Tom, it sounds like you are 100% certain my views are 100% wrong. I am 100% certain Jesus was 100% certain He would "rise again" and would "come again". I am also 100% certain God was 100% certain which FMAs would certainly sin and die.

MM, regarding your comment about the future is fixed and can't be changed, could you explain what the following quotes from Last Day Events mean to you:

To me, they mean Christ could have came then, would have came then, if it wasn't for the poor choices of the people. But why would Ellen White been inspired to write such a thing if God was 100% certain He would not have come for over 100 years? Why not have children during all that time?

I wouldn't say that, because sometimes you say that the future is "wide open." I agree with this part of your view. It's when you say that the future is already played out that I disagree.

There's lots of problems with this idea, some of which you recognize. For example, you keep asserting that the fact that God simultaneously experience the past, present and future doesn't have an impact on how we experience the future, so you recognize there's a problem with the idea that if the future is fixed then our perception that it isn't must be wrong. However, I think your solution isn't at all convincing.

The problem is that if God experiences the past, present and future simultaneously, then you would be correct that the future is "already played out," and if you're correct about that, then our impression that it hasn't is just wrong. Our free will would be an illusion.

Also you have no way to meet the problem of evil (i.e., the problem of the existence of evil). Why would God prefer to create a being He was certain would sin over one He was certain wouldn't? You have no answer to that.

That God took a risk you have no answer to.

How EW 125 is related you have no answer to.

That we can hasten Christ's coming you have no answer to.



I've been 100% certain about things I later discovered were incorrect.

These are really interesting quotes. I hadn't seen these, but no of the one at a campmeeting where the angel told EGW that some attending would be "food for worms" while others would see Christ when He came. It's interesting to note that this was nearing the 1888 era, where God gave the church a special message to prepare the world for the coming of Christ. Shortly after this, in 1903 I think, she wrote that Christ was disappointed that He could not come.

It appears you have mistaken me for someone who believes the future is fixed.

Mike, you still continue to surprise on this topic of the future.

Time unfolds, plays out normally and naturally. The future is wide open. We are totally, completely, absolutely free to choose as we please. Just like the Bible records, reflects the outcomes of choices people were free to make in the past, so too, prophecy records, reflects the outcomes of choices people were free to make in the future. Nevertheless, God interacts with us in the present. He cannot go back and interact with us in the past. Nor can He go forward and interact with us in the future. His experience in time and space has zero affect on our experience in time and space. It doesn't appear you are grasping the reality of it.


That Lucifer chose to sin and rebel against God is an unexplainable mystery. That God knew he certainly would is not a mystery. That God chose to create Lucifer even though He knew he would certainly sin and rebel and die has not yet been explained. "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}


You act horrified at the idea God created FMAs He knew would certainly sin. And yet you have steadily avoided addressing the fact God has created trillions of FMAs He knew would certainly sin. You and I are two of them.


Jesus "could have sinned; He could have fallen, but not for one moment was there in Him an evil propensity. {13MR 18.1} Even though He knew He would never choose to sin, the risk was, nonetheless, real.

In the context of EW 125 Ellen describes the holy angels rejoicing because Jesus said He would certainly succeed at saving the human race. "He then made known to the angelic choir that a way of escape had been made for lost man; that He had been pleading with His Father, and had obtained permission to give His own life as a ransom for the race, to bear their sins, and take the sentence of death upon Himself, thus opening a way whereby they might, through the merits of His blood, find pardon for past transgressions, and by obedience be brought back to the garden from which they were driven. Then they could again have access to the glorious, immortal fruit of the tree of life to which they had now forfeited all right. {EW 126.1}

That we can hasten or hinder the second coming of Christ is true. But this insight does not imply God does not know the precise day and hour of Christ's second advent. "The exact time of the second coming of the Son of man is God's mystery. {DA 633} We "are living near the second coming of Christ, but the day and hour of His appearing are beyond the ken of man; for "of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but My Father only." But there is a day that God hath appointed for the close of this world's history. {FE 335}

So, as you can see, I have answers. True, you despise my answers, but it doesn't detract from the fact I have answers.


You have yet to explain why you believe "I will come again" is unconditional and why you believe "I will rise again" was conditional. Both promises were made before Jesus died on the cross.

Nor have you cited situations where Jesus very nearly failed. If, as you say, He was at risk of failing, then surely there were times He very nearly failed.

By the way, do you agree Ellen taught that God knew Lucifer and Adam would certainly sin? She wrote:

The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was a revelation of "the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal." Romans 16:25, R. V. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God's throne. 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. So great was His love for the world, that He covenanted to give His only-begotten Son, "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16. {DA 22.2}

The purpose and plan of grace existed from all eternity. Before the foundation of the world it was according to the determinate counsel of God that man should be created, endowed with power to do the divine will. 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. God knows the end from the beginning; "known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." Therefore redemption was not an afterthought--a plan formulated after the fall of Adam--but an eternal purpose to be wrought out for the blessing not only of this atom of a world but for the good of all the worlds which God has created. {ST, April 25, 1892 par. 1}

Ellen writes that it was certain to God that sin would rise and that it would affect humanity. She does not write that it must happen through Lucifer and Adam. At least not in the two provided quotes.

I had in mind someone who believed the future had already played out.

But glad to see you are in agreement God was NOT 100% certain He would have come over 100 years ago.