M: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.
You're contradicting yourself. First you right the the future is "wide open." Do you also believe the past is "wide open"? Or is it fixed? You're obviously equating past and future with your used of tenses here ("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.
This doesn't make sense. According to your belief, God exists simultaneously in the past, present and future. For you to speak of Him "going back" can only mean you forgot your view. He's already there, under your view.
Nor can He go forward and interact with us in the future.
Same problem.
His experience in time and space has zero affect on our experience in time and space.
If one can reason from cause to effect, and understands logic, one should be able to see why understanding how God experiences things would have an impact on our experience.
It doesn't appear you are grasping the reality of it.
I think it's quite evident that for you to make the assertion that how God experiences time and space has zero effect on us, you're not grasping something.
T: 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.
M:That Lucifer chose to sin and rebel against God is an unexplainable mystery.
This isn't the question asked.
That God knew he certainly would is not a mystery.
Nor this.
That God chose to create Lucifer even though He knew he would certainly sin and rebel and die has not yet been explained.
Of course not. There's no way to explain it. It doesn't make sense. A good being who hates evil would not make such a choice. Why would He? (<== no answer)
"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}
Sin is a mysterious, unexplainable thing. There was no reason for its existence; to seek to explain it is to seek to give a reason for it, and that would be to justify it. Sin appeared in a perfect universe, a thing that was shown to be inexcusable and exceeding sinful. The reason of its inception or development was never explained and never can be, even at the last great day when the judgment shall sit and the books be opened, when every man shall be judged according to the deeds done in the body, when the sins of God's repentant, sanctified people shall be heaped upon the scapegoat, the originator of sin. {ST, April 28, 1890 par. 2}
Certain if God set into a course of action He was certain would result in sin, the above can't be true. That is, this:
The reason of its inception or development was never explained and never can be
Here's how: God set into a motion a course of action which could only result in sin. Easy!
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.
Avoided? This hasn't even been brought up before this.
I disagree with your idea.
You and I are two of them.
God did not create sinners. God created an unfallen race, the parents of which fell, and we were begotten from them. This is a very different thing than that God created sinners.
T: 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.
M: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.
Another contradiction. In just one sentence this time! Like saying, "If I roll this die, I'm sure it won't come up with the number 12435, but, nevertheless, the risk is real that it will."
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}
This is dodging the problem. The problem is, as has been explained many times now, with the meeting between God and Christ. *That's* what doesn't make sense. If you don't understand the problem, I can repost the posts which describe it.
That we can hasten or hinder the second coming of Christ is true.
Not if there's a fixed date for Christ's coming.
But this insight does not imply God does not know the precise day and hour of Christ's second advent.
Of course it does. This is easy to see.
1.If God knows the exact date, then there's an exact date to know.
2.If there's an exact date to know, then there's an exact date.
3.If there's an exact date, the date is fixed.
4.If the date is fixed, it can't be changed.
5.If it can't be changed, it can't be hastened.
"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 some answers, and some dodges. How you treated EW was just a dodge. You haven't even addressed it, so there isn't something I can disagree with. Also, regarding the question of why a good Being would make creatures certain to sin, you just said this hasn't been explained. That's hardly an answer. Consider the question hypothetically. What *could* be a feasible answer? There just isn't anything.
M: 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.
T: I've been 100% certain about things I later discovered were incorrect.
M: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.
I'll have to look at what you originally said. I'll see if I misread it.
Nor have you cited situations where Jesus very nearly failed.
In Gethsemane, He sweat blood. I think EGW wrote something like "human trembled in the balance." I think the cross was even more difficult.
If, as you say, He was at risk of failing, then surely there were times He very nearly failed.
No, this is bad logic. Would you like a counter example to demonstrate why?