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Re: Was it God's intention that sin exist?
#12104
01/10/05 04:22 AM
01/10/05 04:22 AM
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SDA
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Active Member 2019
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 22,256
Southwest USA
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God is responsible for creating a situation where sin and death were inevitable. You have yet to disprove this premise.
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Re: Was it God's intention that sin exist?
#12105
01/11/05 03:55 AM
01/11/05 03:55 AM
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 1,196
Ontario
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Mike said, quote:
God is responsible for creating a situation where sin and death were inevitable. You have yet to disprove this premise.
This is an arbitrary and imperical statement. Why should we disprove that which you cannot prove, but can only allege.
Prove to me Mike that a "Kratchon" does not exist. I say it does.
I think Mike, you are wise enough to know that what you are asking is an unreasonable request. The task is to discover the truth, and not to start with an allegation and then require others to prove it wrong.
One is 'innocent until proven guilty' and not 'considered guilty until proven innocent'.
Mike Your position is dangerous and sad. You have alleged God with certain attributes, and you want it proven to you that it is not so.
Christ said,
* That Satan is the Father of Lies and Murderer from the begining. – You have charged God with those attributes
* That his death on the cross was the work of darkness – You have charged God with that work.
I will not delineate further. The testimony of Christ renders a very different picture than your premise.
I guess Mike you should realize that your premise is an allegation and not founded on Christ.
With brotherly love and concern
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Re: Was it God's intention that sin exist?
#12106
01/11/05 05:37 AM
01/11/05 05:37 AM
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OP
Active Member 2012
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 14,795
Lawrence, Kansas
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quote:
God is responsible for creating a situation where sin and death were inevitable. You have yet to disprove this premise.
This has been disproved many times.
quote:
The fall of our first parents, with all the woe that has resulted, [Satan] charges upon the Creator, leading men to look upon God as the author of sin, and suffering, and death. Jesus was to unveil this deception. (DA 24)
quote:
Nothing is more plainly taught in
Scripture than that God was in no wise responsible for the entrance of sin. (GC 492)
The following statement also disproves it:
quote:
God is love. (1 John 4:8)
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Re: Was it God's intention that sin exist?
#12107
01/11/05 02:15 PM
01/11/05 02:15 PM
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SDA
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A quick review of this thread, and others like it, provide the proof over and over again. It has come down to what each of us believe about foreknowledge of God. I believe the Godhead knew ahead of time, before they created free moral agents, that Lucifer and one third of the angels would rebel and that Adam and Eve would fall.
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Re: Was it God's intention that sin exist?
#12108
01/11/05 09:17 PM
01/11/05 09:17 PM
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OP
Active Member 2012
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 14,795
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Mike, you believe God put into motion events of which the inevitable result was sin. This would make God responsible for the entrance of sin. You also have beliefs about God's foreknowledge which make statements regarding risk -- for example, God sent His Son at the risk of failure and eternal lost -- and hastening Christ's return non-sensical. And here's something which really doesn't make sense from an Augustinian perspective: quote:
Sorrow filled heaven as it was realized that man was lost and that the world which God had created was to be filled with mortals doomed to misery, sickness, and death, and that there was no way of escape for the offender. The whole family of Adam must die. I then saw the lovely Jesus and beheld an expression of sympathy and sorrow upon His countenance. Soon I saw Him approach the exceeding bright light which enshrouded the Father. Said my accompanying angel, "He is in close converse with His Father." The anxiety of the angels seemed to be intense while Jesus was communing with His Father. Three times He was shut in by the glorious light about the Father, and the third time He came from the Father we could see His person. His countenance was calm, free from all perplexity and trouble, and shone with a loveliness which words cannot describe. He then made known to the angelic choir that a way of escape had been made for lost man; that [u]He had been pleading with His Father[/u], 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.
Said the angel, "Think ye that the Father yielded up His dearly beloved Son without a struggle? No, no." [u]It was even a struggle with the God of heaven[/u], whether to let guilty man perish, or to give His darling Son to die for them. (EW 126)
Assuming the Augstinian idea that God had know from all eternity what He was going to do, how could it have been a "struggle"? What sense would it make to say Jesus was "pleading" with God assuming they both knew this moment was coming from all eternity? And why would Jesus have to "plead" with God anyway? Doesn't God love us as much as Jesus does? The pleading only makes sense when we realize that God sent His Son at the risk of failuer and eternal loss.
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Re: Was it God's intention that sin exist?
#12109
01/12/05 04:28 AM
01/12/05 04:28 AM
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Dedicated Member
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 1,196
Ontario
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Mike said, quote:
I believe the Godhead knew ahead of time, before they created free moral agents, that Lucifer and one third of the angels would rebel and that Adam and Eve would fall.
Mike, the biggest warning and proof that your basis is eroneous is the character attributes which you are forced to impose upon God as a result of your presupposition.
With loving concern
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Re: Was it God's intention that sin exist?
#12110
01/12/05 03:54 PM
01/12/05 03:54 PM
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SDA
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John, I am not alone in what I believe. Sister White taught exactly the same thing. Do you agree with her?
AG 23
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" (Rom. 16:5, R.V.). It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God's throne. . . . 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." {AG 23.4}
As soon as there was sin, there was a Saviour. Christ knew that He would have to suffer, yet He became man's substitute. As soon as Adam sinned, the Son of God presented Himself as surety for the human race, with just as much power to avert the doom pronounced upon the guilty as when He died upon the cross of Calvary. {AG 23.5}
AG 129
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. . . . Therefore redemption was not an afterthought . . . 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. {AG 129.2}
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Re: Was it God's intention that sin exist?
#12111
01/12/05 03:59 PM
01/12/05 03:59 PM
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SDA
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Tom, answer this question, please. Was sin or sinning possible before the Godhead created free moral agents? Yes or no would be sufficient.
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Re: Was it God's intention that sin exist?
#12112
01/13/05 12:21 AM
01/13/05 12:21 AM
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OP
Active Member 2012
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 14,795
Lawrence, Kansas
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"John, I am not alone in what I believe. Sister White taught exactly the same thing."
She didn't believe anything like what you believe. You believe, "God created a situation, by creating free moral agents, who were capable of sinning and dying, and who, according to His foreknowledge, were destined to sin and die."
You believe, "Giving Satan the credit for creating sin and death robs God of His power and authority and His sovereignty."
You believe, "God is responsible for creating a situation where sin and death was inevitable."
She said, on the other hand, that God was in no wise responsible for the entrance of sin.
You believe, "God is the author of death."
She said, on the other hand, "The fall of our first parents, with all the woe that has resulted, [Satan] charges upon the Creator, leading men to look upon God as the author of sin, and suffering, and death. Jesus was to unveil this deception."
Regarding your question of whether sin was possible before the creation of creatures who could sin, this is tantamount to asking if God could sin, right? Since He was the only being alive before He created other beings. I don't believe it's possible for God to sin, so no, I don't believe it was possible for sin to exist before God created beings who could sin. However, once He did create beings who could sin, then sin was possible, even in an environment in which there was no sin at all, hence destroying sinners is not sufficient to destroy sin, since it could arise again. In fact, this was a very real danger, which the Spirit of Prophesy warns against in DA 764, pointing out that if God had allowed Satan and his sympathizers to reap what they had sown, it would have left an "evil seed" of doubt.
The cross was necesssary in order that sin could be seen in its true light, and it is the cross which guarantees that sin will never arise again.
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Re: Was it God's intention that sin exist?
#12113
01/13/05 05:42 AM
01/13/05 05:42 AM
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John,
A few posts back, you posted that
"The task is to discover the truth, and not to start with an allegation and then require others to prove it wrong."
Actually, that procedure is very close to inductive logic on which most scientific knowledge is based. After data is recorded, a guess is made as to how the data should be interpreted. Then that interpretation is expanded to areas not yet known. Next new data is taken in the field of the expansion to see if the interpretation is correct. If not you start over. If so, you have the beginnings of new knowledge.
That procedure, called the scientific method, can be applied to learning scripture as well as to knowledge of the physical world. So Mike's statement is not as unreasonable as it sounds.
In scriptural studies, an attempt should be made to find all the data and a relation among them. Unfortunately there are many contradictions in scripture, usually in its interpretation. That's why people have so many different ideas about what the scriptures say. The task then becomes either trying to understand what's wrong with one or the other concept, or trying to find a connection between concepts.
But there's another issue involved. Each of us come to God and His scriptures with different backgrounds and different needs. One may need the security of "knowing" that God has all those attributes He has been endowed with by various theologians while another may need the "knowledge" that God has given him/her free will. I believe God presents Himself to each person in the manner that person needs. So except for suggesting alternate interpretations of theological questions, it is probably unnecessary to attempt changing each other's perceptions.
RL
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