A job that is harder than Job

In case the question about Job is too easy for you, here's one that's similar but more difficult, since it is a multi-part question:

1. Did God know in advance that satan would tempt Eve into sin, thus bringing about the fall of mankind?

2. If the answer to question 1 is "yes", then did satan need God's permission to be in the garden and tempt Eve?

Be careful with this one: I am not asking if satan ASKED for God's permission or if God explicitly gave the green light. I am asking if satan was able to disobey God and tempt Eve even if God -- knowing in advance what the consequences would be -- had decided not to permit it.

3. If God knew in advance that the above events would bring about the fall of mankind, did God also know in advance that the fall of mankind would result in some portion of mankind going to hell?

4. If the answers to questions 1, 2 and 3 are "yes", then why would a loving God create Adam and Eve, and then knowingly allow satan to go into the garden and bring about the fall of mankind?

 

Ah, you must be a member of the Billist church. All semantics and no substance.

I spoke of the first step in the process of the fall [Eve being tempted] and bridged it by saying "brought about the fall of mankind" without adding more detail. I did that only for the sake of brevity. I kind of assumed most people who participate here already know the story of Genesis. Perhaps you think we don't actually read this stuff.

If you prefer, reword the questions for yourself by adding the middle parts...

1. Did God know in advance that satan would tempt Eve into sin [that is, that satan would tempt Eve, and that she would sin as a result, after which Adam would sin], thus bringing about the fall of mankind?

In the second place, I specifically said...

So what did you do? You based your answer on exactly what I said I was not asking. Here is what I said I am asking:

You may say that is speculative in order to avoid the question, so let me phrase it differently:

Knowing what the result would be, could God have prevented satan from tempting Eve, or would satan have been able to disobey God and tempt Eve no matter what? In the fewest words possible: Is satan more powerful than God?

Again, to avoid your semantic arguments, I'll rephrase questions 3 & 4:

3. If God knew in advance that the above events [sin entering the world through Adam, which was the result of Eve sinning, which was the result of satan tempting Eve, etc.] would bring about the fall of mankind, did God also know in advance that the fall of mankind would result in some portion of mankind going to hell?

4. If the answers to questions 1, 2 and 3 are "yes", then why would a loving God create Adam and Eve, and then knowingly allow satan to go into the garden and bring about [as in initiate the process through temptation, which led to their sin] the fall of mankind?

Now I do not expect you to answer any of these questions, but I didn't want to give you the pleasure of pretending they say something other than what they say by making your meaningless semantic arguments.

 

Wow! Yelsew is the only one brave enough to tackle this? Yelsew doesn't even offer any inferences from scripture, so I would have thought someone here would at least write a diatribe based on what the Bible does not say...

I'm sorry, but can you explain how this relates to the questions?

Again, how does this relate to the questions? I thought you said Adam had free will (ability to choose) before AND after the fall. So I don't see how your answer addresses anything in the questions.

 

That's a great recitation of C.S. Lewis, etc., but it has no Biblical basis whatsoever, and it doesn't make sense unless you're assuming Adam did not have a choice before the fall. Is that what you're saying? That Adam would not have free will unless he sinned and the world was cursed and lots of people ended up in hell?

(By the way, I'm a huge fan of C.S. Lewis, but his answers regarding free will and love are, IMO, totally bogus.)

 

Adam could very well have continued to choose God, correct?</font>[/QUOTE]Incorrect. You already agreed that God knew beforehand that, given the circumstances God allowed, Adam would choose to sin rather than obey. Therefore, by creating Adam and allowing satan into the garden, God foreordained Adam's disobedience to occur. It could NOT occur any other way, anymore than it would have been possible for Judas NOT to betray Jesus.

If that offends you, let me compound the offense by taking it to the next logical conclusion. It is obvious that God deliberately created a situation knowing that the result would be sin, the fall of mankind, and many going to hell. No matter how you look at it, God is therefore the ultimate cause of Adam's fall, and therefore the ultimate cause of the fall of mankind. Do you not see that?

If there were only two choices involved -- Adam or robots -- you might have something that resembled a point. But since there are not only two choices, your argument has no weight.

Regardless, I can refute your argument without even raising a third or fourth choice. Since God knew beforehand that Adam would disobey, then you cannot conclude that God wanted to create men who would love and obey him of their own free will, because then you are saying God failed. So either God failed, or God wished to create someone He knew would disobey (for reasons we have not explored), and then deliberately allowed satan to go into the garden to create the very situation that would bring about Adam's disobedience. The latter is how you answered my questions. So your explanation does not match your answers.

 

The only error I made was to give people like you room for twisting the original questions. I didn't change anything. I simply clarified what was already there.

Does God know that He is limited to the three possibilities YOU can imagine?

Yes, that is what He created when he put Adam in the garden. But then you ignore what happened after that, which is what the questions are all about. God had already createdwhat you say He wanted - an innocent man who could be obedient or disobedient. God had fellowship with this man. If God wanted things to stay that way, He could have ordained that they stay that way. But instead, God deliberately allowed satan into the garden to trigger the events that God knew would lead to the fall of mankind and would send some of mankind to hell. You haven't even begun to address that.

Yes, you were wrong, and you continued to attribute your error to me (see above). Perhaps YOU need to apologize.

 

And we go back to the point that was made earlier in a different post. Adam's choice to not choose God was a free choice. Since you disagree with this, and consider that God foreordained Adam's fall, then we will not disagree on anything else.</font>[/QUOTE]Of course I agree Adam chose to disobey God. What I do not agree with is your statement that He could have chosen not to disobey God, since God foreknew and foreordained the outcome before He created Adam.

If that's what you'd like, fine. Here's a third option for you: God could have kept satan out of the garden, and prevented anyone from tempting Adam or Eve into sin. We don't know for sure how that would turn out, but we do know that it wouldn't have turned out the way it did, yet Adam would still have had the ability to choose to be obedient or disobedient.

You are simply asserting that the reason you love God is because you do it of your own free will. I could (and would) assert that I would never love God of my own free will, but that I love God because God enabled me to do so by regenerating me and placing His love within me. Neither your statement nor mine, by itself, proves anything.

Once again, you are not only skipping way past the topic at hand, you are simply making an assertion about free will without any Biblical evidence.

Stick with the topic and the Biblical evidence, please. According to the topic (the questions at the beginning of this thread) and the Biblical evidence, you agree that God created Adam and then knowingly allowed into the garden the catalyst that God knew would bring about the fall of mankind. Therefore, if it was God's sole objective to create a man who would love Him of his own free will, God failed, because Adam used his free will to disobey.

God is the ultimate cause of everything. Start anywhere in history and trace back the causes, and it always leads to God. It cannot lead anywhere else. Deal.

Yes, that is PART of the answer. But it isn't the whole answer.

 

My system, whatever that is, has nothing to do with anything. I said in so many words that Adam had free will - but it was only from Adam's perspective.

He did not have free will from God's perspective because God created a situation that could only play out one way. Whether you want to admit it or not, you agreed with this conclusion when you answered my questions. In short, did God foresee the fall? Yes. Did God foresee the catalysts for the fall? Yes. Did God permit these things, fully aware what the end result would be? Yes. Could these things have occurred without God's permission? No. So could it have played out any other way? No.

Regarding the before and after, you are once again playing with semantics. The questions encompass Adam and the fall, but not whether Scott has free will.