prior to sin entering into the world, did God's mercy exist?

How did God's mercy exist prior to it being exercised?

What would God's mercy and justice mean in the absence of sin?

If justice and mercy did not exist prior to sin, then was God incomplete and imperfect prior to sin?

And your last question as to how Adam could have known of mercy and justice before sin, I don't really know. However, I think the 4 preceding questions argue that God's mercy and justice DID exist prior to sin because they are a part of God's perfection. I think to argue for the necessity of sin in order for God to be God probably goes beyond the bounds of orthodoxy.

 

Excellent points, swaimj! This articulates what I was partly trying to express but had not clarified enough in my own mind in order to do so.

 

God's love meant something within the fellowship of the Trinity prior to creation.

But your point has been, at least that is what I've understood, that it is only through sin that God's mercy could be understood. There is no way to know that.

 

"Too hard for most of us to swallow". This is what all determinists need to think on. They love to toss it out at their opponents, but considering this being a "perfect plan" of "GOOD NEWS", the fact that it is something that has to be "swallowed" really casts a question mark on it being good news.

The only answer I can see for this is that the paradox is a result of people trying to explain too much. And you yourself did acknowledge that we can't always know everything about why God does certain things. That's what I meant by "pleading ignorance". When asked why this "perfect plan" is something so admittedly a "hard doctrine" that it has to be "swallowed", the only answer is that His ways are higher than ours.
It's not we who "won't", but beyond a certain level, you can't either.

 

You are making circular arguments and assertions with no backing. It is true that we know God's mercy because of sin, but that does not mean that that is the only way we can know God's mercy. And even it is the only way to know God's mercy, I cannot be glad that Adam sinned nor think it a good thing.

 

What would God's mercy and justice mean in the absence of sin? My very point. What would God's love mean in the absence of creation?

I asked this question, and you said that this is your point? You lost me here. I cannot believe that your point in this thread to merely to ask this question. Rather, I think you are trying to answer this question.

My problem is that you are saying that Adam could not have known God's mercy and justice apart from sin. If Adam could not have known these apart from sin, how could they exist apart from sin? So let me re-phrase the question Steaver. Is it possible for the following attriibutes of God to exist apart from sin:
Love?
Mercy?
Grace?
Justice?

 

Adam's sin may have been paid for, but the majority of people born from him are either not paid for, or were paid for, but simply didn't have the payment applied to them, depending on which of the views one takes. The even "harder" part (as often gloated about by Calvinists) is that it was God who deliberately did this, just to save a relative few; AND, then pulled some sort of legal switcheroo, where sin was made their "fault" and not His. (I still wonder why you even bother denying Calvinism. Just because of the "will"? Many Calvinists here still believe in human will; yet nevertheless affirm that those who do not exercise it toward God are the "vessels of wrath", just as you affirm). Calvinists will point out that the only other alternative to their view is that God is sitting by helplessy waiting for all these free wills to choose Him, and is basically losing out. Hence, the only way to glorify God's sovereignty is to make it His deliberate choice regarding who is saved and damned, and also that sin would be created in the first place by Him, yet, Him being blameless. And you seem to be taking this latter route, yet trying to get around the unavoidable resultant double-predestination.

It's been hard for me to bring up this point, because I don't want to make it look like I'm questioning the effectiveness and perfection of the plan because of how many are lost. But you're basing your claim of its perfection on your being saved and experiencing mercy. (But then, we get into the whole OSAS debate, and the notion thatif a person doesn't persever to the end, he wasn't really saved, and the notion that God in His sovereignty could deceive a reprobate into thinking he's saved which is a logical extension of the rest of this; hence, whether you've really received "mercy" to begin with is not even 100% certain!)

So it's one thing to be thankful to have received mercy, but quite another to claim God deliberately condemned millions of others just so you could be saved, and that that was better than any other way (like maybe just forgiving everybody). This is why I say that something is missing in our knowledge. You may think you've found the perfect formula or combination to putting together all the pieces of the puzzle with various scriptures on the subject, but you will always run up on some greater problem that casts your whole claim in doubt, and then have to conclude, well that much we cant know, but this much [my conceived answer] we can know.

These types of questions are the sorts of things Paul told us to avoid as senseless distractions. You're proposing this "hard" point (in what is supposed to be good news), and trying to force everyone to see that it's "just true" through inductive reasoning. But if that is what the good news stands or fall upon (as Calvinists argue), then it ceases being good news. Unless all that matters is one individual escaping eternal discomfort as opposed to someone else.
All I see here is "look at me; I'm strong enough to 'swallow' this hard pill that no one else can!"

The perfection of the plan does not rest in God damning a majority of man just so relative few could be saved. There is something more to it that we do not know. So it's a waste of time to make these assertions.

I never argued this, and never really thought much on it. I figured that there was obviously something that was lost in the Fall. If nothing more than an innocense. Just compare: before, they walked together, and after, they hid, and God banished them. Of course, there might be a greater intimacy of restored men in Heaven than the immature Adam had in the Garden. But you cannot build too much of a doctrine on this. Let's just be thankful that we received mercy!

This is a point that needs considering.

If his view was true, then we could well expect God to place us in another bad situation after this life, after all, sin and pain are so good and make things better in the end. Maybe purgatory would be good for all of us, then?

 

God did not set Adam up for failure. Adam had every advantage not to sin. Whereas you and I were conceived in iniquity, as David wrote, Adam was created without a sin nature. He had no predisposition to sin. He was good and very good. God gave him one commandment, and a simple one at that. God expected him to keep it, and had every expectation to do so. After all, Adam should have kept it. Adam failed, but God didn't set him up to fail.

Now, concerning heaven, we have nothing to worry about. We won't merely be brought back up to Adam's level, but far above it. We will be conformed to the likeness of Christ. Adam had innocency, but that without knowlege. We will have knowledge, yet be sinless as well.

 

Most people, including myself, think that knowing good and evil means knowing the distinction and being acquainted wiht evil, because if one does not know evil, one does not know the distinction and is not familiar with evil. God told Adam what was good and that it was wrong to eat from that tree. So Adam did know there was a right and wrong, a good and a bad, but he was not acquainted (to know) with evil. He chose to disobey so he could decide for himself what good and bad was. And thus he "knew" evil; he became intimately acquainted with it by disobeying God and bringing sin into the world. This does not mean Adam did not know what good was. How could Adam know God and not know good?

You should do a study of the statement "knowing good and evil" in context of the Hebrew and context of the passage and of the whole Bible.

 

http://bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/1684/Knowledge-of-Good-Evil.htm