Tom,

I assume that you were referencing the above quote, particularly the bolded section of that quote, when you said in your post that "God sent His Son at the risk of failure and eternal loss."

You are, therefore, using that quote to say that God did not know in the sense of His foreknowledge what choice Christs would make while here on this planet even right up to His dying on the cross. Am I correct?

You can't have risk without uncertainty, can you? God in His foreknowledge knows the future as it is. If the future were determined, having only one possible result only, then God would know exactly what choice Christ would make. But given that the future is open, then God's foreknowledge of it must of necessity be open.

God cannot know the future as different than how it actually is. That is, God cannot know it as fixed if it isn't fixed. He knows everything that can happen in the future, but until free moral agents make choices, the future must remain in the realm of the possible, not the realm of the certain (except in certain broad strokes, such as Christ will come again, there will be a Sabbath/Sunday controversy, etc., and even in these things the implementation is up in the air; for example, the Sunday law was ready to come into being in the 1890's, and Christ could have come then, but the message of Jones and Waggoner was resisted).

Tom,

Having in view God's character, was refusing to drink the cup a possibility or not?

Given that God repeatedly revealed through Ellen White that He took a risk in sending His Son, wouldn't the answer have to be "yes"? Otherwise, there wouldn't have been any risk. Risk signifies uncertainty.

Good points. I was just add, by way of comment, that God had faith in His Son.

Amen Tom, and the Son had faith in his Father.

And, we are all called to that same faith.

Did God's choices and actions, in light of the various possibilities, determine His character? Or was His character already established, and his choices and actions serving only to display that character to the rest of the universe?

One's character - his thoughts and feelings - determine his choices. My choice to obey or disobey depends on the kind of character I have. What goes on inside me will be displayed by my actions. Says Jesus, "By their fruits you will know them."

In any particular circumstance, would you know for sure which way I would choose? No, because you don't fully know my character. From your perspective, my actions reveal my character. You are discovering what kind of character I have based on the choices I make.

The same holds true for all non-divine beings. None of us can read the heart. So, God put Himself on trial. By the evidence of His actions, we can decide for ourselves if He is of such a character that we would want to spend eternity with Him. What He did tells us what He is like.

But before the Incarnation, did God know what kind of character Jesus had? Did He have any idea what choices such a character would make?

Going back to R's question, if God's character is love, could He choose selfishness?

This is a very interesting question, Arnold. Until your asking it, I've always thought of it in terms of displaying that character to the rest of the Universe. However, in the case of Jesus' humanity, there's no question whatsoever that He developed character. It's interesting that a human being has the capacity to represent the divine character to such a degree that Christ did.

Also your question is interesting to ponder insofar as divine character is concerned.

Regarding your last question, Waggoner for a time argued that Jesus could not have failed, using reasoning similar to what you are suggesting (i.e. because God's character is love, Christ couldn't choose selfishness), but Ellen White corrected him. Interestingly, this is the only instance I've aware of where she ever did this (corrected Waggoner's theology) during the time she was endorsing him (roughly in the 1888-1896 time frame). (Waggoner corrected this, and this idea does not appear in his book "Christ Our Righteousness" later renamed "Christ And His Righteousness," which is based on the material he presented at the 1888 Conference).