Well, lots of opinions but very little scripture or attempts to explain or support any position. I have to put my daughter to bed, but maybe tomorrow I will pick a strong position and attempt to defend it.
look forward to reading this
OK, here goes.
PREMISE:
Supralapsarianism!! With two exclamation points because God not only KNEW that Adam and Eve would sin and need a Savior before God created man, but God knew that most of their fallen progeny would REJECT that savior and be doomed to eternal separation. In spite of all of this, I believe that God DESIRED what was to unfold from Adam to Christ to the final Glorification because it was the GREATER GOOD for both God and Man.
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I trust that is a strong enough position.)
First a brief philosophical argument. God is, by definition, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. God MUST have known what would happen (or God would have only been ‘a god’. God certainly could have prevented events from unfolding but did not, so God clearly allowed it. God is good, so what He creates and what He chooses to do is good, so allowing man to sin and Christ to die must have been good (or God would have not done it).
Philosophy is fun, but ultimately not satisfying. Let us move on to Scripture. I will proceed from the assumption that all scripture in the 66 books of my bible is true and God Breathed. Therefore, it is authoritative for determining accurate facts about who, what and why of those events and matters which it describes.
[Gen 1:26-31 NASB]
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, [I have given] every green plant for food"; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Man was created both “male and female” and in the ‘image of God’ and “very good”. In fact, everything God created was very good. How can something claimed to be very good by a perfect God contain a flaw so well hidden that it “accidentally” leads to evil and the condemnation of both the race and all of creation? I do not believe that it was either a flaw or an accident at all. It was a plan … a wonderful and a perfect plan.
[Gen 2:15-17 NASB]
Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."
So a few quick notes on staging. God planted the Garden. God placed man in the garden that God had planted. God placed the tree in the garden that God had created with the man that God had created. God told the man not to eat from THIS PARTICULAR TREE.
God could have placed the tree on the top of a mountain on a small island across a body of water from the Garden, so Adam could see it on the horizon and, if he really wanted to disobey God and eat from it, then Adam could swim across the open water and climb the mountain to get to the tree. Thus, there would be no “accidents” or “mistakes” or even “momentary deceptions”. If man wanted to sin, it was still possible, but it required some real effort. God did not place the tree on a mountain on an island. God deliberately placed “temptation” in the middle of the garden.
[Gen 3:24 NASB]
So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
God clearly demonstrated no lack of ability to prevent mankind from accessing a tree if He really desired for us to NOT eat from that tree. That flaming sword could have been guarding the first tree and might have given Eve pause before even thinking about listening to the snake. However, God did not do that.
Since this is getting long, let’s just pause here and ask WHY?
Rather than venture too far into speculation, I will go toe to the line and stop at this point. God COULD have prevented sin but God DID NOT prevent sin (so far that seems irrefutable), therefore I conclude that God CHOSE not to stop sin …and all of God’s choices/decisions are RIGHT/GOOD. So God knew what would happen, staged events to happen and allowed events to happen … because that was part of His perfect will and plan (and somehow better than the alternative).
