I regard both determined future and a perfectly knowable future the same as you regard a determined future. You see a fundamental difference between a determined future and a perfectly knowable future while I do not. And we are not going to come to any other agreement than to disagree peacefully. Is there anything more to add?

MM: There are trillions of possible DNA combinations. Multiply this by trillions of FMAs and you arrive at astronomical varieties and possibilities.



The number of possibilities involved is irrelevant. It's as easy for God to see trillions of different possibilities as it is for Him to see one. I don't see why this should be difficult to understand.

Regarding why God wouldn't know that Adam and Eve would certainly rebel beforehand, the simple reason is that it is because they hadn't decided to rebel yet.

God saw all the possible futures, and in some of them A&E rebelled and in others they didn't. It was up to A&E to determine which of the possible futures would come to pass.

If you read the account of what happened in Early Writings, it's obvious A&E's sinning was not a foregone conclusion. Just look at what happened!



There's no way EGW could have written this if A&E's sinning was something certain. How could God have taken Jesus' going into see Him 3 times to decide what He was going to do? Notice that she wrote that Jesus "obtained permission." That was the whole purpose of their meeting. He obtained permission because He didn't have it yet. He didn't have it yet, because Adam and Eve hadn't sinned yet, and it wasn't certain that the plan of salvation would be necessary.

The whole account is nonsensical if everything that happened was a foregone conclusion.



The principle is the same. God sees every possible future. Some things happen in every possible future.



No. God's *perception* of reality is different than ours, but reality itself does not change depending upon who is observing it. Reality is what is, not what someone thinks it is (except in the case of God, because what is is what God thinks it is).



The possible futures change with time. For example, God always knew it was possible you would exist. However, if, for example, Christ had come in the 1850's, as He could have, then you would not have existed. Similarly, many things had to happen just so in order for you to be conceived. Once you were conceived, God knew a lot about you, as there is a lot one can know from the DNA code, things man is just beginning to discover.

I'm stopping here, to keep this from being too long.

Because from the way one perceives God to know the future, how one conceives of the future can be inferred.



I didn't say I believe God knows with certainty what specific choices FMAs will make an eternity before they exist. I gave an example, using the flavor preferences as a hypothetical, of how God could know with certainty what someone would do, assuming their existence.



You mean "imply," not "infer."

My logic doesn't imply the conclusions I stated; the quotes do, for the reasons I stated.

If you say you have a problem with the logic, then that *should* mean that you see something invalid in the argument I'm presenting, not that you disagree with the conclusion.

Of course you're free to disagree that the quotes imply what I say they do, which is what we are discussing.

Basically you are saying, "I disagree with your logic because I disagree with what you are saying," but that could just be because you want to believe what you want to believe. There might not be anything wrong with my logic. If there is something wrong with the logic, you should be able to point it out, rather than simply stating you disagree with it because it implies something you disagree with.



I didn't say some things with settled certainty an eternity before it happens were known. I don't know where you got this idea from. It's not even certain, from eternity, that a given person will exist, so how could something about that person be known with certainty?

What can be known from eternity are some things about the person, provided they exist.



God preferred to have the created beings around than not, notwithstanding the risk involved.



You're confusing the existence of sin with instances of sin.



We weren't talking about the statement "the wages of sin is death." We were talking about the statement that sin won't arise again.

Regarding the GC being necessary, once sin arose, it was necessary. If it weren't, God would not have allowed it.




No it's not. I've been consistently giving two reasons, one based on foreknowledge and the other based on logic. The foreknowledge reason is that God foresees every possible future, and in none of these futures does sin occur.

The logical reason is that the Great Controversy has answered the questions regarding God, and revealed things more clearly about His character that weren't known so well.

MM: You have yet to show precedence for the idea that knowledge of God's character guarantees rebellion will not happen. It didn't prevent Lucifer from rebelling. Nor have you proven God knows anything about the future with settled certainty save for how inanimate things will perform.

MM: You have yet to show precedence for the idea that knowledge of God's character guarantees rebellion will not happen.

It's impossible to show precedence. It's a situation that is will never have occurred until it occurs.

It didn't prevent Lucifer from rebelling. Nor have you proven God knows anything about the future with settled certainty save for how inanimate things will perform.

How did I prove that God knows something with settled certainty for inanimate things? Tell me, and I'll reuse the same proof. It's the same principle involved, so this will be easy.

I just thought of a simple way of explaining how the future is and how God sees the future, from the perspective I've been presenting.

Imagine that you knew everything about everybody and everything, and understood physical laws perfectly, could reason from cause to effect perfectly, and could consider and analyze a quintillion different complicated things as easily as 1, and could visualize things perfectly.

This is how God sees the future. Not by having some special crystal-ball like power, but by being able to reason from cause to effect, understanding everything about people and things, and being able to consider a quintillion different things as easily as 1.

Looking at things this way, it's easy to understand what the future is like. It's like it is for us, except with a lot less uncertainty, since we have such limited understanding about people, things, physical laws, and can't keep more than one complicated thing in our heads at a time, if that.

Has God decided when your discussion will end, or will you have the freedom to make that decision?

That's a whole another question!

How?

MM: I'm glad you agree there is no precedence for your position.


MM: I notice you didn't comment on this point. Why?


MM: You listed the rising and setting sun, an inanimate object, as an example of God knowing the future with settled certainty. But you have resisted the idea God can know the decisions of FMAs an eternity before they exist with settled certainty. For example, you maintain God did not know Lucifer would rebel and deceive A&E into rebelling.