The topic of the foreknowledge of God has come to be one of the most controversial, even divisive, theological issues in Christianity. However, like many other Bible topics, the precise truth as to what the Bible actually, specifically teaches on this topic can be arrived at by proper exegetical Biblical study. Proper exegesis of course is not reading into a text an outside, preconceived/supposed meaning, but extracting the meaning provided by the text itself. Unfortunately, many in the study of this topic, have, presumably, inadvertently, imposed a preconceived notion into the passages of the Bible that involve ‘God and the future.’ This has led to a detrimental, incorrect, and inconsistent, and thus unbiblical, tangential view on who God is, His Power, His Ways and His Character.
It must be emphasized that whatever one can come to know about God, can really only come from the revelation He Himself has given in Scripture.
Unfortunately people have come to refute some passages of the Bible because they do not harmonize with their (independently) formed notion about God. An example of this is the often quoted statement that “God is timeless” meaning that “He exists outside of time”[1] and so supposedly can travel through future or past time, at will, and see then what will, or has, taken place. This notion is based on a belief that since God has in the past so accurately predicted future events, then the only way He could/must have done this is by actually having looked/gone into the future and tangibly seen these developments take place in advance. However the Bible instead teaches that “God is Eternal,” meaning that He has, and will, always exist. This does not come to synonymously equate such a “timelessness.” Furthermore God repeatedly identifies Himself as being the "I AM" (i.e., in the very present). While it is readily understandable that God has a perfect knowledge of all that has taken place in the past, the main issue under debate is how does He relate with the future.
There really are two main/competing views on this topic. (1) God knows the future exhaustively, or (2) the future is comprehensively planned in advance by God in accordance to His intentions. In the first view, the straightforward conclusion is really that whatever we do now has absolutely no effect on the future as it would have been what we would always have done. In other words, the future has already happened and will not be changed by present developments (?!?). In the second view, all that awaits for these plans of God to come to pass as predicted are people who will walk in God ways of Faith, Obedience and Love. (cf. Jer 29:8-11) In other words, as seen below, in prophecy, God, has set the ideal roadmap to lead this planet in rebellion back into full harmony with Him. All that He then now needs to bring this to past are worthy people who want to accomplish this, His, will.
Declaring the End From the Beginning
One of the often (knee-jerkly) cited, even deemed foundational, passage to suppose that God “foreknows” the future is Isa 46:10. However, this text is habitually, blindly misstated, and thus is the perfect example of reading a preconceived meaning into a text. Isa 46:10, in its specific and larger context (vss. 9-11) explicitly does not teach that God ‘knows the end from the beginning’ but that He “declares (= Strong’s #05046) the end from the beginning.” The Hebrew word for “declare” is quite specific here and cannot be conflated with the Hebrew word for “knowing.” The two are quite distinct in what they intend to depict. (See Isa 44:7 where that same term is precisely used to convey this same “declaring” (vs. the there clearly would-be incorrect, [especially as it relates to men] ‘knowing’) notion and also my August 27, 2010 at 5:22 AM comment posted below for a more indepth discussion of the meaning of that key “declare” term.) The often enjoined, defensive argument that: “God declares because He knows” is actually circular reasoning and is not in harmony with the context here. This context found in vss. 9-11 indeed further confirms that God does “fashion/plan” the future, and that then He seeks throughout the earth, for any individual, group or power with which He can work with, or even, in His infallgoldible wisdom, fairly “commandeer”, to bring about what He had planned.[2]
Limiting the Power of God
It is often sanctimoniously touted that those who do not believe that God exhaustively knows every single detail of the future are ‘lessening the power of God’ or even ‘diminishing God Himself and His Glory.’ In fact, it is the converse that is guilty of this, for it is the belief that God can only predict future events solely by having a full, concrete knowledge of them that reduces the Power of God and puts Him in a proverbial box. If the Bible teaches/reveals anything about God, through many revelations and His interactions with man, it is that God does not do things by Magic or “Hocus Pocus.” Everything that God does, even when it is not perceived by human comprehension or senses, has a foundation in (a highest) scientific reality.[3] In other word, God, the Master Designer of this Universe, is operating on a scientific level that man may never come to understand, definitely not in this fallen life. (Cf. Job 38 & 39) In other words God knows precisely what He needs to say/do (=Pro 3:19; 8:22-31 -(God’s (being expressed) “Wisdom” (cf. John 1:1-3); Psa 104:24) in order to cause even the minutest particle in His Universe to do what He wants it to do, (as the relatively newly discovered String Theory (if validated) may come to substantiate)[4], such as in the Creation, (and not any sort of “Evolution”), as described in Genesis (cf. Heb 11:3[5] [6]). (Other) scientific discoveries today, such as microscopic cell structure study, atomic power, nanotechnology and DNA/Genetic science, etc., helps to realize this great knowledge of God but also causes us to further realize this vast gulf that exists between what we know as human and what God knows. Another contemporary example for this is seen in the personal computer (PC). To the average user, the fact that it can do so many incredible thing with only the click of a mouse is fascinating, even bordering on the "magical", however to the inventor/developer of the PC, he/she fully knows and understands that everything, and the billions of things that a PC can do in single second has a concrete basis in a coding that is made up of 1's and 0's. And so, as an example, when God said e.g., “Let there Be Light” (Gen 1:3), having been packed/or naturally, automatically involved in that Divine pronouncement, was/is, (like the coding of a computer (.exe) file which is “simply” executed by double click its icon), a series of variously resonating and actuating commands which produced this end result of “Light”. (Even so called “magic" itself is only concrete and intricate tricks and illusions). The Human Body itself is an excellent example of this 'highest knowledge of God,' as, if even only what can actually be mimicked, or partly reproduced of it using today’s scientific knowledge and technology, would still require a tremendous amount of various resources, especially in regards to doing what the human brain can do; yet God has managed to accomplish all of this within our frames.[7] All this to say that while we, in our limited knowledge, can only readily perceive that if God predicts a future event it is because he has “traveled in time to see it in advance”, (an event that in reality has not even taken place yet!?!), it can be seen from Biblical revelation that God instead uses a vast and infinite number of past and present predictive and scientific parameters to forecast these future events. All He really asks of us is to trust in this power of His so that He can indeed accomplish His will in and through us. Furthermore God has the unstoppable and incontrovertible power to accomplish all of His plans. (Job 42:2-3; cf. Gen 18:14a; Matt 19:26) In fact, the Bible teaches, that the only thing that can stall, disrupt or even cancel out a plan of God is the free will of man, knowingly granted by Him, still that is only a possibility if God chooses to allow it to do so.
It is quite telling that the most often used descriptive name for God in the Bible is El-Shaddai, and other synonymous term, which effectively and literally translates into “God Almighty.” (See my August 21, 2010 10:41 & 10:42 PM comments below for more). Clearly God considers His Characteristic Attribute to be in His Power and Ability to (ultimately) accomplish His will against any odds, or human obstacles. And still He does this without violating the free will of any of His intelligently created free moral agents, i.e., human beings. Interestingly enough this is a prominently recurring titular theme in the developments in the (prophetic) book of Revelation (Rev 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7, Rev 16:14; Rev 19:6, Rev 19:15; Rev 21:22 which reflects the Greek “pantokrator” = LXX translation of Heb. “El-Shaddai”).
Anthropomorphism
In many attempts to explain some text that oppose the classical view of foreknowledge, it is claimed that an anthropomorphism has been used. This then really implies that the text does not literally mean what it has just related or said, but rather that it has used figurative language for the benefit of limited humans. While many times it may be true that figurative language has been used, what the claimers of this popular rebuttal all seem to fail to realize, or take into account, is that even when anthropomorphism is used, the intent or meaning of the described thought or action is in no way changed or affected. It was just the communication of the message that was adjusted. A simple trivial example of this is a mother using toddler talk to get her young child to do something. If she e.g., says to ‘turn on the TV and put it on the news channel,’ she doesn’t use toddler terms that mean ‘go and play outside.’ Whatever she has reworded/rephrased here, so that her toddler can easily grasp and understand it, has the same meaning as what she would have said if she was speaking to a teenager. So while the language used to communicate these intentions and meanings would really be at completely opposite cognizance levels for the toddler vs the teenager, the intended message itself still remains intact.
Similarly, when the (even supposed) anthropomorphous statements in the Bible are closely looked at, and analyzed in their context, the message that they convey still remains intact. If a verse says “God sees” or the “eyes of God see’ it may not mean that God literally has eyes, but it certainly does not mean that God does not see. Whatever method He would use to see other than eyes still makes Him capable of “seeing.” The same may be said for statement which speak of ‘the “hand,” “ears”, “heart”, etc of the Lord’, which simply indicate that He does ‘act’, ‘hear,’ and ‘feel,’ etc, respectively. The same is true for actions that God takes, namely “repenting”, “changing His mind” etc. So the question when examining such applicable passages is really not the surface -is an anthropomorphism used or not, but rather, what is God trying to make understood when He may, or may not, have gone out of His way and used our level of cognizance in communicating this. Certainly it is not cancelling out, in any way, what He has just expressed, stated and/or done.
God’s Election
A statement made by Jesus in Matt 22:14 as he summarized His parable on ‘guests invited at a wedding feast’ (Matt 22:1-13; cf. COL 307-319), is quite telling of the dilemma that God has in seeking to accomplish His planned will on earth. In that statement Jesus literally speaks of ‘many having been called to the kingdom of God, but from among those who have responded to this calling, the “choice ones” are few.” It is that word "choice ones", that is used throughout the New Testament to refer to the “elect,” however this word, grammatically an adjective, does not refer to, as it is commonly taught, ‘one who has been chosen by God from the ceaseless ages of eternity,’ but people who are currently “choice” people, mainly by having cultivated the right/godly qualities, who God can work with, i.e, those He can “elect” to do a certain task in His will. (Cf. Paul’s resolute, free exercising of a choice to be obedient or not in Acts 26:19, 20). This does not automatically/absolutely guarantee that these ‘elected choice ones’ will never fail, even catastrophically, it only means that when God ‘cast his vote of confidence on them’ and appointed them, they were indeed ‘promising, choice individuals.’ (E.g. King Saul -who thus was given the promise of perpetual kingship through his direct descendants 1 Sam 13:13-15; 15:11). This more accurate Biblical teaching shows that man does have a concrete, significant, contributive, and even determinative part to play in order to “make their calling and election sure.” (2 Pet 1:10 KJV). This is the understanding that is conveyed in Rev 17:14b, which shows that this is done by the person then also being “faithful”. Just like when, those in a democracy elect the person that they consider to be the best candidate to represent them in government, God does the same in entrusting believers with certain parts in the redemptive and restorative plans He seeks to achieve in behalf of other fellow fallen human beings.
Predestination and Foreknowledge
Several examples in the Bible show that “predestination” has more to do with ‘one having been place on the right track/path that leads to a specifically desired "horizon"/'dawning'/destination,’ instead of ‘having it firmly been predetermined what one’s final destination will be.’ One’s staying on that right track/path is what will determine if that person reaches that final, envisioned end point. It is also synonymously incorrectly assumed that every time the term “predestined” is used in the Bible, it automatically means ‘from the ceaseless ages of eternity.’ However this term, to mean so, or for this notion to be present, must be expressedly qualified by terms which specify this as it really could only refers to any point in a course prior to the final “destination” point. This realization of “predestination” was perceptively seen by the newly converted New Testament believers in Christ, as, looking back on the course of their life, they probably could see that God indeed was acting upon their genuine sincerity of seeking for, and adhering to, truth, to place them, and then even guide them, on this path that has now led them to becoming believers in, and followers of, Jesus Christ. E.g., God, needing a passionate and resilient person like Paul, (along with being rarely, greatly educated, in those class-exclusive days; on top of literally having an enforceable “passport” to the then known (Gentile) world as a Roman Citizen) to carry on a most important and pivotal, but also most challenging work among the Gentiles, indeed may have been “guiding” him for many years prior to his actual conversion, (or even simply starting right after the Resurrection), until Jesus manifested Himself to Paul on the road to Damascus and “called him”, in a most rare and unique way (Romans 8:28-30 (see also my comment here); cf. Eph 1:5, 11))[8].
In the same way God’s foreknowledge in regards to an individual could be at any point during their lifetime prior to the time when they became aware/knowing of God themselves. I.e., from the time of the childhood of the individual in question, based on a demonstrated “choice” character (cf. Pro. 20:11), (or, possibly, even before his/her (divinely) formative weeks in the womb (Jer 1:5; cf. Job 31:15; Psa 22:10; 139:13; Isa 44:2; 46:3)), until the time when s/he is called, e.g., some 50 years later.[9]
Prophecy
What then is Prophecy? Is it thus a shot in the dark attempt to guess at what will occur in the future, or is it an account of seen/known future developments. Biblically speaking, it is neither. The Biblical teaching of God’s Foreplanning[10] shows that Prophecy is what God knows to be the ultimate, perfect and only way in which His redemptive and restorative plan for a fallen world will, and can only be, accomplished. (Cf. e.g., Dan 2:21; Psa 33:10, 11ff). To use another contemporary example, also from the intricate world of computing, when the developer of an Operating System wants to assure that his software is as secure as possible, he must not only incorporate the security provisions in the programming that he can envision, but also all of the ways in which a hacker can come to compromise a system using this software. For added security, His final coding must also be rigorously encrypted so that only those with a knowledge of the key that unlocks this encryption, and who make use of it, will be able to do so and perceptively read into it. In a similar way, when God makes a prophecy of the future, he also takes into account all of the ways that His Adversary, the Devil, can, or will try to, defeat this plan. With such a secure system, really the only that the Devil can trick people into turning away from God’s way is to use counterfeits. Much like the modern day hacker, who if e.g., he cannot hack into a bank’s website and fraudulently redirect financial transactions to his account will instead develop a fictitious copy of that bank’s web interface and try to trick people into believing that it is the real thing and then steal valuable information from them. In the same way, the Devil seeks to counterfeit every thing that God does in order to divert people into putting their trust in it. Still, in this Great Controversy between Good and Evil, there are definite boundaries which the Devil is not allowed to overstep in his nefarious endeavour to oppose God. As, e.g., only the uninformed, careless, inadvertent and/or lazy computer user will allow hackers to subterfugely take control of his system or accounts, similarly, only the non-diligent Christian will be deceived and overtaken by the Devil’s methods. God is indeed fully aware and in control to what extent He will allow such an alternative to go, i.e., to resemble the genuine (just like a fraudster may not be able to perfectly replicate, if at all, certain authenticating marks of the genuine).
The Forthcoming Book
Of course as this here is only a book preview, all of these sub-topics from the forthcoming book are not here fully developed and expounded nor exhaustively substantiated, however they are in the book. This book takes into full consideration the Biblical arguments that have been made by other writers on this topic. Notably in the work of Stephen C. Roy (How Much Does God Foreknow - A Comprehensive Biblical Study) who has posited that over 2323 predictive passages/prophecies in the Bible show that God must exhaustively know future events as these involve the future free decisions of individuals. Actually, as it was briefly stated here earlier, the Biblically supported converse is much more amazing, and most importantly True. Case in point, the Seventy Weeks of Daniel. Some may say here that if people really have free will, and, as expounded here, God does not know with absolute certainty the future, nor the future free decisions of people, then how would He know here in this prophecy that some 600 years in the future the Jewish people would not only reject the Messiah, but even put Him to death. Well the Biblical answer is quite simple. God had plenty of examples in the past of how His people treated the prophets He had sent to them, who they rejected their message, even endeavoring, and succeeding, in putting some of them to death. (cf. Acts 7). While all Israel believed that the coming Messiah would be an externally irresistibly, even majestic personage, God already knew how He was going to test the true motives of His people when that time would come, in the humble advent of Jesus. As God’s New Covenant was then going to be a matter of the heart, and not the same external nature as the Old Covenant (Jer 31:31-33), God knew that, as Christ taught in His ministry, a test to see if His laws had changed His people’s heart was going to be effected. So in this 70 Week prophecy, which spoke of the “most extreme of abominations” in the murder of the Messiah, and then the resulting consequence of utter physical destruction, God had set forth before the people, as a most solemn warning for hundreds of year, the absolute worst case scenario, but also, simultaneously what was indeed most likely to occur. (Cf. Jer 18:1-12ff). Any person studying this prophecy should have become alert to prepare to heed the Messiah’s message. They even had a precisely timed prophecy to help them prepare, so really they had no excuse. However the message of Christ of ‘a true love of God and others’ came to go against all of what they wanted, solely for their own benefit, out of their now strict obedience to God’s laws and certainly not for the benefit of others. So that most likely, worst case scenario indeed came true as none of the conditional requirements in Dan 9:24 were met by the Jewish people. Had they heeded Christ’s message then those statements of rejection and destruction would not have come to pass as God ‘s very own provision, stated in Jer 18:8 for such genuine changes, fully allows for. However God’s perceived most likely scenario, leading to worst-case developments indeed came true as prophesied and judgement soon followed. And, as shown below, the Sovereign God can even proceed to endure the heart of anyone who effectively has long failed a previous fair test, so that His prophesied plans, will come to pass as declared, and in their precise details, however this is still done as a merciful object lesson and warning for future generations of Believers who are quite likely to have to face an even more stringent test.
Indeed the fact that God, the great I AM, can accomplish His will without concretely/definitely knowing any aspect of the future (which it must be emphasized, when you really think about it, has not occurred yet, for if it has, then the present is actually the long ago past!), indeed commends Him of our complete Trust, Faith, Love and Worship, for indeed there is no other god who can do this (Isa 46:9). And that is all that He really asks of us so that things can be set, and kept, aright in His Universe. And really, is ‘anything impossible for God to do,’ as He Himself states (Gen 18:14; Num 11:23; Job 42:2; Jer 32:27; Matt 19:26|Mar 10:27|Luke 18:27; Luke 1:37; cf. Zec 8:6), when He can sovereignly even “harden hearts” so that His (full) will may be done as was the case with Pharaoh. (Exod 4:21; cf. 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8, 17; see also Deut 2:30; Jos 11:20). For all we know, Pharaoh, after having initially, of himself ‘hardened his own heart’ (=1 Sam 6:6), may have been willing to capitulate by, at least, the 6th plague, but God, -probably seeing that this would be done in some sort of still residual, prideful bestowal by him, or out of a base self-interest to simply prevent any further damage to Egypt, and not out of a due, heartfelt concession to the Uncontestable Power of the God of Israel, “hardened his heart” (Exod 9:12) to literally ‘unforgetably bring that point home!’
Indeed the fact that God, the great I AM, can accomplish His will without concretely/definitely knowing any aspect of the future (which it must be emphasized, when you really think about it, has not occurred yet, for if it has, then the present is actually the long ago past!), indeed commends Him of our complete Trust, Faith, Love and Worship, for indeed there is no other god who can do this (Isa 46:9). And that is all that He really asks of us so that things can be set, and kept, aright in His Universe. And really, is ‘anything impossible for God to do,’ as He Himself states (Gen 18:14; Num 11:23; Job 42:2; Jer 32:27; Matt 19:26|Mar 10:27|Luke 18:27; Luke 1:37; cf. Zec 8:6), when He can sovereignly even “harden hearts” so that His (full) will may be done as was the case with Pharaoh. (Exod 4:21; cf. 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8, 17; see also Deut 2:30; Jos 11:20). For all we know, Pharaoh, after having initially, of himself ‘hardened his own heart’ (=1 Sam 6:6), may have been willing to capitulate by, at least, the 6th plague, but God, -probably seeing that this would be done in some sort of still residual, prideful bestowal by him, or out of a base self-interest to simply prevent any further damage to Egypt, and not out of a due, heartfelt concession to the Uncontestable Power of the God of Israel, “hardened his heart” (Exod 9:12) to literally ‘unforgetably bring that point home!’
This book will be an exhaustive analysis of all of these, and other, passages dealing with this subject, for a Biblical doctrine is not to be based upon a handful of selective (supposedly) supportive passages. All of the, up to now, inconsistent and even seemingly contradicting passages in the Bible are also perfectly, and beautifully, resolved by viewing them in this Biblical View. It will be shown just how God’s Foreplanning method indeed can come to so accurately predict these future developments, and it also simultaneously highlights the manifested leading attributes of the Godhead, namely of being: All-Powerful, All-Loving and All-Knowing, which, interestingly enough, are the predominantly manifested, and harmonized, characteristic of, respectively, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.[11]
God Bless!!
* As, (somewhat), opposed to the normative: indifferently unexegetical; care-lessly deficient; moronically glib; knee-jerkly dismissive; smugly oblivious; loopingly circular; maximly pompous; self-servingly sanctimonious; whimsically omissive; spuriously reasoned; philosophically irrational; mediocrily satisfied; tangentially anecdoted; conceptually ethereal; traditionalisticly safe; selectively redactive; fanatically senseless; callously “apologetic”; assumedly deduced; fancifully glossing; ideologically misconstrued; slothfully erroneous; mindlessly mishmashed; subjectively altering; mantrastictly assuaging; populously gauged; affrightly insistent; proof-textly propped; attributively fallacious; shallowly ascertained; overshootedly reckoned; [and thus]: falsely weighed/“balanced”; unanalytically elementary; biasedly fogged; pridefully blinded; ignoringly irresponsive; systematically non-sequitur; excludingly preferential;[14] dullardly thought; foundationally skewed; realistically fictional; scholastically non-disciplined; worshipfully wayward; desperately deflective; irrelevantly cautioning; unbiblically non-testing; apathetically inexgigent; pastorally “plastic”; ignoramusly illogical; cosmetically calibrated; straw-manly protective; red-herringly diversionary; flippantly inconsequential; wrenchingly isolative; tralatitiously non-Scriptural; irresponsibly blissful; spiritualisedly bland; pietistically patronizing; documentingly wanting; prophecy undermining; cognitively dissonant; Spiritually|GC Cosmicly “schizophrenic”; humanly undiscerning; rotely vacuous; inceptively mistranslated; theodicily inconclusive; wishfully defensive; truncatedly simplistic; inanedly easing; conceitedly unconcerned; asininely vouched; afactually delusional; wildly self-contradictory; theologically adversative; Divinely impeaching; Divine-“Power” doubting[15]; (and, severally, recursively, vice-versa), view of SDA Pastors et al. who have explicitly spoken on this topic -such as Doug Batchelor here [14:24-21:21] (mp4), -as, e.g., “traditionally safely”, =mindless-ly, seconded here [13:31-14:23] by David Asscherick {prophecy is actually rather: “God’s All-Wise thought out & All-Mighty effectuated plannings” (=Isa 46:9-11)}; (see also the 51-comments discussion with an SDA Pastor below starting here); -with indeed all of these SDA theological stances and posturings borne out of an exegetically-devoid chief tenet which says: ‘God (Himself) may have (clearly) said this, but He did not mean it, and/or, really meant that instead’; and again Open Theism (cf. here) substantively is not the Biblical accurate alternative view for various reasons. The Foreplanning View expressed in this post is, and it is the only view that allows all of Scripture, and also direct SOP revelation (vs. what Ellen White assumingly believed on this topic), to cogently and coherently, soundly speak for Itself.
And ‘to him who has an ear’, if it cannot be figured out why God would allow His professed followers to believe something about Him that is not actually the truth, the answer is (1) He has already stated what the truth is on this issue in the Bible, (as well as direct SOP revelations) and (2) this is all like Jesus letting his disciples believe their wrong view of His mission. The fact of the matter is, as discussed in this post at Rev 16:14, this is the main trumping issue against the professed believers in God today who will also fall on one of two sides in that ‘war of God Almighty’ and they will be judged by how they have acted in the light of what they profess to “Biblically” believe here. For those who do not intend to obey Christ’s Full Gospel mandate, there is no more inebriatingly (see here at Rev 18:8) disculpating belief than to believe that (a) the future is set and (b) since signs of the end have been manifested then it will surely occur, and implicit to this derived belief is the chief belief that ‘even God cannot do anything to alter this.’ However Jer 18:1-12!! Most comically interesting here, and this is where/how I see that this Theological issue was deliberately, and actually self-insidiously (=Isa 28:7-13), as applicable (cf. Isa 45:7), allowed by God, i.e., to be “simplistically”, even “fantasaically childishly” misconstrued, pointedly so that the SDA Church here will ‘auto-defeatingly’ (=Isa 42:16-17) jointly fall victim to (A) its lack of exegetical duty and responsibility, and (B) its refusal to heed Christ’s Full Gospel Commission, exactly like all of the 12 disciples of Jesus did, -indeed as pointedly prophesied in the SOP here. Good Luck!!
March 8, 2012 - An indication of how future prophetic “plans” of God speaking upon “that which will be” are actually given as “representations” as it was said in the comments below here, here and here (last paragraph), is directly stated by God in an SOP vision in 11MR 361.2.
Therefore, as the basis for my Foreplanning View here has always been that since the future indeed cannot realistically exist, especially from a Theological perspective, and since the Bible is clearly and candidly filled with many examples and direct statements which show that the future may not develop as it had been said it would, given changes in circumstances, then there has to be a better way to understand how God deals with future, not yet existing, events. And now, in regards to the Open Theism’s foundational maxims that ‘Free Will can only be Free,’ and also that ‘a God of Love can only grant Free Will,’ I can easily simply state the episode in Gen 3:22-24 where God sovereignly acted so that sinful man would not be able to live forever, as they indeed could have. In a similar way, God could easily, indeed sovereignly, and with full rights, as our Creator, curtailed any Free Will that man had had because they sinned. And so, just like, for the ultimate good of the universe, God curtailed the perpetual life of sinful man, He just could have easily curtailed any ‘Right of/to Free Will’ that man could have had. In other words, God would have acted to reserve the right to overrule man’s Free Will and force them to do His will, even if only as a last resort, so that His ultimate, prophesied Will would be done. And it seems from arguments in that discussion that this is what Taylor believes, citing (wrongly in its exegetical self) Rev 17:17 as a prime example. In that case, man does not have Free Will since God can overrule that will to do His Will.
In regards to the Open Theist’s “Love” philosophical maxim, simply said, it does not guarantee free will, for just as with the removal of the Tree of Life, for the “good/love” of the universe, God could also have curtailed Free Will. Indeed the Bible shows that God loves those who are faithful to Him much more than those who are not. (e.g., Mal 1:2-5).
Notes
Secondly, Rosario has conflated the ‘time since a created universe’ with the ‘time of God’s existence.’ However, the two are not independent, parallel times, but continuous/sequential times, just like a mother who gives birth to a child does not suddenly exist outside of the child’s time since his/her birth solely because she effectively “created” that child. The “time” of this Universe is simply a sequential time segment within the greater Time of God’s eternal existence.
PostScripts
February 25, 2012 - Finally, I have come across a (mainline) SDA Pastor/Preacher who is at least Biblically responsible enough to, (at least intentionedly), let the Bible, and the God of the Bible, speak for Himself in regards to this Theological topic.* This is namely Jonathan Henderson, in his 2012 sermon series entitled “The Unknown God”. I however do not agree with all of his arrived at theological conclusions, and most of those differences are because they are derived from a “half-pregnant” view of God and the Future, where ‘God does know the future, but chooses to ignore it in those candid exchanges found in the Bible’!?? However, as alluded to in this comment below, that was similar to my, relatively short-lived, initial understanding of this Theological issue, as I expressed it in the sermon I preached on this issue entitled “The Longsuffering of God” on February 13, 1999. (See its manuscript in pages 281-294 of this document). However when I later, ca. 2002, came to properly translate Isa 46:9-11 and discovered that God plans the future, and that the future actually does not even exist, and thus cannot be “known” but merely prognosticated, then these similarly cited candid examples in the Bible came to make perfect Biblical, Theological, and also logical, sense.[12]
In defense of this view of his, Henderson states that he was doing so because ‘he does not know what God knows’, however God Himself has actually spoken on that issue. As discussed above, in Isa 46:10, He pointedly says that He “declares” the future/end, and not that He “knows” it, as He easily could have said so instead if that is what the case was. (See further substantiations in the comments below here, here and here). Indeed nowhere in the Bible does God say that He knows the future. And for Henderson not to allow God/the Bible to speak for itself here, but actually human assumptions, (i.e., if God prophesies something about the future, then it is because He ‘knows and saw it’, duplicitously destroys the entire self-stated basis for his ‘let the Bible, (even over EGW), speak for itself’ sermon series.
As also discussed below starting in this comment, if it was the case that ‘God knows the “future”’, it seems to me that God would have long presented such concrete facts to resolve GC issues, indeed preempt this entire GC. And, in reality, as you actually cannot “see” what will actually not ever happen, if God could see and know the future (that is if the future actually existed), then all that He would have concretely been seeing is what people would actually be doing. So if what He would have concretely shown all of the angels in advance would have made any difference, i.e., none of the angels, including Satan going on with their rebellion, then it would not be the future. And for these angels and Satan to decide to go on in a course where they were shown that in the end they too would acknowledge that God was right, just before being eternally destroyed, opens up a whole level of complete irrationality. It is no idle statement that Satan is said to have become “enraged” at his defeat at the cross. (Rev 12:12) It is because up to then he had thought, and possibly so, that he could win this GC, but since Jesus had triumphed, his defeat was sure, and that, unlike before, despairingly enraged him.[13] No one, indeed not even fallen humans who are most conditioned to live according to a “pain or pleasure” way, is that dumb, nor that suicidal, to freely pursue a course which they know will end up killing them. Such concrete evidence of most detrimental consequences usually makes someone seriously rethink, and usually abandon, their wrong course. (E.g., the only reason why cigarette package warnings do not work is that it is not a 100% certainty that all smokers will develop cancer.)
Henderson also makes several mentions of pertinent side issues having to do with the acts of God such as: His hardening of Pharaoh’s heart; Joseph’s view of his enslavement ordeal; the descendants of Abraham being enslaved in Egypt; etc., and as all of these issues are variously dealt with in this blog, see particularly this post and its SDA discussion forum links, I won’t readdress them here.As also discussed below starting in this comment, if it was the case that ‘God knows the “future”’, it seems to me that God would have long presented such concrete facts to resolve GC issues, indeed preempt this entire GC. And, in reality, as you actually cannot “see” what will actually not ever happen, if God could see and know the future (that is if the future actually existed), then all that He would have concretely been seeing is what people would actually be doing. So if what He would have concretely shown all of the angels in advance would have made any difference, i.e., none of the angels, including Satan going on with their rebellion, then it would not be the future. And for these angels and Satan to decide to go on in a course where they were shown that in the end they too would acknowledge that God was right, just before being eternally destroyed, opens up a whole level of complete irrationality. It is no idle statement that Satan is said to have become “enraged” at his defeat at the cross. (Rev 12:12) It is because up to then he had thought, and possibly so, that he could win this GC, but since Jesus had triumphed, his defeat was sure, and that, unlike before, despairingly enraged him.[13] No one, indeed not even fallen humans who are most conditioned to live according to a “pain or pleasure” way, is that dumb, nor that suicidal, to freely pursue a course which they know will end up killing them. Such concrete evidence of most detrimental consequences usually makes someone seriously rethink, and usually abandon, their wrong course. (E.g., the only reason why cigarette package warnings do not work is that it is not a 100% certainty that all smokers will develop cancer.)
* As, (somewhat), opposed to the normative: indifferently unexegetical; care-lessly deficient; moronically glib; knee-jerkly dismissive; smugly oblivious; loopingly circular; maximly pompous; self-servingly sanctimonious; whimsically omissive; spuriously reasoned; philosophically irrational; mediocrily satisfied; tangentially anecdoted; conceptually ethereal; traditionalisticly safe; selectively redactive; fanatically senseless; callously “apologetic”; assumedly deduced; fancifully glossing; ideologically misconstrued; slothfully erroneous; mindlessly mishmashed; subjectively altering; mantrastictly assuaging; populously gauged; affrightly insistent; proof-textly propped; attributively fallacious; shallowly ascertained; overshootedly reckoned; [and thus]: falsely weighed/“balanced”; unanalytically elementary; biasedly fogged; pridefully blinded; ignoringly irresponsive; systematically non-sequitur; excludingly preferential;[14] dullardly thought; foundationally skewed; realistically fictional; scholastically non-disciplined; worshipfully wayward; desperately deflective; irrelevantly cautioning; unbiblically non-testing; apathetically inexgigent; pastorally “plastic”; ignoramusly illogical; cosmetically calibrated; straw-manly protective; red-herringly diversionary; flippantly inconsequential; wrenchingly isolative; tralatitiously non-Scriptural; irresponsibly blissful; spiritualisedly bland; pietistically patronizing; documentingly wanting; prophecy undermining; cognitively dissonant; Spiritually|GC Cosmicly “schizophrenic”; humanly undiscerning; rotely vacuous; inceptively mistranslated; theodicily inconclusive; wishfully defensive; truncatedly simplistic; inanedly easing; conceitedly unconcerned; asininely vouched; afactually delusional; wildly self-contradictory; theologically adversative; Divinely impeaching; Divine-“Power” doubting[15]; (and, severally, recursively, vice-versa), view of SDA Pastors et al. who have explicitly spoken on this topic -such as Doug Batchelor here [14:24-21:21] (mp4), -as, e.g., “traditionally safely”, =mindless-ly, seconded here [13:31-14:23] by David Asscherick {prophecy is actually rather: “God’s All-Wise thought out & All-Mighty effectuated plannings” (=Isa 46:9-11)}; (see also the 51-comments discussion with an SDA Pastor below starting here); -with indeed all of these SDA theological stances and posturings borne out of an exegetically-devoid chief tenet which says: ‘God (Himself) may have (clearly) said this, but He did not mean it, and/or, really meant that instead’; and again Open Theism (cf. here) substantively is not the Biblical accurate alternative view for various reasons. The Foreplanning View expressed in this post is, and it is the only view that allows all of Scripture, and also direct SOP revelation (vs. what Ellen White assumingly believed on this topic), to cogently and coherently, soundly speak for Itself.
And ‘to him who has an ear’, if it cannot be figured out why God would allow His professed followers to believe something about Him that is not actually the truth, the answer is (1) He has already stated what the truth is on this issue in the Bible, (as well as direct SOP revelations) and (2) this is all like Jesus letting his disciples believe their wrong view of His mission. The fact of the matter is, as discussed in this post at Rev 16:14, this is the main trumping issue against the professed believers in God today who will also fall on one of two sides in that ‘war of God Almighty’ and they will be judged by how they have acted in the light of what they profess to “Biblically” believe here. For those who do not intend to obey Christ’s Full Gospel mandate, there is no more inebriatingly (see here at Rev 18:8) disculpating belief than to believe that (a) the future is set and (b) since signs of the end have been manifested then it will surely occur, and implicit to this derived belief is the chief belief that ‘even God cannot do anything to alter this.’ However Jer 18:1-12!! Most comically interesting here, and this is where/how I see that this Theological issue was deliberately, and actually self-insidiously (=Isa 28:7-13), as applicable (cf. Isa 45:7), allowed by God, i.e., to be “simplistically”, even “fantasaically childishly” misconstrued, pointedly so that the SDA Church here will ‘auto-defeatingly’ (=Isa 42:16-17) jointly fall victim to (A) its lack of exegetical duty and responsibility, and (B) its refusal to heed Christ’s Full Gospel Commission, exactly like all of the 12 disciples of Jesus did, -indeed as pointedly prophesied in the SOP here. Good Luck!!
March 8, 2012 - An indication of how future prophetic “plans” of God speaking upon “that which will be” are actually given as “representations” as it was said in the comments below here, here and here (last paragraph), is directly stated by God in an SOP vision in 11MR 361.2.
May 10-17, 2012 - So, getting right to the point here as I have had my time wasted enough there, between May 10-17, 2012, I engaged in a discussion here in this Open View Theists Facebook Group.[16] (I was a long time subscriber but first time poster). Indeed foregoing a defense of myself against more baseless, and actually actionably slanderous and libellous ending comments by my main opposer there “W Scott Taylor”), that discussion vividly reminded me why I had not pursued the Open Theism View itself and instead focused on what I was seeing was a more Biblically supportable view, the here discussed Foreplanning View. And that is, to summarily restate it here, as it had already stated above: when a Biblical Text is presented to an Open Theist which challenges their claim by seemingly showing that God knew a future free will decision of man, they try to respond by postulating a philosophical maxim. And so they, e.g., try to make the counter argument that: ‘this cannot be the case because Man has Free Will, and if a future free will decision can be specifically known in advance that would oppose true Free Will. Philosophically, that would seem to make sense, but I think that Classical View proponents satisfactorily defeat that argument by rightly saying that: ‘just because God would know a future free will development, that does not mean that He has interfered in any way to make it happen.’ Indeed, if I attended a football game and was having it recorded on my DVR at home, when I come back home and rewatched the game, if I then tell someone else every play in advance and the final score, that does not mean that I had interfered and orchestrated the whole game or any part of it. In fact, if none of my actions while at the game interfered with unfolding of the game, then I never had any tangible influence on the live game itself. I was merely a spectator and the players on the field were “freely” bringing about their own final result.’ And so it would be with God in a Classical Foreknowledge view. He would not be interfering with our daily lives, but moreover, the present life could then only be a taped replay of what has already happen, because, otherwise, a so called “future” just cannot realistically exist.
However, on the, effectively, “flip side” it is comical to hear some proponents of the Classical View (e.g., here (Batchelor) at [50:40-55:49] (mp4)) most dissonantly and self-contradictingly try to explain away a Calvinist view of some Bible texts which they (through deficient, if even done, exegesis (i.e., as some incorrectly read in some versions they are reading from) nonetheless also think say that ‘God directly chose some people for Salvation from or before the foundation the foundation of the world’, and/or even “from eternity” (e.g., Eph 1:3-5; 2 Thess 2:13; 2 Tim 1:9; Tit 1:2; Rev 13:8; 17:8; -See related discussion starting here (-though see my more accurate current understanding on Rev 13:8 & Rev 17:8 here) and continued here), as this most sequiturly/naturally implies and involves that ‘God either did not “choose” others and left them on their own to attain Salvation’ and/or He conversely actually “chose” those ones to be lost. The correct understanding here is indeed found in proper exegesis, (which at times some of those Bible translators themselves also failed to do), thus letting the text speak for itself, as it specifically, actually/originally reads.
However, on the, effectively, “flip side” it is comical to hear some proponents of the Classical View (e.g., here (Batchelor) at [50:40-55:49] (mp4)) most dissonantly and self-contradictingly try to explain away a Calvinist view of some Bible texts which they (through deficient, if even done, exegesis (i.e., as some incorrectly read in some versions they are reading from) nonetheless also think say that ‘God directly chose some people for Salvation from or before the foundation the foundation of the world’, and/or even “from eternity” (e.g., Eph 1:3-5; 2 Thess 2:13; 2 Tim 1:9; Tit 1:2; Rev 13:8; 17:8; -See related discussion starting here (-though see my more accurate current understanding on Rev 13:8 & Rev 17:8 here) and continued here), as this most sequiturly/naturally implies and involves that ‘God either did not “choose” others and left them on their own to attain Salvation’ and/or He conversely actually “chose” those ones to be lost. The correct understanding here is indeed found in proper exegesis, (which at times some of those Bible translators themselves also failed to do), thus letting the text speak for itself, as it specifically, actually/originally reads.
Therefore, as the basis for my Foreplanning View here has always been that since the future indeed cannot realistically exist, especially from a Theological perspective, and since the Bible is clearly and candidly filled with many examples and direct statements which show that the future may not develop as it had been said it would, given changes in circumstances, then there has to be a better way to understand how God deals with future, not yet existing, events. And now, in regards to the Open Theism’s foundational maxims that ‘Free Will can only be Free,’ and also that ‘a God of Love can only grant Free Will,’ I can easily simply state the episode in Gen 3:22-24 where God sovereignly acted so that sinful man would not be able to live forever, as they indeed could have. In a similar way, God could easily, indeed sovereignly, and with full rights, as our Creator, curtailed any Free Will that man had had because they sinned. And so, just like, for the ultimate good of the universe, God curtailed the perpetual life of sinful man, He just could have easily curtailed any ‘Right of/to Free Will’ that man could have had. In other words, God would have acted to reserve the right to overrule man’s Free Will and force them to do His will, even if only as a last resort, so that His ultimate, prophesied Will would be done. And it seems from arguments in that discussion that this is what Taylor believes, citing (wrongly in its exegetical self) Rev 17:17 as a prime example. In that case, man does not have Free Will since God can overrule that will to do His Will.
In fact, I do lean here to the a ‘discretionarily unlimited Sovereignty of God view here which involves in this case that God can indeed overrule man’s Free Will if He see a most crucial need to, -though I have not seen an example of this in the Bible, with God only having to use as a last resort, at the most extreme, quite compelling tangible evidence to strongly suggest to someone to align themselves with His Will. And this view still speaks volumes of the love of God that (a) He has reserved that right to do so, so that, if it should ever be the necessity, He can exercise that Sovereign Ability to bring about a greater good and (b) given the fact that, as I see it, God has not (yet, if ever) pointedly exercised that full power, that He then has lovingly chosen to respect our Free Will, even if it has many times been to His own great detriment. Indeed, as seen on The Cross having the power to, especially justifiedly, do something and not doing it, and also instead greatly suffering for that abstaining, for the good/benefit of someone else/others, is the Supreme act of Love, i.e., Self-Sacrificial Love. And that is precisely what shows/proves that “God is Love” (1 John 4:7-13 as increasingly being reveal in the ongoing “Great Controversy”: PP 33.1-GC 678.3)
And so for the Open Theist who on one hand is claiming ‘inherently undeniable and unalienable Free Will’ but is also claiming that God can directly force man’s Free Will, i.e., causing men to momentarily become mere puppets in his “puppet masters” hands, those two “foundational” notions quite readily and soundly contradict and cancel each other, thus sinking any wider view that is said to be upheld by/between those tenet/tenant bookends.
In regards to the Open Theist’s “Love” philosophical maxim, simply said, it does not guarantee free will, for just as with the removal of the Tree of Life, for the “good/love” of the universe, God could also have curtailed Free Will. Indeed the Bible shows that God loves those who are faithful to Him much more than those who are not. (e.g., Mal 1:2-5).
So really the only proof for a Theological understanding here can only be found in the Bible, and not in any philosophical maxims
Along these Biblical lines, what I have been presenting as the Biblical alternative in this Foreplanning View, is that God instead merely declares what He wants to see/have done in the future and then tries to find some-one/people with which to work with to accomplish it. (=Isa 46:9-11). So, contrary to what Taylor, actually, stubbornly and indifferently needed to circularly self-believe, in the Foreplanning view, there is no ‘“Molinist” implication of, nor derived from, firmly decreeing what the future will be by God.’[17] He just makes the necessary plan, and begins to implement them as long in advance as necessary in order to have the most appropriate fulfilment, which usually is a spiritually covert, seemingly naturalistic, one. And as the Bible has repeatedly shown, getting the right people to work with has been a reoccurring frustration to God.
July 18, 2012 - From a quick exegesis of Exod 3:14 for a discussion on the meaning of the term “I AM” in John 8:58; 18:6 (See here (#126), here(#140), here (#146) and here (#153)), the exegetical understanding of that statement may be helpful to properly understanding that expression. Succinctly recapped here, the LXX of Exod 3:14 shows that it literally says and means: (First occurrence) “I am the one who always is” (participle). And the second occurrence of “I AM” in that verse says using the (present) participle: ‘tell them that “the one who always is” sent me to you’. So the extrapolation of EGW which was the first statement in a ca. 50 comment discussion with A. Gibbs below most likely does not involve the evidently assuming notions of future knowledge which EGW makes on/from that verse.
Notes
[1] An example of this popular assumption is seen in this sermon [16:29-18:09ff] by Jeffrey Rosario, who posits, as part of his self-proclaimed ‘airtight cosmological argument for the existence of God’, that since this universe evidently had a beginning (mainly based on his prior philosophical argument that ‘infinite past time is a philosophical impossibility - else the “present” would never be reached’), its starting “time” had to have been caused by an independent, external, here, personal, force, i.e., God. So, he concludes, God must then exist “outside of time.” There are however several non-sequitur problems with this line of reasoning.
First of all, if infinite past time is impossible, as it is claimed, and that solely due to “philosophical reasonings/understandings” then how does God Himself exist from an infinite, eternal past, for even His Eternal existence involves concrete, transpiring time? It would also logically seem that if a philosophy, which inherently precludes anything that is not evidential/natural (i.e., the miraculous), is to be the guide here, it would also prevent someone to assume that anyone could exist from eternity, for everything must have a beginning. To also posit that philosophical arguments/reasoning are used to 'work back to the “God factor”' is inherently not cogent because this ‘reversed-philosophy’ is incontrovertibly still all due to, and possible, because of a foundational, inceptive supernatural assumption/belief. This would be like trying to prove the existence of unicorns by working backwards from even scientific observations on a pony. Try as you may but at some point you are going to have to still outrightly “assume/believe” that a unicorn exists. So, similarly, if such philosophical reasonings are going to be used to try to prove the existence, and creative power of God, they would have to be applied across the board here, and not opportunistically/selectively.
(Interestingly enough, it is in this ‘eternal past time reaching the present’ conundrum that the argument/belief that ‘God is not bound by time’ would make sense as it would explain how He can indeed exists from eternity and still reach present time. (Such a belief however does not extend into a, yet-to-exist, future.)) Indeed at some point a belief in God must jump off a philosophical band-wagon, running in circles, and make the leap of faith into believing that what makes God the observedly Supernatural Being that He inherently must be, is this power of being Eternal. As Clifford Goldstein (video), who often engages Beliefs issues from a philosophy and/vs. faith perspective (-see his ‘Science vs/& God’ Series; also: here, here, and here), summarily says for this exposition [35:29-48:05], ‘philosophy and logic only goes to a certain endpoint, and then the only option that is left is: Faith.’ (Interestingly enough, Goldstein once asked Rosario, while they were at a meeting together, on his upcoming announced presentation: ‘So you are going to prove that God exists???’, to which Rosario admitted that ‘this really was not achievable, per se, but that he was only going to show that a belief in God is rational.’ (See here[08:49-09:23])).*
First of all, if infinite past time is impossible, as it is claimed, and that solely due to “philosophical reasonings/understandings” then how does God Himself exist from an infinite, eternal past, for even His Eternal existence involves concrete, transpiring time? It would also logically seem that if a philosophy, which inherently precludes anything that is not evidential/natural (i.e., the miraculous), is to be the guide here, it would also prevent someone to assume that anyone could exist from eternity, for everything must have a beginning. To also posit that philosophical arguments/reasoning are used to 'work back to the “God factor”' is inherently not cogent because this ‘reversed-philosophy’ is incontrovertibly still all due to, and possible, because of a foundational, inceptive supernatural assumption/belief. This would be like trying to prove the existence of unicorns by working backwards from even scientific observations on a pony. Try as you may but at some point you are going to have to still outrightly “assume/believe” that a unicorn exists. So, similarly, if such philosophical reasonings are going to be used to try to prove the existence, and creative power of God, they would have to be applied across the board here, and not opportunistically/selectively.
(Interestingly enough, it is in this ‘eternal past time reaching the present’ conundrum that the argument/belief that ‘God is not bound by time’ would make sense as it would explain how He can indeed exists from eternity and still reach present time. (Such a belief however does not extend into a, yet-to-exist, future.)) Indeed at some point a belief in God must jump off a philosophical band-wagon, running in circles, and make the leap of faith into believing that what makes God the observedly Supernatural Being that He inherently must be, is this power of being Eternal. As Clifford Goldstein (video), who often engages Beliefs issues from a philosophy and/vs. faith perspective (-see his ‘Science vs/& God’ Series; also: here, here, and here), summarily says for this exposition [35:29-48:05], ‘philosophy and logic only goes to a certain endpoint, and then the only option that is left is: Faith.’ (Interestingly enough, Goldstein once asked Rosario, while they were at a meeting together, on his upcoming announced presentation: ‘So you are going to prove that God exists???’, to which Rosario admitted that ‘this really was not achievable, per se, but that he was only going to show that a belief in God is rational.’ (See here[08:49-09:23])).*
Rosario also, quite oddly, boasts that ‘his reasonings can be made independently of the Bible’ however this is inherently false since, 1) he defaultly attributes the reasoned “independent creative force” to the God of the Bible, Yahweh, and not e.g., to Baal, Zeus or “The Force”; and 2) he circularly works from a default/assumed premise that this Creator God is unquestionably infinite/eternal, and therefore the only “non-caused” entity in the universe. However this is a claim/belief that can only be arrived at based upon the actual testimony of Scripture on this view. An evolutional argument can easily posit that other “uncaused forces” existed before such a “Creator God force” and therefore would have caused/created this God. Therefore the limiting of Creation to only one hierarchal step, to a unprecedented God who has an eternal existence, is really a strict defense of what the Bible has said.
While it may surfacedly be helpful to facilitate reaching secularists by making arguments for the existence of God that seemingly can stand on their own, apart from direct Bible quotes, still, ultimately all that a Bible believer adheres to as a theory of origins does come from what has been stated in the Scriptures. The very fact that believers attribute creation to Yahweh God is solely due to the fact that He has claimed to have done it. So whether one wants to admit it or not, any discussion about the existence of God stems solely from claims already made in the Bible as whatever we may observe in nature can indeed easily be attributed to anything else but what the Bible claims. To all who come to truly believe, this view ultimately can, and will only, have been accepted “by faith.” (Cf. Heb. 11:1-3, 6). Effectively, as it is done by Rosario, seeking to establish Truth, without the Truthful testimony (i.e, the Bible), is quite self-evidently, utterly futile.**
Post Script: ...Rosario forthrightly states in his GYC Europe 2012 “Answering Atheists” seminar presentation [(mp3) at 47:40-48:48] that: ‘the philosophical approach does come to an “end of the line” where one has to get off that bus, as it just does not go any further.’
* David Gates, in this August 2010 sermon [03:21-09:12], taking a crack at a quasi-philosophical approach to debating the existence of God, claims that ‘he can “prove” that God exists by Albert Einstein’s formula: E=mc2’. He thus goes on to posit that: (a) ‘since there has to be a very large source of Energy (E) for mass (m) to exists;’ and (b) ‘since the source of all energy is God, (i.e., the God of the Bible), thus E equals God as stated by Acts 17:28a,’ then (c) ‘God must exist since if E=0 then m=0'!!! To merely say here that this is circular reasoning would actually be complimenting this “rationale”. It is actually “oblivious mindlessness” to say the least. This is like someone trying to prove that he attended the last Super Bowl Game, although he has absolutely no proof of this (i.e., ticket stub, ticket purchase receipt, video footage, etc), because everyone knows that he always buys all of the tickets to every Super Bowl, and keeps them all to himself. So if anyone is seen at a Super Bowl game then it must be understood that this must, and can only, be him!!
Indeed without the Biblically-biased preconceptions that Gates bring along into this philosophical argument, it cannot be assumed at all that ‘E in Einstein’s formula means God since He is the source of all Energy.’ When such “obliviously mindless” arguments are made to non-believers in an attempt to prove to them that God exists, they only serve to rightly make them quite perplexedly weary of such irrational Believers. If one is going to have faith in God then do have faith, and being honest to non-believers that this is indeed ultimately a faith-based belief will produce better and lasting spiritual fruits in those who are open to accept it. Irrational, oblivious, mindless and circular arguments/reasoning only provide them an actually valid excuse to persist in unbelief.
(While Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence theory/formula (E=mc2) does not objectively/unbiasedly “prove the existence of God” as claimed in Gates’ circular posit above, see however how it would (i.e., if that “theory” itself is actually true) be making a contribution to Theology, see the “God Energy” below.)
** Relatedly here, it is LOL comical to see various scientist “religiously” believing that Albert Einstein’s “Theory” of Relativity somehow can involve time travel (into the past or the future). It is even more comical to see SDA’s gullibly buy into those theoretical claims (see e.g., Jose Rojas’ 4-20-12 Sermon here [mp4] [27:15-32:00ff]. At best the theory, pointedly here in regards to “time dilation”, is stating, as explained in the illustration here that the rate of atomic time is slowed down by an object in motion, and the faster the motion, the slower the “rate of ticking” as it then takes longer for that atom which is affected by that motion to reflect between its mirroring points. How that tangibly actually affects anything, is to me just pure speculation, for such claims still have to be tangibly demonstrated, for all that is affected then is the rate at which the atom completes its “time” reckoning cycle. It objectively seems quite straightforwardly logical to me that if a person was to take a non-atomic clock aboard their accelerated craft, e.g., an analog or digital clock/watch, then time would continue to be “mechanically” or “digitally” reckoned at the same preset rate. It is only when an atomic clock is involved that the time difference is found.
And in regards to the claims that astronauts on the Space Station age at a slower rate than those on Earth, there also seems to me to be no actually correlation between merely passing time and aging. Seems to me that aging has to do with a cell deteriorating process which is independent of passing time. It is the strength of the cell itself that is pivotal here, and not passing time, for, Biblically speaking, if passing time was merely the main reason for aging, then, e.g., Adam, who lived in the exact same “gravitational/acceleration speed parameters” as us today would have been living as an old and weak man for the remain 800+ years of his life. Time dilation would only make one’s body which is composed of atoms to think that less time has passed by, while actually the same amount of time has passed by. It is just that they were being reckoned differently by those two “clocks”. So aging here would all depend on the inherent/“structural” vitality of one’s cells, -which is independent of “reckoned or actual” passing time. That is why the perpetual life of man is dependent on, evidently, the rejuvenating of one’s cells through the supernatural elements contained in the fruit of life (cf. 7BC 988.10|PP 60.3|Rev 22:1-2) and not by ‘living in a heavenly realm at an accelerated pace.’ Indeed the redeemed will actually be spending the rest of eternity back on this same planetary location, with the same “atomic time parameters” which exist today.
So for people to build a whole science (i.e., a “fourth dimensional” “spacetime”) on purely a theory, which I can only readily see is purely speculative, and worse, to claim that Time Travel is possible from that theory, as if, in regards to the future, that the future actually exists, is doubly fantasaically preposterous!! Sorry, to especially SDA’s here, but this theory has nothing to contribute to the Theological understanding of‘God and the Future’, pointedly in regards to the claim that “God exists and moves outside of time” for at best, as stated above, only ‘parallel, continuous and linear’ time reckoned at two different rates’ is “relatively” involved here.
[2] It is important to stress from the outset that this is Biblical view presented here not at all dependent on, derived from, or even, synonymous with, the more readily known Open Theism view. This is mainly because Open Theism basically claims that ‘God is “open to” (i.e., dependent on) the “input” of humans in determining the future,’ while the Biblical view here, as seen in Isa 46:9-11, states that ‘a prescient God sovereignly declares what the future will be in this Great Controversy Between and Good an Evil, and then searches throughout the earth for a person/people who will align themselves with that expressed will and help to bring it about. Ultimately the only thing that is a variable here is the time that it will take for professing believers to bring about this perfect, pre-stated will, and that, specifically as needed/intended. (See more here)
Related here, EGW’s claim in 2SP 285.2 that: “[Jesus’s] whole plan was mapped before him, perfect in all its details” and “the history of the world from its creation to the end of time was fully known to Christ”, (a) one were at a “(detailed) plan” level, then, also as specified in Isa 46:9-11, when the time came for them to be carried out, God sought out the then best available means/people through which to do such redemptive object lesson things, and, daily, prophetically relayed these fulfilling directives and guidance to Jesus; (b) when it came to future “history”, that too was, (just as involved in the 9MR 7.2/12MR 296.3 statements on the Rev 5 Scroll -see here), at the same prophetic/Divine, thus perfect, (detailed) plan stage, as seen in the prophecies of Daniel, and then, when the time came for them to be carried out, God again searched the Earth for the best entities through which to accomplish them. Moreover God had actually been long working to overseeingly and also interveningly set up these future fulfillments.
So this here does not need to involve the elementarily deficient understanding that: “God knows the future”, but that, as the Bible states, He simply “declares” and wisely “plans” it, and then acts through cooperating human agencies to carry it exactly as planned; and Jesus was indeed the most perfect human agent through which God could work being daily and at every moment in perfect union with the will of God.
[3] Biblical examples that reveal this are seen in the book: The Truth About Angels, which is a compilation from the inspired writings of Ellen White, and shows that many of the incidents in the Bible that have been considered to have been of a purely “supernatural” nature were actually concretely actuated by unseen angels operating behind the scenes. In this way the angels are pretty much the “hands of God” when it comes to bringing about tangible events upon earth. As EGW says of Jesus and His miracle-working:
“The miracles of Christ for the afflicted and suffering were wrought by the power of God through the ministration of the angels.”
And then, similarly:
“And it is through Christ, by the ministration of His heavenly messengers, that every blessing comes from God to us.” (DA 143.1)
So in that sense, I like to think that ‘behind the scene & seen’ of Christ’s miracle of the feeding of 5000, and then 4000 families [cf. a thematically similar GYC 2014 presentation here; as well as this sermon], there perhaps were a couple thousand of angels (e.g., from the guardian angels of the individuals gathered then, already present there) who upon seeing that Jesus wanted to Himself feed the multitude zipped in a few seconds through several wheat fields in Israel and pick up some strands of wheat, grinded it with the bare hands, and tangibly did all of the other processes required to produce flour and then dough for bread and perhaps had God direct hyper-microwaves to bake the lumps of dough into bread in seconds [and there are today technological claims that soon there will be ovens much more powerful than microwave ovens which will safely cook/heat foods in seconds], and then, with everything, including those freshly baked loaves, still being unseen by the multitude, filled up all of those empty baskets so that by the time the crowd was, -(perhaps, knowingly by Jesus, delayingly deliberately), organizedly grouped (Mark 6:40 | Matt 15:35), the angels were standing by with their loaves to fill up the baskets just in time. And of course, for the providing of fishes, they were most likely, similarly, tangibly taken from the sea by angels....through probably even a ‘fish-diving’ method.
For God to have done an “original” work here, as done in Creation (Gen 1:20-21), i.e., through ‘particle matter coalescing by voice-activating, and energetically sustaining/empowering commands, rather they have these already present angels do something that was readily feasible, would have been, as presented in this blog, a needless, thus wasteful and inherently quite costly use of Divine Energy. (And animals at Creation were manifestly also, quantitatively speaking, all most minimally created by God. (Cf. Gen 1:22)). Even the 38-year (Deut 2:14), daily Manna “miracle” did not ‘appear out of nowhere, or from nothing’, but was “bread” (cf. Exod 16:31; Num 11:7-8) that rained down from Heaven (like rain/snow) (Exod 16:4, 14-15). As the SOP sates, based on the Bible: ‘it was “of the corn of heaven. Man did eat angels’ food” (Psalm 78:24-25)--that is, food provided for them by the angels (PP 297.1). Thus evidently tangibly prepared by God’s angels, also probably from harvested “corn” crops available/produced in Heaven itself, or which could specifically be from other inhabited worlds. Without that SOP testimony, I personally would have otherwise said that God was taking ‘corn’ crops from surrounding nations to feed Israel, but as God did not even want to uproot other nations from their occupied lands for Israel (Gen 15:13-16) until Israel had passed God’s various qualifying/validating testing of this people, including the wilderness after the Exodus, (which included a testing with the manna), to see if Israel itself was going to be obedient to His will, then it can be seen that God would need to, at the very least, have dedicated farming in Heaven in order to have recursively-planted and harvested cycles of crop production to feed Israel with during those 38 years.
And also, as I perceive it, a similar thing occurred for the water-to-wine miracle at the wedding of Cana. I.e., by the time the people got around to obey Jesus instruction to fill all of the six 20-30 gallon waterpots with water (John 2:6-7), angels had already squeezed the juice out of freshly picked grapes into these empty containers, and then, as it was poured, the eyes of the people were supernaturally re-opened by God for them to visibly see that it was actually (fresh) grape juice being poured out of these waterpots.For God to have done an “original” work here, as done in Creation (Gen 1:20-21), i.e., through ‘particle matter coalescing by voice-activating, and energetically sustaining/empowering commands, rather they have these already present angels do something that was readily feasible, would have been, as presented in this blog, a needless, thus wasteful and inherently quite costly use of Divine Energy. (And animals at Creation were manifestly also, quantitatively speaking, all most minimally created by God. (Cf. Gen 1:22)). Even the 38-year (Deut 2:14), daily Manna “miracle” did not ‘appear out of nowhere, or from nothing’, but was “bread” (cf. Exod 16:31; Num 11:7-8) that rained down from Heaven (like rain/snow) (Exod 16:4, 14-15). As the SOP sates, based on the Bible: ‘it was “of the corn of heaven. Man did eat angels’ food” (Psalm 78:24-25)--that is, food provided for them by the angels (PP 297.1). Thus evidently tangibly prepared by God’s angels, also probably from harvested “corn” crops available/produced in Heaven itself, or which could specifically be from other inhabited worlds. Without that SOP testimony, I personally would have otherwise said that God was taking ‘corn’ crops from surrounding nations to feed Israel, but as God did not even want to uproot other nations from their occupied lands for Israel (Gen 15:13-16) until Israel had passed God’s various qualifying/validating testing of this people, including the wilderness after the Exodus, (which included a testing with the manna), to see if Israel itself was going to be obedient to His will, then it can be seen that God would need to, at the very least, have dedicated farming in Heaven in order to have recursively-planted and harvested cycles of crop production to feed Israel with during those 38 years.
Also, the “miracle” of ‘Israel’s sandals not wearing out in the wilderness’ (Deut 29:5) was probably tangibly effectuated by angels stopping by as needed to mend, repair and/or upkeep (e.g., treating the leather) their sandals, at night, as they were sleeping and had removed their sandals.
[4] And as it is discussed later here in regards to: ‘God and His necessarily utilized energy resource’, just like today many systems are increasingly being modernized and/or retrofitted to be more automated, computerized and/or streamlined in order to be more and more simple, “self-“proficient and efficient, God has, through “wisdom and understanding”, since the begin of His Creation, incorporated such beneficial features in His ‘pre-instructed, and only needing to be “voice-activated” Creation, manifestly in order that such Creative processes can be activated and effectuated as (relatively) simply and efficiently as possible, -and, also manifestly as this all in turn would necessitate as little energy as possible to carry out, including self-replicating/furthering processes.
On a more fundamental “necessity” level, for my foundational, (and consistently validated), Theological (quasi-)Law is that whatsoever God does and requires is out of an indispensable necessity, well, and also here in pointed response to the knee-jerk objection to the claim here that God had to utilize the given over energy of God the Son, by outwardly/physically “incarnating” “downgrading” Him to the form of Michael, the Archangel/Mighty Angel, which is that: ‘God can do anything, and so He could have created those fundamental particles from scratch and did not need to convert the given over energy of Jesus into this particle matter’, well the actual “necessity” of doing this by the Divine glory-incarnational-conversion way is that God probably long knew of the risk in creating anything in His Universe which He could not have immediate and total control over, (and this is (albeit somewhat circularly) based on the understanding that God does not do anything by magic, in the sense that something tangible is somehow involved in His effectuations). And so God fundamentally says it as necessary that every particle building block that He created needed to have a “God Particle” incorporated within it so that it could most readily heedingly respond to His overmastering commanding voice and execute His will. In other words, and this is all done in the greater light that the Humans that He was going to create to inhabit that Planetary Creation were going to have Free Will, and thus could sin and rebel, and thus, as seen in our world, could either throw that Planet in rebellion, or even many other planets, indeed potentially all of His Created Universe if that rebellion was so widespread, into most dangerous chaos, and/or man may concoct and invent many dangerous things, as seen in today’s world with Atomic and Biological Weapons, and in the face of this, He would need a mechanism by which He could most easily, indeed by simply speaking/signaling a command, that would come to foil those threats. (In fact that “God Particle” can more technically be understood as that part in every particle which would contain the coding to (“surely obeyingly”) react to God’s “voice-activating” commands. (cf. PP 114.4). Perhaps Free Will is incontrovertibly also involved in this were God will, for more general reasons, respectfully/lovingly not even impose His Will on inanimate, and thus to be able to do so, had to at least have these particles be an actual extension of God/“Himself”, and thus could “lawfully” outrightly own it, and as stated just above, for the greater good of Creation.) I am seeing that Christ calming of the stormy Galilean Sea by simply speaking to it was an effected demonstration of that incorporated “God Particle” feature (Matt 8:26-27). And it may be that the easiest, if not really, the only, way by which God could do this God Particle incarnation in all of the matter that He would have in His Universe was by straightly utilizing God-energy. And God the Son agreed, if not volunteered, that Divine Energy. It is in such a, pun welcomed, “light”, that Col 1:17 can be understood with the added understanding that by these God Particles being inherently/defaultly/naturally obedient to God, unless (externally) affected/manipulated, that is indeed why everything (‘all foundationally stemming from Christ’s energy gift’) more than less “(still) hold together”.
And as current science reveals, just a living organism cannot be created except from some part of another living organism (e.g., stem cells needed to created viable living tissues/organs; -indeed compared to realizable artificially-powered mechanical substitutes), it may actually be a incontrovertible necessity for God to have been able to Created any living thing or being (including Angels), they had to contain, from the atomic/particle/matter level, -all formed from converted Divine Energy, part of the “Life” which He, as God, inherently has in Himself. (John 5:26; cf. John 1:4).
And as current science reveals, just a living organism cannot be created except from some part of another living organism (e.g., stem cells needed to created viable living tissues/organs; -indeed compared to realizable artificially-powered mechanical substitutes), it may actually be a incontrovertible necessity for God to have been able to Created any living thing or being (including Angels), they had to contain, from the atomic/particle/matter level, -all formed from converted Divine Energy, part of the “Life” which He, as God, inherently has in Himself. (John 5:26; cf. John 1:4).
And on an even more pragmatic level, this necessary incarnation of a “Divine Particle, Life and/or energy” in all of Creation at an atomic/sub-atomic level is seen in the following SOP statement made in ED 99.1-2 (=PP 115.1) [my added comments are in red]:
Upon all created things is seen the impress of the Deity. Nature testifies of God. The susceptible mind, brought in contact with the miracle and mystery of the universe, cannot but recognize the working of infinite power. Not by its own inherent energy does the earth produce its bounties, and year by year continue its motion around the sun. [But God does not do what Man/Creation is supposed, and capable, to do for him/it-self. Cf. DA 20.1-21.3ff] An unseen hand [figuratively speaking, i.e., a force already atomically incorporated in Creation] guides the planets in their circuit of the heavens. A mysterious life [from Christ’s incarnated Divine life energy] pervades all nature--a life that sustains the unnumbered worlds throughout immensity, that lives in the insect atom which floats in the summer breeze, that wings the flight of the swallow and feeds the young ravens which cry, that brings the bud to blossom and the flower to fruit. {Ed 99.1}
The same power that upholds nature, is working also in man. [e.g., since man comes from the created elements (found in the dirt)] The same great laws that guide alike the star and the atom control human life. The laws that govern the heart's action, regulating the flow of the current of life to the body, are the laws of the mighty Intelligence [=physical laws of Creation’s “Wisdom”] that has the jurisdiction [God’s rightfully inherent property] of the soul. From Him all life proceeds. [Attributively, even all pro-created life] Only in harmony with Him can be found its true sphere of action. For all the objects of His creation the condition is the same--a life sustained by receiving the life of God, a life exercised in harmony with the Creator's will. [All Creation must agree with the life/energy in these pervasive “God Particle” to thrive] To transgress His law, physical, mental, or moral, is to place one's self out of harmony with the universe, to introduce discord, anarchy, ruin. {Ed 99.2; cf. ST, March 20, 1884 par. 5-6}
Thus, as suggested earlier here, since this Divine atomic/energetic aid/assistance/guidance is evidently an absolute necessity for Life to properly/sustainedly exist, if not exist at all, then it is most understandable that God had to “owningly” incorporate (Christ’s) Divine Energy and/or Particle into Creation. In other words, as logical/reasonable/normative with anyone who is making an expense into something, an expectation and guarantee of ownership is also involved for them. So since God has to foundationally and incontrovertibly make this ‘perpetual energy expense’ into any created Worlds and its Creation, He has rightly also made sure that He fully owns that Creation...and/or there is actually no Divine-tethering ownership element at all, (unless God has/had the option of making Creation complete autonomous of this added sustaining force/power/energy aspect, -thus really making Creation/man replicate little gods, -but that may actually be either not feasible or, probably, not safe, hence here an inherent Great Controversy issue), and God has most generously/magnanimously incorporated this “God Particle/Force/Energy” aspect in all of Creation merely and outrightly out of inherent pragmatic sustainability necessities. All GC things considered, with Satan rebelling against the all-inclusive Law of God, which includes the “Creation Law” spoken above in ED 99.1-2, but also the practical “Law of Life” of DA 20.1-21.3, as well as the Moral, Ten Commandment Law, I personally lean more towards a mixture of “pragmatic” as well as “ownership” necessities, if not “preferences”’, given the potential cosmic endangering chaos if anyone of his Created world and its galaxies should, through the actions of it Free Will Created inhabitants, rebel, and, in terms of tangible realities, become, as stated above, capable of, as also seen in the present day harnessed and controlled explosive power of Atomic Energy in Nuclear Weapons, literally blowing up an entire planet and/or causing a cosmic atomic chain reaction.
In fact that possibility lead me to another theory/belief that I have that God has not created man with exhaustive (scientific) knowledge and abilities as He has (a wider issue which was probably also being implied by Satan against Him (Gen 3:1-5)), for the cautionary reality and reason that if Man became sinful, then they would already then have much knowledge to do great/massive, even cosmic reaching, physical harm and destruction.Proverbs 8 Association
In therein this preferred approach of: ‘God deciding to Create the Universe from particles which contain an inherent Divine part’, indeed even instead from “neutral” particles who are then fitted with this Divine part, if that is even feasible (as in an originally created (vs. incarnated) being not possibly becoming/being God): i.e., God creating from scratch Divine particles, -hence the incontrovertible necessity that any “God Particle” could only come from a conversion of Divine Energy (=God the Son’s bequeathed glory) into tangible/physical matter, therein this approach is seen the “Divine Wisdom” during/for Creation spoken of in Pro 8:22-31 (cf. Pro 8:1, 12), for God in Wisdom saw that it was better to create the Universe and Worlds, indeed all things, in this way...and Jesus Christ, who, as He Himself directly associated in His distinctly stated statements in Luke 11:49 (during a private lunch (Luke 11:37ff)), and then later in Matt 23:34 (publicly in the Temple (Matt 23:1ff)), (see also 1 Cor 1:24, 30 (cf. Matt 11:19|Luke 7:34-35 (cf. Matt 13:54|Mar 6:2)), and as also consistently understood and unequivocally stated/applied in the SOP (-long after EGW had completely known much better than her prior semi-Arianism beliefs/views (see here): e.g., PP 34.1 (1890); ST, August 29, 1900 par. 14; RH, April 5, 1906 par. 7 = John 1:1-3's “Logos” = ‘the resulting verbal expressions of/from wise thinking’ + Pro 1:20, 24-25 = GC 642.3b), was (the template/source of) that Pro 8 Wisdom, gladly and humbly went along with that “Wise Plan of God the Father, and most sacrificially allowed His own Glory to be so utilized and “expended” through a first, heavenly incarnation/“begottenment” (just as He would later do to redeem our fallen World/Creation). Jesus was therefore (henceforth) synonymously, and for tangible reasons known/understood as: the “Wisdom” of God (the Father). (See more related to this issue here and here.)
[By the way, if you are going to rashly deny that Pro 8:22-31 refers to Jesus Christ, as, (e.g., Doug Batchelor does (see here (2012) [06:14-09:50], and then, Biblically+Spiritually indifferently, later (2014) again here [28:35-35:54]); -moronically/weasely & novicely out of a defensive fear that: ‘this would/can only mean that Jesus was created, and thus not God; as Jehovah Witnesses claim’), then you have to also deny the testimony of John 1:1-5 as it there likewise does not mention a specific personal name. (As an illustration, the mention of a quality instead of a formal identifying name would be like people referring to the U.S.’s emblematic “Statue of Liberty” as “(Lady) Liberty”].
[By the way, if you are going to rashly deny that Pro 8:22-31 refers to Jesus Christ, as, (e.g., Doug Batchelor does (see here (2012) [06:14-09:50], and then, Biblically+Spiritually indifferently, later (2014) again here [28:35-35:54]); -moronically/weasely & novicely out of a defensive fear that: ‘this would/can only mean that Jesus was created, and thus not God; as Jehovah Witnesses claim’), then you have to also deny the testimony of John 1:1-5 as it there likewise does not mention a specific personal name. (As an illustration, the mention of a quality instead of a formal identifying name would be like people referring to the U.S.’s emblematic “Statue of Liberty” as “(Lady) Liberty”].
Additional Theo-logical Derivatives
And on a mere, though titularly potent, “paperwork” level, the fact that God had inherently incorporated, and at a high personal cost, that God Particle (resembling an ownership insignia “watermark”) in the foundational atomic building blocks for His Creation, He was able to tangibly demonstrate that He does unalienably own that Creation, (much like a parent(s) may have much more unalienable rights over a natural child than over an adopted child (who has decided that s/he did/does not want to be their adopted child)), therefore having ultimate rights over it even if it would choose to rebel against Him. And this notion was seen/involved with God’s refusal to recognize the ownership of Satan of this world (e.g., Job 1:7-8ff), despite him having been (i.e., before the Cross) explicitly and tacitly understood to be an acting/effective “ruler/prince” of it (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; Luke 4:5-8 & Matt 4:8-10 (see here); cf. Eph 2:2), directly pitted against ‘Michael our (i.e., this Planet’s) Prince’ (Dan 12:21; -cf. Dan 12:13 where Satan is probably the ‘other’ “chief prince”, -and is “chief’ by being over other sub-rulers (=“princes” Dan 12:20) in this world to which peoples of this world have given/accepted ruling authority to/from), who, through His victory at the Cross was then entitledly enthroned as this Planet’s King (Rev 5). Yet, with, as seen in the Job 1:9ff episode, Satan validly arguing that the people of this world had themselves freely given over this authority to him, with the added claim that God was, effectively, ‘bribing Job to remain on his side, and manifestly all in order to be able to have a ‘government seat’ in the ruling affairs of this world’, there was still a distinct ransoming price to pay for/if God wanted to fairly have governing authority in/of the world. And that “ransom” price was indeed high, indeed as all involved in a high value target kidnapping scenario.
And on a mere, though titularly potent, “paperwork” level, the fact that God had inherently incorporated, and at a high personal cost, that God Particle (resembling an ownership insignia “watermark”) in the foundational atomic building blocks for His Creation, He was able to tangibly demonstrate that He does unalienably own that Creation, (much like a parent(s) may have much more unalienable rights over a natural child than over an adopted child (who has decided that s/he did/does not want to be their adopted child)), therefore having ultimate rights over it even if it would choose to rebel against Him. And this notion was seen/involved with God’s refusal to recognize the ownership of Satan of this world (e.g., Job 1:7-8ff), despite him having been (i.e., before the Cross) explicitly and tacitly understood to be an acting/effective “ruler/prince” of it (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; Luke 4:5-8 & Matt 4:8-10 (see here); cf. Eph 2:2), directly pitted against ‘Michael our (i.e., this Planet’s) Prince’ (Dan 12:21; -cf. Dan 12:13 where Satan is probably the ‘other’ “chief prince”, -and is “chief’ by being over other sub-rulers (=“princes” Dan 12:20) in this world to which peoples of this world have given/accepted ruling authority to/from), who, through His victory at the Cross was then entitledly enthroned as this Planet’s King (Rev 5). Yet, with, as seen in the Job 1:9ff episode, Satan validly arguing that the people of this world had themselves freely given over this authority to him, with the added claim that God was, effectively, ‘bribing Job to remain on his side, and manifestly all in order to be able to have a ‘government seat’ in the ruling affairs of this world’, there was still a distinct ransoming price to pay for/if God wanted to fairly have governing authority in/of the world. And that “ransom” price was indeed high, indeed as all involved in a high value target kidnapping scenario.
Given that God had inherent rights in this world, having literally had ownership in every particle of this Creation, His poignantly surprising great reluctance to accept the ‘most likely’ incontrovertible provision and plan to integrally redeem this Fallen World (EW 149-153) shows that, as it indeed ended up (due to persisted "rebellion" (cf. Dan 9:24) by, leadingly, His own Israel (=Matt 21:33-41ff; 23:34-36), and relatively, but equivalently, (-as they had much more knowledge/insight (e.g., Matt 16:21)), including Jesus' own disciples (Matt 26:31ff)), it turned out to be most costly to Him, -(and yet God had also pre-planned and "pre-provided" (1 Pet 1:18-20) for such a "likely" extent (cf. John 12:27-28ff, 31-33)), evidently costing, as discussed here, the very Life of God, and that eternally, in Christ. The “funny” and love/fairness/righteousness demonstrating/vindicating thing is that evidently Satan, the effective ransom-demander, had, (contra. the Divine-disassociating claims/views/slants of Jonathan Henderson in this series sermon), absolutely no clue as to the actual ransom price being forthcomingly, actually, paid by God, probably until it was all over, and perhaps even later when such issues were gradually prophetically revealed through the inspiration of the Apostles. So really, in all of this, as with the permitted Great Controversy, God was knowingly paying what He Himself fully knew should be the full ransom price for a Planet of His which would rebel. And since Satan could evidently not begin to spiritually/intellectually perceive this, even when beginning his rebellion in Heaven, he demonstrated that he clearly did not have the wisdom he, and in later manifest tangible earthly-affairs-mingling attempts*, ‘pro-claimed’ he had (=Ezek 28:11-19) to be, at the very least, equal to God the Son, Michael, and function as God’s “Morning Star” over Creation (=Isa 14:12-16) and would indeed surely only have brought ruin to this Planet (Isa 14:17-20ff).
* What was there and thus attempted by Satan through, religiously, first, Babylon against the 12-Tribe Israel Nation, and then, socio-economically, secondarily through Tyre against, prospectively the Remnant of Israel: Judah, has similarly been later re-attempted by Satan against the New Covenant establishment of God’s (now Spiritual Israel) during Church History, correspondingly, first, religiously, through Prophetic, Geo-Political Spiritual Babylon (=the Roman Catholic Church (Rev 13:1-10)), and ensuingly through a Geo-Influential, Empirical socio-economic manifestation of this Babylon. (=the United States of America (Rev 13:11-17)). And not surprising, Satan’s (necessary) main objective in all of this is to still try to usurp the Divine Prerogatives, & Regnal Authority, of Christ. (=Rev 13:18)! (See more here)
[5] Indeed Heb 11:3 does not say that ‘God created from what does not exist, i.e., “out of nothing”’ as it is commonly assumed; but says that ‘God created out of what is not “noticed.”’ Indeed the Greek term phainos (= -phany - a manifestation/appearance) here is used to indicate something that is present but is not yet made manifest to “the naked eye”, e.g., appearing angels. (Matt 1:20). (Even the Latin translation of the Greek here does not say ex nihilo ‘out of nothing’ as commonly dogmatically assumed, but is actually based upon an apocryphal statement (2 Maccabees 7:28); but rightly: ex invisibilibus ‘out of the non-visible’). So this would indeed described the “invisibleness” of, yet existing, atomic and sub-atomic particles.
Relatedly and similarly, -[and contrary to the (patently: incompetently simplistic, yet, -of course, pompously pridefully-stubbornly) claim made here], Psa 33:6, 9 is actually merely speaking of God the “accomplishing = doing”, through “voice-sound="breath of His Mouth"-activating/actuating”, the task, -which in Biblical reality was: bringing all of those ‘already, convertedly-existing “invisible/unseen” atomic and sub-atomic’ organizingly-together to “congealingly” form things that we can then/now openly see: e.g. the heavens, suns/stars, etc. Appropriately enough, the LXX translation has the Greek term “to strengthen/make firm” for the Hebrew “make/done = accomplish; and which is the Greek etymological basis for our English “stereo” = which, as seen today in its use/application in audio listening has the notion of making something complete and the best it could be by supplying its complimentary constituency substance/channel. So, in such a sense, God’s prior ‘invisible atomic/sub-atomic matter creation’ was now “made complete” when He here proceeded to voice-actuatingly “bring it all together” to produce visible Creation forms/items/entities.).
And as presented later in the ‘Theological Science’ (cf. 8T 258.3) understanding, as all matter comes from converted energy, those existing-but-not-visible particles would have come from the ‘always existing energy’ that God the Son (Jesus Christ) necessarily gave towards this Creation of all things by allowing Himself to be incarnated to a less powerful form, as Michael the Archangel. (=Pro 8:22-31; John 1:1-3; cf. Col 1:16-17)
And also, this all does not actually, (as possible) Biblically/Exegetically-invalidate the claim/expounding/understanding of EGW in 8T 258.4-259.2, as the matter needed for Creation was actually already in existence (long) before God decided to execute His purposes of Creating a Human-Inhabited Universe as this matter had come from that long-prior conversion of the bestow Divine glory=energy of God the Son.
And also, this all does not actually, (as possible) Biblically/Exegetically-invalidate the claim/expounding/understanding of EGW in 8T 258.4-259.2, as the matter needed for Creation was actually already in existence (long) before God decided to execute His purposes of Creating a Human-Inhabited Universe as this matter had come from that long-prior conversion of the bestow Divine glory=energy of God the Son.
[6] Also the key Greek word that is used in this verse, and is rightly translated as: “framed”, “prepared” is katartizo. It could also have the meanings of “mend”, “complete”, “equip, or “fulfill”. The root meaning of this word is to indicate something that has come to a completed/restored state by careful/intricate, preparative action to that end. This therefore could show that while the ‘heavens and the earth may have stood “without form and void”’ for ages (Gen 1:1, 2a), God then “completed it”/“framed it” when He later spoke its chaotic components into order to organize it for habitation by created humans (Gen 1:3ff). In other words, this planet may have been just as hostile and humanly inhabitable for ages, even as other planets in this Galaxy still are, until God “prepared it” by infinitely complex, ‘voice-activated’ creative processes, over six literal days; during which, as related in Ed 126.4, His Life-quickening Word provided both the actuating power, and then energetically sustained various pertinent matter as they assembled and then “congeal” into the final product/creation that God was having in His mind then. And these same infinite, but still concretely scientific processes would have been used to create these early-stage “heavens and earth” in the first place (cf. Psa 33:6).
Relatedly, I’ll add here that since Gen 1:9-10 seem to indicate that the “terra firma” part of the Earth was always present, but merely covered over by water, -which does make sense, (unless this planet was initially a complete ball of water from “core” through its initially-watery atmosphere (Gen 1:6-8)). I would therefore see that all of the inanimate/geologic aspects (e.g., dirt, rocks, minerals, etc) of this planet were also always ‘present-but-submerged’ and also ‘without (organized) form’ for ages until God made them “appear” on the third day by “gathering” all the waters into seas (=Gen 1:9-10). So that most likely/logical understanding may resolve issues with higher than 6000 years geologic datings results (if such dating processes are actually reliable/valid). In regards to claims of high datings in animate things such as trees, my view is that God used (time-lapsingly like) growth acceleration to grow them from e.g., a seed to full grown product within 24 hours.
Also an understanding here that the Creation was through a voice-activated process does not at all diminish from the creative power of God, (cf. 2 Pet 3:5), in fact it further shows His inherent and intrinsic mastery over all of Creation. As mentioned in Note #1, there are many examples in the Bible and the SOP that indeed show that God always works through quite tangible means.
Such an understanding here can also provide a quite logical explanation as to why only one major aspect of creation was created per day. If creation was, as assumed, instantaneous, then God could have easily created everything in a single day, or even one hour or minute. It however seems that from the time that God spoke for something to come to be, the process for that thing to ‘become fully establish’ may have taken up the rest of that day. Hence this is why it would have taken six days to complete the entire creation, or more (probably) accurately, the organization of this planet for human life.
[7] As a somewhat related side note here, it is often said that ‘life is so fragile and fleeting’, especially at the moment of the death of a known/loved one, however considering all of the various little things that one can actually die from, the most prominent arguably being a single missed heartbeat from the normative ca. 100,000 that we have each day, and the severity of trauma that the body can normally recover from, it is actually more logical to say that “it is easier to live than it is to die.” We are indeed “fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psa 139:12-16) [Incidently, vs, 16 here, which is a commonly cited passage of those who have defended a “classical” view of foreknowledge, actually, upon proper translation and exegesis, helps to establish and fully supports the foreplanning view presented here.]
[8] Similarly, it is commonly assumed that the prophet Jeremiah was effectively, a ‘spineless, weeping, melancholic “namby pamby” pushover’ based mostly on the common associative belief that he authored the book of “Lamentations”, however, just reading of all of the physical sufferings that Jeremiah was subjected to in bearing his testimony of the then coming utter, physical destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple; sufferings which are easily defendable as the most (prolongedly) endured by any other Biblical prophet (where even “martyrdom for right” here may have seemed like a desired relief), God, who ‘knew, formed, consecrated and appointed Jeremiah from the womb’ (Jer 1:5) literally needed such a resilient, counter-(apostasy)-culture, “rough-neck” (e.g., Jer 28:12 - whether broken from his neck or not) to carry out this unprecedented local, and then even global, cataclysmic doom, prophetic ministry, and may have even genetically/psychologically (i.e. in character - cf. Ezek 3:8-9) prepared him to be such a person. So perhaps he indeed carried out his ministry in a ‘most passionately concerned’ way, in the light of what he had to warn against, but he certainly was not a ‘tearful wimp’. (And just before anyone cries “foul” here, keep in mind that in even this would be sovereign act of God, He still would have greatly risked a lot here by literally ‘placing all of His best eggs in one basket’ in so providentially commissioning Jeremiah.) (See also my comment here).
[9] An example of the typical temporally and theologically, illogical, non-sequitur and incoherent conclusions and beliefs that the false understanding of God and the Future, as taught by the “Classical View”, result in, is seen in statements such as the following one by e.g., David Gates. He repeatedly states that the postponement of the return of Christ in ca. 1888, as declared by the SOP, caused many world events to occur that God just did not want to come to past. These are events such as, prominently, World Wars I and II with their great casualties and the deadly weapons that were invented mainly because of them (e.g., machine gun, chemical weapons, the atomic bomb). However that is not a convincing rational on any level. Simply by the numbers here, ca. 85 million people were killed during these 2 World Wars, or also, even added to this the 30 million more he also cites that were killed by Stalin's regime; however close to 6 billion people have been born since ca. 1888, with many of them becoming saved Christians. So it would seem rather quite to the advantage of God for time to have been “prolonged.”
Gates here, either consciously or subconsciously, has tried to give a rational as to why God would want to return in 1888. Indeed this would mean that God did not want anyone else, including Gates himself to be born, so therefore Gates tries to present the great atrocities of these two World Wars as the best reason ‘why God wanted to wrap things up much sooner.’
That is an indeed a comforting scenario, but, as the simple math above shows, it does not paint a just picture of God, who according to this Classical View, should have known as a hard fact that many more people would have been saved, than even died in these conflicts. Indeed the classical view has to divorce itself from a quite present reality in all of this Great Controversy theme. That theological reality is that God indeed wanted to wrap things up in ca. 1888 simply because there existed a great risk that a further advance in the future, when e.g., already birthed ideologies such as secularism, post-modernism, evolution, increasing atheism, materialism, liberalism, hedonism, relativism, “spiritualism”, among other degenerative “-isms”, would not only become worse, but could also possibility drown out True Christianity, even all of Christianity. (ala. “the days of Noah” (Luke 17:26ff) when on 8 righteous ones were found). Therefore it was indeed a great risk to continue on into this looming future.
With that ca. 1888 generation of Remnant believers, that had most, and virtually all, of now fulfilled Biblical revelations in hand, this was indeed one of the best opportunity to most triumphantly end this Great Controversy. Whatever that would-be faith-full generation of believers could not do for themselves, God surely would step in and supernaturally assist, or even personally (i.e., through angels) accomplish. However that was not the case with an actually faith-less generation, and the Second Coming indeed had to be postponed.
Fortunately, new “choice” people were not only found in the ensuing generations since then, but these also remained faithful to the call of God, and thus God was able to maintain this work, even in the face of an increasingly godless society and world. However there was a quite real and ever-present risk involved, a risk that God evidently would have preferred not to take.
Adding to this risk was the fact that God had used quite motivating, and even specific prophetic statements and orchestrated fulfillments in order to “help the unbelief” of the professing pre-1888 generation. So a postponement of these Second Coming promises would only cause serious, and even faith-losing, confusion. So this pre-1888 gift would come to now also be a future obstacle for many in seeking to rebuild, or even maintain that generation of believers. Indeed many today, with excusable cause (e.g, Deut 18:22), lose faith in the Remnant Church and the SOP because of the recorded mention of these non-fulfilled statements.
Some may think here that this explanation here suggests that God is somehow not able to do what He says He will do and thus is a slighting attack on His Power, however this view is consistent with the correct Theological understanding that God cannot force anyone to love Him, and thus cannot save such an undesiring person. So if circumstances caused that no one wanted to believe in God in the post-1888 days, which a simple comparison of the current Remnant vs. the World, a ca. 400:1 ratio or 0.25% easily shows could have been the case, then God could not “fabricate” believers by forcing some people to believe in Him.
There is also the realistic situation of Hell. With God seeing that world conditions vs. the possibility of another typical lackadaisical and lukewarm Remnant, would more than likely result in most of these 6+ billion to-be-born people to eventually be cast in Hell, suffer and die eternally, then this most loving God would have much more preferred that this most probable situation never occur. In other words, He would rather these people not be born at all, then be born, suffer, in even this life, and then in Hell and then die eternally with an affecting and tangible memory of them lasting for at least 1000 years after that, even in heaven. This all would be like a married, life-valuing, couple knowing that there is a 99.75% chance that whatever natural children that they can have, will have some sort of painful and suffering lifelong condition/disease, even one that is diagnose after their birth and a little later in life, to take the necessary medical steps so that they never could conceive children, and thus, most likely, see them suffer, rather than taking the chance for having healthy one.
This understanding here also harmonizes with the view that, although God may have certain prophetic roles to fill, to say that he knew precisely the person who would fill them before these individuals were even conceived is indeed not sound theology. So rather than one falsely rejoicing, even with a “I-must-be-so-important pride,” that ‘God knew them billions of years ago and that they would, e.g., be engaged in this great ministry,’ they should rather be prayerfully glad that they have done what is required by God so that He could have chosen them, and continues to do so, in whatever capacity He has entrusted them with.
All this to say that the proper theological view of God and the Future, realistically points out that in the Great Controversy between good and evil there are tremendous risks involved, especially for God and the cause of triumphantly vindicated Truth. This is something that the Classical View quite detrimentally, does not, and even cannot, take into due consideration.
[10] What is intended by the deliberate use of the term “foreplan”, which may seem to be redundant, is "to plan well beforehand." It is done so to emphasize ‘the planning of a future event well in advanced of even the time when it is even pertinently relevant. As an illustration, foreplanning would involve a person making plans for a vacation five years beforehand, even with four vacations in the years leading up to this one. On the other hand, simply planning this vacation would be making plans for it, in its year of occurrence, and even only when the vacation period approaches, e.g., 1 month before. So “foreplanning” is used for this Theological view to emphasize the long term way in which God deals with future events far in advance of time, even before they have any discernable trace of occurrence to human eyes, to the extent where ‘He can thus declare the end from the beginning.’
[11] See in this forum thread for more discussion on this post. A key SOP vision on the establishment of the Plan of Salvation (EW 149-153) which helps to anchor this Biblical View and was mention below in this comment, is discussed in greater detail in this discussion forum thread.
[12] While Henderson otherwise generally does a good job of substantiating/demonstrating that his arch thesis that ‘God means exactly what He is saying’, an almost immediate seeming obstacle to this chronologically presented view of the unknown God has been the Gen 3:9 question of God who was asked Adam ‘where he was’ and “had he eaten of the forbidden fruit’. As I gather from his 01-21-12 “God of the Here and Now” sermon [22:05-30:06ff] in his The Unknown God series, as well as this prior 2011 Campmeeting Sermon #1 (mp4) [34:57-38:03] he quite forthrightly/explicitly says that he believes that ‘God was also then being quite candid as He did not actually know’, however seeing all of this as a ‘gentleman act/approach of God’, (which, as stated later, I do not see is the underlying reason for this approach; -for if God is now no longer allowing for this privacy, is it because He has now instead chosen to be a “scoundrel”??!). This view/understanding is of course, as Henderson cites, completely against the common “rhetorical question” view of SDA’s, and even of wider Christian Believers, and which was also my own view prior to just here doing a more indepth thinking and exegetical analysis of this passage. Indeed, as Henderson advanced, the fact that God awaits for a, moreover, spoken out, response from Adam, (vs. Jesus’: knowing, silencing, and/or unspokenly|non-directly/explicitly correcting, questioning in, respectively, e.g., Matt 18:1ff|Luke 9:46-47ff, Mar 9:33-34ff, John 21:15-17; ~cf. John 4:16-19) is inherent evidence that these, moreover, self-manifestly, strictly/solely inquiring|ascertaining, and single instance, questions were not meant to be a rhetorical, self-realizing, exercise, particularly as Adam fully already knew by then that he had sinned against God, and was here merely trying to find disculpating and blamingly justifying excuses for his comportment against, and disobedience of, God, -which are (unjust) retorts that God actually never endeavors to correct, as a rhetorical purpose would then aim to do in the face of such would be persisting genuine ignorance or indifferent denial. Furthermore God then goes on to also straightforwardly question Eve according to Adam’s charge, manifestly to candidly find out if what Adam had claimed was true (Gen 3:12-13), yet when Eve in turn (also still being in complete guilt obliviousness, and not self-denial), blames the serpent, God goes on to curse the serpent (Gen 3:14), which He manifestly fully knew (at least by then) that it was, probably still, being possessed by the Devil (see Gen 3:15 [-also further discussed below]), and thus could have replied, for, indeed, God already knew ‘all about the wily Satan and what he could most deceivingly do. And then, also without no explicit correction, as in a genuine/valid, psychologically purposeful rhetorical session, God then turns back to Adam and “the [then not yet non-generically, thus personally, named as “Eve”, -as with “Adam” from “Man”] woman” (see Gen 3:20) and straightly curses them (Gen 3:16-19). If that was because God already fully knew that Adam and Eve already fully understood the responsibility/guilt of their sin and/or the fact that He was not responsible for their frightened reaction, then there would not have been any need at all to question them about it in the first place. The only issue involved here was that God candidly/first-instancely wanted to find out what this abnormal reaction of theirs to His approach was all about and when He did find out, as there really was no excuse for it, He then summarily, and without any “correcting” explanations, proceeded to: curse them, make a skin covering for them to deal with their sinful stark (i.e., no more covering robe of light (PP 57.1)) nakedness (Gen 3:21), and then banish them from the Garden (Gen 3:22-24). Indeed I now see that there is much corroborating Biblical support for the view that, -along the lines of Henderson’s alluded to ‘no anti-trusting surveillance cameras’, and even, ‘no prying vision’ view, God actually, and that out of His own prior chosen/preferred method of dealing with Adam and Eve, having indeed given them complete privacy, including thought-privacy, (which as seen here on the SOP “golden card” revelation, is what I see the angels, and probably all of God’s unfallen beings having), did not see, and thus not know (cf. Gen 22:12), prior to hearing the response of Adam in Gen 3:10 that they had sinned. In other words, God had always chosen/preferred to entirely give His created beings complete privacy, and the only way that news was heard about Adam and Eve in heaven was through the report of the periodic earth-returning angels. And so here, Adam and Eve would have fallen during a completely alone period of time in between a visit by angels and this here visit of: ‘God the Father’, i.e., as pointedly, repeatedly, namedly stated in Gen 3, “Yahweh”* Himself, then having no problem visiting with the sinless Adam and Eve, who then, upon returning from this visit, and having at that time first learned of the Fall of Man, broke this news in Heaven (a more pointed inserted understanding that, as discussed below, I really do not see as actually being contrary to the storyline/revelation in the SOP in PP 57.3-4 & EW 148.1-2. -In fact I further see that this Divine visit of Yahweh to Earth and the Garden probably only specially occurred for/on the Seventh Day Sabbath. And so here, it would have been on a late Friday afternoon (Gen 3:8), as the Sun was about to set and the Sabbath was going to start.). And it was following this returning report that the Plan of Salvation was hashed out (EW 149.2-152.3 (cf. this discussion)).**
Furthermore, it is manifest that following the Fall, Man lost this thought-, even heavenly surveillance-, privacy as God had to then “keep a close eye” upon the affairs and developments of sinful man in order to monitor this GC and timely, directly intervene, if necessary. Interestingly enough, the prior thought and visual viewing/surveillance of Man before sin was so complete that when a personally visiting, approached God asked: “Where are you?” in Gen 3:9, that too was a candid and genuine question. I.e., Unlike other times when Adam and Eve heard this approach of God and came running out to meet Him, this time they didn’t as they were hiding and having had given them the total dual thought and visual privacy here, and not yet having revoked it, God literally was not in a position to intrusively/surveillingly, or even mind-readingly, see nor know, where they were in the Garden. Indeed He then did not even know, nor suspect that they were hiding from Him.
EGW’s opening statement on Gen 3:8-11 in PP 57.4 which says that: “But the great Lawgiver was about to make known to Adam and Eve the consequences of their transgression. The divine presence was manifested in the garden” would seem to oppose this overall understanding here as it seems to imply that God came to the garden already knowing that Adam and Eve had sinned and had just come to merely, “rhetorically” make them know the consequences, but, as several other examples in EGW White’s writing shows, this here may have merely been EGW’s own general understanding, indeed just as it is commonly assumed/understood today. However, and though it may not have been EGW’s own meaning based upon her understanding, the statement that: “the great Lawgiver was about to make known to Adam and Eve the consequences of their transgression” could actually be seen as a summary statement on; ‘what God was about to do when He would come to find this out here’, and not a sequential one: i.e., ‘that God came here with that already in mind).
Also, the precise point in the Bible where, as understood here, Jesus returned to Heaven to announce the Fall of Man and then their fate was decided was between Gen 3:21-22, with Gen 3:22 being a summary statement of the collective Godhead (i.e., “...Us”) deliberation that took place in Heaven about what protective actions now needed to take place, and Gen 3:23f being Jesus having returned to this Earth to implement those safeguarding measures.
And so, in summary here, God being the God of Truth that He is would find absolutely no need/reason to spy and pry on the private lives and thought of His faithful, sinless beings, and so just does not do so. (That is a ‘surveillance and privacy notion’ that should be readily understood in a post 9/11 world given the, respectively, heightened increasing and denying of them in our world now.) That duly was also the default case with Adam and Eve prior to their Fall. So in regards to the teaching of Omniscience, it is thus evident that God does only not know of, an actually non-existent, future, which therefore has nothing (substantial/concrete/transpiredly realized) to be known about, but God also chooses to limit what He may know in the concrete present by giving His created beings, when sinless, complete privacy. I.e., He does not surveil, nor spy on, them but deals with them, as Henderson stresses, in a most trusting/trustful way. And there can only be a truly trusting relationship when there exists genuine and freely expressed love, and that was only the state of things between God and Man before man “distrusted” God and sinned.***
* As the Creation account also states that it was the “Lord (=Yahweh) God” who did the creating, interestingly starting in the recapitulation of the Creation account in Gen 2:4ff, whereas the initial Gen 1:1-2:3 account says the composite-plural “Elohim” (=simply “God”) instead, and as the rest of the Bible (NT) says that it was through Jesus that everything who created (John 1:1-3; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2; 1 Cor 8:6), then it is here that the below-presented view that it was by the cashed in energy from God the Son’s initial Incarnation in Heaven as (first) a Mighty Angel (see here) that God the Father was able to create all things. =Pro 8:22ff: ‘“Yahweh possessed [also =‘purchased/acquired’ -meaning there was a rewarding mutual trade-off involved] Wisdom (=Christ) in order to Create all things.’ And so Jesus is deservingly given full, and indeed factually understood, “active”, (rewarding) credit for the creation and existence of all things. And it indeed is this dispensed energy which renewably continues to hold all things together, and thus in organized existence (=Col 1:17).
** In this sermon [10:21ff] David Asscherick makes the, however exegetically-invalidated, claim that the plan of Salvation had already been hashed out by the Godhead in Heaven prior to God [specifically here: (the Mighty Angel incarnated God the Son: Michael/Jesus]’s visit to already fallen Adam and Eve here, and that He had here just come to ‘assure them that a way of escape had been made’ based on his understanding of Gen 3:15, which, as actually quite common in Christian understandings, is assumed to be a Messianic prophecy in regards to Christ’s Triumph at the atonement. However, and succinctly stated here, that is not an exegetically sound conclusion as:
# Which dually, spuriously, is that: (1) God Himself would not die for the penalty of His Law, -and let alone for others, (which is why Satan sought to usurped His Authority on mere claims of that point. =Isa 14:12-20); and (2) that God’s Created being would much rather prefer to variously live selfishly, no matter how this was/would be detrimental to “lesser” others (which is why he sought to, dullingly, instill a materialistic/commericialistic self-rewarding system, which moreover purports that thus, -and contrary to God’s “enslaving” interdependent creation and systematized ideology (DA 20.1-21.3ff), ‘all can/could and will/should be as individually/independently gifted and enriched’ (=Ezek 28:11-19). Both of these tenets (i.e., ‘living and letting the weaker die’ & ‘self-justifying materialism’) are joined in Capitalism!!
*** In Gen 4:9-12, God similarly poses a question to man, Cain here, about a major sinful event which had transpired, but as there, God goes on to barrage Cain with statements on both what he had done and the consequences for this, clearly revealing that God was fully aware of this, particularly in the light of the fact that Cain did not actually confess at all to having killed Abel in his obfuscating response, then that questioning was all a rhetorical exercise and purpose here by God. And manifestly, that was actually genuinely to concretely find out what Cain’s attitude was towards that sin which probably was an accident (i.e., a manslaughter) and not an intentional killing, i.e. “In the fury of his passion” (PP 74.1), thus a crime of “passion”. But as Cain’s evasive, indifferent and defensive answer confirmed (to God) that he neither had, nor wanted to have, any sorrow or remorse for what he had done, which, as seen in justice today with people who e.g., killed someone unintentionally, by them immediately pleading guilty to a corresponding charge of manslaughter, should have started with Cain at least acknowledging that he had killed Abel, (and Cain probably knew that God knew that fact and so here was just straightly trying to “defend” his action, and perhaps was trying to fool God if that was still possible), then God ‘let him deservingly, and fully, have it!’ Yet God showed incomprehensible mercy soon after when Cain complained about the severity of the punishment and its likely repercussions (Gen 4:13-15), perhaps all reflecting that God had become incensed by the way in which Cain snubbed His likely recognizable initial offer of a more merciful dealing of that unintentional action.
And so, in summary here, God being the God of Truth that He is would find absolutely no need/reason to spy and pry on the private lives and thought of His faithful, sinless beings, and so just does not do so. (That is a ‘surveillance and privacy notion’ that should be readily understood in a post 9/11 world given the, respectively, heightened increasing and denying of them in our world now.) That duly was also the default case with Adam and Eve prior to their Fall. So in regards to the teaching of Omniscience, it is thus evident that God does only not know of, an actually non-existent, future, which therefore has nothing (substantial/concrete/transpiredly realized) to be known about, but God also chooses to limit what He may know in the concrete present by giving His created beings, when sinless, complete privacy. I.e., He does not surveil, nor spy on, them but deals with them, as Henderson stresses, in a most trusting/trustful way. And there can only be a truly trusting relationship when there exists genuine and freely expressed love, and that was only the state of things between God and Man before man “distrusted” God and sinned.***
* As the Creation account also states that it was the “Lord (=Yahweh) God” who did the creating, interestingly starting in the recapitulation of the Creation account in Gen 2:4ff, whereas the initial Gen 1:1-2:3 account says the composite-plural “Elohim” (=simply “God”) instead, and as the rest of the Bible (NT) says that it was through Jesus that everything who created (John 1:1-3; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2; 1 Cor 8:6), then it is here that the below-presented view that it was by the cashed in energy from God the Son’s initial Incarnation in Heaven as (first) a Mighty Angel (see here) that God the Father was able to create all things. =Pro 8:22ff: ‘“Yahweh possessed [also =‘purchased/acquired’ -meaning there was a rewarding mutual trade-off involved] Wisdom (=Christ) in order to Create all things.’ And so Jesus is deservingly given full, and indeed factually understood, “active”, (rewarding) credit for the creation and existence of all things. And it indeed is this dispensed energy which renewably continues to hold all things together, and thus in organized existence (=Col 1:17).
** In this sermon [10:21ff] David Asscherick makes the, however exegetically-invalidated, claim that the plan of Salvation had already been hashed out by the Godhead in Heaven prior to God [specifically here: (the Mighty Angel incarnated God the Son: Michael/Jesus]’s visit to already fallen Adam and Eve here, and that He had here just come to ‘assure them that a way of escape had been made’ based on his understanding of Gen 3:15, which, as actually quite common in Christian understandings, is assumed to be a Messianic prophecy in regards to Christ’s Triumph at the atonement. However, and succinctly stated here, that is not an exegetically sound conclusion as:
(1) The Hebrew independent 3rd person masculine pronoun (hu’) in that verse which is used to say: “He shall bruise...” is actually not only limited to “genderly” being for a male, or even a person, but can also be used to refer to an “it”. Indeed in just its 5 occurrences prior to the one in Gen 3:15, it is used to refer to non-human and/or (quasi-)inanimate such as (Eden’s) rivers (Gen 2:11, 13, 14), (collectively) animals (Gen 2:19), and the forbidden tree (Gen 3:6). So its usage in Gen 3:15 can easily be a, and that collective, reference to the ‘descendants of the woman’; thus to righteous people (e.g., John 1:12; Rev 21:7), since, as discussed next, the serpent will certainly not be from then on likewise physically spawning human offspring. Instead his ‘unrighteous offspring’ (Matt 13:38) would also physically come from Eve, and would only become ‘descendants/offspring of the serpent’ as they free-willingly choose to live according to his various unloving/selfish ways. (1 John 3:7-11; Rev 21:8; cf. TA 48.4)
(2) If the (singular) “seed” of the woman Eve is to be a lone person...then so does the (singular) (seed) of the Serpent/Satan. So here Satan would correspondingly have to spawn an ‘anti-Messiah’. That verse is rather collectively speaking of all of the descendants of both God vs. Satan (i.e., righteous vs. unrighteous people (cf. John 8:39-47)). Indeed the ultimate victory over Satan here of God actually more squarely depends upon the response of sinners to God’s Salvation to be validated for if not a single sinner had ever chosen to live righteously, and only Jesus Christ did, then Satan would have had a significant argument to win his GC case. Jesus’s sinless life and death really only provided half/part (and a very important half/part at that) for God’s GC victory, but the other half/part is squarely dependent on the responses of people who had sinned. That is why in EW 149-153 God was willing to let any/all Man suffer the full and eternal consequence of their Fall. If Jesus merely had to come and live a sinless life for the GC victory to be fully achieved, then no one believing in, or accepting, Him would have never been an issue in these Plan of Salvation deliberations. Instead the rejection of Christ by others was the constant pivotal angst of His, as well as God’s, throughout these redemptive effectuations. That is why Satan made that issue the pointed substance of his most potent psychological assaults upon Christ in His Passion. (Isa 53:3; DA 687.3ff cf. DA 746.4). And added case in point, even upon Christ’s successfully achieved, “It is Finished”, Atoning Sacrifice, and that in the unmasked light of Satan’s long desired murderous designs towards Christ, the unfallen angels still did not know that, or understand exactly how, the Great Controversy would be, let alone was, won by God’s side. (DA 761.2-3ff; 764.3-4)
Indeed the prophecies of Revelation reveal (a) that Satan has since, and particularly since the Cross, fully turned his efforts towards merely “accusing believers (=the brethren)” since he knows that his chances of victory is not actually in forcefully getting, especially believers, to follow his will, since that would only result in God having the right to use corresponding force to keep them on the right way (which is all why God had the right to, as announced in Gen 3:15 sovereignly and super-naturally put, through His Spirit (=Gen 6:3) ‘enmity for sin in man’ upon their fall since Satan had blindsided mankind by using deception (i.e. a (half-truth) lie) to get them to fall into sin), but to instead, merely by allowing sin and sinners to carnally, variously prosper with/through sin, (as it actually can (Psa 92:7a; Heb 11:25)), and this itself be a temptation to believers; and when they fall, be the Zech 3 accuser of them towards God. (Rev 12:10). Then Revelation states that these two key “halves parts” needed to completely defeat Satan, i.e. give God the right to eternally blot him out (cf. Rev 12:12), and that is not only: “because of the blood of the lamb”, but also: ‘because of the word of the testimony of believers, even/especially in the face of death’ (Rev 12:11). And by merely that ‘republican democratic’ endorsing support from these genuinely/fully proven believers (i.e., in the face of an opposing, majority side of a countless number of non-believers (Rev 20:8b), God does have a valid mandate to so act here. (=Rom 16:20 = Gen 3:15 -...and that would indeed be the most “peaceful” way for God to win and wrap up this Great Controversy....if only His professed people would (have) fall(en) in line with this (Peaceful) Plan A (=EW 47.2; 56.3; 34.1|285.1-286.1)).
Relatedly, the argument can be made from the common “exegetical” understanding from Paul’s statement in Gal 3:16 that: ‘a singular occurrence of “seed” is unique and specific and can only refer to Jesus Christ’, but, succinctly said here through the non-citing all of the text references, that seems to have been an exegetical overstatement, even gross error, by Paul since neither singular Hebrew or Greek/LXX words for “seed/descendant” is limited to a single person/descendant, and in Rom 4:16 Paul actually himself contradicts his own claim/belief that the singular “seed” can only, i.e., non-collectively, refer to a single person, and pointedly Jesus Christ.
So, though the theologically candid storyline here reveals that God (God the Son: Michael/Jesus) only first (suspicion-confirmingly) found out about Adam and Eve fall only when they explicitly tacitly admitted this to Him, His statement in Gen 3:15, (-which actually meant: ‘you will deceptive “trip up” (cf. Gen 49:17) those descendants’, but they will (still, and through that enmity) manage to crush your God-opposing/GC ideology/way of thinking’ (=“head”)#, was not said in the light of an already known plan of Divine Redemption, but rather in a, probably priorly, accepted plan that man would still live out in this fallen world, and though some people may choose to live righteously, there would actually be no hope/way of/for personal salvation/redemption for them, but, as theologically perceived and stated here, they c/w-ould only live out an always incorporated possible GC-allotted period where other unfallen beings/humans in other created worlds c/w-ould see for themselves why Satan’s ways was not valid (cf. 1 Cor 4:9b), indeed by also showing how even righteous people cannot live in a world where sin reigns, even merely exists. But all of these unrighteous people were all defaultly doomed to eventually die eternally....and that is what Jesus, (upon returning back to Heaven from Eden then), persistingly sought the Father’s permission to remedy this fate through, voluntarily, His own sacrificial death (EW 149-153) for any such potentially righteous, but otherwise doomed, ones.
Indeed/And so, from all of these above observations, the, further corroborating, sequitur SOP storyline related in EW 148.2-149.2-152.3 is, and can insert in the Bible’s storyline, as follows:
Indeed/And so, from all of these above observations, the, further corroborating, sequitur SOP storyline related in EW 148.2-149.2-152.3 is, and can insert in the Bible’s storyline, as follows:
Gen 3:1-7 - Adam and Eve are tempted and sin
Gen 3:8-13 - Michael/Jesus visits A&E and finds out they have sinned.
Gen 3:14-21 - Upon ascertaining the facts, Michael/Jesus (=God the Son) immediately, distinctly curses all parties involved; and makes covering clothing for them. (It was then that the above-discussed, manifestly long planned ‘“enmity GC” without chance of redemption”’ was also intimated to Adam in the Gen 3:15 statement (cf. PP 65.4-66.1). Perhaps, SOP-harmonizingly here, Christ right then and there first conceived, or, then seriously pondered what He c/w-ould do to save man, probably upon here the facts here that Eve had been lied to, and thus that Satan had cheated; and later He, as stated next below, shared that ‘justified, merciful “idea for a redemption”’ in a (Advocating) Counsel with God the Father.)
EW 148.2a - Michael/Jesus returns to Heaven and breaks the news of the Fall of Man.
EW 148.2b|Gen 3:22-24 - Angels are both sad/‘sorrowful’ and alarmed/“agitated”, and so a (Judicial/Executive) Council is immediately held to decide what to do to prevent them living eternally as sinner. The decision is made to drive them out of Eden and physically bar them access to the Tree of Life; and that decision is executed by dispatched angels.
EW 149.1 - Satan exulted at that turn of events and depriving consequence.
EW 149.2-152.3|PP 63.1-65.3 - Michael/Jesus then initiates a (private) “(Advocating) Counsel (of Peace)” with God the Father to share His (newly/recently) conceived, or now (seriously) self-decided, ‘Redemption Idea’ to institute a Plan of Salvation for Fallen Man. The Idea/Plan eventually is (reluctantly) accepted by God the Father.
PP 66.2ff - That agreed-upon, inherently precarious, Plan is then instructively related to Adam
Gen 4:1-8ff - Cain later ignores the stipulation of that Sacrificial System and vexatiously kills righteous Abel.
# Which dually, spuriously, is that: (1) God Himself would not die for the penalty of His Law, -and let alone for others, (which is why Satan sought to usurped His Authority on mere claims of that point. =Isa 14:12-20); and (2) that God’s Created being would much rather prefer to variously live selfishly, no matter how this was/would be detrimental to “lesser” others (which is why he sought to, dullingly, instill a materialistic/commericialistic self-rewarding system, which moreover purports that thus, -and contrary to God’s “enslaving” interdependent creation and systematized ideology (DA 20.1-21.3ff), ‘all can/could and will/should be as individually/independently gifted and enriched’ (=Ezek 28:11-19). Both of these tenets (i.e., ‘living and letting the weaker die’ & ‘self-justifying materialism’) are joined in Capitalism!!
*** In Gen 4:9-12, God similarly poses a question to man, Cain here, about a major sinful event which had transpired, but as there, God goes on to barrage Cain with statements on both what he had done and the consequences for this, clearly revealing that God was fully aware of this, particularly in the light of the fact that Cain did not actually confess at all to having killed Abel in his obfuscating response, then that questioning was all a rhetorical exercise and purpose here by God. And manifestly, that was actually genuinely to concretely find out what Cain’s attitude was towards that sin which probably was an accident (i.e., a manslaughter) and not an intentional killing, i.e. “In the fury of his passion” (PP 74.1), thus a crime of “passion”. But as Cain’s evasive, indifferent and defensive answer confirmed (to God) that he neither had, nor wanted to have, any sorrow or remorse for what he had done, which, as seen in justice today with people who e.g., killed someone unintentionally, by them immediately pleading guilty to a corresponding charge of manslaughter, should have started with Cain at least acknowledging that he had killed Abel, (and Cain probably knew that God knew that fact and so here was just straightly trying to “defend” his action, and perhaps was trying to fool God if that was still possible), then God ‘let him deservingly, and fully, have it!’ Yet God showed incomprehensible mercy soon after when Cain complained about the severity of the punishment and its likely repercussions (Gen 4:13-15), perhaps all reflecting that God had become incensed by the way in which Cain snubbed His likely recognizable initial offer of a more merciful dealing of that unintentional action.
So all of this shows just how God, even when He can see things, even right into the heart, still needs to concretely ascertain what the decision of man will be when faced with a situation to acts for or against that ‘heart feeling’. (Cf. Gen 22:12; Deut 8:2; cf. Exod 15:25; 16:4; 2 Chr 32:31).#
# This understanding of the sin-prior total privacy of man on Earth before God, and it being removed after sin, all leads to a puzzling view of the statements made by God in regards to Sodom and Gomorrah where He explicitly states that: ‘He needed to see if what He had been hearing about the sinning in those cities were true or not.’ (Gen 18:20-21). The short theological answer here is that as some inceptive point in this abominable sinning of Sodom and Gomorrah, God decided to no longer look upon this perversion, and decided to literally ‘turn His face from them.’ [Perhaps it may foundationally all technically be that expending the required “Divine-energy” to look into such far-gone people is just not a ‘worthwhile expenditure’ for God.]. He was thus judiciously leaving them to suffer the fate of their own debauchery, which He probably knew would result in sickly death from STD’s even viruses such as HIV/AIDS, however it may be that when it was reported that the perversion of those two cities was started to spread to other towns and cities in that valley of Siddim (PP 162.2; 167.3 cf. Gen 14:8), that God decided to step in and precipitate this sure end of death of theirs (through the similar judicious and righteous justification that He would later use when Israel was to rid Canaan of its perversely living inhabitants (see Gen 15:16; Deut 20:16-18)). And of course, for some, most likely also tangibly necessary and expedient reasons, God [=Michael/Jesus] decided to incarnate Himself as a man and visit the (principally sinning) city in Person.
[13] Indeed it is from around that time, from, as Rev 12:1-3ff involves, the birthing of Michael as a human-born infant, that Satan, -probably then perceiving/realizing/comprehending for the first time the specific Divine-Incarnation details of God’s plan to redeem fallen man, (which would explain why the details of this plan (see e.g., EW 149-153) had not been concretely/specifically/explicitly, prophetically revealed before), began to take a more active/tangible part into seeking to, indeed now systematically so, destroy the True Followers of God, -i.e., by more directly influencing world powers instead of leaving it up to them to naturally do so if they so desired (=Rev 12:3 - See these progressive endeavors of his here at Rev 17:3).
[14] A pointed, prime example of such a spurious stance occurred in this discussion response for, as seen in this prior discussion on the topic of ‘God’s Foreknowledge’, that user, “Rosangela”, was defending a view that (a) the future exists and (b) God perfectly knows this future. However, when I stated in this discussion on ‘a supposed length of the future time of trouble’ (i.e., 1260 days), that God was not ascribing any definite time to it, (nor to any eschatological prophetic fulfilment), so that/because He could and would move to intervene and end things whenever He saw a tangible need for it, thus in this case, whenever it will be that the Mark-of-the-Beast deluded wicked of the Earth will take resolute, unlawful and criminal actions to put God’s faithful Remnant to death, she had no problem at all agreeing with such a, inherently, ‘(excessive) pain, suffering and death’ averting view. However what would be in perfect sequitur harmony with her Classical View on Foreknowledge, is that, ‘God would have already seen and known that this future time of trouble will take exactly 1260 days’, and so that is why He would have prophetically stated that it would only last for that time. So that false view involving Foreknowledge was actually readily ‘“preferentially” believed’ even if came to inherently and outrightly “exclude” actual assumed tenets of the Classical View.
Indeed that ‘death averting’ reason does not even begin to be a justifying basis for believing that there is no prophetic/definite time attached to the eschatological fulfilment of Bible Prophecies. But so is the “natural/knee-jerk” disposition of those who obliviously believe in the unbiblical “Classical View” of Prophecy. They much more prefer it because it variously makes things much easier for them. I.e., it pointedly disculpates them from taking any intervening responsibility for many, especially controversial, things because: “it all, and was eternally always, supposed to happen”. So, e.g., why place myself in an externally hateful position by denouncing the abominable sins in the SDA Church and/or take tangible actions to seek to thoroughly deal with them. The state of the Church is suppose to be just as it is since prophecy has stated that the Church is to be “Shaken”!! (It will indeed be “weepingly & teeth-gnashingly” most shocking to many SDA’s when they will find out, as the plagues are also falling upon them, that they had long ago been, and that “bundledly” so, (see e.g,. 2T 445.2) Shaken out of God’s actual Remnant Movement/Church and, of course, (moreover) “relegated” to Hell. (=Matt 13:30b; Matt 13:41-42))
[15] A second, also knee-jerked, major objection to this Exegetically Biblical-grounded Theological understanding that ‘God rather plans the future and then executes that plan when the time comes’ (=Isa 46:9-11) is the mention of Josiah “by name” in 1 Kgs 13:2. As that statement was made during the reign of the King of Israel Jeroboam, (their first king under the Divided Kingdom), and he began to reign in 931 B.C., and Josiah reigned starting in 641 BC, then it is assumed that here, God name Josiah by name, and his reforms, over 300 years before the fact. (And the other thought-to-be similarly “striking” foreknowledge demonstration is with the naming of Cyrus in the ‘(Second) book in “Isaiah”’, but that was concretely elucidatingly addressed in the comments below here and here). And/But, also here, as with all other Bible prophecies, it does not have to be so for God to reveal His great power in regards to the Future.
Again, God Himself foundationally, consistently states that prophecy is just the revealing of the most wise plans/counsels which He will (one (guided) way or the (sovereign) Other) have executed in the Future. So, to be succinct here, with “Josiah”, which means “Yahweh heals”, and with names in the Bible defaultly having “character-representing” significance, God was actually revealing that at some point in the future, He was going to act to have this foundation sin of Jeroboam, which was most likely to “naturally” remain entrenched in Israel (and indeed those high places always were left despite revivals (and obviously no “reformation” (LDE 189.3)) by several great kings in, actually, Judah (e.g. 1 Kgs 15:14; 22:43; 2 Kgs 12:3; 14:4; 15:4, 35). No king in Israel ever was said to have ‘done what was right in the sight of the Lord,’ and Josiah reforms themselves were extraordinary, cross-Kingdom, reforms, with actually the Northern Kingdom of Israel having long been disbanded and overrun by the Assyrians since 723 BC before Josiah did those reform excursions. (See e.g., 2 Chr 34:6-7). From the fact that Jeremiah, whose name means either “Yahweh is Exalted” or (possibly) “Yahweh Strikes” (SDABD 565 [cf. Luke 2:34|Matt 16:14]) began to minister, from his youth (Jer 1:6, 7), in ca. 628|626 B.C., and after having been, manifestly like John the Baptist, been filled with God’s Spirit in the womb (Jer 1:5; Luke 1:15), and Josiah began his reforms about a year before that, in his twelfth year (2 Chr 34:3ff), and that by the end of the ministry of Jeremiah and the (premature 609 BC) end of the reign of Josiah, everything just destructively unravelled in Judah and they, their city and their temple were overrun by the Babylonians, then it is most evident that in this kingly and prophetic duo of Josiah (Yahweh heals) and Jeremiah (Yahweh is Exalted, or Strikes), that this was God “ace in the hole”, actually sovereign, last gasp, attempt and effort to “save” (the Remnant of) His People and spare them the most costly and destructive Babylonian Captivity. But, despite the great external/physical reforms of Josiah, things just did not Spiritually fully change in the Kingdom of Judah, and as seen in the strident, vitriolic and vicious opposition to, and persecution of, Jeremiah, the people were not at all intending on changing. So instead of Yahweh healing and being exalted then, as the word to Jeremiah in Jer 18:9-10 stipulated, God was instead warranted to “strike”.
So all this contextually/developly shows that back in ca. 931 BC, God had most permittingly seen (1 Kgs 12:24), all in order to justly punish Solomon for His sins (1 Kgs 11:9-13) that this beginning of idolatry would surely only get worse in Israel, and as an object lesson, He would allow it to result in their utter ruin, though not without the attempting intervention of prophets (e.g., Amos). He also expected this apostasy to spread into Judah. And it surely did. But as this was the last Remnant of His Chosen People (cf. Isa 1:9) He knew, i.e., He had last measures, and sovereign if necessary, plans to inspire and raise such a fitting Kingly and Prophetic duo to give them their best chance to avoid that destruction. Which, when the time came, this is exactly what he did, first in raising up Josiah, which indeed may have all been according to the special character/spirit womb-forming as Jeremiah and John the Baptist, which surely would explain the most striking different Spirit that Josiah had/manifested from his youth (cf. 2 Chr 34:3a = age 16) being the grandson of the most wicked king ever in God’s Israel (Manasseh) who was followed by a son who manifestly fully intended to, without any shame or qualm, pick up where his father had evilly left off (2 Kgs 21:19-22).
And also, just as God had instructed the specific name for his special messenger John the Baptist (Luke 1:13), as He would likewise do for Jesus (Matt 1:21 =OT “Joshua” and means “Yahweh saves” for Jesus the Messiah’s mission was to ‘save His People for their sins’), then God likewise was “planning”, as indeed a “last gasp”, to raise up a King, from the then more preserved and likely by then only surviving, House/Kingdom/Royal Line of David, who would have the mission to ‘try to “heal” His People’ and most necessarily here, (even if necessarily super-naturally), “their land” (=2 Chr 7:14; cf. Ezek 36:35) so that they would not have to still abandon it to be fallow (2 Chr 36:20-21 (Neh 13:17-18)) if they had fully Spiritually repented under those attempted reforms. So that specific naming of (a) “Josiah” in 1 Kgs 13:2 would simply have been God characterizingly stipulating what his intentions would be then, and when the time of that last gasp effort came around in ca. 649 BC, God would have moved to “form” an already conceived Josiah in the womb (=Jer 1:5) and then, whether by (unrecorded) dream, vision, or simply thought, [or perhaps merely honoringly ratifying the decision of Josiah’s mother*/parents to (seriously) aspirationally name him “Josiah”, perhaps in direct knowledge of that prophecy**], for the Bible clearly reveals from the stipulation in Isa 46:11 that when the time comes for God to execute/fulfill his ‘prophetic plans” He then variously acts to “stir” up the necessary ‘fulfilling agents’ (e.g., 2 Chr 36:22 {=Jer 29:10}); Isa 13:17 {= e.g., Dan 2:39a}). And then with Josiah “sovereignly” having been filled with God’s Spirit, he by the age of 16, then 20, would have quasi-naturally sought to fully do God will (2 Chr 34:3ff).
[15] A second, also knee-jerked, major objection to this Exegetically Biblical-grounded Theological understanding that ‘God rather plans the future and then executes that plan when the time comes’ (=Isa 46:9-11) is the mention of Josiah “by name” in 1 Kgs 13:2. As that statement was made during the reign of the King of Israel Jeroboam, (their first king under the Divided Kingdom), and he began to reign in 931 B.C., and Josiah reigned starting in 641 BC, then it is assumed that here, God name Josiah by name, and his reforms, over 300 years before the fact. (And the other thought-to-be similarly “striking” foreknowledge demonstration is with the naming of Cyrus in the ‘(Second) book in “Isaiah”’, but that was concretely elucidatingly addressed in the comments below here and here). And/But, also here, as with all other Bible prophecies, it does not have to be so for God to reveal His great power in regards to the Future.
Again, God Himself foundationally, consistently states that prophecy is just the revealing of the most wise plans/counsels which He will (one (guided) way or the (sovereign) Other) have executed in the Future. So, to be succinct here, with “Josiah”, which means “Yahweh heals”, and with names in the Bible defaultly having “character-representing” significance, God was actually revealing that at some point in the future, He was going to act to have this foundation sin of Jeroboam, which was most likely to “naturally” remain entrenched in Israel (and indeed those high places always were left despite revivals (and obviously no “reformation” (LDE 189.3)) by several great kings in, actually, Judah (e.g. 1 Kgs 15:14; 22:43; 2 Kgs 12:3; 14:4; 15:4, 35). No king in Israel ever was said to have ‘done what was right in the sight of the Lord,’ and Josiah reforms themselves were extraordinary, cross-Kingdom, reforms, with actually the Northern Kingdom of Israel having long been disbanded and overrun by the Assyrians since 723 BC before Josiah did those reform excursions. (See e.g., 2 Chr 34:6-7). From the fact that Jeremiah, whose name means either “Yahweh is Exalted” or (possibly) “Yahweh Strikes” (SDABD 565 [cf. Luke 2:34|Matt 16:14]) began to minister, from his youth (Jer 1:6, 7), in ca. 628|626 B.C., and after having been, manifestly like John the Baptist, been filled with God’s Spirit in the womb (Jer 1:5; Luke 1:15), and Josiah began his reforms about a year before that, in his twelfth year (2 Chr 34:3ff), and that by the end of the ministry of Jeremiah and the (premature 609 BC) end of the reign of Josiah, everything just destructively unravelled in Judah and they, their city and their temple were overrun by the Babylonians, then it is most evident that in this kingly and prophetic duo of Josiah (Yahweh heals) and Jeremiah (Yahweh is Exalted, or Strikes), that this was God “ace in the hole”, actually sovereign, last gasp, attempt and effort to “save” (the Remnant of) His People and spare them the most costly and destructive Babylonian Captivity. But, despite the great external/physical reforms of Josiah, things just did not Spiritually fully change in the Kingdom of Judah, and as seen in the strident, vitriolic and vicious opposition to, and persecution of, Jeremiah, the people were not at all intending on changing. So instead of Yahweh healing and being exalted then, as the word to Jeremiah in Jer 18:9-10 stipulated, God was instead warranted to “strike”.
So all this contextually/developly shows that back in ca. 931 BC, God had most permittingly seen (1 Kgs 12:24), all in order to justly punish Solomon for His sins (1 Kgs 11:9-13) that this beginning of idolatry would surely only get worse in Israel, and as an object lesson, He would allow it to result in their utter ruin, though not without the attempting intervention of prophets (e.g., Amos). He also expected this apostasy to spread into Judah. And it surely did. But as this was the last Remnant of His Chosen People (cf. Isa 1:9) He knew, i.e., He had last measures, and sovereign if necessary, plans to inspire and raise such a fitting Kingly and Prophetic duo to give them their best chance to avoid that destruction. Which, when the time came, this is exactly what he did, first in raising up Josiah, which indeed may have all been according to the special character/spirit womb-forming as Jeremiah and John the Baptist, which surely would explain the most striking different Spirit that Josiah had/manifested from his youth (cf. 2 Chr 34:3a = age 16) being the grandson of the most wicked king ever in God’s Israel (Manasseh) who was followed by a son who manifestly fully intended to, without any shame or qualm, pick up where his father had evilly left off (2 Kgs 21:19-22).
And also, just as God had instructed the specific name for his special messenger John the Baptist (Luke 1:13), as He would likewise do for Jesus (Matt 1:21 =OT “Joshua” and means “Yahweh saves” for Jesus the Messiah’s mission was to ‘save His People for their sins’), then God likewise was “planning”, as indeed a “last gasp”, to raise up a King, from the then more preserved and likely by then only surviving, House/Kingdom/Royal Line of David, who would have the mission to ‘try to “heal” His People’ and most necessarily here, (even if necessarily super-naturally), “their land” (=2 Chr 7:14; cf. Ezek 36:35) so that they would not have to still abandon it to be fallow (2 Chr 36:20-21 (Neh 13:17-18)) if they had fully Spiritually repented under those attempted reforms. So that specific naming of (a) “Josiah” in 1 Kgs 13:2 would simply have been God characterizingly stipulating what his intentions would be then, and when the time of that last gasp effort came around in ca. 649 BC, God would have moved to “form” an already conceived Josiah in the womb (=Jer 1:5) and then, whether by (unrecorded) dream, vision, or simply thought, [or perhaps merely honoringly ratifying the decision of Josiah’s mother*/parents to (seriously) aspirationally name him “Josiah”, perhaps in direct knowledge of that prophecy**], for the Bible clearly reveals from the stipulation in Isa 46:11 that when the time comes for God to execute/fulfill his ‘prophetic plans” He then variously acts to “stir” up the necessary ‘fulfilling agents’ (e.g., 2 Chr 36:22 {=Jer 29:10}); Isa 13:17 {= e.g., Dan 2:39a}). And then with Josiah “sovereignly” having been filled with God’s Spirit, he by the age of 16, then 20, would have quasi-naturally sought to fully do God will (2 Chr 34:3ff).
And most technically speaking, as 2 Kgs 22:3|2 Chr 34:8 state that it was in Josiah’s 18th year that the book of the Law was discovered, and his prophesied ‘Jeroboam false priesthood’ reforms (2 Kgs 23:15-20), which manifestly were distinct from what he had done before the discovered (2 Chr 34:3-7), (and with Bethel itself actually being in the land of the tribe of Benjamin which was partly in the territory of the Kingdom of Judah and also Israel); only took place after he had fully become aware of what the content of the book was read to him (2 Kgs 22:10-13) and after he ensuingly renewed the Covenant with God (2 Kgs 23:1-3ff), then it is manifest that it was from that understanding of the uniqueness of the Levitical priesthood that Josiah accordingly acted to not only tear down those high places but also completely eradicate any “memorial shrine” which as here, had been built up to honor the memory of that unlawful and apostate priesthood. So, just from that awareness of the stipulations of God’s Law, he would, through due great faithfulness, acted to also right the long standing and enshrined wrong. And it was only after these actions that he was made aware that he had thus actually done what God had prophesied (2 Kgs 23:17ff). I.e., what God had ‘planned for His special, Kingly, messenger/worker to naturally, dutifully and/or inspiredly (=DA 668.2-4), also/fully do in those planned “last gasp” reform efforts. Indeed, as repeatedly personally experienced and attested (cf. in here), just by always endeavoring to do “whatever” (i.e., also by “terrible things in righteousness” e.g., Rev 8:5; CET 228.2; 14MR 280.4; 18MR 187.3) is right, one thus comes to easily walk in the (prophetic) paths and end goal/destination, which God has ordained to fulfill His Wise, Full Righteousness (= “right-doing”) Will and Plans!!
{And, just in passing, another quite simple and possible development for all of this could instead have merely been that, as the books of Kings are reckoned to have been written sometime between 568-531 B.C., then its author, (or even a later scribe, as it was actually customary for them to sincerely do), writing completely after the prophecy and fulfillment facts, would have taken the parenthetical “liberty”, (which would actually not technically demarcationally show in the Hebrew text) to specify that the prophesied future king was: “..., (Josiah by name), ...”. But, the way that, as detailed above, God could variously easily have fulfilled that specific prophetic plan of His, does not necessitate such a unSpiritual/unTheological “higher criticism” take!}
* It would almost surely have to have been Josiah’s mother, “Jedidah” (2 Kgs 22:1), who would have been so stirred/inspired by God because Josiah’s father was the utterly wicked King Amon, and he was then in the midst of endeavoring to, and lead Israel to be/act, ‘more wickedly than even his predecessor/father King Manasseh and (so) also more than the surrounding pagan nation’ (2 Chr 33:9, 21-23)... hence why he was ‘righteously’ killed (2 Chr 33:24)....So, even if God would have gotten to him through a dream, Amon most likely would have deliberately acted to disregard/disobey that “recommendation” by God, especially if he knew/understand what it would mean/represent/prefigure...So, that ‘prophetic naming inspiration’ would have been merely via Josiah’s mother, given that the King/husband had strong authority then, she would then have had to do a great job to convince her husband Amon to go along with it...Of course, all of this is she was not consortingly also as wicked-minded as her husband...
...However if Jedidah was indeed instead God-uselessly wicked, an alternative (likely) “inspired-naming-agent” possibility would be the then repentful King Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather. Given that, as Biblical reckonings reveals, Josiah was born about 6 years before Manasseh died, -when Amon himself was (oddly enough) only 16 years old, and since Manasseh may have been restored to his kingdom at least six years before his death, it could have been that God would have spoken/acted through this repented/converted King Manasseh and he in turn would have persuaded his (young) son to name this newborn son “Josiah”.
** And relatedly, my personal view is that, later, in the midst of Baalic apostasy, Elijah’s parents would have likewise (seriously) “aspirationally” = “dedicatingly” named their child “Elijah” = “My God is Yahweh” (i.e., and not Baal), and would, ala. Pro 22:6, enjoiningly raise him to know and understand the meaning of his name in the face of ever deepening Baal apostasy, which all later psychologically led Elijah to readily follow through on that specific “dedication” and matching upbringing to take a stand for God, and actually himself pray for God to reform, and punish if necessary, His wayward people (PK 119.2 -see here).
Peter’s Denials Predictions
Also, “common-objections-wise”, related here, the citing of Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s, even, according to Mark’s (=Peter’s) recounting, most specific & precise, denials (Matt 26:31-35|Mar 14:27-31|Luke 22:31-34|John 13:36:38), is held up as a proof of Divine fore-knowledge...but Luke 22:31-32 clearly indicates that, manifestly as it was the case with Job, Satan had come to God to make this request to tempt/test Peter and God had granted him that request, and also, also like for Job’s permitted testing, God had manifestly set the testing limits here including at (up to) 3 temptations, [technically echoing the number of 3 (types of) temptations of Christ in the wilderness], and also, in keeping with the 1 Cor 10:12, 13 principles, and also for most objective conditions, manifestly before, and not after, Jesus had begun to be formally condemned, so that Peter then would not have an “excuse” to disassociate himself from some who was now judicially “criminally” condemned to be executed. Therefore, hence the thus easily achievable prediction of ‘before even the break of sunrise’ (=‘by some time in the midst of this night’) with God moreover being able to see that the already “dispatched” Judas (John 13:27) would be able to, if he had not concretely begun to do already, execute his strategically calculated covert middle of the night arrest, all in the hope of the concurring, but alternatively-minded, Jewish leaders, of a completed trial, condemnation if not also execution, before the earlierly jointly “Triumphally” acclaiming, people of, and Passover pilgrim visitors to, Jerusalem (DA 569.3) woke up.
So there is no requirement here for such “seeable” or seriously planned elements that the ‘future be known’ in order for Jesus to be able to have made that: “informed prognosis”.
Messianic Prophecies
Perfect example of how a deficient theology on this issue leads to all kinds of fallacious reasonings and conclusions is seen in the comically dissonant claims made here [56:51-59:10ff] in regards to the prophecy of Agabus in Acts 21:10-11, all in an (skewed) attempt to explain how Biblical/Prophetic Inspiration works, and then in turn (also skewedly) try to explain how the Inspiration of EGW worked, and give an “apology” for her unfulfilled prophecies. Therefore it is claimed that, as the transpiring of that prophecy in Acts 21:30-33, did not actually work out in all the, or the exact, details which Agabus had stated, then this was all only the prophet himself adding his own details as to how a supposedly merely “thought-inspiration” that ‘Paul would be captured in Jerusalem’ would be carry out. That can be applicable in some cases of Divine-to-human revelation, however it does not need to be the case in this one.
* That PDF copy will increasingly/addedly contain some post Facebook posting typo fixes in my comments, as well as clarifying additional comments which are made in red. Its lastest update was on: [05-21-12].
[17] Theological|Biblical|Theodicy|Prophetic|Salvation “Science” (1 Cor 2:6-7, 9, 12-13ff; cf. 19MR 251.3) - Throughout that discussion I emphasized that though I subscribe to, as mentioned in the main blog post here, a view which is depicted as ‘God, as a All Wise Chess Master, playing a Grand Chess Match against the Devil, (which is along the line of what Open Theist are calling the Infinitely-Wise Chess Master (ICM) view), I do not see it as involving ‘God having precisely figured out what the future will be by having crunched out all of the myriads of possible scenarios’ because, if God is going to do this by respecting Free Will then that is realistically an impossibility. Through that way, God, at “realistic” best, could computationally “prognosticate” what the next millisecond of the future will be by having correctly “assumed” (cf. e.g. Isa 5:4; Jer 32:35; Gen 22:12; Jer 18:7-10) what the next action, even thought of, presently, over 7 billion on earth will be (i.e., based on the current thinking, existing trends and immediate tendencies of each and every individual person). Because, e.g., if a single individual (which indeed needs to include all of God’s creatures, thus also animals) was to freely decides instead to not “naturally”scratch their eye because of the spec of dust that (foreseeably by God) just blew into it, instead of doing so as God would have “naturally assumed”, then just that single incident would throw the entire “prognostication” off. And so while I do think that an all-powerful God, like a constellation of trillions of supercomputers is capable of crunching all of these quasi-infinite, possibilities, even for merely the next millisecond, for actually quite tangible reasons, I don’t see God at all doing this. Instead I see Him more concerned about dealing with prophetically significant events, and that merely to deal with, if/when they actually do come, any attempt of the Devil to variously try to make of no effect a prophecy of God. So I see God expend much of His energy in setting out the wisest prophetical course, which, if followed it is sure to result in total victory by those who have walked in it.
{And, just in passing, another quite simple and possible development for all of this could instead have merely been that, as the books of Kings are reckoned to have been written sometime between 568-531 B.C., then its author, (or even a later scribe, as it was actually customary for them to sincerely do), writing completely after the prophecy and fulfillment facts, would have taken the parenthetical “liberty”, (which would actually not technically demarcationally show in the Hebrew text) to specify that the prophesied future king was: “..., (Josiah by name), ...”. But, the way that, as detailed above, God could variously easily have fulfilled that specific prophetic plan of His, does not necessitate such a unSpiritual/unTheological “higher criticism” take!}
* It would almost surely have to have been Josiah’s mother, “Jedidah” (2 Kgs 22:1), who would have been so stirred/inspired by God because Josiah’s father was the utterly wicked King Amon, and he was then in the midst of endeavoring to, and lead Israel to be/act, ‘more wickedly than even his predecessor/father King Manasseh and (so) also more than the surrounding pagan nation’ (2 Chr 33:9, 21-23)... hence why he was ‘righteously’ killed (2 Chr 33:24)....So, even if God would have gotten to him through a dream, Amon most likely would have deliberately acted to disregard/disobey that “recommendation” by God, especially if he knew/understand what it would mean/represent/prefigure...So, that ‘prophetic naming inspiration’ would have been merely via Josiah’s mother, given that the King/husband had strong authority then, she would then have had to do a great job to convince her husband Amon to go along with it...Of course, all of this is she was not consortingly also as wicked-minded as her husband...
...However if Jedidah was indeed instead God-uselessly wicked, an alternative (likely) “inspired-naming-agent” possibility would be the then repentful King Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather. Given that, as Biblical reckonings reveals, Josiah was born about 6 years before Manasseh died, -when Amon himself was (oddly enough) only 16 years old, and since Manasseh may have been restored to his kingdom at least six years before his death, it could have been that God would have spoken/acted through this repented/converted King Manasseh and he in turn would have persuaded his (young) son to name this newborn son “Josiah”.
** And relatedly, my personal view is that, later, in the midst of Baalic apostasy, Elijah’s parents would have likewise (seriously) “aspirationally” = “dedicatingly” named their child “Elijah” = “My God is Yahweh” (i.e., and not Baal), and would, ala. Pro 22:6, enjoiningly raise him to know and understand the meaning of his name in the face of ever deepening Baal apostasy, which all later psychologically led Elijah to readily follow through on that specific “dedication” and matching upbringing to take a stand for God, and actually himself pray for God to reform, and punish if necessary, His wayward people (PK 119.2 -see here).
Peter’s Denials Predictions
Also, “common-objections-wise”, related here, the citing of Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s, even, according to Mark’s (=Peter’s) recounting, most specific & precise, denials (Matt 26:31-35|Mar 14:27-31|Luke 22:31-34|John 13:36:38), is held up as a proof of Divine fore-knowledge...but Luke 22:31-32 clearly indicates that, manifestly as it was the case with Job, Satan had come to God to make this request to tempt/test Peter and God had granted him that request, and also, also like for Job’s permitted testing, God had manifestly set the testing limits here including at (up to) 3 temptations, [technically echoing the number of 3 (types of) temptations of Christ in the wilderness], and also, in keeping with the 1 Cor 10:12, 13 principles, and also for most objective conditions, manifestly before, and not after, Jesus had begun to be formally condemned, so that Peter then would not have an “excuse” to disassociate himself from some who was now judicially “criminally” condemned to be executed. Therefore, hence the thus easily achievable prediction of ‘before even the break of sunrise’ (=‘by some time in the midst of this night’) with God moreover being able to see that the already “dispatched” Judas (John 13:27) would be able to, if he had not concretely begun to do already, execute his strategically calculated covert middle of the night arrest, all in the hope of the concurring, but alternatively-minded, Jewish leaders, of a completed trial, condemnation if not also execution, before the earlierly jointly “Triumphally” acclaiming, people of, and Passover pilgrim visitors to, Jerusalem (DA 569.3) woke up.
So there is no requirement here for such “seeable” or seriously planned elements that the ‘future be known’ in order for Jesus to be able to have made that: “informed prognosis”.
Messianic Prophecies
Likewise people typically cite certain messianic prophecies as proof that God must know the very details of history, namely for the one in (1) Micah 5:2|Luke 2:1-6 and (2) Zech 11:12|Matt 26:15; 27:7-10. But most succinctly explained here:
(1) Micah 5:2 did not say nor mean that the Messiah would be physically born in Bethlehem, but actually, merely that he would be from Bethlehem. And so by being the descendant of King David who was from that small town, as well as with God having chosen Joseph to be the earthly father-figure for His Messiah who was both from the house of David and also from that small town (Luke 2:4), then thus was that prophecy inherently already guaranteed to be fulfilled. So that prophetic statement was really made to indicate the fact that the Messiah would (necessarily) be a descendant of King David (Luke 1:32). The fact that the census degree of Augustus made the 9-month pregnant Mary give birth to the Messiah right in Bethlehem is actually mere “icing on this cake”, and no doubt at the addedly facilitating orchestration, or really, as Roman Census were quite regularly scheduled, timely harmonizing/syncreticizing direction,of God.
(2) The 30 pieces of silver given for Jesus was merely the lowest deemed valuation/compensation, and as set in law (Exod 21:32), that could be given in regards to a person. (=Zech 11:12). And on top of this value being set in Israel Law of Moses which was not to be changed, thus enduringly set at that value, Israel’s economy itself did not use interest (e.g. Exod 22:25; Lev 25:36-37; Deut 23:19-20; cf. Psa 15:5 and so could not economically incorporate inflation in its calculations. And so the prices within Israel always remained the same as they always had been.)
Now the ensuing part about using that returned money to involve a potter (Zech 11:13|Matt 27:7-10) may seem to be “foreknowledge-wise” incontrovertible, but it may have been that a “potter institution” had been created in the Temple Service, where a potter was permanently hired to produce the various pottery needed to operate the Temple services, and paid very minimal wages. And upon his death, the subsequent hiring wages due to him were instead used to buy, at probably a conceding known reduced/token “charitable” price since it would be for a burial plot for strangers (Matt 26:15). For, if this Potter was indeed taken to be a full time temple worker, he was probably put in the same mere-subsistence remuneration category as all the Levites and so also had not inheritance (Deut 10:9), and thus was a pauper when he died, but likewise had to be socially taken care of, as with other socio-economically limited/marginalized in Israel (Deut 14:27-29). And there was probably a like-purposed, but separate: “Levites’ Field” in Israel to serve as the burial plot for the Levites. So with the Temple rulers seeing the returned money by Judas as “blood money”, they then effectively decided to “launder”it by using it in a charitable way, and so invest it, and that by immediately dispensing of it and not put it in the temple treasury, in their internally charitable “potter’s burial field” program, and probably with God then also “directing them” (cf. Matt 27:10) by enlighteningly making them think during their conferring that this was their best option; -all for God to likewise highlightingly “addedly facilitate” this prophetic fulfillment. But just paying a slaves compensation for Christ of 30 pieces of silver could have been enough to see a prophetic link to Zech 11:12.
(Relatedly, [contextually] see the middle paragraph of my response in this forum post [Since the Topix forum has been discontinued, it is now
reposted in this blog (in highlight) at the end of this note] in relation to Christ’s “inspiredly-informed, ‘prophetic “plan” (Zech 9:9) carrying out’ (=Isa 46:9-11), instruction” in Matt 21:3 on/for a tied up donkey and colt.)
Perfect example of how a deficient theology on this issue leads to all kinds of fallacious reasonings and conclusions is seen in the comically dissonant claims made here [56:51-59:10ff] in regards to the prophecy of Agabus in Acts 21:10-11, all in an (skewed) attempt to explain how Biblical/Prophetic Inspiration works, and then in turn (also skewedly) try to explain how the Inspiration of EGW worked, and give an “apology” for her unfulfilled prophecies. Therefore it is claimed that, as the transpiring of that prophecy in Acts 21:30-33, did not actually work out in all the, or the exact, details which Agabus had stated, then this was all only the prophet himself adding his own details as to how a supposedly merely “thought-inspiration” that ‘Paul would be captured in Jerusalem’ would be carry out. That can be applicable in some cases of Divine-to-human revelation, however it does not need to be the case in this one.
Succinctly said, the issue here is neatly resolved by the Biblical, prophecy-fulfilling, determinative elements (=Jer 18:1-10) inherently/always involved in this Biblical “Foreplanning” view. In this situation God had naturally/wisely expected, and thus “planned for”, that the Jews/Jewish leaders would indeed seek to end Paul ministering, perhaps having seen their already laid out plans, or even the simmering common intents of their hearts (cf. their ‘backgrounding’/precendencing justifying in Acts 21:27-29). It probably all had the same “intelligence” indicators of how those who had arrested and delivered Jesus (cf. John 11:53), and later His disciples felt. But in this case, they merely had in mind to indeed detain Paul and disposingly turn him over to Roman authorities. So as/since that was the prevailing feeling and plan, with nothing to indicate otherwise (cf. Isa 5:2,4), then God warned Paul through Agabus of this most likely scenario. But then, when the time came for them to act out their plans, they instead, and suddenly, began to act contrary to their own intents and even lawlessly and were instead seeking to themselves kill Saul. So it is then that God, not wanting Paul to be killed then, had/allowed the Roman authorities intervene, and they themselves arrested and bound Paul (probably for merely ‘Civil Disturbance’), and so that is how Agabus prophecy did not play out exactly as planned. I.e. because the Jews suddenly acted lawlessly...and so God correspondingly adapted His “prophetic plans” (cf. this principle in Jer 18:9-10).
So no need here to claim that it was the prophet adding his own ‘subjective detailing thoughts’ to relate a future-prophetic message from God.
It actually takes more/better faith to believe in a foreplanning God, who can and will injunctively act to have His prophetic plans fulfilled than it does to believe in the classical foreknowledge God who is said to ‘know from eternity all that will ever happen’. Really, the belief in that “foreknowledge God” actually passively comes more out of mere/base fear, since that future is supposedly set in stone and God already knows it, while belief in the foreplanning God involves people actively, even when applicable, fully cooperatively, trusting that God will do what He has planned to do. Frankly the “foreknowledge” view is akin to how stories/facts are elementarily-diluted for children’s sake, while the Foreplanning understanding is for the “Spiritually Mature” grown up, i.e., those who can handle it, because as Foreknowledge Theist inherently greatly fear, telling people the Theological Truth on this issue that the Future is not actually “known” by God can lead many, “non-born from above” (John 3:3ff), “grown up children” (1 SM 110.1), including from themselves, to no longer have faith in God. Which just proves that their entire faith in God is merely, basely based on “mere fear” and not confident trust! (Quite telling how “baby” converts to the SDA Church mostly “fearingly” do so due to copious exposure to prophetic presentations which are presented according to a “foreknowledge” prism, and not, nor ever, through the true/healthy facts of the Biblical Foreplanning understanding).
So no need here to claim that it was the prophet adding his own ‘subjective detailing thoughts’ to relate a future-prophetic message from God.
It actually takes more/better faith to believe in a foreplanning God, who can and will injunctively act to have His prophetic plans fulfilled than it does to believe in the classical foreknowledge God who is said to ‘know from eternity all that will ever happen’. Really, the belief in that “foreknowledge God” actually passively comes more out of mere/base fear, since that future is supposedly set in stone and God already knows it, while belief in the foreplanning God involves people actively, even when applicable, fully cooperatively, trusting that God will do what He has planned to do. Frankly the “foreknowledge” view is akin to how stories/facts are elementarily-diluted for children’s sake, while the Foreplanning understanding is for the “Spiritually Mature” grown up, i.e., those who can handle it, because as Foreknowledge Theist inherently greatly fear, telling people the Theological Truth on this issue that the Future is not actually “known” by God can lead many, “non-born from above” (John 3:3ff), “grown up children” (1 SM 110.1), including from themselves, to no longer have faith in God. Which just proves that their entire faith in God is merely, basely based on “mere fear” and not confident trust! (Quite telling how “baby” converts to the SDA Church mostly “fearingly” do so due to copious exposure to prophetic presentations which are presented according to a “foreknowledge” prism, and not, nor ever, through the true/healthy facts of the Biblical Foreplanning understanding).
TOPIX Forum repost [My comment/response is not in bold]
June 24, 2013
You still don't get it. Ernie asked God if He knew of anyone that would help him promote his dreams. God answered Shawn Boonstra. This is just another example of Ernie's god not thinking things through. Now compare Ernie's god to the God of the Bible.
Matthew 21
1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives,(C) Jesus sent two disciples,
2 saying to them,"Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me.
3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away."
Note that any Messianic pretender could have said these words but if two of Ernie's followers were sent to secure a colt but instead were arrested for theft, it would take an incredibly bold, self-deceived deceiver like you or Ernie Knoll to offer the excuse that prophecy is not meant to thwart individual free will.
June 24, 2013
[My Response]: No.... you just don't begin to get any Spiritual thing....including the Theological Issue of "God and the Future", and clearly, and most cognately so, not even Free Will*. The Bible is full of examples of man having frustrated God's expressed/express intentions and will, and causing Him to have to "change His mind": from the antedilluvians (Gen 6), to Israel (Exod 32|Num 14), to King Saul (1 Sam 15), to Solomon...and to First Century Jews in Matt 10:23... all = Jer 18:1-10!!
* http://njkproject.blogspot.com/2009/10/book-preview-god-all-mighty.html
What does the text, indeed Greek of Matt 21:3 say: "If..." (Gr. "ean" =conditional/possibility; - not "when.." and "says anything" not "says this specific thing...". And it so happened that someone did object by saying "something" and the disciples then answered what they had been told to say ‘"if" someone should, with "anything", object'! God certainly could "see" that tied up colt and easily communicate that fact to Christ....but the reaction of "anyone" was not , (the actually non-realistic) "seen in advance", thing. It was not a "prophecy" in any belief of that term...just an inspired instruction in case this questioning should arise.
In Knoll vs. Boonstra's case, -not even citing the possible fact that God may have seen that Boonstra may have been open or partial to Knoll indeed being inspired by God, Boonstra, certainly was, at the very least, in a position to help Knoll promote his dreams...and as, effectively, a "leading" SDA in his position at It Is Written, he thus should have known how to properly conduct prophetic testings which would have at the very least shown that Knoll was not in contradiction to the Bible and SOP. So just because people choose, of their own Free Will not to do something, it does not mean that it was a false prophecy. That is precisely all what the Matt 10:23 episode reveals!!*
[16] People who subscribingly “followed” that Facebook discussion will have had email copies of all of the posts which were made, and since “W Scott Taylor” deleted several (13) of his postings after the discussion ended (manifestly because, as my responses variously pointed out, they indeed clearly were: childishly moronic, substantively/exegetically/Biblically weak, and/or obfuscatingly tangential or completely irrelevant to the main discussion), but thus, slyly enough, no longer providing the validating flowing context for my responding, debunking, comments [with him here haywiringly acting like the child who thinks that if they close their eyes they won't crash into the tree; or the “monsters” will go away], you can download a PDF copy of my running word processor document of the entire discussion here. (Taylor’s comments are in bold and his post-discussion deleted comments are highlighted in yellow.*)
It is LOL ironically comical to see how Taylor kept trying to make a point about ‘the advantage of “age”’, (and also having a problem that I initially came up with this view straightly from the Bible, instead of reading the works of earlier and/or other people), but as the discussion continued, he was quite observably “regressingly” vexatiously acting more and more like a child. (Indeed most manifestly the reason why he deleted those increasingly “moronically” childish comments.) This all reminds me of the discussions Jesus would have with religious leaders during His ministry who chiefly just could not accept that He had come to a (superior) knowledge of the Scriptures without being subject to them, nor paying (deferential) homage to them and their “ancientness”. It is also tellingly comical how Taylor literally went from effectively crying “Hosanna” in his opening comments to me, to: ‘Crucifying that Beelzebub-False Messiah-Sinner’ by, and at, the end. All along the moronic character of the people in John 6 and during Passion Week, for they really were basely only looking for “loaves and fishes.” As Jesus counselled, ‘Do not stand up against a lawless/evil person’ (Matt 5:38-40), as Taylor chose to become when he just could not prove his objections, with his then resorting to, on top of his already, (and even worse, manifestly self-oblivious), patent line of condescending snarky snides and disparaging insinuations, completely baseless and untrue, thus, “actionably slanderous and libellous” statements. That’s just a, pride-based, psychological, spiritual, mental and also actionable case that I just don’t have time for. Indeed doing so will just be detrimentally wasteful/costly to, here, me.
[17] Theological|Biblical|Theodicy|Prophetic|Salvation “Science” (1 Cor 2:6-7, 9, 12-13ff; cf. 19MR 251.3) - Throughout that discussion I emphasized that though I subscribe to, as mentioned in the main blog post here, a view which is depicted as ‘God, as a All Wise Chess Master, playing a Grand Chess Match against the Devil, (which is along the line of what Open Theist are calling the Infinitely-Wise Chess Master (ICM) view), I do not see it as involving ‘God having precisely figured out what the future will be by having crunched out all of the myriads of possible scenarios’ because, if God is going to do this by respecting Free Will then that is realistically an impossibility. Through that way, God, at “realistic” best, could computationally “prognosticate” what the next millisecond of the future will be by having correctly “assumed” (cf. e.g. Isa 5:4; Jer 32:35; Gen 22:12; Jer 18:7-10) what the next action, even thought of, presently, over 7 billion on earth will be (i.e., based on the current thinking, existing trends and immediate tendencies of each and every individual person). Because, e.g., if a single individual (which indeed needs to include all of God’s creatures, thus also animals) was to freely decides instead to not “naturally”scratch their eye because of the spec of dust that (foreseeably by God) just blew into it, instead of doing so as God would have “naturally assumed”, then just that single incident would throw the entire “prognostication” off. And so while I do think that an all-powerful God, like a constellation of trillions of supercomputers is capable of crunching all of these quasi-infinite, possibilities, even for merely the next millisecond, for actually quite tangible reasons, I don’t see God at all doing this. Instead I see Him more concerned about dealing with prophetically significant events, and that merely to deal with, if/when they actually do come, any attempt of the Devil to variously try to make of no effect a prophecy of God. So I see God expend much of His energy in setting out the wisest prophetical course, which, if followed it is sure to result in total victory by those who have walked in it.
In regards to that ‘most tangible reason’ as to why I do not see God trying to figure out the future, not only would that be impossible in a Free-Will context, but indeed, for God to be able to accurately do this, He would have to be continually expending supernatural energy in order to force man, in every millisecond, to do and/or think exactly what he wants (=needs) them to do and/or think, so that His ‘precise future plan’ will not be thrown off. The Bible is clear, by many postponed and/or then failed prophecies that God, at even His own detriment, does not engage in forcing anyone to do His will. And here is where a crucial ‘needed energy’ factor comes in. (And fundamentally here, what is understood as a “super-natural” act is one which requires the expending of power and energy to variously overcome what was to naturally occur. An illustrating example is the thrust power and energy that is needed in order to cause a heavier-than-air craft to overcome gravity and sustainedly fly.)
First of all, foundationally here, as seen in Einstein’s mass-equivalence theory/formula E=mc2 discussed above, it is known/understood that all things which have mass, on at least this Earth, [i.e., as some heavenly things (cf. 1 Cor 2:9=Isa 64:4) , e.g., angels, in order to have the variousphysical entity qualities that they have, may actually be composed of massless, (yet still energy-containing), particles/materials (e.g., photons)], also have (atomic) energy, for, though it is not yet scientifically understood just how, it is from that (atomic) energy that mass exists through a conversion process. (As seen in nuclear fission, the converse that ‘(atomic) mass can be converted to (powerful) energy’ is already scientifically understood.). And, as stated above, I do not see God ever “magically” acting to do something, and it may very be the fact that He has always existed which indeed entitles Him to be God. However as, I understand it, just as, see here, there was a tangible need to incarnate God the Son from His inapproachable light/consuming fire form in order to both create all things and also to have a safe face to face interaction with those created beings, I now musingly also see that the fact that God “(now, alone) possesses immortality” is also through a ‘non-magical’ but tangible process which involves energy. In other words here, if God was to continually act to supernaturally intervene in the affairs of His Created Beings, such as Himself directly maintaining, replenishing and sustaining His Creation, and also, expending a greater dose of supernatural element/energy into the River of Life which flows from His throne which helps the Tree of Life produce its fruits which serve to perpetuate the life of His Created Beings, then that added dosage expending would eventually reach a level where the energy being expended by God would be at a faster rate than it is being replenished in/by Him, and thus would eventually cause the death of God. And it may very well be the tangible fact that when Jesus gave over His own Divine Energy first, in one incarnation, to Create all things, and then in a secondary incarnation to be able to give life to redeemed man, that energy was tangibly “stored” with/within God the Father for Him to use and dispense as the need is in those Creative and Redeeming processes. (cf. John 14:10-11 which also is referring to the ‘supernatural works’ that Christ had done.) And so it may pointedly be that ‘handed-over and banked energy of God the Son, that God the Father is working with, and not actually His own. And the whole economical usage and Divine risk actually lies in the fact that (1) God the Father needs to replenish that energy of Christ, perhaps with His own (intact or partially/momentarily affected) energy and/or (2) it would be catastrophic if the Divine Energy of God the Father came to ever be (over-extendedly, or outrightly) affected in all of these dealings.
I think that what took place in Eden and then on the Cross demonstrably corroborates this “economical usage and dispensing of Divine (=God the Son’s) Energy” understanding. First, in Eden, if sinful man was permitted to perpetually live, then not only would they require much greater dosages and supernatural intervention from God Himself in order to live perpetually despite variously destroying themselves, indeed probably constantly requiring outright resurrections, thus a recreation, from God because of having incurred death blows, but the sinfulness of likely many/most versus a faithful few would also require a constant expending of supernatural energy directly from God in order to protect them. The Cross also demonstrated this fact, which is that sinful man, if ever given the chance to live out the intents of their unrighteous hearts, would eventually, surely cause the death of God. And so the price of sin, being, as God presciently, ultimately understood to surely be, this “Death of God”, could indeed only be truly paid by paying that ultimate price of: “the Death of God”, which was indeed tangibly done by the (now better understood as) “Bestowal Sacrificing” of Christ’s Divine Nature on the Cross. (See in this post). Which is all what made this tangibly representative death of God the only demonstration which would validate the necessity of God giving a Law to His Created Beings. I.e., in order to avoid God dying, and thus every one else, then His Law must be lovingly obeyed...-(yet He has still allowed the Freedom to do so or not, but also has exercised the judgement right to defend those who, out of a love of God, (since it would ultimately tangibly preserve Him...or at least, His loving ideal for His Universe), and others (Matt 22:34-40), want to do so, and thus actually preserve specific and general life; -and that is all what Satan rebelled against, and, perhaps then unwittingly, claimed that God was egoistical and authoritarianly selfish. (e.g., PP 42.1)). So it is really both because God has always existed, i.e., He was not created, and has remained sinless, that He alone has the right to possess immortality. And that is why He allows His creation to (manifestly periodically) review Him, particularly/pointed/indicatively His actions/judgements (e.g., Rev 15:3-4, the Investigative Judgement) as these are all reflective of what is truly in God’s heart. And this reviewing is indeed periodically done because all of the pertinent and contextualizing/explaining facts/details/developments first need to be all available. And it is, without failure, then most objectively and factually hailed that God does indeed has the right to solely possess this immortality capability, -and particularly because of God’s unsurpassable Righteous Wisdom, closely tied and derived from, as with ‘aged (=experienced/more informed) people’s wisdom’, His status as the (Eternal) “Ancient of Days” (Dan 7:9, 13, 22). And that is why Satan tried to challenge His right to that throne pointedly on such issues of “wisdom” (=PP 36.1; -indeed “wisdom” on how this Creation/World should be ordained to conduct itself as emblematically demonstratedly related in Isa 14:15-20; cf. Ezek 28:17-19). [In fact, I relatedly Biblically see that a main, seamlessly intertwined reason as to why God remains sinless is also because of the great vital responsibility He has towards all of His Creation (cf. John 17:19), which He, most determinatively, Lovingly wants to maximumly see through and provide for, which in turn is why, as discussed in this post, self-sacrificially doing good for, especially others who are in need, is similarly a seamlessly intertwined in what fully constitutes as His Perfect Righteousness. (=Matt 25:31-46)].
First of all, foundationally here, as seen in Einstein’s mass-equivalence theory/formula E=mc2 discussed above, it is known/understood that all things which have mass, on at least this Earth, [i.e., as some heavenly things (cf. 1 Cor 2:9=Isa 64:4) , e.g., angels, in order to have the various
I think that what took place in Eden and then on the Cross demonstrably corroborates this “economical usage and dispensing of Divine (=God the Son’s) Energy” understanding. First, in Eden, if sinful man was permitted to perpetually live, then not only would they require much greater dosages and supernatural intervention from God Himself in order to live perpetually despite variously destroying themselves, indeed probably constantly requiring outright resurrections, thus a recreation, from God because of having incurred death blows, but the sinfulness of likely many/most versus a faithful few would also require a constant expending of supernatural energy directly from God in order to protect them. The Cross also demonstrated this fact, which is that sinful man, if ever given the chance to live out the intents of their unrighteous hearts, would eventually, surely cause the death of God. And so the price of sin, being, as God presciently, ultimately understood to surely be, this “Death of God”, could indeed only be truly paid by paying that ultimate price of: “the Death of God”, which was indeed tangibly done by the (now better understood as) “Bestowal Sacrificing” of Christ’s Divine Nature on the Cross. (See in this post). Which is all what made this tangibly representative death of God the only demonstration which would validate the necessity of God giving a Law to His Created Beings. I.e., in order to avoid God dying, and thus every one else, then His Law must be lovingly obeyed...-(yet He has still allowed the Freedom to do so or not, but also has exercised the judgement right to defend those who, out of a love of God, (since it would ultimately tangibly preserve Him...or at least, His loving ideal for His Universe), and others (Matt 22:34-40), want to do so, and thus actually preserve specific and general life; -and that is all what Satan rebelled against, and, perhaps then unwittingly, claimed that God was egoistical and authoritarianly selfish. (e.g., PP 42.1)). So it is really both because God has always existed, i.e., He was not created, and has remained sinless, that He alone has the right to possess immortality. And that is why He allows His creation to (manifestly periodically) review Him, particularly/pointed/indicatively His actions/judgements (e.g., Rev 15:3-4, the Investigative Judgement) as these are all reflective of what is truly in God’s heart. And this reviewing is indeed periodically done because all of the pertinent and contextualizing/explaining facts/details/developments first need to be all available. And it is, without failure, then most objectively and factually hailed that God does indeed has the right to solely possess this immortality capability, -and particularly because of God’s unsurpassable Righteous Wisdom, closely tied and derived from, as with ‘aged (=experienced/more informed) people’s wisdom’, His status as the (Eternal) “Ancient of Days” (Dan 7:9, 13, 22). And that is why Satan tried to challenge His right to that throne pointedly on such issues of “wisdom” (=PP 36.1; -indeed “wisdom” on how this Creation/World should be ordained to conduct itself as emblematically demonstratedly related in Isa 14:15-20; cf. Ezek 28:17-19). [In fact, I relatedly Biblically see that a main, seamlessly intertwined reason as to why God remains sinless is also because of the great vital responsibility He has towards all of His Creation (cf. John 17:19), which He, most determinatively, Lovingly wants to maximumly see through and provide for, which in turn is why, as discussed in this post, self-sacrificially doing good for, especially others who are in need, is similarly a seamlessly intertwined in what fully constitutes as His Perfect Righteousness. (=Matt 25:31-46)].
I would most graspingly/approximatingly compare this ‘energy replenishing of God’s Immortality’ with a nuclear chain reaction. Indeed just like the Sun, which is composed of this nuclear process, the resulting product is fire and light, (=God’s Consuming Fire and Unapproachable Light). And so if any sinful being which is not specially outfitted to contain this great process will be consumed just as a human exposed to large doses of nuclear radiation will die. To see God’s Face is to be nakedly exposed to that “atomic” radiance. (It also involves understanding “how God Works/Lives” which then opens up the possibility that man may then endeavor to kill God, and thus, in turn, all of His righteous Creatures, and so for that reason, a sinful person cannot be permitted to live if they have tangibly/concretely seen/understood this. Indeed, as demonstrated with Israel’s priest by them being sinful in this direct presence, or, particularly, high-handedly sinning after having seen this light and/or against such light, is self-evidently indicatively representative of ‘man willing to endeavor to kill God’. [That is also why God dealt more severely and swiftly in judgement with “righteous” people than with non righteous ones. (E.g., a person in Assyria can commit adultery and live a full life, but in Israel, they had to be immediately put to death.)] And so it is actually out of self-defense that God must have such ‘knowing, deliberate and Spiritually informed transgressors killed first, and that merely, as the Cross demonstrated, for the good and life of other righteous ones). (And yet, as stated here, God manifestly can at will choose whether or not to destroy a sinful creature/man who has either seen or understood this to any certain degree, and the reason manifestly is, if that sinful individual actually also has an intent to “kill God”. In other words, just as, as stated here, it was not all of Israel’s sins which carried the death penalty, but only highhanded ones, God will first determine if a recurring sinner who had seen or understood ‘how He works/lives’ actually sinned in pointed indifference, even assault, of this intrinsically implicated ‘survival/life of God’ issue in sin.) [It can also be addedly understood here, that, just as Moses’s face when coming down from Sinai radiated a paining light to others around him (Exod 34:29-35), it is most likely the case that all of God’s glory emanates solely from His (solely) uncovered face. Which is why Moses was priorly perfectly capable of looking upon God’s back but not God’s face. (Exod 33:20-23)]
Yet, just like a nuclear reaction process will eventually burn out all of its self-contained energy and no longer produce its light or energy, indeed even a Sun/Star will eventually naturally die out, (which may explain the cosmic phenomena just being observed by astronomists that some planets (perhaps also larger galaxies) have two suns, thus manifestly God having created another sun to seamlessly take the place of the initial one when it burns out), in a similar way, for God to maintain His immortality, it must be sufficiently self replenished. But if He was to have to dispense of ever increasing larger amounts of that energy in order to variously supernaturally fix the various damages that perpetuated sin and sinners are doing on His Creation, then that would end up vitally costing Him, indeed as the Cross demonstrated. And so that is why I see God literally pacing Himself in regards to supernatural interventions, and even taking actions to pre-emptively end a certain course which would necessitate great supernatural intervention, chiefly the perpetual life of sinful minded man. That “pacing” necessity would also explain why God does not supernaturally intervene in every possible situation, i.e., those involving His righteous ones. And so not everyone is miraculously cured of a disease, or even miraculously delivered. Perhaps, the fact that ministering and intervening angels have to be invisible on this sinful Earth whereas before sin they didn’t have to, itself may require a great amount of special, supernatural “cloaking-ability” energy from God, yet as, as seen with Balaam (Num 22:31), Elisha’s servant (2 Kgs 6:17) and others, and as with certain animals’ special ability to hear the high frequency of ultrasound, it may simply involve them remaining in a “glory-less”, and thus hidden, visual dimension that man’s sight sense cannot “naturally” see.
Yet, just like a nuclear reaction process will eventually burn out all of its self-contained energy and no longer produce its light or energy, indeed even a Sun/Star will eventually naturally die out, (which may explain the cosmic phenomena just being observed by astronomists that some planets (perhaps also larger galaxies) have two suns, thus manifestly God having created another sun to seamlessly take the place of the initial one when it burns out), in a similar way, for God to maintain His immortality, it must be sufficiently self replenished. But if He was to have to dispense of ever increasing larger amounts of that energy in order to variously supernaturally fix the various damages that perpetuated sin and sinners are doing on His Creation, then that would end up vitally costing Him, indeed as the Cross demonstrated. And so that is why I see God literally pacing Himself in regards to supernatural interventions, and even taking actions to pre-emptively end a certain course which would necessitate great supernatural intervention, chiefly the perpetual life of sinful minded man. That “pacing” necessity would also explain why God does not supernaturally intervene in every possible situation, i.e., those involving His righteous ones. And so not everyone is miraculously cured of a disease, or even miraculously delivered. Perhaps, the fact that ministering and intervening angels have to be invisible on this sinful Earth whereas before sin they didn’t have to, itself may require a great amount of special, supernatural “cloaking-ability” energy from God, yet as, as seen with Balaam (Num 22:31), Elisha’s servant (2 Kgs 6:17) and others, and as with certain animals’ special ability to hear the high frequency of ultrasound, it may simply involve them remaining in a “glory-less”, and thus hidden, visual dimension that man’s sight sense cannot “naturally” see.
These understandings comes to explain the Theological issue, [which SDA preacher Kameron DeVasher, (see in here) has termed ‘the 33-22 paradox’ (=Exod 33 vs. Rev 22 paradox)] where in Exod 33:20 God says that ‘no man can see His face and live’ (cf. EW 54.2), but in Rev 22:4 God says ‘man will see His face.’ Of course the basic answer here is that redeemed man then will be sinless. As Rev 22:4 fully says: ‘they will also have the name (=character) of God on their forehead (=mentality/mind). (cf. Matt 5:8). So for that reason they will be able to see God’s face, (albeit, as discussed later, merely in terms of ‘a clearer “perception”’), but the deeper, in turn, theological, and then tangible, implications here is that, as “(perceivingly) seeing God’s face” involves more clearly and fully “identifying” and “reading” Him; (=understanding better who He is, and also how He works), then God can only trust truly redeemed people with the revealing of that deeper mystery/secret, as He will trust that they will then not sinfully act and cause Him to have to kill them. For sinful man, no matter how (relatively) good they may be, that trust is defaultly not existence, having been lost at, and since, the Fall of Adam and Eve. And then, on a more tangible level, for God does everything out of a tangible reality/necessity, if/since as posited above, God’s glory involves an atomic radiance, which, if one is not properly, protectively outfitted, as e.g., Seraphim are (Isa 6:2), then they’ll instantly ‘burn up’ as the word “seraphim” involves (i.e., ‘the [liable to] burn ones’); -{Biblically corroborative, in an Ernie Knoll dream (#66), Seraphim are said to ‘be as if they are comprised of fire-like “pure energy”’; which thus would involve them ‘fighting/withstanding (God’s) glory/energy/fire with (God’s) glory/energy/fire’!}); then it may be that, God would need to expend supernatural energy to allow man to enter into the immediate presence of His glorious radiance and not be consumed. And given the above posited ‘limited-unless-constantly-self-renewed energy of God’ understanding above, that is an added ‘accommodating expense’ that God is not willing to make, and that out of tangible/vital necessity, on/for man if He has no full assurance that this will not be a wasted dispensing...i.e., man is then either sinful, and thus at innate enmity against a perfect God, or they are likely to later sin, and thus will require to be destroyed, -as expending supernatural energy in prolonging their life will not be a worthwhile investment.
Relatedly, I Theologically, “revisionally” perceive that Satan, during his rebellion, actually had come to understand all of this with God, and then knowingly decided to still pursue his course, -all the while despisingly disregarding God’s “olive branch” offers of forgiveness and restoration. Rather, Satan would have from then on, yet through carefully masked actions, indeed sought to cause the “(literal) death of God”. And Satan, for “truth or dare type”: ‘“black-mailing” or deception’ purposes, probably preyed on the fact that, for actually their own good, God was not revealing this fact/truth to all of His Created Beings, even from this deriving his false accusation that God was really only egoistically looking out for Himself and His position of Power. (And as a Covering Cherub, and thus an Angel of the Presence of God, (though perhaps not permitted to see God the Father face to face as Michael/Jesus, though then in Mighty Angel form, was Himself of Divine “stock” (cf. Phil 2:5-8) was (capable of) doing), Satan may have been in a position to most readily perceive this about God.) And Satan’s later causing of man to sin was also an extension of that plan for He expected that God would somehow supernaturally act to save man from either the consequences of their sinful lives which also included “wastefully” and compoundingly, detrimentally, tangible sponsoring a perpetual life for the sure many sinful humans that would live. So that is most tangibly all how he was “charged” as a “murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), indeed a calculatingly and schemingly, murderer of God, which Jesus submissively actually incontrovertibly “proved” for the entire universe to see, and first learn of/understand, (including the angels that had, albeit deceivedly, followed Satan in His rebellion), at the Cross. And as Jesus pertinently expounded in Matt 5:21-22, this was all borne out of Satan being angry and then hating pointedly Michael/Jesus ‘without a cause’ (KJV), as Satan had actually come to long understand (PP 39.1ff). And that is all recurringly why Jesus similarly “charged” the Jewish leaders of His day, for they too, just like Satan, were obstinately angry and hateful towards Him, knowingly, or knowably, without cause. (John 8:12ff -Indeed this was all on the heels of, in direct response to, them having just manifested their now purely lawless and snaringly fabricated murderous attempt against Him with the woman caught in adultery episode (John 8:1-11|DA 460.5)).
Along this line, an additional light/perspective can be seen in the commonly asked question as to why did God permit Sin/the Great Controversy. Of course the “pat” answer (SOP = PP 33.1-43.1) was that ‘if God had immediately destroyed either Satan, or later, sinful man, then the rest of creation would not know/understand that this was the most just thing to do.’ (Cf. DA 758.3ff) However, I have a problem with that view in itself, because to me it implies that the heavenly intelligence is not too bright. I.e., they can only believe something if they see it for themselves. It would seem to me that if God had most detailedly explained all of the ramifications of sin and the inevitable death end that it will have that they could have understood. I mean, I do not have to make a child or his favorite pet, drink poison to understand that it will kill them if they drink it. The only logical/rational understanding that I now have as to why God permitted Sin/the GC to fully develop was not merely because ‘even the angels would not otherwise understand’, but that there was something involved in all of this that He, for the very good of them, could not tell them. And that concealed thing/truth was, as discussed here, how He actually lived Eternally. It seems that of all of the heavenly beings, only the 7 Mighty Angels (=Cherubs) were ever permitted to get close enough to God to ever perceive this. The Seraphim, who are representative of the angels, seem to also have access to that level of access to God. However, as Covering Cherubs, only Michael (God the Son, Jesus) and back then, “Lucifer”, could get even closer to God to possibly know this as a fact, yet it seems that Michael, who had even closer access to God the Father, had the most factual knowledge of this. And, along the line of what has been stated above, the reason why God only let Michael (Jesus) know this as a fact was the inherent liability that this immediately brought. Any being who knew of “How God Works” i.e., how it is that He Himself lives eternally, would have to be, defensively, immediately put to death if they ever rebelled against Him. So for their own good, He did not allow any of them to factually know this, and for “Lucifer”, that came to pay off for him because, that is how God did not immediately destroy him the instant that ‘iniquity was born in his heart’ (Ezek 28:15). Interestingly enough, in Matt 18:10, Jesus specifically/distinctly/pointedly said that: angels [of here little children, -thus ‘common (vs. Mighty) angels’] (continually) perceive (Gr. horao #3708) [vs. “see” (Gr. blepo #991)] the face of God in heaven.’ Horao involves ‘seeing (and thus comprehending) something through some degree of perception’ while blepo involves ‘tangibly seeing something as it is’. So Jesus is actually really saying that (those) angels are (at least then) not seeing the very face of God, but merely perceptively so. They probably only see the “face/front side” of His glory (vs. only the back -Exod 33:20), but only a select can get closer, namely 7 Mighty Angels who are permitted to enter into that “inapproachable light”, and then the two covering cherubs, with God the Son as Michael then actually seeing the Father’s unconcealed face. (And in several other instances where the LXX uses the word horao in regards to “perceiving God” (Gen 16:13; 32:30; Exod 24:10-11; Num 12:8; Jdg 6:22; 13:22), the people involved did not actually directly/clearly see God the Father, if even Himself, then.) Interestingly enough, Rev 22:4 merely says that ‘man will be able to “perceive” (Gr. horao) God’s face then’. And, exegetically indicative enough, this type of “perceive” is furthermore more ideologically-derived than ‘“perceivingly known” through concrete observation’ as connoted by the related Greek word oida #3609a, (-a distinct/specific term that is, theologically significantly, used in Matt 24:36 to (also) speak of God the Father’s “perception” of when the “day and hour” of the end will be, i.e., upon a ‘concrete observation of all pertinent present advancements/developments at that then actually transpiring period of time’ =EW 14.1|272.3|34.1/285.2), which however itself is not outright/independent understanding/knowledge (=ginosko #1097). Perhaps the specific technicalities of how God’s works is something that His creation is best to never know as a fact, and all so that God could justly exercise mercy towards them, as He initially granted “Lucifer”, if they ever sinned. In fact, as seen in Biblical episodes, God can get quite upset if He is doubted/second guessed question when that person actually has an already clear enough indication of what God can and will do. (E.g, Exod 4:10-14a; cf. Gen 18:22-32; Judg 6:39), and, as it has been said, while questioning God, as “Lucifer” did, is not a sin per se, especially not a capital sin, doing so when one already has a clear, concrete and complete knowledge of God probably is, even capitally so. And so for the blended fundamental reasons of mercy and justice, with the merciful part being in regards to be able to forgive a created being who would question Him because they do not have this full knowledge, but also because, a free moral agents, His Creation can choose to sin, God has decided to never full allow any of His Creation to see His face. “Lucifer”, after first becoming jealous that Michael had greater access to God than He did, manifestly “merely perceivingly understood this “dilemma of God” and sought to quasi-blackmailingly exploit this to make claims that God was being arbitrary, dictatorial and also really could never be merciful, and was thus trying to “smoke out” God to fully reveal this and the reasons of His partial concealment to His beings, and when that did not work, he then came to see an opportunity to murder God and now plunged head long into his rebellion. And that is why “war” was justified as the best option to decide things here, because either way, many lives were at risk. Of course, to be successful here, Satan could not ever fully reveal this to the other angels or else they would probably instantly have sympathy for God, but, then forced to confirm this, that would then make them serve God merely out of an actual fear that should they ever sin, then God would have to justly, capitally deal with them, instead of possibly granting them any mercy. And, in God’s concealment-borne provision, even a partly-knowing and calculated rebellion like Satan’s could be fully forgiven. Yet if Satan was merely acting upon surface/emotional sentiments in his rebellion, (all initiated from, and revolving around, an ‘unreasoned anger’ [=murderous hatred -Matt 5:21-22a; John 8:44] towards the (for a while unknown (PP 36.2ff)) God that he could clearly see, Michael/Jesus), this all may be a level of implication in this GC that had then not yet even been seen to be applicable (cf. DA 761.3), but now, as this topic is studied in greater depth, and that through the light of what was revealed at/by the Cross, it has come to be understood. All part of the (exegetically gleaned) GC 3.0 level!
Indeed/In fact, a main reason why God may have not immediately punished Satan with death for effectively seeking to kill God, is that Satan then ‘did not pointedly know what he was doing’ (cf. Luke 23:34a. However by the time leading up to, and at, the Cross, Satan fully ‘knew what he was doing’. Hence the sealing of his final fate then (Luke 10:18 = Second Application of Rev 12:9), indeed with Satan in the pivotal episode in Luke 10 having just managed to successfully influence the officially/binding rejection of Jesus by the Jewish Nation, thus sealing Christ’s Cross fate (see here). Similarly, by 34 A.D. the Jewish leaders themselves more than less ‘knew what they were doing’ (cf. omission in Acts 7:60), hence the “sealing” (Dan 9:24b) ending of the prophetic probationary period of the 70 Weeks then. And the Divinely Just reason why God has, and will, allow the Devil to become the ‘longest living sinner’ is because his punishment will be the greatest/severest/longest (GC 627.2 & 673.1).
So God is instead needfully pacing Himself with supernatural energy expenditures, and is manifestly also “saving up” any expendable energy that He is having, in order to be able to expend it at a most crucial time, e.g., to help supernaturally protect and deliver His most faithful ones during the Final Conflict. And in an interrelated way, martyrs who faithfully accept to die for the cause of God, not only spiritually set a righteous and strengthening example for others to similarly live up to if applicable, but tangibly, as discussed next, allow God to not have to expend supernatural/miraculous energy in their behalf to then mercifully spare and prolong their lives because they then would genuinely not be able to bear such a trial (cf. LDE 255.2-3). And so they thus grant God an opportunity to be able to “bank” this miraculous energy in order to be able to expend on others who may honestly need such, or various other (e.g., for an accident or terminal illness) a premature life ending intervention. So, like Christ, their martyrdom does tangibly provide ‘life for their friends/other “baby Christians”, (or even: not-yet-Christians), who genuinely want, and are striving, to do God’s will (John 15:13-14) - which is actually “added time” for them to better shape/grow/develop/strengthen their (spiritual) psyche.’ And that is why they get a martyr’s reward.
Relatedly, also on this tangible/substantive reality, it may very well be that, in order not to draw from the energy that would be available to create other worlds and other human beings on those worlds, that the only way such added energy could be found in order to give life again to fallen man on this planet was in Jesus offering to give it by being further incarnated from His Mighty Angel form while in Heaven to then that of a mere human being. So that would tangibly be how life for the sinner is only available through Jesus Christ, -because He has sacrificially, tangibly made the necessary energy, which only God possesses, available for them. (And this gives the underlying tangible reasons why Jesus is to be worshipped as Creator and Redeemer because He has most tangibly provided the “energy” means by which this all could be effective/done.) And while what transpired on the Cross would serve as a tangible demonstration to all of the Universe that Sin will kill God if He chooses to not punish the sinner, it also served, for those who would accept that sacrifice by faith, as a most tangible way of indicating who really has faith in it/Christ. And of course, as the Full Gospel message teaches, this belief cannot be mixed in with a life that transgresses the letter or spirit of the law of God, for this “new life energy” provision of Christ’s sacrifice then cannot be granted to such a persisting law breaker.
Relatedly, I Theologically, “revisionally” perceive that Satan, during his rebellion, actually had come to understand all of this with God, and then knowingly decided to still pursue his course, -all the while despisingly disregarding God’s “olive branch” offers of forgiveness and restoration. Rather, Satan would have from then on, yet through carefully masked actions, indeed sought to cause the “(literal) death of God”. And Satan, for “truth or dare type”: ‘“black-mailing” or deception’ purposes, probably preyed on the fact that, for actually their own good, God was not revealing this fact/truth to all of His Created Beings, even from this deriving his false accusation that God was really only egoistically looking out for Himself and His position of Power. (And as a Covering Cherub, and thus an Angel of the Presence of God, (though perhaps not permitted to see God the Father face to face as Michael/Jesus, though then in Mighty Angel form, was Himself of Divine “stock” (cf. Phil 2:5-8) was (capable of) doing), Satan may have been in a position to most readily perceive this about God.) And Satan’s later causing of man to sin was also an extension of that plan for He expected that God would somehow supernaturally act to save man from either the consequences of their sinful lives which also included “wastefully” and compoundingly, detrimentally, tangible sponsoring a perpetual life for the sure many sinful humans that would live. So that is most tangibly all how he was “charged” as a “murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), indeed a calculatingly and schemingly, murderer of God, which Jesus submissively actually incontrovertibly “proved” for the entire universe to see, and first learn of/understand, (including the angels that had, albeit deceivedly, followed Satan in His rebellion), at the Cross. And as Jesus pertinently expounded in Matt 5:21-22, this was all borne out of Satan being angry and then hating pointedly Michael/Jesus ‘without a cause’ (KJV), as Satan had actually come to long understand (PP 39.1ff). And that is all recurringly why Jesus similarly “charged” the Jewish leaders of His day, for they too, just like Satan, were obstinately angry and hateful towards Him, knowingly, or knowably, without cause. (John 8:12ff -Indeed this was all on the heels of, in direct response to, them having just manifested their now purely lawless and snaringly fabricated murderous attempt against Him with the woman caught in adultery episode (John 8:1-11|DA 460.5)).
Along this line, an additional light/perspective can be seen in the commonly asked question as to why did God permit Sin/the Great Controversy. Of course the “pat” answer (SOP = PP 33.1-43.1) was that ‘if God had immediately destroyed either Satan, or later, sinful man, then the rest of creation would not know/understand that this was the most just thing to do.’ (Cf. DA 758.3ff) However, I have a problem with that view in itself, because to me it implies that the heavenly intelligence is not too bright. I.e., they can only believe something if they see it for themselves. It would seem to me that if God had most detailedly explained all of the ramifications of sin and the inevitable death end that it will have that they could have understood. I mean, I do not have to make a child or his favorite pet, drink poison to understand that it will kill them if they drink it. The only logical/rational understanding that I now have as to why God permitted Sin/the GC to fully develop was not merely because ‘even the angels would not otherwise understand’, but that there was something involved in all of this that He, for the very good of them, could not tell them. And that concealed thing/truth was, as discussed here, how He actually lived Eternally. It seems that of all of the heavenly beings, only the 7 Mighty Angels (=Cherubs) were ever permitted to get close enough to God to ever perceive this. The Seraphim, who are representative of the angels, seem to also have access to that level of access to God. However, as Covering Cherubs, only Michael (God the Son, Jesus) and back then, “Lucifer”, could get even closer to God to possibly know this as a fact, yet it seems that Michael, who had even closer access to God the Father, had the most factual knowledge of this. And, along the line of what has been stated above, the reason why God only let Michael (Jesus) know this as a fact was the inherent liability that this immediately brought. Any being who knew of “How God Works” i.e., how it is that He Himself lives eternally, would have to be, defensively, immediately put to death if they ever rebelled against Him. So for their own good, He did not allow any of them to factually know this, and for “Lucifer”, that came to pay off for him because, that is how God did not immediately destroy him the instant that ‘iniquity was born in his heart’ (Ezek 28:15). Interestingly enough, in Matt 18:10, Jesus specifically/distinctly/pointedly said that: angels [of here little children, -thus ‘common (vs. Mighty) angels’] (continually) perceive (Gr. horao #3708) [vs. “see” (Gr. blepo #991)] the face of God in heaven.’ Horao involves ‘seeing (and thus comprehending) something through some degree of perception’ while blepo involves ‘tangibly seeing something as it is’. So Jesus is actually really saying that (those) angels are (at least then) not seeing the very face of God, but merely perceptively so. They probably only see the “face/front side” of His glory (vs. only the back -Exod 33:20), but only a select can get closer, namely 7 Mighty Angels who are permitted to enter into that “inapproachable light”, and then the two covering cherubs, with God the Son as Michael then actually seeing the Father’s unconcealed face. (And in several other instances where the LXX uses the word horao in regards to “perceiving God” (Gen 16:13; 32:30; Exod 24:10-11; Num 12:8; Jdg 6:22; 13:22), the people involved did not actually directly/clearly see God the Father, if even Himself, then.) Interestingly enough, Rev 22:4 merely says that ‘man will be able to “perceive” (Gr. horao) God’s face then’. And, exegetically indicative enough, this type of “perceive” is furthermore more ideologically-derived than ‘“perceivingly known” through concrete observation’ as connoted by the related Greek word oida #3609a, (-a distinct/specific term that is, theologically significantly, used in Matt 24:36 to (also) speak of God the Father’s “perception” of when the “day and hour” of the end will be, i.e., upon a ‘concrete observation of all pertinent present advancements/developments at that then actually transpiring period of time’ =EW 14.1|272.3|34.1/285.2), which however itself is not outright/independent understanding/knowledge (=ginosko #1097). Perhaps the specific technicalities of how God’s works is something that His creation is best to never know as a fact, and all so that God could justly exercise mercy towards them, as He initially granted “Lucifer”, if they ever sinned. In fact, as seen in Biblical episodes, God can get quite upset if He is doubted/second guessed question when that person actually has an already clear enough indication of what God can and will do. (E.g, Exod 4:10-14a; cf. Gen 18:22-32; Judg 6:39), and, as it has been said, while questioning God, as “Lucifer” did, is not a sin per se, especially not a capital sin, doing so when one already has a clear, concrete and complete knowledge of God probably is, even capitally so. And so for the blended fundamental reasons of mercy and justice, with the merciful part being in regards to be able to forgive a created being who would question Him because they do not have this full knowledge, but also because, a free moral agents, His Creation can choose to sin, God has decided to never full allow any of His Creation to see His face. “Lucifer”, after first becoming jealous that Michael had greater access to God than He did, manifestly “merely perceivingly understood this “dilemma of God” and sought to quasi-blackmailingly exploit this to make claims that God was being arbitrary, dictatorial and also really could never be merciful, and was thus trying to “smoke out” God to fully reveal this and the reasons of His partial concealment to His beings, and when that did not work, he then came to see an opportunity to murder God and now plunged head long into his rebellion. And that is why “war” was justified as the best option to decide things here, because either way, many lives were at risk. Of course, to be successful here, Satan could not ever fully reveal this to the other angels or else they would probably instantly have sympathy for God, but, then forced to confirm this, that would then make them serve God merely out of an actual fear that should they ever sin, then God would have to justly, capitally deal with them, instead of possibly granting them any mercy. And, in God’s concealment-borne provision, even a partly-knowing and calculated rebellion like Satan’s could be fully forgiven. Yet if Satan was merely acting upon surface/emotional sentiments in his rebellion, (all initiated from, and revolving around, an ‘unreasoned anger’ [=murderous hatred -Matt 5:21-22a; John 8:44] towards the (for a while unknown (PP 36.2ff)) God that he could clearly see, Michael/Jesus), this all may be a level of implication in this GC that had then not yet even been seen to be applicable (cf. DA 761.3), but now, as this topic is studied in greater depth, and that through the light of what was revealed at/by the Cross, it has come to be understood. All part of the (exegetically gleaned) GC 3.0 level!
Indeed/In fact, a main reason why God may have not immediately punished Satan with death for effectively seeking to kill God, is that Satan then ‘did not pointedly know what he was doing’ (cf. Luke 23:34a. However by the time leading up to, and at, the Cross, Satan fully ‘knew what he was doing’. Hence the sealing of his final fate then (Luke 10:18 = Second Application of Rev 12:9), indeed with Satan in the pivotal episode in Luke 10 having just managed to successfully influence the officially/binding rejection of Jesus by the Jewish Nation, thus sealing Christ’s Cross fate (see here). Similarly, by 34 A.D. the Jewish leaders themselves more than less ‘knew what they were doing’ (cf. omission in Acts 7:60), hence the “sealing” (Dan 9:24b) ending of the prophetic probationary period of the 70 Weeks then. And the Divinely Just reason why God has, and will, allow the Devil to become the ‘longest living sinner’ is because his punishment will be the greatest/severest/longest (GC 627.2 & 673.1).
So God is instead needfully pacing Himself with supernatural energy expenditures, and is manifestly also “saving up” any expendable energy that He is having, in order to be able to expend it at a most crucial time, e.g., to help supernaturally protect and deliver His most faithful ones during the Final Conflict. And in an interrelated way, martyrs who faithfully accept to die for the cause of God, not only spiritually set a righteous and strengthening example for others to similarly live up to if applicable, but tangibly, as discussed next, allow God to not have to expend supernatural/miraculous energy in their behalf to then mercifully spare and prolong their lives because they then would genuinely not be able to bear such a trial (cf. LDE 255.2-3). And so they thus grant God an opportunity to be able to “bank” this miraculous energy in order to be able to expend on others who may honestly need such, or various other (e.g., for an accident or terminal illness) a premature life ending intervention. So, like Christ, their martyrdom does tangibly provide ‘life for their friends/other “baby Christians”, (or even: not-yet-Christians), who genuinely want, and are striving, to do God’s will (John 15:13-14) - which is actually “added time” for them to better shape/grow/develop/strengthen their (spiritual) psyche.’ And that is why they get a martyr’s reward.
Relatedly, also on this tangible/substantive reality, it may very well be that, in order not to draw from the energy that would be available to create other worlds and other human beings on those worlds, that the only way such added energy could be found in order to give life again to fallen man on this planet was in Jesus offering to give it by being further incarnated from His Mighty Angel form while in Heaven to then that of a mere human being. So that would tangibly be how life for the sinner is only available through Jesus Christ, -because He has sacrificially, tangibly made the necessary energy, which only God possesses, available for them. (And this gives the underlying tangible reasons why Jesus is to be worshipped as Creator and Redeemer because He has most tangibly provided the “energy” means by which this all could be effective/done.) And while what transpired on the Cross would serve as a tangible demonstration to all of the Universe that Sin will kill God if He chooses to not punish the sinner, it also served, for those who would accept that sacrifice by faith, as a most tangible way of indicating who really has faith in it/Christ. And of course, as the Full Gospel message teaches, this belief cannot be mixed in with a life that transgresses the letter or spirit of the law of God, for this “new life energy” provision of Christ’s sacrifice then cannot be granted to such a persisting law breaker.
As it was discussed here, the needed transparent exacted confession in Hell’s Fire Torment will necessitate that God effectuate a degree of the Dan 3 Fiery Furnace miracle so that those in that Fire will be able to survive it. As discussed above such a fire resistance will require a protecting or life-renewing “supernatural” energy expenditure from God. So it can be seen here that whether or not a person accepts the sacrifice of Christ or not, the life energy gifted by Christ that was amply available for them will still have to be dispensed on them. For the redeemed this will be towards their perpetual eternal life, but for the wicked, this will be to enable them to recurring survive in Hell’s fire, whether by resurrecting them to full life, e.g., every 2 seconds for how long their meted out Hell sentence has been decreed, or, as more likely, to specially fit them to not be consumable (though not painlessly) by Hell’s fire until their sentence is fully exacted. So this “life energy” available to them is neither bankable nor transferable as it will be still needed to duly, fully deal with them right to their utter end, and it is actually likely that such a usage of it by them actually has decreased God’s available “life energy” that could have been used to create other world’s and other humans. In other words, and another reason why a sinner must die, is that their life of sin directly draws from the possible creation and life of another human being, even in another world, in the future. But only for object lesson reasons was this Great Controversy permitted to fully develop, yet it has had such quite tangible cost to other innocent people. The intervention by Jesus to further give His own “life energy” to redeem man and fully resolve this GC would have thus served to limit the extent of the damages here.
So all this to pertinently also make the point here that: God expending supernatural energy to “fix” the future, i.e., by forcing the Will of man to do what He wants, or futilely worse, expending a great amount of mental energy to compute the myriads of possible futures for every millisecond of the future, are both things that God does not see as either righteous (in regards to free will), and thus not practically feasible, or even possible, And so He does not do this. He instead “saves up” this, actually limited and needfully replenished energy for major circumstances, such as actions of the Devil which try to defeat His all wise prophetic plans.
From these Theological understandings of ‘God and is limited expendable energy’, several other Biblical questions/issues are, at least to me, then satisfactorily/cogently resolved, particularly in regards to vindicating the Character of God.
Answering Prayer: Whether expressed out loud or merely silently pondered, the believer has had to at one time or the other, tried to understand why God answers some/certain prayers, and not others. And for people who have experience the unmistakable communicating/responding voice of God in certain situations which were indeed later confirmed to have been God’s voice, then this question becomes: ‘why then does God not answer every prayer like that, i.e., that “clearly” and even promptly/timely. Well from the above ‘limited energy theology’ it can here be stated that, in this to, a tangible amount of energy is required to effectuate such, most literally, cross-galactic, even universe prompt communication. And just as it is scientifically seen in the telecommunication world (e.g., cell phones, TV/radio, satellite), it takes a significant amount of energy to beam a signal from one location to another. And of course, the further the distance that needs to be travelled (e.g., beaming a signal to the space rover on mars), as well as the faster this needs to be, on top of maintaining original clarity, the greater the power/energy is needed. How much more is the power/energy requirement in God’s situation where He needs to effectuate such communications with humans on Earth in “real-time” which actually involves something presently not scientifically understood by man which is much faster than the speed of light, or sound: the “speed of thought”.
Interestingly enough, this is where I Biblically see the pointed/dedicated role of the Holy Spirit. He serves as the tangible “network” means over which these communications are done. As Jesus statement in John 16:12-15 clearly/unequivocally involves, based also on an evident Godhead hierarchy, the Holy Spirit only has authority/“initiative” to “transmit” from God the Father, or Son, exactly what they have said. Yet in converse communications, He evidently has the authority to best word/express/present/‘make intelligible’ the God-ward expression and prayers of humans to God. (Rom 8:26) And the power/energy needed to “produce/supply” those ‘prayer communication’ transmissions, including processing them for a “best content/presentation quality”, most likely actually come directly from God the Holy Spirit, and thus, was obtained by a similar “morphing incarnation”of Him from a previous bodily form, (as God the Father (Yahweh) has and retained), to His present, needed, Spirit form.
The “classical/traditional” pat “theological” answer here, on this issue of God and the answering of prayers is most unacceptable and theodicily dissonant as it says that” “God does not answer all prayers (even at all) “because He is God and knows what is best”. That indeed does not at all speak favorably of God, for not answering someone who is genuinely asking for an answer is not logically/sensically seen as “most loving”. A simple, explicit and prompt, even negative answer would be much more acceptable than “ambiguous” silence, especially as it leads many to a form of ‘ritualistic religiosity’ where it is thought that asking for something for, e.g., a certain number of times, must be the way to most likely begin to get a tangible answer from God. However if it here rather Theologically understood that God does not, as it would literally involve, ‘beam back an answer to the billions of prayers that he receives each day, which more over take a certain amount of energy to first process, (and the contemporary depiction of an always filled email inbox, though on a much more efficient system, is most applicable here, and, in further likely fact, like the U.S.’s National Security Agency (NSA) which has the ability, through super computers, to scan and sift trillions of intercepted communications for key words, [-and just as the human brain is much more powerful than the most advanced supercomputer(s) today (cf. e.g. here), so much more is God’s brain/mental processing capability, yet it therefore requires much more energy to operate so powerful], God probably does similarly scan and sift prayers, relayed to Him through/by God the Holy Spirit, not merely for words stated, but also for other meta-elements such as emotion, honesty/sincerity/genuineness, faith, Biblicalness, etc. And He then prioritizes those prayers, addressing answering the most vital ones instantly, and leaving the other ones unanswered, probably even for ever, if He never has a justified reason to address it before other, more vital, incoming communications/prayers.
And this is where the understanding expounded upon here, in regards to collective and/or sincerely fervent prayer comes into full understanding as those ‘intensity increasing prayers’ (compared to concerting beams for a laser), then cause that prayer to be auto-highlighted/flagged as urgent in God “inbox”. And an issue of ‘limited available daily energy’ prior to a daily replenishment, may tangibly also be in play here, where God can only answer a certain amount of prayers each day, and thus must further prioritize. (Relatedly, it takes a certain amount of constant ‘adrenaline-like’ (if not literally so) energy to “never become tired, weary nor sleep” (cf. Isa 40:8)). So that would explained why there is some delay to individual or collective prayers which are nonetheless later (favorably) answered, on top of any other deemed applicable character shaping/growing of the petitioner, which usually produces a beneficial soul-searching.
Then there is always the wider GC implications where God is deliberately not (immediately) answering prayers (as with Job), because, ultimately, He is endeavoring to establish an object lesson for that believer and/or others. (This is more extremely also seen with martyrs for the faith).
Relatedly, (which is what actually sparked this present “Answering Prayer” section, in this sermon [36:45], it was not-so-rhetorically, (as contextualized, borne out of his personal experiences), tracely-impeachingly, candidly asked by David Gates: “why would [=does] God embarrass His (faithful) people so much”. And such a quasi-reprimanding/second-guessing question/issue does explicitly or implicitly come up many times in the Bible, such as, e.g., with Job (Job 3:1ff), Jeremiah (Jer 20:7-18), David (Psa 43:2), John the Baptist (Matt 11:3), etc., even Jesus (Matt 27:46 (cf. DA 746.3) vs. John 8:29). And the succinctly Biblical answer here, in this context of ‘God’s prayer answering resources being limited’, is that: those faithful ones are relatively “spiritually mature” enough to handle this adversarial denouement. I.e., they should actually know better, and should be able to themselves satisfactorily answer that question (=Matt 11:2-6; even in regards to Jesus: with His thrice-repeated, but unanswered prayer in Gethsemane (Matt 26:36-46)), and/or have enough sustaining faith until God can “get around” to answering them (cf. DA 216.7 which required some added “on the spot” proof healings), and God “sacrificially” uses this “transferingly disposable time” and energy” to more immediately address other, even less “worthy” prayers. So God’s mature/faithful ones thus are made to neededly bear the burdens of others while God uses that “spared time” time to try to help these other, genuinely less mature/faithful ones, in hope that it can be of benefit to them. (Just like a parent, out of, especially, urgent necessity, including various developments, devotes more time to a younger sibling, than the older one(s), -which however produces the psychological incidence of a certain sibling jealousy.) =~Rev 6:9-11. And through these ordeals of these faithful ones, which tellingly enough, are usually/eventually successfully passed through by them, God is able to establish the tangibly reality/truth that He just cannot continually expend various energy/resources to deal with (sinful) man. As stated earlier, a viable Creation, evidently required that, pointedly/pertinently here, Created Man (vs. the rest of Creation/Nature) should fully take on the various responsibilities that they had, instead of God having to intervene and do everything for them; -i.e., what they actually have the capability/knowledge/duty to do or know for/by themselves.*
So, in summary/other words, the Theological reality here is that God, for tangible realities/reasons, needs to prioritize His addressing of prayers due to the tangible physical necessities involved in processing and transmitting them across His Universe.**, ***
And in this theological context is seen the pointed ministering/messenger role of angels. They clearly are, tangibly/effectively, God’s “hands, eyes, arms, legs and feet” [(and perhaps only not “ears” =Gen 18:20-21; which would be exclusively done by (mind/thinking) waves, {-which are likely at a much more entrenched ‘electromagnetic radiation’ level than ‘nervous system brain waves which science today is beginning to literally “tap” into to successfully effectuate brainwave-controls*4*}, captured and transmitted by the (universal-air-incarnated) Holy Spirit)]of God to effectuate things and/or go throughout His Universe to do His biddings, and they evidently await the responses from God to our prayers (cf. here) to do, behind the scenes, what is required to accomplish what had been asked.
And even more tangibly corroborating here, what would quite satisfactory reconcile Jesus’s statement in John 4:24a that “God is spirit” and His later statements EW 54.2a that: ‘God the Father has a bodily form*5* like He does (all wrapped in shielding glory)’ is that, as perfectly seen in the example of dealing with, and answering prayers, (unlike what is depicted by “Hollywood” here), God is not answering everyone’s prayers by ‘physically moving (i.e., ‘going through His prayer emails’) really really fast, but is instead, -(and probably only through/ directly in ‘God the Holy Spirit’ who would have been delegated to Himself handle any “executive” issue (cf. John 16:8, 13-15)): “multi-tasking”, and that, in order to be able to truly multi-task and not just periodically shift his attention/senses to one thing to the exclusion of another, by highly compartmentalizing His brain (cf. the applicable illustration by Dwight Nelson here[18:20-19:04] using the (lesser) capabilities of ‘computer mainframe networking’) where He then can indeed give full attention to any (especially when tangibly communicating) person on Earth (and yet indeed, as stated just above, while “economically” on making such energy-consuming expending on interactions/communications which have been screeningly “flagged/highlighted” as actually worthwhile), where He then can indeed give full attention to any (especially when tangibly communicating) person on Earth, (and perhaps also, though much less due pointedly to sinlessness, anyone else throughout His Universe, -who themselves (most likely) already (continue to) have full thought&visual privacy). But here comes the issue of God evidently only having one, and physical at that, body, and thus inherently/realistically limited (cf. John 16:7). Through angels purposefully being God’s “hands, eyes, arms, legs and feet” he is then able to, by such proxy, also, as the need is, physically be with everyone He is already giving “mindful/thought attention” to, -sending the effectively “nervous system like” controlling “brainwave” impulses to these ministering agents which they dutifully carry out, (and probably, responsibly as they in turn tangibly see for themselves, “on the ground”, how it can best be executed”). And then again, their may be intermediary hierarchal levels in God’s chain of command here, where God communicates merely to commanding angels who themselves are receiving and relaying messages from Earth from lower level angels, and all at a communication speed that is much faster than what man has been/is able to achieve (e.g., in “lightning quick” globe-circling emailing/instant messaging).
(Incidently, since manifestly all prayers defaultly go directly the “addressee”, God the Father (see Matt 6:9), -(with only an instruction that: ‘“requests” should be made “in Jesus’s name” (John 14:13))’, evidently God specially handles the portions within the prayers He fields that are in regards to the forgiveness of sin (e.g., Matt 6:12, 14-15) by directly/defaultly (John 5:22) tangibly “forwarding” them from His own “Throne of Grace” (Heb 4:16) to the High Priestly ministering Jesus within the Heavenly Sanctuary (e.g., Heb 9:11-14; 4:14-15)).
And it is manifestly out of also a need to conserve energy that God at times provides answers to prayers through a communicating angel (cf. e.g., Dan 9:20-23). Perhaps many answering impressions, thoughts that one eventually gets to a prayer is not one that came directly from God, but, inaudibly, through one’s guardian angel relaying that message, and, also in order to conserve God’s own energy, who had received that message in person directly from God and then transported it from Heaven to that person, instead of God using His communications resources to beam it directly to that individual (as e.g., at Christ’s Baptism (Luke 3:21-22 & DA 111.6-112.1; the SOP’s “attending angel” Rev 1:1; 19:10; 22:8-9; EW 37.1)). (A “beaming” process which may potentially actually require several added (thus costly/wasteful) re-transmissions before the receiver finally/eventually “gets it”, -and thus which may also necessitate that it instead be relayed/communicated through a (“broadbandly”) better-self-equipped/connected/receptive’ ‘onsite angel’)). (A “beaming” process which may actually require several added (thus costly/wasteful) re-transmissions before the receiver finally/eventually “gets it”, and may ). So, it is for such manifest implications that God had created those Heavenly Messengers.
And in this theological context is seen the pointed ministering/messenger role of angels. They clearly are, tangibly/effectively, God’s “hands, eyes, arms, legs and feet” [(and perhaps only not “ears” =Gen 18:20-21; which would be exclusively done by (mind/thinking) waves, {-which are likely at a much more entrenched ‘electromagnetic radiation’ level than ‘nervous system brain waves which science today is beginning to literally “tap” into to successfully effectuate brainwave-controls*4*}, captured and transmitted by the (universal-air-incarnated) Holy Spirit)]of God to effectuate things and/or go throughout His Universe to do His biddings, and they evidently await the responses from God to our prayers (cf. here) to do, behind the scenes, what is required to accomplish what had been asked.
And even more tangibly corroborating here, what would quite satisfactory reconcile Jesus’s statement in John 4:24a that “God is spirit” and His later statements EW 54.2a that: ‘God the Father has a bodily form*5* like He does (all wrapped in shielding glory)’ is that, as perfectly seen in the example of dealing with, and answering prayers, (unlike what is depicted by “Hollywood” here), God is not answering everyone’s prayers by ‘physically moving (i.e., ‘going through His prayer emails’) really really fast, but is instead, -(and probably only through/ directly in ‘God the Holy Spirit’ who would have been delegated to Himself handle any “executive” issue (cf. John 16:8, 13-15)): “multi-tasking”, and that, in order to be able to truly multi-task and not just periodically shift his attention/senses to one thing to the exclusion of another, by highly compartmentalizing His brain (cf. the applicable illustration by Dwight Nelson here[18:20-19:04] using the (lesser) capabilities of ‘computer mainframe networking’) where He then can indeed give full attention to any (especially when tangibly communicating) person on Earth (and yet indeed, as stated just above, while “economically” on making such energy-consuming expending on interactions/communications which have been screeningly “flagged/highlighted” as actually worthwhile), where He then can indeed give full attention to any (especially when tangibly communicating) person on Earth, (and perhaps also, though much less due pointedly to sinlessness, anyone else throughout His Universe, -who themselves (most likely) already (continue to) have full thought&visual privacy). But here comes the issue of God evidently only having one, and physical at that, body, and thus inherently/realistically limited (cf. John 16:7). Through angels purposefully being God’s “hands, eyes, arms, legs and feet” he is then able to, by such proxy, also, as the need is, physically be with everyone He is already giving “mindful/thought attention” to, -sending the effectively “nervous system like” controlling “brainwave” impulses to these ministering agents which they dutifully carry out, (and probably, responsibly as they in turn tangibly see for themselves, “on the ground”, how it can best be executed”). And then again, their may be intermediary hierarchal levels in God’s chain of command here, where God communicates merely to commanding angels who themselves are receiving and relaying messages from Earth from lower level angels, and all at a communication speed that is much faster than what man has been/is able to achieve (e.g., in “lightning quick” globe-circling emailing/instant messaging).
(Incidently, since manifestly all prayers defaultly go directly the “addressee”, God the Father (see Matt 6:9), -(with only an instruction that: ‘“requests” should be made “in Jesus’s name” (John 14:13))’, evidently God specially handles the portions within the prayers He fields that are in regards to the forgiveness of sin (e.g., Matt 6:12, 14-15) by directly/defaultly (John 5:22) tangibly “forwarding” them from His own “Throne of Grace” (Heb 4:16) to the High Priestly ministering Jesus within the Heavenly Sanctuary (e.g., Heb 9:11-14; 4:14-15)).
And it is manifestly out of also a need to conserve energy that God at times provides answers to prayers through a communicating angel (cf. e.g., Dan 9:20-23). Perhaps many answering impressions, thoughts that one eventually gets to a prayer is not one that came directly from God, but, inaudibly, through one’s guardian angel relaying that message, and, also in order to conserve God’s own energy, who had received that message in person directly from God and then transported it from Heaven to that person, instead of God using His communications resources to beam it directly to that individual (as e.g., at Christ’s Baptism (Luke 3:21-22 & DA 111.6-112.1; the SOP’s “attending angel” Rev 1:1; 19:10; 22:8-9; EW 37.1)). (A “beaming” process which may potentially actually require several added (thus costly/wasteful) re-transmissions before the receiver finally/eventually “gets it”, -and thus which may also necessitate that it instead be relayed/communicated through a (“broadbandly”) better-self-equipped/connected/receptive’ ‘onsite angel’)). (A “beaming” process which may actually require several added (thus costly/wasteful) re-transmissions before the receiver finally/eventually “gets it”, and may ). So, it is for such manifest implications that God had created those Heavenly Messengers.
And, relatedly, it is further manifest that each person has two angels so that there can always be at least one angel present with that person if/as one of them is, as physically required, travelling between Heaven and Earth to them, -probably for various physical replenishing, or economical instruction obtainment, reasons/needs. And they probably “double [or more] team”, -even upon an emergency summons if one of them was not then present or Earth, if a situation of human assistance requires more power/energy that they can singly provide.
Moreover , in regards to the ‘thought and Earthly privacy’ that was manifestly available to Man before sin, as discussed above, on top of all the reason of “no need for a constant, post-sin surveillance by God before sin”, it would actually be costly for God to operate this post-sin needed constant surveillance. And so that is also why He does not ‘expend unnecessary to do this’ when it indeed does not need to be done. And the wider reason for all of this conservation of energy by God, including the would-be crucial vital necessity to Himself, is that, “wastefully/redundantly” expending such energy limits what God could elsewhere do, create. Contrary to man’s selfish concepts, being unable to do something now, but later, when the priorly, otherly used resources are then “refilled”, actually does result in something not being able to be done, and even if there is a future Eternity ahead. Like the, also implicated, resource of time, once expended elsewhere/otherwise, that pivotal energy is forever and unrecoverably, gone to the detriment of others, and even to other worlds life that God could have created in His (expanding) Universe.
* A recent experience which caused me to mused on certain germaine issues, resulted in me being Impressed that this was all related to this understanding here. The incident here was in regards to a failing starter in my car (which I eventually found out, in repairing it, that it was all due to worn out contacts). I thought I had fixed the issue previously, but then the same symptoms of not taking several key turns to eventually get it to start showed up again, so I knew I would have to do further repairs. I therefore strongly advised my mother, who needed to use my car, not to do so, until I would get around to more deeply fixing it the next day, but as she felt impressed that her errand could not wait a day, she decided to risk going out with it. Well, after almost leaving her stranded at a first stop, but then eventually starting up; she, then actually disregarding an emphatic impression not to, decided to later risk another stop, and that time, the car just would not start again. I then turned out that I had to walk to that store’s parking lot where the car was stranded, and good thing it was close to my house (less than a mile), and, not wanting to pay for towing and thinking that I could quickly do the deeper repair I had intended (which was quickly removing the readily accessible starter motor and checking if its electrical contacts were not stuck in an open position, as (I thought had) twice resolved similar prior problems -as the car started up after this and was starter-problem-free for one and then two years respectively), in the parking lot. All along I was not at all happy to have to so ad hocly do all this. And furthermore, the repairing time went on to extend into ca. 2 AM. I had to use a flashlight to, even still barely, see what I was doing, -compared to the enclosed, heated and lighted “comfort” of my garage, as I was planning to do the next day. So, given, (as related here, here and here), that I, with ample prior evidencing, quasi-defaultly considered my mother’s “impression” as valid, (i.e., indeed from God), I variously, albeit genuinely/respectfully ‘letting God have it’: I.e., reproachingly asking: ‘Why are you letting these things happen do me?’ “Don’t I already have enough to deal with and be bothered/“discomforted” by??’ etc. (cf. Jer 20:8) [However, vindicating God in all of this, I guess if my mom had not decided to disregard the secondary impression, that problematic/complicating stranding circumstance would not have occurred! (cf. ~Isa 54:15)] And then, to my further surprising horror/dismay, after completing that repair effort, the car still would not start. We, tried several times to start it, but it just would not. Finally out of most frustrated, and uncaring, desperation, [and No, I certainly was not going to pay for a tow!!], I decided to improvisingly take an extreme measure, which I had actually never heard about, nor knew it should work. And that was to take my jumper cables and connect one end to the starter’s power cable terminal bolt, and the other directly to the car battery’s positive terminal. I figured that if the issue was a faulty power cable, that his bypassing connection should resolve the issue. However, with me being naturally leery of anything I cannot inherently trust# after having first connected one of the jumper clamps to the starter’s terminal bolt, but before clamping the other one to the battery’s positive terminal, I so fearful of what could happen if my connection assumption was wrong here (i.e. this may sparkingly cause a (out of control) fire and/or an explosion of the battery (and that right in my close by, leaning over, face)## that I paralyzedly just could not get myself to complete that connecting. And so, hoping against any empirically logical hope, I asked my mom, at the wheel, to try starting the car again, and lo an behold, the car most easily started up, almost as if it had no problem at all. We were then able to drive it home, where I eventually fully repaired it.### In fact, after parking it in the drive way, and shutting it off, I tried to restart it and it just would not. I even tried to exactly connect one clamp to the starter as I just had before when it had started, but that (now) also did not work. So given this most illogical, out-of-the-blue, starting up, I creditingly saw all this a most likely a miracle by God.
* A recent experience which caused me to mused on certain germaine issues, resulted in me being Impressed that this was all related to this understanding here. The incident here was in regards to a failing starter in my car (which I eventually found out, in repairing it, that it was all due to worn out contacts). I thought I had fixed the issue previously, but then the same symptoms of not taking several key turns to eventually get it to start showed up again, so I knew I would have to do further repairs. I therefore strongly advised my mother, who needed to use my car, not to do so, until I would get around to more deeply fixing it the next day, but as she felt impressed that her errand could not wait a day, she decided to risk going out with it. Well, after almost leaving her stranded at a first stop, but then eventually starting up; she, then actually disregarding an emphatic impression not to, decided to later risk another stop, and that time, the car just would not start again. I then turned out that I had to walk to that store’s parking lot where the car was stranded, and good thing it was close to my house (less than a mile), and, not wanting to pay for towing and thinking that I could quickly do the deeper repair I had intended (which was quickly removing the readily accessible starter motor and checking if its electrical contacts were not stuck in an open position, as (I thought had) twice resolved similar prior problems -as the car started up after this and was starter-problem-free for one and then two years respectively), in the parking lot. All along I was not at all happy to have to so ad hocly do all this. And furthermore, the repairing time went on to extend into ca. 2 AM. I had to use a flashlight to, even still barely, see what I was doing, -compared to the enclosed, heated and lighted “comfort” of my garage, as I was planning to do the next day. So, given, (as related here, here and here), that I, with ample prior evidencing, quasi-defaultly considered my mother’s “impression” as valid, (i.e., indeed from God), I variously, albeit genuinely/respectfully ‘letting God have it’: I.e., reproachingly asking: ‘Why are you letting these things happen do me?’ “Don’t I already have enough to deal with and be bothered/“discomforted” by??’ etc. (cf. Jer 20:8) [However, vindicating God in all of this, I guess if my mom had not decided to disregard the secondary impression, that problematic/complicating stranding circumstance would not have occurred! (cf. ~Isa 54:15)] And then, to my further surprising horror/dismay, after completing that repair effort, the car still would not start. We, tried several times to start it, but it just would not. Finally out of most frustrated, and uncaring, desperation, [and No, I certainly was not going to pay for a tow!!], I decided to improvisingly take an extreme measure, which I had actually never heard about, nor knew it should work. And that was to take my jumper cables and connect one end to the starter’s power cable terminal bolt, and the other directly to the car battery’s positive terminal. I figured that if the issue was a faulty power cable, that his bypassing connection should resolve the issue. However, with me being naturally leery of anything I cannot inherently trust# after having first connected one of the jumper clamps to the starter’s terminal bolt, but before clamping the other one to the battery’s positive terminal, I so fearful of what could happen if my connection assumption was wrong here (i.e. this may sparkingly cause a (out of control) fire and/or an explosion of the battery (and that right in my close by, leaning over, face)## that I paralyzedly just could not get myself to complete that connecting. And so, hoping against any empirically logical hope, I asked my mom, at the wheel, to try starting the car again, and lo an behold, the car most easily started up, almost as if it had no problem at all. We were then able to drive it home, where I eventually fully repaired it.### In fact, after parking it in the drive way, and shutting it off, I tried to restart it and it just would not. I even tried to exactly connect one clamp to the starter as I just had before when it had started, but that (now) also did not work. So given this most illogical, out-of-the-blue, starting up, I creditingly saw all this a most likely a miracle by God.
But it was while later trying a primary fix attempt while it was back at my house, that I came to have an idea of just how bad things could have turned out if I had completed that ad hoc jumper cable connection. While trying to tighten a power cable bolt of the starter, the one pointing back towards the interior, versus the other one pointing towards the front end of the car, my wrench came in contact with a metallic part of the engine block and it produced a bright, geyser-like spark. (I did not first disconnect the battery). It is then the I realized for the first time that the outward pointing terminal that I had connected the jumper cable’s clamp to while trying to start up the stranded car before, was not the positive terminal as I had thought, but actually the negative terminal. So had I completed that connection, I would have caused a shorting loop between the battery and the starter as I would have been connecting the batteries positive terminal to the starter’s negative terminal, and, if that connecting alone did not cause immediate problem, proceeding to turn the key would most likely have caused and explosive spark, which like I had feared could have cause a fire. So I would possibly/probably: fried my starter, shorted the car’s electrical system, blown up my battery, started an engine bloc fire which could have burn the car (before a firesquad came), let alone the bodily harm/injury that this could have done to me standing right there!! I then, much more then before, more concretely saw this as, moreover, a miraculous intervention by God. (I.e., just in time before more damage was done to the car and/or to me.)
And given the actually reason why I had resorted to this ad hoc starting up attempt, which was that ‘I was really frustrated at God for having allowed this added/more complicated problem for me to also deal with, and just did not care at any possible adverse consequence of that fix attempt (but then just could not get myself to follow through with it, but I actually had resolved to do it, if that “one-last-time” attempt did not work), when I later read in the SOP’s account of Elijah’s bout with despondency in PK 162.1 that in such instances: ‘angels intervene to save us from ourselves’, I indeed could see how my guardian angel probably did so then, preventing me from going ahead and causing major/serious damage.
And that all perfectly dovetailed with what I had been pondering a couple of days before as, hearing of the testimony of someone relating how God had, demonstrably indeed favorably answered the various signs they were asking for, leading to an overall positive outcome for something they were dealing with, it reminded me of my early days, starting back in ca. 1997, when, as related in this bio-post, I had then, much more than in recent years, similarly many instantaneous answers to fleeces and signs requests. But, as related here in the fulfillement of an asked for third sign, I began to see that I had to be less “immaturely and faithless” demanding of God, who manifestly had had to go out of His way to, as related there, answer that third request. I later saw that living righteously, i.e., by “doing what is right in every applicable situation” is just a good as ‘being led by executed “Signs”’. I repeatedly saw how such ‘right-doing’ decision-making and living ended up putting me in a position which I later saw through studies in the Bible and SOP were indeed Biblical, as if it had been directly God Himself who had been step by step, and decision by decision, guiding me.
So then, when I also later read in the SOP’s account of Elijah’s ordeal that: ‘God at times (if not, usually) only intervenes at the very last minute to rescue His servants, when He has seen/deemed that their faith has been sufficiently tested.” (PK 164.2). I see such a statement perfectly corroborating, and being also tangibly completed by, the understandings discussed here in regards to ‘God reservedly expending His (inherently super-natural) energy to come to the aid of humans, in that God, on top of fulfilling needed, object lesson reasons for others as to what is required with faith, on top of thus also doing any needed (self-)correcting work in His servants, God, especially for His most faithful ones, His servants, waiting until the very last instance to rescue them, is because then, all other “natural” options have been exhausted, and a disbursement of supernatural energy to resolve the issue is now unavoidable. And so He proceeds to do so. So, to me, God was all this time, most fundamentally, trying to avoid disbursing any “unrecoverably costly” supernatural energy in that situation, if He could, and was hoping, depending on what the situation was, His servants would either come to the solution on their own; have enough faith to continue to hold on, and/or have the situation be resolved by someone else, -allowing the Holy Spirit to work with/through them, to provide the needed assistance, intervention and/or resources to resolve that issue.
So as stated before, God usually, and that, after having sufficiently built up pertinent faith in Him, demands more, faith-wise from His more spiritually mature and faithful “servants”, than from less mature or faithful “believers/followers”. And I personally saw/believed that God similarly intervened in time when I had genuinely allowed despondency to have the better of me when trying to start that stranded car, but, as stated in the SOP in PK 164.2, though for years now I have chosen to advance ministry wise much more by “right-doing” principles and faith, rather than by asking for various signs from God at every fork in the road, as I typically did before, I have repeatedly seen/experienced God himself initiate the given of an indicative sign/instruction/solution/revelation for a matter that I honestly may have been confused or deceived into making the wrong choice. So I personally do see how God has repeatedly made such ‘genuinely exhausted options’ interventions and revelations whenever applicable. And it is just that in the case of those, albeit sincerely, ‘weaker in their faith’, that God may agree that have expended more supernatural energy to guide and protect them versus His drawn-out responding dealings with others in situations that they should, by then, know much better.
# E.g., any animal, especially (i.e. prominently) dogs, -indeed not even my parents’ own dog (which he perceivingly, “bullyingly”, takes advantage of); open fire/flames, including for/during stove/grill cooking; bottled gases (such as propane tanks); gas-powered appliances; even deeper-than-my-height or relatively “bottomless” waters, (e.g., deep pools, lakes/rivers, forget about sea/oceans, indeed you could not pay me to go scuba diving or snorkeling%), flying on airplanes, heights, overturning theme park rides, both-feet-off-the-ground/in-the-air gymnastism, etc), -in short, anything that contains a constantly present and/or immediate hazard. [Which all serves to contextualizingly explain my state of mind during this “quasi-Elijahcidal” instance.] -Yet it is not that I am, deep down inside, actually, “psycho-phobicly” afraid of such things, but rather that as I see that life is so fragile, then: why take such an unnecessary, and tangibly useless risk (i.e., when there is an alternative way to accomplish the same thing. And it is not that I never do anything that involves a, albeit less prominent, risk, even merely “for the thrill of it”, but that these have to be in situations involving circumstances/elements/forces that I, myself can sufficiently control/tame/over-power.
% E.g., during my Summer of 1998 Canvassing work in Toronto, our satellite group went to a northernish Ontario city (Sudbury) to canvas for a week (see the photo on page 243 of this document), and a couple of times, after a day of canvassing, they would go to a lake nearby to canoe and swim on/in it. But I, ‘thank you very much’, alone remained on the shore, seated at a picnic table, (reading through the book the Desire of Ages). The canoeing-on-a-who-knows-how-deep-lake part alone was way to risky to me already, even if they were wearing life jackets, let alone the jumping out of some out of their canoes into the lake to swim, some (if I recall properly) after removing their life vest.
Most literally, I have swum in waters (i.e., pools & beaches) hundreds of times in my life, particularly upon moving to South Florida, but I can only recall only one time when head went fully underwater, [and even when diving into, pointedly, a pool (see the photo on page 421 of this document) as I first make sure that the specific depth at that spot is not deeper than my shoulder height], and it was indeed the first and last time that this/I let this happen/ed. That lone time was during our first vacation to Miami in the (Canadian) winter of 1981, when I was 7. My father, seeing that I was afraid to wade out too far into the beach waters, “offered” me to ride on his back while he swam about...So I did and he eventually proceed to, after telling me to hang on tight, and when I was getting used to all this, swim-dive into an oncoming wave which I could unwittingly see was way over my head...Well the force of the wave just plowed me right off his back and then proceeded to literally looping spin me around underneath the water. When my father “finally” got me out of there...I inwardly swore that this will never happen again...And I indeed have not allowed it, (nor have bothered to really, -as I assume I should be able to easily do by now), subconsciously not being able to shake off that “directionally lost about” feeling I had back then when spinning underneath those suddenly silent and quasi-dark waters. ... And upon, e.g., hearing the testimony of Alden Ho here (audio) [see at 18:48ff] where a plane he was on crash landed into waters...I can’t but wonder if, [barring, of course, (likewise?!) supernatural aid], I would actually be able to stay calm and collected enough to, moreover capably, be able to swim out from, mostover, that submerged wreck, let alone, while being severely injured, as he did....
-As many tangibly know...(this) life’s way too fragile...why unnecessarily hazard it this side of Eternity (Mark 8:35)...as if that’s the only chance we’ll ever get to “living life”.... as the CCM song goes: “Some people live their lives, like they’re on Number 9...But I’m gonna be around for a long, long time” (and thus) “I don’t wanna live my life in an endless nursery rhyme...For I’m gonna be around for a long, long time....” (The Waiting, “Number 9”) [(live) video]... {Relatedly, -can’t stand various “daredevils”}...
Most literally, I have swum in waters (i.e., pools & beaches) hundreds of times in my life, particularly upon moving to South Florida, but I can only recall only one time when head went fully underwater, [and even when diving into, pointedly, a pool (see the photo on page 421 of this document) as I first make sure that the specific depth at that spot is not deeper than my shoulder height], and it was indeed the first and last time that this/I let this happen/ed. That lone time was during our first vacation to Miami in the (Canadian) winter of 1981, when I was 7. My father, seeing that I was afraid to wade out too far into the beach waters, “offered” me to ride on his back while he swam about...So I did and he eventually proceed to, after telling me to hang on tight, and when I was getting used to all this, swim-dive into an oncoming wave which I could unwittingly see was way over my head...Well the force of the wave just plowed me right off his back and then proceeded to literally looping spin me around underneath the water. When my father “finally” got me out of there...I inwardly swore that this will never happen again...And I indeed have not allowed it, (nor have bothered to really, -as I assume I should be able to easily do by now), subconsciously not being able to shake off that “directionally lost about” feeling I had back then when spinning underneath those suddenly silent and quasi-dark waters. ... And upon, e.g., hearing the testimony of Alden Ho here (audio) [see at 18:48ff] where a plane he was on crash landed into waters...I can’t but wonder if, [barring, of course, (likewise?!) supernatural aid], I would actually be able to stay calm and collected enough to, moreover capably, be able to swim out from, mostover, that submerged wreck, let alone, while being severely injured, as he did....
-As many tangibly know...(this) life’s way too fragile...why unnecessarily hazard it this side of Eternity (Mark 8:35)...as if that’s the only chance we’ll ever get to “living life”.... as the CCM song goes: “Some people live their lives, like they’re on Number 9...But I’m gonna be around for a long, long time” (and thus) “I don’t wanna live my life in an endless nursery rhyme...For I’m gonna be around for a long, long time....” (The Waiting, “Number 9”) [(live) video]... {Relatedly, -can’t stand various “daredevils”}...
[In the light of all of these quasi-phobias, I seriously, personally see it as a sign of “God’s will”, -which I have great trust in, to, in the NJK Project, endeavor to not have a problem in building/establishing floating cities in the world’s Seas/Oceans, because, personally, the last place I would want to live, or see as viable of living, is on waters, -but, as more fully discussed starting in this post, so is the “prolonged time”, “present truth” plan/will of God (e.g., Dan 11:45a; Rev 15:2).]
## A battery explosion instance with my first car had demonstrated to me the power that is in a battery explosion as, due to running out of water, my battery exploded when I tried to start that car, and the force was strong enough to burstingly unlock and partly open the hood.
### And, withholding the story/details here, that repair attempt outing actually resulted in a +$250 savings for me, which to me satisfactorily/“compensatingly” answered my prior Divine-ward inquiries as to: ‘Why did God allow this to happen to me??’.
** This ‘necessary prioritizing’ understanding also elucidates the fact that, as seen throughout the Bible and SOP, and as I have personally experienced (see e.g., here and in here), and also seen in the experience of others who have validly claimed to have heard the voice of God, and/or received other types of direct revelations from Him, when God does actually make His voice variously heard, it is rarely, if ever for “small talk”. He consistently uses such special moment to communicate something which literally stretches the mind and spirit of the receiver. In other words, God does not wasteful use such time to unnecessarily restate something that one already knows, or should have known, but instead literally “raises the knowledge/awareness bar”, and the receiver then has to do whatever work is necessary to get up to speed with what God has thus revealed. That is why many such direct statements/revelations of God seem so “off-beat” and/or surfacely tangential or even irrelevant. It is not until the receiver later tries to ponder what God has said, pointedly to Bible Study, that they then come to fully understand what God had said. So all this to substantiatingly corroborate that God, for economical reasons makes very judicious and sparing use of such direct communications, as, as I understand it, require much more Divine energy to effectuate. (Which also explains why, as I have also seen (see here), God only needs to use “dreams” to make revelations which involve rehashing more than less known or past events, with Him even just “collagely” using the various imagery elements which are already present in the receivers mind, however when it comes to revealing entirely knew things, God then uses the more powerful form of revelation of “visions”, even wide awake ones.)
Staying Calibrated
### And, withholding the story/details here, that repair attempt outing actually resulted in a +$250 savings for me, which to me satisfactorily/“compensatingly” answered my prior Divine-ward inquiries as to: ‘Why did God allow this to happen to me??’.
** This ‘necessary prioritizing’ understanding also elucidates the fact that, as seen throughout the Bible and SOP, and as I have personally experienced (see e.g., here and in here), and also seen in the experience of others who have validly claimed to have heard the voice of God, and/or received other types of direct revelations from Him, when God does actually make His voice variously heard, it is rarely, if ever for “small talk”. He consistently uses such special moment to communicate something which literally stretches the mind and spirit of the receiver. In other words, God does not wasteful use such time to unnecessarily restate something that one already knows, or should have known, but instead literally “raises the knowledge/awareness bar”, and the receiver then has to do whatever work is necessary to get up to speed with what God has thus revealed. That is why many such direct statements/revelations of God seem so “off-beat” and/or surfacely tangential or even irrelevant. It is not until the receiver later tries to ponder what God has said, pointedly to Bible Study, that they then come to fully understand what God had said. So all this to substantiatingly corroborate that God, for economical reasons makes very judicious and sparing use of such direct communications, as, as I understand it, require much more Divine energy to effectuate. (Which also explains why, as I have also seen (see here), God only needs to use “dreams” to make revelations which involve rehashing more than less known or past events, with Him even just “collagely” using the various imagery elements which are already present in the receivers mind, however when it comes to revealing entirely knew things, God then uses the more powerful form of revelation of “visions”, even wide awake ones.)
*** Continuing along this Theological line that ‘everything that God does is out of a tangible reason’, I can see that the spoken of New Moons (which is symbolic for new religious/covenantal events) & Sabbatical gathering spoken of in Isa 66:23, which are probably reflective of what similarly takes place in Heaven, as evidently God also hold convocations there rather than telecommunicate things to His Universe’s Inhabitants (cf. PP 36.2; Job 1:6; 2:1), it very well may be that it is much more economically, at least to God personally, if beings throughout the universe gather before Him for worship, by having expended their own (accumulated) energy for this displacement, for such an in person appearance, where He then can directly speak to them, instead of Him beaming out communications to them throughout the Universe, and that out of His very own energy sources. The inherently free attending of such “displacement-costly, In Heaven” (i.e., extra-planetary) convocations on New Moons and Sabbaths by representatives from all of God’s Creation would be a tangible demonstration of their loyalty to God, and in return/response, God would trustingly impart even more new light to them. This is all done on a much more microcostic level here on Earth, when, especially Christian (=New Moon (New Covenant)) Sabbath Observers (=Creation) do what is necessary to be able to gather for a “Holy Convocation” at God’s appointed time(s) (cf. Lev 23:2-3ff); and God does then specially honors this demonstration of allegiance and loyalty and “meets” with them through His Holy Spirit. (cf. Exod 31:12-17) And on an even deeper level, it has been seen in SDA History how so many key and pivotal, especially prophetic understanding in order to triumph in this GC have been disclosed by God to people who have chosen to observe His 7th Day Sabbath (cf. LS 95.1-96.4), and even furthermore, as occurring today, when the Spirit of His Sabbath (e.g., Isa 58) is also observed.
So the in-person worshipping of God, which requires a displacement by His Creation, even if merely locally, to their local congregating venue, is really all a tangible demonstration of loyalty to God, which He honors with various levels of imparted communication and light. And at the, here-discussed, Divine-energy implication level, this displacement-expending-action by God is most tangibly expressing how they want to do their part to take the time to be of help to God and, deferentially so, perhaps directly hearing from Him if He then has something new to impart to them in His will. So it is no coincidence that such notions are actually involved in those who tangibly observe God’s Sabbath, including ministering to others in need (Isa 58), as they then are actually doing their part to help God so that He does not have to, which may actually not be tangible feasible, quite costly expend the energy needed to do this Himself.
So the in-person worshipping of God, which requires a displacement by His Creation, even if merely locally, to their local congregating venue, is really all a tangible demonstration of loyalty to God, which He honors with various levels of imparted communication and light. And at the, here-discussed, Divine-energy implication level, this displacement-expending-action by God is most tangibly expressing how they want to do their part to take the time to be of help to God and, deferentially so, perhaps directly hearing from Him if He then has something new to impart to them in His will. So it is no coincidence that such notions are actually involved in those who tangibly observe God’s Sabbath, including ministering to others in need (Isa 58), as they then are actually doing their part to help God so that He does not have to, which may actually not be tangible feasible, quite costly expend the energy needed to do this Himself.
And in all of this “assisting of God”, it may not be that God is ultimately limited, but it is just that there is so much that He wants to do and create in His probably still not yet fully filled, if infinitely ever-expandable Universe, but He cannot viable and/or speedily do this if the Human Creation that He is creating do not do their part in taking care of themselves, which involves perfectly following His Will, and also work to help Him be as economical as possible with His available Creative energy, even if it is infinite, so that He can do/create all that He lovingly wants, all in order to share it with His Creation.
So members of His Creation who sap, or “multiplely” used up more of this pervasive Divine energy than the basic need, are actually quite detrimental as they then inherently are taking away from what God could have instead done/accomplished with that energy....and that is why, i.e., the non-organic tangible reason why, such sinful beings, are, thus non-arbitrarily, “worthy” of death, as this permitted Great Controversy has been allowed to tangible demonstrate. I.e., dually, that: (A) contrary to what Satan had posited, God’s Loving and “Sabbatical” (i.e., everyone providing from their ability assistance/rest for anyone else in need of it, -as God did for Man with a Seventh Day for fully-cared-for rest) plans are indeed the best for developing and governing this Universe, and (B) a sponsored sinful person is inevitably detrimental to that Greater Loving Plan, and thus deserving to be justly killed.
# Indeed it may be that God has specially primingly-prepared one planet per galaxy for immediate organization with human life, as seen with this Earth versus the other planets within this galaxy....and He may have, even necessarily, left the other planets in these galaxies to be figured out how to be ‘“conquered” for habitation’ by the humans themselves which He had placed on one (Earth-like) planet. Meaning that man was supposed to use his intelligence, which, by now, was supposed to be much more advanced in a perfect, sinless world, to be able to scientifically figure out, [and with as little as, if any, instructional input from God, -which He typically, fast-forwardingly, “prophetically” gives in emergency, sin-caused/necessitated, circumstances (e.g., Gen 6:13-16|PP 92.3; Exod 25:8-30:38)], how they can (expandingly) live on these other planets,% and thus sparing God Himself having to (not neededly) dispense Divine energy for that to be accomplished. So God does allow for man to scientifically advance himself, out of their own various, abundantly supplied, resources, including developed (scientific) intelligence. So it is not merely, as some would ideologically claim, ‘God wanting man to make their own discoveries and experiences, and thus achieve a sense of accomplishment’, but rather that it foundational need that man used all of his available capabilities and resources to do such things and spare God having to “detrimentally” expend energy towards such things. Yet God would have given Man a great head start and home base in a perfectly created “Earth” planet.
% E.g., right up to, actually foundationally from, having develop technology to, (after having first figured out the way to (safely) space-travel and transport there), harness renewable energy, such as solar energy, (permanently) condensingly convert air into (enough -see Rev 21:1b) water and also transform it into Ozone in order to create an appropriate atmosphere (=Gen 1:6-8; cf. Isa 65:17/Rev 21:1a “new (~repaired/restored) heavens”) depending on the actual distance of that planet from the sun in order that human life may be able to freely and thrivingly live on that planet as on Earth. (Sort of conversely as man-made harmful emission have been catastrophically damaging the Earth’s atmosphere (cf. Rev 11:18b))
*4* To the point that in the not at all implausible, nor too distant future, an application of this capability with the confluence of present technologies (as Google is manifestly, aggregatingly, striving to do, pointedly with it recent robotics firms acquisitions; cf. here) and social trend, (such as those advancing, even human-like, robotics, reliable wireless broadband internet, powerful smartphone computing and media capabilities, Google Glass interfacing, (impersonalizing) Social Networking, etc), that the [more achievable (than “Technological Singularity”)] scenario in “The Surrogates” (film version) or human remotely controlled robots [i.e., versus the “God-brain/mind-Creative-Power like” independent/self-automated, “artificially-intelligent”, ones (fictionalized e.g., here)], be easily achieved.
*5* And proportionally reckoned from the revelation from Ernie Knoll’s January 18, 2014 SOP dream (#66) which mentioned that God’s feet were about 8 feet long, and with man being made in the image&likeness of God (Gen 1:26, 27), it can be calculated that God the Father’s “bodily form” is about 50 feet tall, -which corroborates how Isaiah had seen Him in vision as being ‘high & exalted/lifted up’ (Isa 6:1).#
Yet, working from my, by now amply/emperically validated, foundational Theological cornerstone that ‘God does not do anything without a concrete reason to do so’, -which actually inherently involves ‘God not telling lies’, i.e., all that He claims, does, command is based on a realistic truth, and not, (as Satan had posited), on an ideological maxim/preference, though God’s energy availability may be “infinite”, as stated here, I still see that there is great reason for also having the understanding & belief that: God is needing to pace Himself in expending it due. This is all derived from the fact that God is not allowing man, in fact most of His Creation except perhaps relatively a handful (e.g, Mighty Angels), or really just the first of the two covering Cherub which initially was Christ (PP 36.2), and that may be the reason why He alone could do so) to enter within His encircling light presence (cf. DA 834.2a) and clearly, = fully decipheringly, see His face.
So this would be meaning that, (as with renewable energy), God can indeed “infinitely” produce that energy, but it is its production which is limited and must be paced less it comes to, perhaps even irreparably, “deplete” the life-energy of God Himself, which also includes the constant energy which He needs just to necessarily “supernaturally” (=Ed 99.1-2) maintain, in existence, function and order, the things which He has already created. So any dipping below that basic Divine energy level requirement would cause great chaos in His Universe, which in turn would “sacrificingly” require added/extra energy to repair, and that, at the detriment of others.
And, succinctly said, therein is concretely seen the two foundational axises of/for God’s 10 (Exod 20:1-17)+1 (John 13:34; 15:12-14) Commandments Law: ‘Love God & Love Others’ (Matt 22:34-40).
And from all that has been said on this point thus far, it can be further theologically perceived that it may be that Divine energy is not capable of being “banked”, (as in: (a) nothing but God could contain God, but (b) a God contained in God would be “exponentially”/“critical-massly” too powerful, or merely too distancing, to be practical for God’s Creative plans and ideals, (c) and creating another God to be able to do this “banking” was not realistically possible as God cannot be created#; but had to be immediately transformed into another state the instance that Jesus agreed to give it over for the Creation of everything.## Which to me would explain why, although I see that God is still newly creating things in His Universe, i.e., organizing a new planet (perhaps in one galaxy) every 6+1 days for human habitation, the Universe is quite observedly fully, basically populated, i.e., with galaxies, planets, stars/suns, moons, etc.###
# And it manifestly is that, unlike “flesh & bone” humans created from various elements/minerals transformatively derived in the Earth’s soil, or ‘fire-like spirits/winds’ (Luke 24:39; Heb 1:7; cf. John 3:8) angels (manifestly) made out of photons, God Himself has to, in order for His glory to be contained, be composed from materials transformatively derived diamond-strong elements such as, or which seem to be like: “jasper” and “sardius” (Rev 4:3; -hence the matching coloring from His outshining glory (Rev 21:11); [as well as a material for His containing (=Rev 21:3; 22:3, 5) Holy City’s: wall (Rev 21:18); and two of its foundations (Rev 21:19b; 20)])
So I would see here that (1) the initial Divine-energy-gifting by Jesus was instantly used to create all of these “basic” Universe “building blocks” even long before they were ready for occupation and use (as also seen with stars/suns burning out), -and including, as stated about Gen 1:1 vs. Gen 1:2, the basic minerals, waters and earth/soils on other (Earth-like) planets,# but (2) God since then has been having to, necessarily “pacedly”, dispense of His own Divine-energy to transformingly further that Creation, i.e., pointedly in the executive energy that is now needed to assemble all of these things into working entities and life. E.g. God using that Gen 1:1 ‘already created (from Jesus’ gift), thus present soil’ to wholly fashion a first human being (as well as first animals (Gen 2:19)). (And then, likewise as economically as possible, using already available resource from man to, as discussed here, “invent”, at weighed/pondered risk, the human female gender. (Gen 2:18-23)).
# And it manifestly is that, unlike “flesh & bone” humans created from various elements/minerals transformatively derived in the Earth’s soil, or ‘fire-like spirits/winds’ (Luke 24:39; Heb 1:7; cf. John 3:8) angels (manifestly) made out of photons, God Himself has to, in order for His glory to be contained, be composed from materials transformatively derived diamond-strong elements such as, or which seem to be like: “jasper” and “sardius” (Rev 4:3; -hence the matching coloring from His outshining glory (Rev 21:11); [as well as a material for His containing (=Rev 21:3; 22:3, 5) Holy City’s: wall (Rev 21:18); and two of its foundations (Rev 21:19b; 20)])
## Which, loosely mused here, may actually be, if actually valid, what that supposed/theorized “Big Bang” inceptive event. along with its, also theorized, ‘rapid initial expansion’ element were (i.e., (Divine) energy being (storingly) instantaneously converted into the basic (planetary) Creation.).
### And Ernie Knoll’s Dream #68 may have revelatorily/informingly made a passing/subtle allusion within it (see at 37th paragraph) to such a Creation sequence/reality; -which Knoll however manifestly did not rightly/accurately differentiatingly understand/relate.
### And Ernie Knoll’s Dream #68 may have revelatorily/informingly made a passing/subtle allusion within it (see at 37th paragraph) to such a Creation sequence/reality; -which Knoll however manifestly did not rightly/accurately differentiatingly understand/relate.
So I would see here that (1) the initial Divine-energy-gifting by Jesus was instantly used to create all of these “basic” Universe “building blocks” even long before they were ready for occupation and use (as also seen with stars/suns burning out), -and including, as stated about Gen 1:1 vs. Gen 1:2, the basic minerals, waters and earth/soils on other (Earth-like) planets,# but (2) God since then has been having to, necessarily “pacedly”, dispense of His own Divine-energy to transformingly further that Creation, i.e., pointedly in the executive energy that is now needed to assemble all of these things into working entities and life. E.g. God using that Gen 1:1 ‘already created (from Jesus’ gift), thus present soil’ to wholly fashion a first human being (as well as first animals (Gen 2:19)). (And then, likewise as economically as possible, using already available resource from man to, as discussed here, “invent”, at weighed/pondered risk, the human female gender. (Gen 2:18-23)).
# Indeed it may be that God has specially primingly-prepared one planet per galaxy for immediate organization with human life, as seen with this Earth versus the other planets within this galaxy....and He may have, even necessarily, left the other planets in these galaxies to be figured out how to be ‘“conquered” for habitation’ by the humans themselves which He had placed on one (Earth-like) planet. Meaning that man was supposed to use his intelligence, which, by now, was supposed to be much more advanced in a perfect, sinless world, to be able to scientifically figure out, [and with as little as, if any, instructional input from God, -which He typically, fast-forwardingly, “prophetically” gives in emergency, sin-caused/necessitated, circumstances (e.g., Gen 6:13-16|PP 92.3; Exod 25:8-30:38)], how they can (expandingly) live on these other planets,% and thus sparing God Himself having to (not neededly) dispense Divine energy for that to be accomplished. So God does allow for man to scientifically advance himself, out of their own various, abundantly supplied, resources, including developed (scientific) intelligence. So it is not merely, as some would ideologically claim, ‘God wanting man to make their own discoveries and experiences, and thus achieve a sense of accomplishment’, but rather that it foundational need that man used all of his available capabilities and resources to do such things and spare God having to “detrimentally” expend energy towards such things. Yet God would have given Man a great head start and home base in a perfectly created “Earth” planet.
% E.g., right up to, actually foundationally from, having develop technology to, (after having first figured out the way to (safely) space-travel and transport there), harness renewable energy, such as solar energy, (permanently) condensingly convert air into (enough -see Rev 21:1b) water and also transform it into Ozone in order to create an appropriate atmosphere (=Gen 1:6-8; cf. Isa 65:17/Rev 21:1a “new (~repaired/restored) heavens”) depending on the actual distance of that planet from the sun in order that human life may be able to freely and thrivingly live on that planet as on Earth. (Sort of conversely as man-made harmful emission have been catastrophically damaging the Earth’s atmosphere (cf. Rev 11:18b))
So God is beneficially not allowing any man, and most, if not really all of His Creation, and only Jesus, to ‘fully decipheringly’ “see” His face’, because if they would then in anyway, even most sincerely, doubt, question, challenge His Wisdom and Ways, then, given the clear knowledge that they would have had about Him, He would then have to destroy them in order to avert that sinful course, and thus preserve the life of both others and ultimately His (most loving) Self (who would surely want to, as seen with Jesus (cf. John 10:10), even sacrificially (John 15:13), do all that is possible to save others from death, even mere detriment. So that would me that since the then Second ranked covering Cherub “Lucifer” had Himself never seen God’s face, and not even entered into all of His Plannings as had Jesus, but was positionally the most closest to, and relatively most knowledgeable of, God compared to any other created being/angels, then that is how/why God could have mercy of Satan for His initial challenging of God. That also shed great light on what Jesus did when, as revealed in EW 149-153, He actionably “challenged”, in fact effectively opposed, the Father’s Wisdom and Way of (initially) deciding not to provide a way, and the only way (i.e., the death of God), for the salvation of Man. And that actually may be another contributing concrete reason why God in Jesus had to die to provide that salvation. I.e., also because Jesus had, in full knowledge of God and of the Issues, challenged the Wisdom of God in having priorly decided not to provide a way of escape if man sinned. So because Jesus, resolutely, knowingly chose to intercedingly/pleadingly do so, He thus, most effectively, instantly condemned Himself to, albeit still sacrificially, die, and thus right then effectively became the ‘lamb slain from (the time of) -cf. Mark 13:35; Luke 11:50; Heb 4:3) the foundation of the world’ (=Rev 13:8's possible alternate (=KJV) reading, cf. here). (In fact every act of High Priestly pleading by Christ for His unworthy Church (e.g. 3SP 202.2) may itself be, at least symbolically, effectively, as depictingly seen in the repeated and daily sacrifices in the Old Covenant Sanctuary service, another ‘symbolic/effective (but not actual =Heb 7:26-27) slaying of Christ the Lamb’ (=Rev 5:6), to initiate each specific intercession.)
Relatedly, God’s written out Law, as summarized in Matt 22:37-40, does indeed serve as a hedge in pinpointing exactly what God considers sin, all to prevent man from, in its First Part, ever losing any respect for God (first 3 Commandments) and not getting to know and understand Him better (Sabbath Commandment), and then, from its Second Part transgressing towards others.
So, in summary here, God “dually” has a necessary “pre-emptive” (presently mercifully quasi-commuted for the unsaved) complete death penalty for either those who would “knowingly” engage in (=sinful) activities which would inherently bring about His own death and also those who would engage in similarly sinful activities which would (immediately, eventually or ultimately) cause the death of others...which God would actually lovingly (super- or extra- naturally) act to spare or repair, and which thus would come to put the very life of God Himself at risk, also in an ideological aspect as God Himself would have to cease to Love others who are being victimized by sinners in order to instead Love Himself much more and save His own Life. And that would actually come to conversely validate Satan’s accusations about ‘God caring more about Himself than about His Created beings’).
*4* To the point that in the not at all implausible, nor too distant future, an application of this capability with the confluence of present technologies (as Google is manifestly, aggregatingly, striving to do, pointedly with it recent robotics firms acquisitions; cf. here) and social trend, (such as those advancing, even human-like, robotics, reliable wireless broadband internet, powerful smartphone computing and media capabilities, Google Glass interfacing, (impersonalizing) Social Networking, etc), that the [more achievable (than “Technological Singularity”)] scenario in “The Surrogates” (film version) or human remotely controlled robots [i.e., versus the “God-brain/mind-Creative-Power like” independent/self-automated, “artificially-intelligent”, ones (fictionalized e.g., here)], be easily achieved.
*5* And proportionally reckoned from the revelation from Ernie Knoll’s January 18, 2014 SOP dream (#66) which mentioned that God’s feet were about 8 feet long, and with man being made in the image&likeness of God (Gen 1:26, 27), it can be calculated that God the Father’s “bodily form” is about 50 feet tall, -which corroborates how Isaiah had seen Him in vision as being ‘high & exalted/lifted up’ (Isa 6:1).#
-Relatedly and comparatively: Knoll also saw that some new/special angels were ca. 35ft tall; EGW states that Adam “was more than twice as tall as men now living upon earth” (LDE 291.4), thus ca. 12-15ft+; {and in trustworthy reported fact[34:26-35:15ff], a discovery by Ron Wyatt of the Noah family home (near the “Mountains of Ararat” (Gen 8:4) in Armenia), and the tomb+sarcophagus of Noah’s Wife revealed that she was ca. 18 feet tall!}; David Gates had related that someone had seen angels in a vision which were seemingly about 20 feet tall; and EGW saw that Jesus would be slightly taller than Adam at the resurrection. (GC 644.3a). So from the incremental statures of: God: 50ft; Special Angels: 35ft; Archangels/Michael+Regular Angel: ca. 20ft; (sinless) Humans ‘a little lower than the angels at’ (Psa 8:5 (NKJV)|Heb 2:7, 9 (NKJV)) at ca. 15ft, it may be that God is operating on a ca. 15ft Creation incremental template, and if not rigidly by 15ft, it nonetheless clearly is according to increments. In fact the differences in size directly affects pointedly the size/capacity that a moreover fully developed brain can handle and do. So the brain of a 50ft tall person can be many times as capable as that of a 35/20/15 feet tall one (cf. PP 50.3a), -not to mention that God has also had an “eternal” amount of years of living/experience which contribute to His Great (e.g. (conversely) Isa 1:18; Exod 32:11-14||Exod 33:3; Num 14:11-12, 20-23) / Greater Gen 6:5-8||Pro 8:22-31; Gen 32:28; 1 Sam 8:6-9ff||1 Sam 15:10-11ff) / Greatest (e.g. (conv.) EW 149-153||Matt 26:39-46), and, unlike what “Lucifer” presumed (see Isa 14:13-20 & Ezek 28:15-19): really unmatchable, Wisdom...As per the main issue under discussion in this present post, God does indeed have a wise way to rule this universe and effectuate its various affairs, it is just that, in many cases, it is just not a way that is demonstratedly yet corroborated by concrete/transparent/transpired/existing “future” reality...and so, on many level can genuinely and/or fairly be up to (judicious) debate (e.g., Isa 1:18)....
# And along the lines of the pointed fact here that some at this point may “naturally” say/think: ‘they can’t/wouldn’t believe in (“a”) God if He was actually merely/only” ca. 50 feet tall’ is manifestly the underlying/fundamental reason why God will not let man “tangible see” (especially) His face, i.e., fully figure Him out...-cause if one can see (Him in) His glory (John 12:41), and even the ‘backside of His glory’ (Exod 33:20-23) and live, then is it merely ‘an “amount” of greater glorious radiance’ that is projected from His (uncoverable) face (cf. Exod 34:29-35 | 2 Cor 3:12-16); or really a substantive and clearest revelation, thus knowledge/understanding, of His Will which is accompanyingly projected through that facial radiance...which, like a person who finds out He had mistaken a person for someone else by merely looking at the back of his head/body, then would be left without any excuse upon that “(greatly conclusive, -since God cannot be a ‘faked-face “hypocrite”’) facial ascertaining” of God.
# And along the lines of the pointed fact here that some at this point may “naturally” say/think: ‘they can’t/wouldn’t believe in (“a”) God if He was actually merely/only” ca. 50 feet tall’ is manifestly the underlying/fundamental reason why God will not let man “tangible see” (especially) His face, i.e., fully figure Him out...-cause if one can see (Him in) His glory (John 12:41), and even the ‘backside of His glory’ (Exod 33:20-23) and live, then is it merely ‘an “amount” of greater glorious radiance’ that is projected from His (uncoverable) face (cf. Exod 34:29-35 | 2 Cor 3:12-16); or really a substantive and clearest revelation, thus knowledge/understanding, of His Will which is accompanyingly projected through that facial radiance...which, like a person who finds out He had mistaken a person for someone else by merely looking at the back of his head/body, then would be left without any excuse upon that “(greatly conclusive, -since God cannot be a ‘faked-face “hypocrite”’) facial ascertaining” of God.
Staying Calibrated
In all of this probing into better Theological and tangible understanding of God, there is always a fine, but really “chasmic”, line between actually accomplishing this vs. belittling, misconstruing or even “impotenting” God, but the only way to avoid delving into that latter theological abyss, is to properly, i.e., exegetically soundly, interpreting the Bible, which is God’s clearest revelation; -with Jesus Christ, the Spirit of Prophecy (=Biblically genuine/valid prophesying), and Nature being other Divine revelations. And it is only when all four of these revelations are individually, and also collectively, properly ascertained and validated can the most accurate revelation of God be arrived at. So, e.g., in the case of the erroneous Theistic Evolution claim, not only is the Bible either outrightly ignored or misinterpreted/misunderstood, but much of these claims are borne from erroneous claim in/from Nature, such as the claimed aged of various fossil artifacts. SO here, faulty Science has led, with even Bible believers, faulty Biblical readings and thus faulty theology.
God has actually not put it beyond His Creation to ever know and understand Him, it is just that, as involved in Jer 29:13-14a, God has so arranged things here that only those who are truly seeking for him, i.e., “with all of their heart”, will ever achieve such a deeper and fuller knowledge of him. And it is not at all coincidental that, as indeed seen throughout the Bible, the people who pose the most probing questions to/about God, are those who are the closest to Him, in the sense that they are the ones who have sacrificed the most, even their very “life”, to seek to do His will. E.g., Moses dared to ask to see God’s full (=facial) glory, all so that he could best accomplish the awesome task that he had of leading a spiritually non-stable people into the Promise Land (Exod 33:12-23). And the valid tasks which such people are doing, or endeavoring to do for God, are not the common place, “run-of-the-mill”, ‘as the worldly gods/policies/economy allows’ task, which see many professed believers not risking, sacrificing or inconveniencing themselves for God, but quite to the contrary. So it is not at all uncommon to hear from them, e.g., Job, David, Moses, Jeremiah, even Jesus, those most probing questions, whenever there indeed is manifested a valid questionable theological issue. Not asking to questions, nor seeking to find out the deeper, accurate truth is the refuge of those who either do not want to know, or don’t want to do what is variously required to find out. And such a stance actually nullified any claim of faith, because an actual faith in God, based on an actually better view/understanding of God (e.g., that God is not actually indifferent to the various sufferings and injustices in the world), will actually set out to do all that can be done to try to do what they know their loving God would actually want to see being done. And such endeavors, which typically need to ‘repair paths to walk/dwell in’ (Isa 58:12) and/or blaze new ones, will require much more (actual) faith than the indifferent, complacent =unloving, alternative. And it is such a heightened/concretized level of faith that God will honor and guide into His full light and, most naturally better understanding of Himself (Heb 11:1-2, 6).
Most interestingly and tellingly enough, those who came to (fully) fulfill the covenantal (Jer 29:11) seeking promise of Jer 29:13-14 were the relatively few Israelites who later came to accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah and God the Son, and that pointedly fully meant believing that God was here in the form of a common man!! (But God had already demonstrated that this could be feasible by Him, [i.e., anyone in the Godhead] - see in Gen 18). And as seen in the calling of the first disciples who had been disciple of John the Baptist, this was initially done by a full belief in the repentance message of John, who later testified that Jesus was the Messiah, (see DA 138.1-143.1) but what maintained this faith in Jesus beyond the miracles, and through the many controversial teachings and actions that Christ would say and do throughout His ministry (cf. e.g., John 6:66-69 & Mark 3:21-22, 30) particularly with His many, deliberate Sabbath day healings, was most likely a deeper foundational belief/understanding that the good works that Jesus was doing were indeed just like the God of the OT Scriptures which they knew, understood and had perceived. (cf. Dan 11:32; 12:3, 10).
So a desire, even necessity, to better understand God to either best accomplish all of His will and/or better present Him to others, particularly those who stumble upon those manifested, seeming contradicting obstacles, is not at all a dangerous endeavor by the believer, yet as long as they continue to let valid Revelation be the guide here, and also not subjectively, even arbitrarily, pick and choose or explain away what they do not want to take into full/proper or outright consideration in this required “seeking” endeavor.
Interesting point of view regarding Rosario and Goldstein conversation. I went to ARISE and they use the un-caused cause a lot in their atheist/evo conversation for creationism or defence of the existance of God.
ReplyDeleteBut you are absolutely right... one comes to these conclusions based on an understanding of scripture or divine revelation!
...and true divine revelation will never contradict what has been expressed in the Bible.
ReplyDeleteI Am means an eternal presence; the past, present, and future are alike to God. He sees the most remote events of past history, and the far distant future with as clear a vision as we do those things that are transpiring daily. We know not what is before us, and if we did, it would not contribute to our eternal welfare. God gives us an opportunity to exercise faith and trust in the great I AM. {1BC 1099.5}
ReplyDeleteInteresting comment here A.G., especially as it comes from the SOP (=MS 5a 1895). However, Mrs White would be the first to tell us to make the Bible our final authority in doctrinal/interpretational matters and my studies have shown that the Bible teaches that the future is not known, per se. This view would not actually contradict what EGW has said, in that I believe that God can take into consideration the myriads of future possibilities when, as the Bible teaches, He “plans/fashions” and then “declares” the future, especially with Prophecy. (Isa 46:9-11). Yet the choices of particularly His most blessed people do greatly perplexed him. (Isa 5:1-7; cf. Gen 6:5-7 (the first time) with unbelievers). So the exegetical Biblical evidence of Exod 3:14, in this reassuring reply to Moses, seems to me to more exegetically inline mean that the past, the future and especially the present do not phase God at all, and that, through a faithful people, He will be able to do whatever He said He would do. In other words His powerful ever/eternal presence has more to do with ‘what He can do’, than merely ‘what He can see’ per se.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that God allowed believers to have this belief that the future is known, (although, like the October 22 Sanctuary view, it could have similarly already been discovered from more indepth Biblical studies), because He could indeed precisely bring about what He had said would happen in the future, however solely if His people still had faith in Him and His All Mighty Power. However, as the many non-fulfilled, even specific, prophecies of EGW shows, similar to the postponed and non-literally fulfilled OT prophecies, this “failure” was entirely due to the disobedience and rebellion of the generation of God’s professed people then. So it is actually doubly sinful for a people to believe, as e.g., the EGW’s generation did, and the current SDA Church still do, that God perfectly/concretely knows the actual future and yet still refuse to exercise true faith in Him, and wholly move out in all of His, even sacrificial, stipulated ways. (See blog post on David Gate’s Lazarus Experience for more on this). If such people had understood the actual Biblical belief on ‘God and the Future’ and the actual Greater Faith in God that it requires, then they could have had an excuse for their rebellion, however since they honestly fully believed otherwise, then they are without excuse and fully and more deserving of any judgement brought about for such disobedience and faithlessness. (cf. Rom 14:23). It is all like a child refusing to obey her unemployed father, despite the promise that he would buy her a bicycle if she properly did all of her chores for the next week, because this child rationalized/decided that her father could not buy the bicycle because he had no work and thus no money, all the while the father was receiving unemployment checks.
Indeed there is nothing that can stop God from doing what He has planned and even the non fulfilling of prophecies due to rebellion is simply because He has allowed this to be the natural result of faithlessness, choosing not to “override” the manifested opposing will of His professed people. So, in summary, while EGW evidently understood this statement to be simply speaking of ‘what God can see,’ I have found that the more Biblical view actually focuses on ‘what God can most powerfully, and if necessary, sovereignly, do.’
NJK Project
God is omniscient, knowing everything (Job 37:16; Ps. 139:1-18; 147:5; 1 John 3:20), because, as Alpha and Omega (Rev. 1:8), He knows the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:9-11).
ReplyDeleteIf you have given yourself to God, to do His work, you have no need to be anxious for tomorrow. He whose servant you are, knows the end from the beginning. The events of tomorrow, which are hidden from your view, are open to the eyes of Him who is omnipotent. {MB 100.1}
As Christ's earthly ministry drew to a close, and He realized that He must soon leave His disciples to carry on the work without His personal supervision, He sought to encourage them and to prepare them for the future. He did not deceive them with false hopes. As an open book He read what was to be. He knew He was about to be separated from them, to leave them as sheep among wolves. He knew that they would suffer persecution, that they would be cast out of the synagogues, and would be thrown into prison. He knew that for witnessing to Him as the Messiah, some of them would suffer death. And something of this He told them. In speaking of their future, He was plain and definite, that in their coming trial they might remember His words and be strengthened to believe in Him as the Redeemer. {AA 21.1}
Satan leads men to consult those that have familiar spirits; and by revealing hidden things of the past, he inspires confidence in his power to foretell things to come. By experience gained through the long ages he can reason from cause to effect and often forecast, with a degree of accuracy, some of the future events of man's life. Thus he is enabled to deceive poor, misguided souls and bring them under his power and lead them captive at his will. {PP 687.2}
In past ages the Lord God of heaven revealed His secrets to His prophets, and this He does still. The present and the future are equally clear to Him, and He shows to His servants the future history of what shall be. The Omniscient looked down the ages and predicted through His prophets the rise and fall of kingdoms hundreds of years before the events foretold took place. The voice of God echoes down the ages, telling earth’s inhabitants what is to take place. Kings and princes take their places at their appointed time. They think they are carrying out their own purposes, but in reality they are fulfilling the word God has given through His prophets. . . . {CTr 327.2}
Let no one venture to explain God. Human beings cannot explain themselves, and how, then, dare they venture to explain the Omniscient One? Satan stands ready to give such ones false conceptions of God. {MM 92.1}
The revelation of Himself that God has given in His Word is for our study. This we may seek to understand. But beyond this we are not to penetrate. . . . None are to indulge in speculation regarding His nature. Here silence is eloquence. The Omniscient One is above discussion. {FLB 40.6}
First and foremost, proper exegesis does not say in Isa 46:9 that God “knows” the end from the beginning; but that He declares it. Look it up! There is a major difference here. It may be convenient to say “knows” but that is not at all what the text says nor even means. If God declares that it is going to snow in Miami, FL, in July next summer, it is not because he foresaw it, but because he foreplanned it to be so, and as the rest of Isa 46:9-11 points out when the time comes, He then summons whatever means necessary, wherever it is to be found in the earth, to accomplish what He had “fashioned/planned”. As He also says there (literalistic reading) “I have made it to be planned, surely will I (naturally) do it.” (vs. 11)
ReplyDeleteSecondly, as I say in the post above, whatever we can know about God is primarily found in the Bible. As I also say/imply God is indeed Omniscient which specifically means that He infinitely knows all there is to know, however you and many other have assumed that this also means the ‘knowing the future.’ From the collectivity of what I have studied in the Bible, the future is actually not known as it does not even “pre-exist.”
Ellen White, like most other believers, had/have the view that God knows the future, so it is not surprising that she expounds on related scriptures from this point of view. She was not given a view to the contrary, so she was consistent in expressing things in this sense. Indeed there are many examples in her writing of how her view can radically change as her knowledge of Scripture/Theology deepens and/or she receives a vision giving here a more precise or alternate light. An example of this is how she used to say in her earlier writings on the meeting of the risen Christ and Mary in John 20:17 that He said “Touch Me not...” quoting verbatim the KJV. (See e,g., 3SP 203 (1878)). However when she later wrote the Desire of Ages she quite pointedly changed that statement to ‘Detain me not’ (DA 790 (1898)). These first three words of hers are deliberately not in quotes in the DA however the rest of the statement is as she then resumes to quote the KJV verbatim. Clearly sometime during these 20 years she had either a direct revelation or a more precise study which showed that Jesus has said and meant, as the Greek pointedly (literalistically) say: ‘I prohibit you from even beginning to affectionately/adoringly handling/embracing me, thus detaining me’ and she also says that in saying this Jesus raised his hand to stop Mary from continuing to lung towards His feet to so embrace. (cf. Matt 28:9). That precise understanding did not come until much later in now most Bible translations, however most with the notion of “Stop clinging to me”. All this to say that EGW is, as she clearly says herself, not to be the final interpreter of the Bible, and her views can and have changed as her Biblical knowledge variously increased. I am not saying that EGW was wrong in the statements she made in regards to future events, but simply in how she considered this future to have been envisioned/planned before it happened.
(cont’d)
(cont’d)
ReplyDeleteIt will be shown in much more detail in my book just how prophecies, including the major ones, like the ones in Daniel and Revelation, can be precisely “foreplanned” even without the future being known. Through this highly intricate foreplanning God has literally painted Satan in a corner, (like a cornered player in a Chess match), where, if he really wants to attempt to successfully oppose and defeat the redemptive work of God, he, can only make the opposing moves stated in these foreplanned prophecies. Of course, Satan having nothing to lose, but actually, to-be-deceived people to gain, will indeed follow through with these predictions, exactly as stated. (E.g., little horn, infiltration and inner perversion of Christian Church, Mar of the Beast, last Masterful Deception, etc). Satan’s only other options is to completely give up! In all of this it is God in his sovereign power, and in his perfect redemptive plans that set ups kings, kingdoms and world affairs which best advance His work ad purposes, including the purpose of testing His professed people. And then He allows Satan to seek to prove His point in this free will GC.
I do fully understand the statements in regards to ‘seeking to figure out the ways of God,’ however, I am firmly convinced of, and believe, that as long as I am expounding straightly on what the Bible really/actually reveals and teaches about God on this issue, then I am not speculatively “venturing” into an unknowable aspect of God. It is there in the Bible to be discovered and understood, even if layers of assumed theology and mistranslation have to first be drastically repealed and corrected. So this is indeed the “The revelation of Himself that God has given in His Word is for our study. This we may seek to understand. (FLB 40.6)” Sanctimoniously ignoring these issues and their many implications, including the misperceived True Character of God actually is a much greater detriment to the Gospel, especially now in this post “Age of Faith”. My goal is not to speculate on what is not known/knowable, but to accurately understand all that God has deliberately allowed to be so revealed.
In many, many stories in the Bible where God clearly “changes His mind”, bitterly repents, the fall of man and the ongoing GC, Job’s testing trials, etcs, this foreplanning view, theologically anchored by the statement in Isa 46:9-11, does provide the most cogent Biblical explanation of these significant theological issues and implications. My duty as a Biblical Researcher and Expositor is to indeed seek out and provide this most cogent view which comes to harmonize all of the passages involving “God and future events”. If you are satisfied with your classical view, then great for you. I aim to help those, including myself, who notice the many seemingly quite contradictory actions, reactions and statements of a God who supposedly “knows” the future, and Bible Study reveals that this is actually done with this much better Biblically/exegetically supported Theological View.
[From an emailed reply of A.G. on August 14, 2010 8:35:23 PM]
ReplyDeleteWell I just hoped the quotes would help. It seems your theology in this area isn't very faithful to the text or to Ellen White. Why you feel so strongly about limiting God's knowledge of the future baffles me. If your view were correct, either God is very lucky at guessing the future, and possibly could be wrong, therefore why should we trust Him 100%. Or God has to force and create events fit His predictions, which makes Him a God who has little respect for free will. Both views of God seem unbiblical and unattractive to me.
When God told David in Psalm 22 that the Messiah would die pierced and that none of His bones would be broken. This was not luck. This was not self-fulfilling prophecy. This was a God beyond time. This was a God who sees the future as clear as we see the present. This is the God of the Bible.
Reply to A.G. email:
ReplyDeleteWell I just hoped the quotes would help.
Thanks a lot actually. I appreciate it. While my book will be for a general Christian audience, I will have a separate book/booklet to discussed specific SDA and SOP implications and contributions.
It seems your theology in this area isn't very faithful to the text or to Ellen White.
Having studied this issue in more than adequate depth thus far, particularly from the original Biblical languages, it is shocking to see how the assumed belief by Christians over the years have led to many skewed translations and even outright rewording of key passages and terms to fit a view that the future is known and/or people are predestinated for an already known/determined fate. So my view is actually faithful to both the Spirit and Letter of the actual text. Indeed it perfectly resolves many episodes in the Bible where the best explanations that have been given is, effectively, that God never means what He says or does and is effectively just putting on an act. As I stated on the blog comments, EGW was of the view that God knows the future so this view will indeed seem to not harmonize with her view, however in many of her visions and directly inspired statements, she actually relates things that contradict her perfectly ‘known future view.’ Case in point, “The Plan of Salvation” vision given in EW 149-153 (1882) which was also written in ExV54 46ff (1854) & 1SP 44ff (1870). When read as stated it shows that the Plan of salvation was set up only after Adam and Eve had sinned and that Christ had to insistently plead three times for it to be ‘consented to’ by God the Father. According to the Classical View of Foreknowledge Adam and Eve’s fall should have been known for Eternity’s past and also Christ future complete triumph and successful sacrifice. So why this hesitancy, “perplexity”, “trouble/doubt” and “pleading” here. Many such examples can be cited, and will be in my book. (The additionally mentioned part in 1SP 50ff in regards to Adam and ‘the showing of future events will be dealt with in my writings as it involve much larger SOP expositional issues. However I’ll just say this seems more like an assumed “filling” material which could have been based on a EGW directly inspired view that Adam was shown the most likely/expected consequences of his sin, and that through representational views.)
Why you feel so strongly about limiting God's knowledge of the future baffles me.
Other than because my studies have shown that this is the Biblical truth, it is actually a belief that the future is set that lead to a lethargic ‘wait-and-see’ attitude where most Church members do not believe that they, especially now as “seemingly” the signs of the times are fast fulfilling, have nothing more to do, and that final events will soon unravel anyway. A proper understanding of God and the future which reveals how the GC really works is greatly needed and would be quite helpful, especially as God expects us to literally ‘seize the potential moment,’ lest it (also) be (as with 1888) irrecoverably wasted.
(cont’d)
(Reply to A.G. email cont’d)
ReplyDeleteIf your view were correct, either God is very lucky at guessing the future, and possibly could be wrong, therefore why should we trust Him 100%.
This is being circularly viewed from your perspective. God does not guess the future, He “declares” what it will be and if, when needed, He has the cooperation of a worthy and faithful people, He carries out that past declaration, and that in such cases of unwavering faithfulness, to the letter. There is also absolutely no “luck” needed when He can do absolutely whatever He wants and has the sovereign last word on anything and anyone. Therefore believers should indeed trust Him 100% so that He can fully act in this GC, without any complaint from the Adversary of “unfairness,” because God would indeed be mandated to act, even quite supernaturally, in such a case of 100% genuine faith. Take the case of Israel for example, they could bring down walls just by blowing trumpets, or they could be routed by opposing forces, all depending on the faith they had placed in God at that time. If one simply believe in God because they are effectively constrained to believe in Him “since He knows the/my future” and so I must align myself with this “known future” is absolutely the wrong reason for believing in God and is indeed a base “loaves and fishes” faith. I am sure if a poll was done, it would be seen that many people are Christians today because they believe that, since they have become Christians, this then was always there ‘eternally foreordained destiny’; and so they remain in/claim the Christian Faith simply to fulfill this “destiny”. This is the perfect recipe for producing “nominal Believers.”
Or God has to force and create events fit His predictions, which makes Him a God who has little respect for free will. Both views of God seem unbiblical and unattractive to me.
My studies have shown that it is wrongly assumed that man’s granted free will is an “unalienable right.” The truth is that God is sovereign, even over man’s will and He will do whatever is best for the GC as a whole. Case in point, the times when He acted favorably for an uncooperating Israel just for His name’s sake and the continuance of His redemptive purposes for the world. He fully respects free will however and He will exercise His sovereign justice and wisdom whenever needed. Notwithstanding, I personally have not (yet?) seen in the Bible an occurrence when God has had to override a person’s free will, per se, however there are many examples where prior, milder stages of this overriding were used to quite strongly influence/quasi-compel one’s will (e.g., by signs and wonders) so that God’s will can be done. The closest that I could see of such overmastering (i.e., overriding) of man’s will was when Israel’s enemies would suddenly turn upon themselves and kill off each other. I could be argued that God forced them to act this way, however God could simply have done this by stoking up an already existing, or newly created vehement disagreement amongst them and brought about this result. The fact that this did not happen with every warring enemy of Israel is probably an indication that this “fatalistic” issue had to already be present or capable of taking hold amongst these people.
(cont’d)
(Reply to A.G. email cont’d)
ReplyDeleteWhen God told David in Psalm 22 that the Messiah would die pierced and that none of His bones would be broken. This was not luck. This was not self-fulfilling prophecy. This was a God beyond time. This was a God who sees the future as clear as we see the present. This is the God of the Bible.
I discuss the Psalm in detail in my book and beginning to discuss here briefly would not do it justice, so I will abstain here. However I will succinctly point out the following here. The key verse here that you mention here, vs. 16, is grossly mistranslated and is a prime example of this Classical view eisogesis. The text actually literally says and means: “A band of evildoers has encompassed me like the lion. [I dig a hole = LXX] (i.e., to try to escape them) with my hands and my feet. (Psa 22:16 NAU)” The following, also mentioned key verse says “I can count all of my bones” not meaning that “none of them would be broken” because even if a bone is broken it can still be “counted”, but that this figurative band of lions have now so devoured him (i.e., his flesh) that he count his now visible bones (cf. vs. 21a). It seems that because vs. 18 has found a fulfillment in the account of the crucifixion that the surrounding verse were retranslated/reworded to also seem to be indicating events in the crucifixion. However this is not the case. Also this part about casting lots for the remaining clothing was both customary and also could have been “strongly suggested” by God to the Roman soldiers (e.g, by them all suddenly having this same idea at the same time and thus seeing this either as a “sign” or as what they obviously should do. Indeed the power of God in accomplishing His Word irrespective of any attenuating circumstances is much more powerful than simply/passively “knowing the future.”
Also, but not to (literally) play the Devil’s advocate here, if we supposedly can know that God knows the future, and that absolutely perfectly, then all of the (pre-fall) angels in Heaven who live/lived in God’s presence should also know this, and that even more factually/concretely than us. Then how would they then so illogically and irrationally choose to oppose a God who perfectly knows the future. It would be completely crazy of them, to ever go against a God who knows for sure what the end result will be of their future actions. When these pre-fall developments and the GC is studied and Biblically understood it is clear that the decision of the fallen angels was not at all an irrational decision per se, but that it was indeed a possible unproven and unknown path that they could pursue, but one that God in His Creative knowledge and wisdom knew could not end in a good way. (E.g., the SOP says that the evil of their course was not fully realized until the Cross). So that is why these angel set out to explore this possible and not yet experientially known future. Another example of this is with the ‘GC-lite’ episode with Job. Again not to literally play Devil’s advocate here, but why would an ‘angelic’ being make such a wager against a God who he knows, perfectly knows the future outcome of this proposed test and, to a certain degree, what kind of God would effectively pointlessly engage in such a wager and allow Job and his family to greatly suffer just to show the Devil wrong that he is wrong. It is either that this was a genuine test, or, as many similar passages are also irrationally explained away, God was not really serious here. The Biblical “Foreplanning” view upholds both the integrity of God’s character, even when allowing suffering, and is also the most theologically and logically “rational”.
Jesus answered, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." The scenes of the past and the future were presented to the mind of Jesus. He beheld Lucifer as he was first cast out from the heavenly places. He looked forward to the scenes of His own agony, when before all the worlds the character of the deceiver should be unveiled. He heard the cry, "It is finished" (John 19:30), announcing that the redemption of the lost race was forever made certain, that heaven was made eternally secure against the accusations, the deceptions, the pretensions, that Satan would instigate.
ReplyDeleteBeyond the cross of Calvary, with its agony and shame, Jesus looked forward to the great final day, when the prince of the power of the air will meet his destruction in the earth so long marred by his rebellion. Jesus beheld the work of evil forever ended, and the peace of God filling heaven and earth. {DA 490}
NJK says, "Ellen White, like most other believers, had/have the view that God knows the future."
ReplyDeleteYes, she did. But her reason was because it is the correct view from the Bible. Not just because it was a popular view.
Another clear Biblical example:
Isaiah 41:21-24 (NKJV)
21 “Present your case,” says the Lord. “Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob.
22 “Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; Let them show the former things, what they were, That we may consider them, And know the latter end of them; Or declare to us things to come.
23 Show the things that are to come hereafter, That we may know that you are gods; Yes, do good or do evil, That we may be dismayed and see it together.
24 Indeed you are nothing, And your work is nothing; He who chooses you is an abomination.
The context of this passage is God is challenging the worshipers of false gods and in fact the 'gods' themselves to set forth convincing evidence of their power. Clearly the ability to correctly foretell the future is proposed as a test of real divine power.
Obviously God would not suggest a test, that He Himself would not pass. So therefore God is basically saying that the fact that false gods can't correctly or completely see the future, it is evidence they are not 'gods' at all. However the true God can see the future and this is proof that He is the one true God.
The book Isaiah repeatedly points to predictive prophecy as proof that the true God is all He claims to be (Isaiah 41:4; 42:9; 43:9; 44:7; 45:11, 21; 46:9, 10; 48:3–7, 16).
The other great proof of the true God is that He is the creator. (Isaiah 40:12, 26; Psalms 96:5).
While we can't explain God completely. We know from the Bible that He is omniscient, knowing everything (Job 37:16; Ps. 139:1-18; 147:5; 1 John 3:20). Ellen White simply agrees with the Bible on this subject.
The problem with denying the truth of God's omniscience, is where it leads.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_fatalism
Very quickly folks go from proving that "a personal being who knows everything cannot exist." so "therefore, a personal God does not exist." Doubting God and His word and His prophets.
C. S. Lewis argues that God is outside of time and therefore does not "foresee" events, but simply observes them.
“But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call "tomorrow" is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call today." All the days are "Now" for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday, He simply sees you doing them: because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not "foresee" you doing things tomorrow, He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way--because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already "Now" for Him." (p. 149).
As to answer the question of why does Satan challenge God knowing that God is omniscient and omnipotent. I have seen the same 'insanity' in my kids from time to time. They know what they are about to do is wrong. They know that I will know what they do. They know I have the power to give them discipline. And they continue into trouble. I suspect that a degree of insanity is the only way to explain the nature of sin. It doesn't make sense to me. And yet we all struggle with it.
ReplyDeleteAnd perhaps Satan does doubt God's abilities. I just know we don't have to doubt them. We can be people of the book and people of faith.
NJK says, "The most often used name for God in the Bible is El-Shaddai..."
ReplyDeleteI'm not how you figure that. It actually is one of the most rare. OT counts below:
Yahweh 6713
Elohim 2500+
El 200+
Adonai 434
Yahweh Sabaoth 285
El Elyon 28
El Shaddai 7
NJK says, "Greek “pantokrator” = LXX translation of Heb. “El-Shaddai”)."
ReplyDeleteWell actually not once in the 7 times El-Shaddai appears in the OT is it translated with pantokrator in the Greek LXX. In Genesis, Theos is used along with the personal pronoun, "my God" or "your God". Ezekiel 10:5 simply transliterates and has 'Theos Saddai' or "God Saddai".
[Answered to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 21, 2010 2:39 PM]
ReplyDeleteYou will indeed find many passages in the SOP where EGW says that someone was shown the future. The only difference here is that you assume that these have to be concrete representations of the future, when they could easily be realistic representations of what God has planned. So the future envisionment of these could simply have been representative visions. In this case with Christ, God was endeavoring to do all He could to assure that good would triumph over evil through Him, and this vision was probably given to Christ to strengthen Him in this future, most difficult trial, indeed one that He greatly was weary of when it was first established as seen in the visions of EGW on the “Plan of Salvation”. I am also of the conviction that Christ said “It Is Finished” at the Cross to concretely expressed what He had “heard” in this specific vision. With Jesus being the One upon whom this vision would either pass or fail, it is not surprising that it indeed developed exactly just how God had planned/envisioned it, since Christ perfectly accomplished God’s will. So planning something revolving around the action of Christ was indeed a sure thing. Just like God’s stated/written prophecies, His visions of the future can be quasi-realistically represented before they occur.
On the other hand, EGW had visions and made statements in which she saw some people present in her meetings being part of the 144,000, in a soon coming of Christ, among other such predictions. I also believe, as stated above in note #8 that God fully planned to bring about the end with the EGW generation of Advent Believers, however their non-readiness forced Him to postponed these plans, and the future secularizing, paganizing and heathenizing of the world since then has forced this to be a long postponement, as He no doubt anticipated and which probably led Him to allow that generation of Believers to have the view that future events were concretely set. Yet even this righteous concession did not help these Remnant (SOP) Believers as it should have.
[Answered to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 21, 2010 3:27 PM]
ReplyDeleteI understand the premise for your view here, however I will cautiously say that it is a view that ‘sin was or had to be grossly “insane”’ and even if only “a little”, that started Man into this misadventure. If most of us tangibly knew of the various detrimental effects of sin on us and also of the greater advantages that there are to living wholly according to God’s will, we surely would “sanely” choose this latter, better course. However sin is not necessarily insane, for as the Bible says, it does bring relative pleasure for a while. So when Adam and Eve sinned, they did not act “insanely”. What the Serpent told them made sense, and if you examine it in context is was indeed true because God Himself does say that ‘Man has become like them in that they now know both good and evil.’ So the proposition of Satan to them made sense in that immediate context. Satan’s whole argument was that God was restricting the will of man by not allowing them to know evil, and thus be able to choose whether to do good or to do evil.
Satan also does not ‘doubt the ability’ of God. He knows that God can do absolutely anything He wants to and no one, and nothing, can prevent Him. His whole charge against God is that Man would not choose to follow His ways if they had the free-will option not to, and this is what this 6000+ year GC is entirely about. So that is why Satan challenged God in Heaven and then with the newly created man, and later with Job. And, as my point is, the fact that both sides honestly saw this as a genuine test is because the future outcome of it was not known. (Cf. God’s test of Abraham in Gen 22:12). Satan also does not think that God cannot destroy him, he knows that God easily can. He however, wants to prove before the whole universe that God would only do this (prematurely) because He would be afraid that His ways would be proven to be false by Satan’s charges. A lot can be said here on this issue, but it will be said in the forthcoming book.
(cont’d)
[Answered to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 21, 2010 3:27 PM] cont’d
ReplyDeleteAlso you apparently circularly assume that an “ability” of God is knowing the future and that this is what the Bible teaches. That can only be seen from a Classical View perspective. Yet I have seen that is actually not taught in the Scriptures, but simply assumed by most, including Bible translators. As I mentioned before, it takes more faith to believe in God knowing that ‘He plans and performs the future as our faith allows’ than simply to have faith in Him because ‘He would precisely know for sure how everything will turn out.’
The length of Israel’s stay in Egypt and the selection of King Saul are prefect examples of the foreknowledge views. In the first example, God had planned for Israel to spend 400 years in Egypt, however that plan was slightly postponed ca. 10 years before it was to occur by the action of Moses who killed an Egyptian and had to go and hide in the wilderness for 40 years until the Pharaoh who wanted Moses dead passed away some 40 years later. Hence Israel’s stay was 430 years. In the case of Saul, God was forced to select the best man available for a king when Israel started to incessantly complain about having one. So he chose the humble Saul from the tribe of Benjamin and promised him that his household would remain as Israel regnal family forever. This even went against the prophetic statement of Jacob in Gen 49:10 which specified Judah as the regnal tribe ending up in the Messiah. However when Saul cease to be humble, that promise of God was withdrawn and God anointed David, from the tribe of Judah, to be King. Now, among the many problematic issues that are raised by this example in the Classical View, why didn’t God choose Jesse, David’s Father to be king instead of Saul and made such promises to him, knowing that David would later be born?! Only the foreplanning view perfectly accounts for all of these issues which actually contribute more to doubting God and the Bible than establishing faith in it as you, effectively, obliviously have assumed.
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 21, 2010 3:42 & 4:30 PM]
ReplyDeleteYou seems to have limited your search for El-Shaddai to strictly “El-Shaddai.” The fact is that many times “Shaddai” is simply stated independently or “El” is joined to the Hebrew word just before it. Using Strong’s numbering (#7706b) is helpful here as it includes all of these variants and under such the term “Shaddai” occurs 48X in the OT. (It is defined as meaning “to overpower”). Now that term is translated by the LXX as “pantokrator” many times, mainly in the book of Job [15X] (5:17; 8:5; 11:7; 15:25; 22:17, 25; 23:16; 27:2; 27:11, 13; 32:8; 33:4; 34:10, 12; 35:13) which may have been the earliest written book of the Bible and does indeed have an explicit GC theme throughout, which the translators of the LXX apparently also recognized.
The Greek term “pantokrator” which in the OT is also used hundreds of times to indicate the “Lord/God of hosts” (Strong’s #6635) clearly reflects that “pantokrator” emphasizes the power of God. That is why it is also used in this sense in the NT as “God Almighty.” (2 Cor 6:18 Revelation 9X). It is quite significant to note that “pantokrator” is translated in the Latin as “omnipotens” since this is where we get out Theological term and view of ‘God’s Omnipotence’ (i.e., God ‘All-powerfulness’) Indeed, as stated above in the main text (Note #3), God comes to tangibly accomplish many things through the ‘army of (faithful) angels’ that He is in “Chief Command” of.
Nonetheless, I do stand here corrected albeit specifically in that I phrased my statement inaccurately and should have said that “One of the most common descriptive names of God in the Bible is “Shaddai” (‘the All Mighty’) and have indeed made this change in the main text.
(cont’d)
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 21, 2010 3:42 & 4:30 PM] cont’d
ReplyDeleteAs strictly a “descriptive term for God” Shaddai is arguably indeed the most common. This is because Yawheh is God’s proper name; El/Eloha/Elohim and Adonai (Lord) are equivalent to simple titular statements of His “office”/position/function of “God” (e.g., King/President/Master). “Yawheh Sabaoth” is actually “Lord of Host” (#6635) and is indeed synonymous with Shaddai. It is said of Sabaoth that: by Eichrodt Sabaoth "does not refer to any particular 'hosts,' but to all bodies, multitudes, masses in general, the content of all that exists in heaven and in earth ... [a] name expressive of the divine sovereignty." As "the LORD Almighty," Yahweh is the controller of history who musters all the powers of heaven and earth to accomplish his will.
So it can further be said here that the most often related description of God focuses on ‘His “power” and “sovereignty” over anything’ such as with Shaddai and Sabaoth. El-Elyon (“God Most High”) can also be added to this, as His here emphasized “vantage point” of being ‘above everything else’ also implies this inherent overmastering power.
[Answer to emailed comment by Arthur Gibb on August 21, 2010 at 3:10 PM (posted at 10:46 PM)]
ReplyDeleteMost of the comments here (EGW’s view, ‘God being outside of time’ etc.) have already been answered above in the main text and subsequent comments. So they will not be again addressed here. However, I’ll say this in regards to the citations from Isaiah. The many passages you have cited in Isaiah are actually the major support for the foreplanning view as the predominant emphasis in these statement is ‘what God can do.’ The word “declare/announce/proclaim” (vs. ‘know/see/foresee’) tellingly, deliberately is used in virtually all of these passages. What better occasion here for God to state that He “knew of” and “foresaw” these future events vs. simply saying that ‘He had declared that this is what would occur, and planned it, and then when the time came for them to occur, He took actions to accomplish them as previously stated.’ Indeed this is the modus operandi that He explicitly relates in Isa 48:3-7, 11, 14-16).
Again, in regards to EGW, I’ll take her own recommendation and make the Bible my final authority of the interpretation of Scripture. While I believe she was inspired, I do not falsely believe that she was inerrant or infallible. Still I see her statement of Bible people being made to see future events as valid, but solely in that these were representational views, which she assumed, according to the understanding that God purposely allowed her to have/maintain in those times, that these were concrete future events.
I have also checked your link on “Theological Fatalism” and I must relate here for emphasis that after I came to my present understanding of God and the Future from solely studying the Bible and also direct visions in the SOP, I expanded my studies to see what other Christians thought/taught on this subject and came across these mainly philosophical views such as Open Theism, Middle Knowledge View, etc. I was immediately appalled by how these views mainly relied upon philosophical rationales to try to explain their “Biblical” view, while all that is really needed and even applicable is the proper and indepth exegetical study of Scriptures. That is why I consider Stephen Roy’s book, mentioned above, to be the most valid (attempted) defense of the Classical Foreknowledge view since it has sought to keep the arguments solely upon the testimony of Scripture.
I think the obvious meaning of scripture is being lost here. In Isaiah 41:21-24 the key word is "show". God challenges the false gods to ‘show’ the future, not create a future. The Hebrew word here means to tell, report, inform, i.e., speak information for any purpose.
ReplyDeleteIn Elijah’s case the issue was one of omnipotence. The god that answers by fire, the most powerful god, that is one is God. If God doesn’t know the future and no one does, then God should be saying. Tell us your plans for the future. Tell us what you will do in the future. The most powerful god, the one who can make His plans happen, that one is God.
But that is NOT what Isaiah says. He says simply ‘show us the future.’ The test is one of knowledge, what you can report, what you can see. Not what you can do.
Our God is omnipotent He has already proven that. But by His predictive prophecy, such as naming Cyrus 150+ years in advance, God has proven His omniscience as well.
John 16:30 (NKJV)
ReplyDelete30 Now we are sure that You know all things, and have no need that anyone should question You.
Colossians 2:2-3 (NKJV)
2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ,
3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
1 John 3:20 (NKJV)
20 For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
There is no limit to God's knowledge. He knows the future as it is certain. There is only one true future and it is fixed permanently when it becomes the past. However there is no evidence from the Bible that the future is impossible for God to see. To try to define God’s place in time would clearly be a speculative attempt in which we would be penetrating the mystery of His being. Here silence is eloquence.
Yes the Bible describes the Lord as ‘repenting.’ However this does not presuppose lack of foresight on His part or any variableness in His nature or purpose. In this sense God never repents of anything:
1 Samuel 15:29 (NKJV)
29 And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man, that He should relent.”
The ‘repentance’ of God is an expression referring to the pain of divine love occasioned by the sinfulness of man. It presents the truth that God, in consistency with His immutability, assumes a changed position in respect to changed man. The mention of divine grief at man’s depraved state is a touching indication that God did not hate man. Human sin fills the divine heart with deep-felt grief and pity. It excites all the fathomless ocean of sympathy for sinning men of which infinite love is capable. Nonetheless, it moves Him also to judicial retribution.
Immutability is another characteristic of God’s being that has been an important component of the Christian doctrine of God through the centuries. If the future is unknown to God, then He is always changing and reacting to the present as well all are, He would be in constant change.
However immutability refers to the absence of change in God. The Bible straightforwardly declares that God does not change:
Malachi 3:6 (NKJV)
6 “For I am the Lord, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.
James 1:17 (NKJV)
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
So how does God ‘change’ His mind and repent? This ‘change’ does not involve a change in His divine purpose for human beings, but rather an adjustment to human change of mind and purpose. In addition, the Bible conceives divine change in relation to God’s dynamic life, not in relation to the constitution of His being. In other words, the reality of God does not vary, nor does He change from a less perfect into a more perfect being. God is always the same:
Psalm 102:26-27 (NKJV)
26 They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed.
27 But You are the same, And Your years will have no end.
Hebrews 13:8 (NKJV)
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 22, 2010 12:34 AM]
ReplyDelete[The following answers are for 2 comments which had been submitted on August 22, 2010 at 12:34 & 12:35 AM for posting but were denied this posting on my blog because they were not factual, nor factually substantiated, as it is explicitly requested, as they contained grossly erroneous statements and conclusion. These are blatant exegetical errors that the author, Arthur Gibbs, an Andrews University educated SDA Pastor, should especially have been able to both realize and avoid. He was notified of these errors and given a chance to correct them so that his comments, or whatever would then be left of them, would be posted, but opted not to do so. Instead he obliviously, and self-righteously, claimed that, in refusing to post his comment as is, I was trying ‘to remove the evidence contrary to my theology’. Now that I personally have had some spare time to, effectively do his editing work for him, his error-laden comments have been posted and accompanied by these corrections.
As stated, these are all errors that a University-educated SDA Pastor should have been able to notice and avoid, so I purposely make absolutely no apologies for explicitly emphasizing their blatant erroneousness when applicable. (John 3:10; Matt 15:14; 23:24). What else can be said of an SDA leader of a congregation who (1) cannot even notice these scholastic errors, and (2) vexatiously refuses to responsibly do so? Still these denunciating comments here are nothing personal against Arthur Gibbs who has been cordial in his discussions here and in emails; but such “kindness and politeness” is not a substitute for due responsibility and factual truth. So these comment here are just due to the case-in-point, general commentary on a part of the systemic dysfunction that indifferently is allowed to reign supreme in the greatly deficient pastoral ministry of the SDA Church.]
That duly and deservingly said, I now turn to these corrections:
I think the obvious meaning of scripture is being lost here. In Isaiah 41:21-24 the key word is "show".
The only thing that is being lost here is the original meaning of the key word [Heb. nagab] cited here. [Such errors could have been avoided by using the more accurate NASB translation, especially for such expositional/study purposes.] That word translated as “show” is Strong’s #5046 which does not actually mean “show” at all, but involves the notion ‘stating with confidence/certainty’ and thus is translated as “declare” as, most pertinently, in Isa 46:10. When speaking of future events, it is actually best rendered in English as “predict” since the Latin etymology of that English term is ‘to mention beforehand’ (i.e., ‘before that said thing happens’) and thus is synonymous with “forecasting”.
God challenges the false gods to ‘show’ the future, not create a future.
That is completely wrong. The exegetical meaning of the text instead states that God is challenging these false gods to “predict” the future as He can and in Isa 46:9-11, it is shown that this “prediction” is a part of God’s planning/fashioning of this future, which, when the time comes to fulfill it, He “acts” [when justified] to bring it about as planned. (Isa 48:3ff)
The Hebrew word here means to tell, report, inform, i.e., speak information for any purpose.
Quite evidently, and self-contradictingly, even in this undocumented, if not ad hoc, given definition of Gibbs, there still is not any notion about ‘visually showing something’!?!
(cont’d)
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 22, 2010 12:34 AM] cont’d
ReplyDeleteIn Elijah’s case the issue was one of omnipotence. The god that answers by fire, the most powerful god, that is one is God.
This statement involves a false theological dichotomy. If the future was known by God, it would still need to involve a degree of “power” to obtain this knowledge, just like, for example, a large part of a military’s success depends on “military intelligent” and thus the ability and “power” to obtain it (i.e., fact collecting, physical, covert spies, satellites, recon crafts, etc.) Also what was involved with Elijah was not necessarily a duel of “power” but a challenge to actual “existence.” I.e., the God that actually answers as stipulated, ‘then that God is the only God. (1 Kgs 18:21, 24, 27, 36-37, 39). It was not as if ‘Baal existed but did not have the power to send fire down from Heaven.’ Elijah’s Biblical point, as explicitly stated many times in the Bible, was that ‘Yahweh is the only God, and besides Him there exists no other.’ (Deu 4:35, 39; Isa 45:5, 14, 21; 46:9; Joel 2:27). Otherwise, it would actually be wrong for God to tell people to only worship Him when there are other existing and competing gods that thus can be followed, even though they may be less powerful. God would then be forcing people to believe in Him solely because He is more powerful, just as wrongly as a muscular guy trying to take another weaker guy’s girlfriend away from him simply because he is stronger, better physically built or even has more money. So God’s warning here in the light of the factual. total non-existence of any other god, is actually a most loving caution to humans to ‘not be fooled, by false claims of the existence of other gods.’ It is like the Police telling citizens not to trust anyone who cannot produce their official badge. So the issue with Elijah was strictly one of actual existence and not “power.” The condition for proof of Divinity was strictly ‘whoever answers as stipulated’ and not even ‘whoever has the power to answer as stipulated’ for again that would imply that Baal exists, which Elijah fully knew was not even an issue.
If God doesn’t know the future and no one does,
It is not hard to acknowledge this, albeit circular, truism, because indeed, if God cannot do something (apart from evil of course - e.g, “lie” Tit 1:2; Heb 6:18), then no one else can.
then God should be saying. Tell us your plans for the future. Tell us what you will do in the future. The most powerful god, the one who can make His plans happen, that one is God. But that is NOT what Isaiah says. He says simply ‘show us the future.’
The exegetical facts (and not the use of caps) reveal that this is exactly what God is saying here and these same facts also speak against this conclusion of Gibbs here. God is indeed telling these false gods to ‘state beforehand things that will certainly happen in the future”, which is understood in the wider context of the Bible on this topic as things that they will make to happen in the future as they are now supposed to “declare”. Again no notion of ‘(visually) show the future here’.
This is indeed the perfect example of the skewing end result of improper exegesis. I.e., It is first falsely claimed that #5046 means “to show” which then ends up with this false conclusion which seeks to similarly grossly erroneously reword all other passages on this point.
The test is one of knowledge, what you can report, what you can see. Not what you can do.
Wrong “resulting” conclusion again. Proper exegesis shows that the test is the ability ‘to state in advance what one will do in the future and then do these exactly as previously stated.’
(cont’d)
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 22, 2010 12:34 AM] cont’d
ReplyDeleteOur God is omnipotent He has already proven that.
God is actually not concerned with having to prove Himself and He actually has to continue to exercise His Omnipotent power as previously stated prophecies continue to be fulfilled, among other such demanding developments. There is also, in these contemporary manifestations, a demonstration of Divine Wisdom and actual Omnscience as the results of these carefully crafted ‘prophetic plans’ do perfectly pan out in our days, as envisioned a long time ago.
But by His predictive prophecy, such as naming Cyrus 150+ years in advance, God has proven His omniscience as well.
This issue of Isaiah and this assumed 150+ year prophecy is introductorily addressed in this blog post (search for “Cyrus” in your browser). It succinctly shows why I do not believe, along with many commentators and expositors, including SDAs, that this statement was said 150+ years in advance (even contra Josephus’ understanding), but actually, at the most within the 60+ years before Cyrus, being led and upheld by God Himself, captured Babylon. This all would be like God today having chosen and led a current Head of State to office, after having made this known in a (prophetic) statement as far back as, 1950 when that leader was just a babe. Furthermore, so selecting Cyrus was made less complicated by the fact that the throne of Medo-Persia was defaulty passed on to members of the royal family. So God was here solely indicating as far back as 60 years before, who He want to be on the Medo-Persian throne (cf. Dan 2;21) in order to facilitate the carrying out His plans. So apparently Cyrus, even as early as from his early childhood had the qualities/character traits that God wanted/needed in order to simply/peacefully, timely overturn the captivity of Israel. (cf. Dan 11:2).
Indeed God “accomplishes” whatever He declares He will do in the future. This indeed corroborates my view that God uses such compelling evidence to quasi-force even heathens to accomplish His will, and indeed when Cyrus was shown that He had been named by God so many years before, He became self-diligent to accomplish all and exactly what God wanted with Israel and thus their timely return from the prophesied 70 years of captivity.
[End to answer of first comment of Arthur Gibbs]
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 22, 2010 12:35 AM]
ReplyDeleteThe following cited verses are patent examples of the still used, old-style “proof-texting”, (see the opening paragraph in this post) which is, inherently, completely devoid of proper, if any, actual/responsible exegesis.
John 16:30 (NKJV) 30 Now we are sure that You know all things, and have no need that anyone should question You.
The disciples are simply stating to Jesus that now that He has finally spoken plainly with them (vss. 16-29), they now understand who He really is and thus have no need to further question Him on their prior doubts. No mention here of ‘knowing a supposedly existing future’ nor of the repeated circular assumption that knowing everything (i.e., being “omniscient”) also involves knowing an assumedly already existing future.
Colossians 2:2-3 (NKJV) 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
The NASB suggests, and probably rightly, that this mystery and knowledge is referring to the person of Jesus Christ Himself, nonetheless, if ‘the mystery and knowledge of the things of God’ is meant here instead then, this passage supports an endeavor to ‘attain to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery’ (vs. 2 NASB); and thus fully endorses such Biblically-based, theological probings into the, up-to-now, “purposefully” “hidden truth” (i.e., “mystery”) of ‘God and the Future’. Many examples in the Bible and Religious History show that God does indeed allow some things about Him and His truth to be “hidden” for a while for various purposeful reasons (mainly reasons of “genuine faith testing”), until a most opportune time.
1 John 3:20 (NKJV) 20 For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
Again, another patent “proof text.” There is no mention here of ‘knowing (an assumedly existing) future!?!’
(cont’d)
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 22, 2010 12:35 AM] cont’d
ReplyDeleteThere is no limit to God's knowledge. He knows the future as it is certain. There is only one true future and it is fixed permanently when it becomes the past. However there is no evidence from the Bible that the future is impossible for God to see.
First of all, if there really is “only one true future and it is fixed permanently when it
becomes the past” the why is not that sole future also rightly considered as being fixed?? Secondly, I believe that God, comparative, solely for illustrative purposes, to a most powerful super computer, can take into consideration all of the myriads of current facts that serve to forecast the future. Still His prophecies are based upon indepently more general and wise principles.
Thirdly this comment of Gibbs is really an unsubstantiated supposed (attempted) truism. By the simple fact that it is understood that God knows all there is to know, which if the future actually even already existed, would include the future, limits the knowledge of God to “all that there is to be known”. Passages like Job 11:7-9 and Isa 55:8, 9 do not (knee-jerkedly - i.e., absent of proper exegesis) say that ‘God has no limits,’ but simply that His own “limits,” (as made evident by the limits that still exists in the “heavens” and “Sheol” illustrations cited there), are way beyond the grasping of limited man. Indeed when all that is to be known in this universe is known then an inherent limit is actually reached. What does not exist cannot be known. To say that such an inherent limit is never reach (i.e. is infinite) is actually to say by realistic implication that God does not know all that there is to be known, and thus He is not, by definition, “Omniscient.” So God does know many, many things which we do not know, and will never know; and these are things which He also uses to so accurately forecast/plan the future, as only He can. In this line it can be Biblically stated that the only thing that cannot be so concretely known and ascertained by God in advance is, rightly, i.e., GC speaking, and rather “realistically-speaking”, the future free-will decisions of man (cf. Gen 22:12). As stated in my main blog post text above God deals in reality and not magical “hocus pocus”.
Indeed here is my previously implied challenge to all those who believe that the future is known. Explain how the future actually “concretely/certainly” already exists. Have you e.g., already lived out your life to its end and now is simply going through the “hardened ruts” of these already rigidly set motions???? The notion that the future exists and is unchangeable completely destroys the notion of reality, and thus by implication, that our present, daily relationship and faith journey with God is genuine and of any actual realistic consequence. We will simply end up wherever we have already ended up. The Bible instead portrays in abundant examples, a God that is candidly and genuinely affected by events that suddenly transpire, including developments that He did not think that professed believers in Him would do. (Exod 32, Num 14) By insistently wanting to have a “magical” God that ‘knows a supposeldly already existing future,’ His Character of Truth is actually greatly maligned and replaced with a hypocritical (i.e., a deceptively, play-acting”) one, and a God who effectively lies, because He does not always mean what He says or does.
Not previously, expressedly revealing to believers the actually Biblically ascertainable and evident truth that the future is not known is not a lie, but, just like in a true and purposeful testing, a teacher who does not tell you the answers after the questions is not “lying” to you when they here intend to genuinely/concretely ascertain what you should have studied, as required.
(cont’d)
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 22, 2010 12:35 AM] cont’d
ReplyDeleteTo try to define God’s place in time would clearly be a speculative attempt in which we would be penetrating the mystery of His being.
I personally think that God clearly defines His ‘place in time’ as being ‘in the very present’ by calling Himself the ‘Great I AM’ (Exod 3:14). Of course EGW’s commentary on that statement which is strictly derived from, and limited by, her theological/biblical understanding then, states differently, however she would be the first to say not to make her writings the final interpreter of the Bible.
Here silence is eloquence.
The problem with this indeed often resorted to ‘self-proclaimed, eloquent and self-sanctimonious silence’ is that it allows the many unresolved issues of this topic to loudly continue to make false insinuations about God and His Pure and True Character. So it really does nothing to facilitate the potential great advance of the Gospel and often results in, when one is confronted by a life reality, great perplexities and crisis of faith. E.g., if God clearly led me to marry this person then why am I now having to divorce him because of his infidelity and abusive behavior? Such questioning then often leads to a conclusion that God must either not exist or he really doesn’t care or know what He is doing. While the Biblical, foreplanning answer is, as with King Saul, when God had directed that person to marry this other one, he was really a great choice. However his future free-will choices led him to deviate from this right course.
As the Truth on this issue is ascertainable from a proper exegetical study of the Bible, silence here is not at all “eloquence” but instead is simply an excuse for continued lackadaisical oblviousness and indifference.
Yes the Bible describes the Lord as ‘repenting.’
The root meaning of the word here nacham (Strong’s #5162) is actually ‘“changing one’s mind” in a 180 degree way.’
However this does not presuppose lack of foresight on His part or any variableness in His nature or purpose. In this sense God never repents of anything: 1 Samuel 15:29 (NKJV) 29 And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man, that He should relent.”
This, effectively, isolationary conclusion is easily defeated by the statement in Jer 18:8 & 10 which uses that same word #5162, to say that God will “relent” i.e., “change his mind” if attenuating circumstance come to change. (Cf. Gen 6:6, 7)
Indeed the proper understanding this word as used by God is in the fact that God may or may not “change his mind” depending on the pertinent circumstances of a specific situation. Furthermore with the word being in the Hebrew (reflexive) Hithpael stem, it is pointedly stating that: ‘unlike an untrustworthy and fickle man, God will not, of Himself change His mind.’ In other words, if God says that He will do something in the future, He will not, like men often do, suddenly “change His mind” without any external just cause for doing so.
(cont’d)
Correction: It is the similar statement by God in Num 23:19 which uses the Hebrew Hithpael verbal stem and not here in 1 Sam 15:29 which uses a Niphal stem. See the explanation as to why in Claim #[155] in this post.
Delete[Answer to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 22, 2010 12:35 AM] cont’d
ReplyDeleteThe ‘repentance’ of God is an expression referring to the pain of divine love occasioned by the sinfulness of man. It presents the truth that God, in consistency with His immutability, assumes a changed position in respect to changed man. The mention of divine grief at man’s depraved state is a touching indication that God did not hate man. Human sin fills the divine heart with deep-felt grief and pity. It excites all the fathomless ocean of sympathy for sinning men of which infinite love is capable. Nonetheless, it moves Him also to judicial retribution.
Again here, the actual meaning of the word nacham #5162 is “change one’s mind”. Repentance is actually a contrived extension from the effect of that change of mind. “Repentance” is actually better stated by the Hebrew word shuwb Strong’s #7725 (“to turn”). Indeed only 5 of 128 occurrence of nacham #5162 are translated as “repent...” in the NASB. So no actual “sorrow” or contrition/repentance is being stated here, but strictly a resolute “change of mind”.
Consider the following example: If I decide to go buy a new car and I know for certain that I will not be able to pay for, nor be approved for a loan for a car over $18,000. If I then look up on the internet all of the different brands of cars available within that price range and finally do pick one out as my definite choice, along with the actual color, then how, if I, in going to make that specific purchase, walk instead to the luxury car dealership across the street and test drive half a dozen cars costing $40,000 and more, can then turn to that salesman and suddenly, truthfully/honestly/candidly/genuinely claim, when he tells me the price of these cars, (which I already fully knew of): “You know what, I change my mind. I am going to buy a car at the cheaper dealership across the street.” Clearly I did not at all “change my mind” here. How much more is this not possible with a God who would perfectly know from eternity past, all that will take place. E.g., How can God say He has “changed His mind” with making Saul King when He would have known that this would be the end result of this choice. Many other such Biblical examples involving “a change of mind of God’ can be corroboratively cited here.
(cont’d)
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 22, 2010 12:35 AM] cont’d
ReplyDeleteImmutability is another characteristic of God’s being that has been an important component of the Christian doctrine of God through the centuries. If the future is unknown to God, then He is always changing and reacting to the present as well all are, He would be in constant change. However immutability refers to the absence of change in God. The Bible straightforwardly declares that God does not change: Malachi 3:6 (NKJV) 6 “For I am the Lord, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.
The word that is translated as “change” in Malachi 3:6 (#8132) actually means “to not put on an act/disguise”. It is most illustratively used in 1 Sam 21:13 to speak of David “disguising his sanity” by suddenly acting as if he was a crazy person in order to fool his murderously intended enemies. It is along this line of ‘remaining true to oneself despite any circumstance’ that God is spoken of in Mal 3:6 as not having to “disguise Himself” or “put on an act.” Thus because He is inherently merciful and faithful, Jacob is indeed not consumed and preserved, so that the promises made to this forefather, Jacob|Israel, can be realized despite the unworthiness of his present descendants. So not statement is being made here that: ‘God will never alter His plans.’
Again here, improper exegesis has led to deficient and wrong conclusions. Even the word “immutable” specifically refers to “internal mutations/changes” and not external ones. as mandated by a change in external attenuating circumstance. So, as pointedly stated in 1 Sam 15:29, God does not “of Himself” change His mind. And also He Himself does not have to Personally change, i.e, change the essence of His character, and thus indeed is “immutable” in the actual intrinsical meaning of that word.
The simple fact that many OT prophecies had to be postponed and later only spiritually fulfilled with a non-ethnic Israel is a case in point that God does have to adjust His plans in order to rightly respond to the free-will actions of humans (cf. Isa 5:1-7).
James 1:17 (NKJV) 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
Again another passage that states that God will always remain true to Himself. Which is also why He must also concretely and justly deal with rebellion while simultaneously remaining faithful to past promises, even if then only spiritually. This indeed explains the spiritual fulfillment of many OT prophecies, which were not fulfilled as literally stated due to an absolutely unworthy literal Israel.
So how does God ‘change’ His mind and repent? This ‘change’ does not involve a change in His divine purpose for human beings, but rather an adjustment to human change of mind and purpose.
The Bible clearly says the contrary. God plans for man do radically change depending on how they are acting. To say that ‘this “change of mind and repentance” involves God Himself making an adjustment to human change of mind and purpose’ is actually quasi-blasphemous because it implies that God has to adjust his Character and attitude in response to how man choses to respond to His stated plans and will!?! So it is actually being heretically stated here that God is susceptible of internal character mutations depending on man’s chosen responses. God has repeatedly judged and even destroyed unworthy generations, thus showing a change in his Divine purpose for these, also His chosen people, yet at the same time He has not “adjusted” Himself, i.e., aligned and subjected Himself to these human change of mind or purpose. His Divine purpose are supreme and sovereign. Getting a righteous generation through whom they can be fulfilled is another story, and indeed the main plot of this Great Controversy between good and evil.
(cont’d)
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 22, 2010 12:35 AM] cont’d
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the Bible conceives divine change in relation to God’s dynamic life, not in relation to the constitution of His being. In other words, the reality of God does not vary, nor does He change from a less perfect into a more perfect being. God is always the same:
I really do not see how the reality of God (i.e., that God exist) suddenly becomes a pertinent issue here. And furthermore, no one is saying that God needs to “perfect” Himself. This is a completely non-existent and actually, “red-herring”, argument. God is not ‘trying, with many trial and error attempts, to accurately predict the future.’ He is solely trying to find believing and worthy human beings through which it can be fully accomplished as He has previously said it should, and would be fulfilled due to the perfect Wisdom that is also intrinsically involved in these Divine, Prophetic plannings.
Psalm 102:26-27 (NKJV) 26 They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed. 27 But You are the same, And Your years will have no end.
Amen! God remains the same and does not need to adjust Himself and His Character to mortal man, contrary to what was implied by Gibbs above.
Hebrews 13:8 (NKJV) 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Amen again!
This whole tangential discussion into God’s immutability actually does not even begin to prove that the future exists and is known. That notion was only interjected in this discussion by Gibbs previous false and circular statement that: “If the future is unknown to God, then He is always changing and reacting to the present as well all are, He would be in constant change.”. The Bible is clear in many stories that God does indeed genuinely react to the present, but not in a change, not to change, His character, but actually to justly and honestly deal with a generation that have deviated from His perfect and wise Divine plans. So when God in Exod 4:24-26 sent an angel to kill a disobedient and rebellious Moses, just after having appointed Him to deliver Israel and while Moses was on his way to do so; He was not simply acting, but was genuinely and justly upset that Moses continued to doubt and now disobey Him despite all of the many proofs of His presence and power. (PP 255, 256). Indeed such a rebellious leader completely nullifies any justified possibility for the miraculous actions that God needs to take in order to deliver His people and so is indeed utterly disposable, and if Moses’s wife had not reacted quickly to carried God’s will, the angel would have proceeded to slain Moses as it was in His Divine Instructions to do.
And, case in point here, in conclusion, (and many other passages can be cited here), evidently Moses did not believe that the future is set in stone and that God also knows this concrete future because He doubt and questioned God on his plans to bring Israel out of Egypt and a fully understanding God, who was not simply “playing along”, went on to reassure Moses by giving faith building signs and not by saying, ‘trust me, I know this will happen because I know the future’ (Exod 4:1-9ff).
[End of answers to second comment by Arthur Gibbs]
The Hebrew word, nagad, Strongs #5046, does not usually mean 'predict'. The word means to 'speak information for any purpose.'
ReplyDeleteThe NASB translates the word as anything but 'predict':
answered(3), another(1), certainly told(1), confess(1), confront*(1), declare(46), declared(13), declares(6), declaring(4), denounce(2), describe(1), disclosed(1), display(1), explain(3), fully reported(1), give evidence(1), indeed tell(1), inform(3), informed(1), informs(2), know(1), known(1), made known(4), make...known(1), messenger(2), related(2), remind(1), report(2), reported(10), reported*(1), show(2), shown(2), surely report(1), surely tell(1), tell(101), telling(2), tells(3), told(131), told plainly(1), uttered(1).
In fact the word acutally is used a lot with known messages, verdicts, or certain warnings. Often it is simply to convey known historical information from one party to another. The idea that this word alone gives evidence that God is guessing about the future is incorrect. In fact the word is used to share 'evidence' and not guesses.
Note the contexts of its use: be told, have reported to (Ge 22:20; 27:42; 31:22; 38:13, 24; Ex 14:5; Dt 17:4; Jos 9:24(2×); 10:17; Jdg 9:25, 47; Ru 2:11(2×); 1Sa 15:12; 19:19; 23:7, 13; 27:4; 2Sa 6:12; 10:17; 19:2[EB 1]; 21:11; 1Ki 1:51; 2:29, 41; 10:7; 18:13; 2Ki 6:13; 8:7; 1Ch 19:17; 2Ch 9:6; Isa 7:2; 21:2; 40:21+)
NJK Project said, "actually, at the most within the 60+ years before Cyrus"
ReplyDeleteMore than a century before the birth of Cyrus, Inspiration had mentioned him by name {PK 551}
Again inspired counsel is clear. That would be way more than 60 some years, and obviously way before the birth of Cyrus. Most conservative commentaries agree on this too, including the Adventist one.
There are a few critical commentaries that doubt the unity of the book of Isaiah. The mention of Cyrus by name (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1) is regarded by them as conclusive evidence that these chapters were written during the time of Cyrus, that is, in the second half of the 6th century b.c. This concept, of course, is based on the a priori assumption that prophetic foreknowledge is impossible.
For some 25 centuries no question arose concerning the authorship of the book of Isaiah. Adventists hold the view that Isaiah wrote all of the book of Isaiah during his lifetime, before Cyrus.
However there are other obvious prophecies God makes in the book: Among these are prophecies of the fall of the rulers of Israel and Syria (ch. 7:7, 8, 16), of the overthrow of Tyre (ch. 23), of the dismay of Assyria (chs. 14:25; 31:8; 37:6, 7, 29, 33–35), of the humiliation of Babylon (ch. 14:4–23), of the folly of trusting in Egypt (chs. 30:1–3; 31:1–3), and of the work of Cyrus (chs. 44:28; 45:1–4). Indeed, Isaiah sets forth God’s foreknowledge as eloquent testimony to His wisdom and power (chs. 41:21–23; 42:9; 43:9; 44:7, 8; 45:11, 21; 46:9, 10; 48:3, 5–8).
The point of verses such as John 16:30, 1 John 3:20 is that God knows everything. The Bible sets no limits on the knowledge of God. None. So to say, 'ah but God doesn't know the future'. Is clearly setting a limit to a knowledge. Something that the Bible does not do. The same logic is used for God's power and eternal nature. God has always been. So there never was or will be a time when He does not exist. And so it would be outside of scripture to say, 'ah but there is a spot in time God did not exist.
ReplyDeleteNJK project said, "What does not exist cannot be known."
ReplyDeleteI think we are finally getting done to the key fallacy. Why can God not know what doesn't exist? You started your search for truth with your assumption having your answer. If you don't believe anyone or anything could know the future since it doesn't yet 'exist' then the circle logic has arrived.
Think again about Ellen White's statement:
"In past ages the Lord God of heaven revealed his secrets to his prophets. The present and the future are equally clear to him. The voice of God echoes down the ages, telling man what is to take place." {YI, December 1, 1903}
God is beyond time. He is able to view a non-exisitant future. I can't fully explain how God does it, anymore than I can explain how God is eternal. However the idea that 'What does not exist cannot be known' is a non-Biblical, non-Ellen White, sourced assumption.
Actually the name Yahweh, and God saying, "I AM" is more than just a statement that God lives in the present. In Exodus 3:14, the Hebrew word from which Yahweh comes means "I am that I am" but it can also mean 'I will be what I will be.' He doesn't say, "I will be what I plan to be." or "I will be what I hope to be."
ReplyDeleteAll commentaries I know of agree, this name for God implies that He is the eternal, self-existing One. Both in the past, present, and future.
About God's "repentance", yes, the word is "repentance", which normally would be a 180 degree turn around. But as always we have to read and study to find the context and the truth. Other texts clearly say God does not 'repent'. So how do we explain this?
ReplyDeleteWe have inspired counsel that helps confirm what also can be arrived at through study. Her writings do not establish truth, but confirm it. But her commentary is worded too well to not include:
God's repentance is not like man's repentance. "The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for He is not a man, that He should repent." Man's repentance implies a change of mind. God's repentance implies a change of circumstances and relations. Man may change his relation to God by complying with the conditions upon which he may be brought into the divine favor, or he may, by his own action, place himself outside the favoring condition; but the Lord is the same "yesterday, and today, and forever." Hebrews 13:8. Saul's disobedience changed his relation to God; but the conditions of acceptance with God were unaltered--God's requirements were still the same, for with Him there "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1:17. {PP 630}
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs comment on August 26 at 10:19 A.M.] - The Definition of nagab #5046
ReplyDeleteThat was a plausibly interesting attempted definition of nagab #5046 however it was not exegetically deep enough to be either valid or true.
When it comes to understanding the precise meaning of, here, a Hebrew word, in depth lexical/linguistic works such as the Theological Dictionary|Wordbook of the Old Testament (TDOT & TWOT) are the best resources that one can turn to. In the TWOT (pp. 549-550) nagab (given entry #1289) is shown that its basic/root meaning is “to place a matter high, conspicuous before a person (i.e., ‘to make obvious to the eye or mind’). The word is indeed conveniently (for English speakers) simply translated as “to tell, make known”) however, as the TWOT also points out, as other words in Hebrew more precisely denote these notions of [w/Strong #]: “to say” amar #559 ; and samah #8085 “to make known” (Hiphil) - Jer 4:5 (cf. Ex 19:3; Deut 32:4; Isa 41:22, etc.); along with other similar terms: sapar #5608 “to report” - Job 12:7-8; Ps 19:1; bin #995 “to understand”- Jer 9:12; dibber #1696 “to speak” - Isa 45:19; and ya’as #3289 “to advise” - Jer 38:15. Also gala #1540 “to reveal” and yada #3045 “to know”. The understanding that should be grasped by the deliberate use of this word is that ‘something by the subject that “was previously unknown or unknowable to the object” is now being made to be quite tangibly visible and/or mentally perceptible.’
Indeed this pointed notion is made quite clear in the two derivatives of this word, namely negeb [no Strong’s #] and nagid #5057. Negeb indeed means “being prominently before”; and as the TWOT says, ‘the fullest expression of this idea of prominence comes in the nominal derivative of that term as nagid “ruler, leader, captain”. Indeed this self-evident can be seen.
When this term is used in a context that speaks of “making obvious and prominent what will take place in the future” it is indeed synonymous with “predict” (i.e., to make known (these hidden plans) beforehand.) It is interesting to see here that God is challenging these false gods to make known these things in advance so that when they occur in the future, they will not slyly take the credit for having “done them” (Isa 48:5 - Hebrew asah #6213a “do, make”) So God is indeed focusing on what these false gods supposedly could “do”, and to now reveal what these future actions will be so that it can be verified if they have indeed done what they said they would do in the future.
So the whole focus here is on the ‘power of doing’ and not on ‘a capability of knowing the future’. (See Isa 48:3-5, 11). (Cf. Isa 44:25 and 26 on God’s power of “undoing the predictions of false diviners” while accomplishing the prophetic utterances of His Spirit-led servants and messengers.)
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs’ comment on August 26 at 10:37 A.M.]
ReplyDeleteNJK Project said, "actually, at the most within the 60+ years before Cyrus"
More than a century before the birth of Cyrus, Inspiration had mentioned him by name {PK 551}
Again inspired counsel is clear. That would be way more than 60 some years, and obviously way before the birth of Cyrus. Most conservative commentaries agree on this too, including the Adventist one.
It is not surprising to see this statement in the writings of EGW, though that does not make it a directly inspired comment, per se. Indeed many expositors of her time held that view probably all based upon the statement of Josephus of: “140 years before the Temple was demolished” in Ant. 11:1.2 [#6]. However the textual and contextual evidence in the book of Isaiah itself indicates that this is solely an assumption. Indeed there is a drastic contextual/thematic shift and distinction between Isaiah chapters 1-39; 40-55; and 56-66. Also, textually, Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, is not again mentioned by name, nor alluded to at all, after ch. 39; whereas this naming and allusions occurs at least 16 explicit times in those first 39 chapters. Many other points can be made here, however these major evidences indeed indicate that the book of Isaiah is the assimilation of 3 prophetic works, from 3 distinct authors, living in 3 different time period, yet all probably from the “school of the prophets of Isaiah”, thus their accepted and seamless, and probably quite intentional assimilation into one grand prophetic work.
There are a few critical commentaries that doubt the unity of the book of Isaiah. The mention of Cyrus by name (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1) is regarded by them as conclusive evidence that these chapters were written during the time of Cyrus, that is, in the second half of the 6th century b.c. This concept, of course, is based on the a priori assumption that prophetic foreknowledge is impossible.
For some 25 centuries no question arose concerning the authorship of the book of Isaiah. Adventists hold the view that Isaiah wrote all of the book of Isaiah during his lifetime, before Cyrus.
In this case the actual textual and contextual evidence make it moot whatever reason these commentators may have had to hold this view originally.
However there are other obvious prophecies God makes in the book: Among these are prophecies of the fall of the rulers of Israel and Syria (ch. 7:7, 8, 16), of the overthrow of Tyre (ch. 23), of the dismay of Assyria (chs. 14:25; 31:8; 37:6, 7, 29, 33–35), of the humiliation of Babylon (ch. 14:4–23), of the folly of trusting in Egypt (chs. 30:1–3; 31:1–3), and of the work of Cyrus (chs. 44:28; 45:1–4). Indeed, Isaiah sets forth God’s foreknowledge as eloquent testimony to His wisdom and power (chs.. 41:21–23; 42:9; 43:9; 44:7, 8; 45:11, 21; 46:9, 10; 48:3, 5–8).
What you consider as “prophecies” in the sense of ‘looking into the future and seeing what will happen and then relating these concrete observations beforehand’, I instead, based upon what the Biblical testimony actually indicates as ‘God saying what He will do in the future,’ - a statement which is a good as done given His unmatchable Omnipotence. Indeed the largest part of my book is spent on demonstrating just how these predictive statements could indeed have been envisioned and planned by God without having to know the future, even the 2300+ passages which also involve free human choices, as listed by Stephen Roy in his book.
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs’ comment on August 26 at 10:44 A.M.]
ReplyDeleteThe point of verses such as John 16:30, 1 John 3:20 is that God knows everything. The Bible sets no limits on the knowledge of God. None. So to say, 'ah but God doesn't know the future'. Is clearly setting a limit to a knowledge. Something that the Bible does not do. The same logic is used for God's power and eternal nature. God has always been. So there never was or will be a time when He does not exist. And so it would be outside of scripture to say, 'ah but there is a spot in time God did not exist.
The fact that God can make many explicit and implicit “now I know” statements throughout the Bible and SOP revelations (e.g., Gen 22:12; Isa 5:1-7; EW 149-153, etc) is concrete exegetically derived testimony that His knowledge is indeed limited to what tangibly exists. So since the future free-will actions of humans have not occurred yet and therefore do not exist, along with the future in general makes it that they cannot be known solely because they do not exist. Claiming otherwise is simply wishful thinking and unbiblically claiming for, and attributing to, God what He Himself has not claimed nor stated.
Indeed contrary to what you “sanctimoniously” presume for Divinity, God Himself repeatedly expresses and indicates in the Bible that ‘He did not know something beforehand.’ That is an incontrovertible Biblical fact and can only be circumvented by stubbornly oblivious eisogesis. Proof-texting indeed involves such ‘reading into a text.’ Quite tellingly, people holding the Classical View of Foreknowledge have absolute no cogent answers for these many statements and episode. And these are indeed the passages that formed the core basis of this present “Foreplanning View” all theologically anchored by Isa 46:9-11.
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs’ comment on August 26 at 10:53 A.M.]
ReplyDeleteNJK project said, "What does not exist cannot be known."
I think we are finally getting done to the key fallacy. Why can God not know what doesn't exist? You started your search for truth with your assumption having your answer. If you don't believe anyone or anything could know the future since it doesn't yet 'exist' then the circle logic has arrived.
Quite evidently you have to self-convince yourself that I have some evil motive for my view. The truth is that you have actually no idea how I started my search, yet I have actually repeatedly stated how and why I engaged in it, again: ‘by seeking better answers to actually prove the Classical Foreknowledge View but only to be confronted with the clear facts in the Bible that there are indeed things that God does not know and these are things that have not yet concretely occurred, such as future actions of people and thus, by greater implication, the entire future. Deal with the reality of the facts here, in especially regards to the motives for my view. Literally here, deafly lying to, and deceiving yourself in regards to this only proves your more general incapability to deal with actual truth and facts.
Think again about Ellen White's statement:
"In past ages the Lord God of heaven revealed his secrets to his prophets. The present and the future are equally clear to him. The voice of God echoes down the ages, telling man what is to take place." {YI, December 1, 1903}
Again this is not, by EGW’s own admonishment, to be the final interpretive and theological understanding for us. The actual and precise testimony of the Scriptures is to be our final authority. It is surprising to me that you want EGW’s relatively theologically/scholarly limited statements here to be the final word on this topic, yet you probably do not hold to early erroneous views of hers on e.g., “The Shut Door”; the Trinity, the 7th day Sabbath, (she did say early that Joseph Bates was in error in emphasizing the observance of Saturday vs. Sunday ); or various theological understandings on the Law and Grace, which was also reflected in her published book writings on this topic, etc. So like she says, make the Scriptures your foundation and final guide. In fact it was EGW’s direct visions and revelations, such as on “The Plan of Slavation in EW 149-153, as previously mentioned in prior comments, that clinched my then wholly Biblically-discovered “Foreplanning View.” However she herself, by God’s purposeful allowance, did not grasp the full theological meaning and implications of these revelations and visions. (Just like Daniel and John did not understand all of the prophetic visions that they were given).
cont’d
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs’ comment on August 26 at 10:53 A.M.] cont’d
ReplyDeleteGod is beyond time. He is able to view a non-exisitant future. I can't fully explain how God does it, anymore than I can explain how God is eternal. However the idea that 'What does not exist cannot be known' is a non-Biblical, non-Ellen White, sourced assumption.
The Biblical and SOP evidence is indeed quite ample and in direct opposition to this presumed conclusion of yours. I myself can prove my Foreplanning View from the Bible and (direct) SOP revelations, you not only cannot prove your Classical View, you also wholly ignore these points debunking your view. So the fact clearly is that my View is Biblical, while yours is not! Indeed I’ll duly go by what I can concretely believe from the Biblical testimony, and not by your ethereal assumptions, and in this way, I cannot spiritually go, nor be, wrong. (2 Tim 3:16). If you really want to convince me of the truthfulness of your view, then do provide a sound Exegetical/Biblical answer against such passages in the Bible. Otherwise these statements are indeed solely and merely your own selective, wishful and traditional, private opinions. (contra 2 Pet 1:10). Just sanctimoniously saying “I don’t know” or “I cannot prove” indeed does not prove your points but solely speaks against their validity. I can similarly to your approach make the claim that ‘God is female’ and likewise just say, ‘I don’t know how’ nor ‘I cannot prove it,’ to try to “prove it”?!? My view is backed by ample, strong and deeply rooted (i.e., exegetical) factual Biblical statements, so at the very least, do explicitly deal with all of these Biblical facts!!
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs’ comment on August 26 at 11:11 A.M.]
ReplyDeleteActually the name Yahweh, and God saying, "I AM" is more than just a statement that God lives in the present. In Exodus 3:14, the Hebrew word from which Yahweh comes means "I am that I am" but it can also mean 'I will be what I will be.' He doesn't say, "I will be what I plan to be." or "I will be what I hope to be."
LOL: Ha! Another “straw man” and “red herring” argument here. God does not need to be saying here: "I will be what I plan to be." or "I will be what I hope to be" because my view does not at all imply, nor involve, that God Himself, I.e., who He is, has to ever change or is yet to be determined. This is purely a fabricated view of yours, for effectively deceptive argumentative reasons. Or this may just be a manifestation of bias controlled by pride where, as you often do, presume to factually know (or must know) more about myself than I actually do!?!
All commentaries I know of agree, this name for God implies that He is the eternal, self-existing One. Both in the past, present, and future.
This description of God here indeed points to the Self-existence and Eternal nature of God. However extending this to include a not-yet occurred future is, Biblically-speaking, pure theological assumption and speculation by these commentators.
Also, relatedly, here is Biblical proof that there indeed is to significantly be seen a difference between personal and titular names for God vs. descriptive ones, as I mentioned in a previous comment above.[August 21 at 10:41 & 10:42 PM]:
In Exod 6:2, 3 God Himself speaking to Moses and seeking to help Moses to have full confidence in Him and His power to deliver Israel from Egypt says:
“I am the LORD [Yahweh]; and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty [El Shaddai] (Gen 17:1 & 35:10, 11), but by My name, LORD [Yahweh], I did not make Myself known to them.”
[Answer to Arthur Gibbs’ comment on August 26 at 11:22 A.M.]
ReplyDeleteAbout God's "repentance", yes, the word is "repentance", which normally would be a 180 degree turn around. But as always we have to read and study to find the context and the truth.
the lexical fact is that nacham #5162 does not mean repentance, but pointed a change in mind which also occurs in a repentance.
Other texts clearly say God does not 'repent'. So how do we explain this
Uhh... I had just exegetically explained how it is that ‘God does not of Himself “change his mind” without external attenuating circumstance, like fickle men’ as the both the verbal tense and the immediate context indicates. So why the oblivious restatement here??? Again, deal with such concrete exegetical facts.
We have inspired counsel that helps confirm what also can be arrived at through study. Her writings do not establish truth, but confirm it.
But her commentary is worded too well to not include:
God's repentance is not like man's repentance. "The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for He is not a man, that He should repent." Man's repentance implies a change of mind. God's repentance implies a change of circumstances and relations. Man may change his relation to God by complying with the conditions upon which he may be brought into the divine favor, or he may, by his own action, place himself outside the favoring condition; but the Lord is the same "yesterday, and today, and forever." Hebrews 13:8. Saul's disobedience changed his relation to God; but the conditions of acceptance with God were unaltered--God's requirements were still the same, for with Him there "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1:17. {PP 630}
Indeed God did not change His just conditions and requirements towards Saul and other men, however the Biblical testimony is clear that He did “change his mind” about making Saul King, and his descendants the royal household of Israel, because of Saul’s suddenly manifested character traits and attitudes of carelessness and rebelliousness. EGW here does not address that Biblical issue and only partly addresses all of the actual issues/implications involved here. So again, taking her own admonishment, (which she evidently made because she realized and honestly acknowledged that she did not have the final and complete word on everything in the Bible), I also include in my exegetical analysis here these “not discussed” issues.
Indeed this non-completeness in exposition understandably occurs many times in the writings of EGW and our study and understanding of Scriptures is not to be limited by her own limitedness in such areas. The fact that EGW did not comment on every single verse in the Bible, including many key passages as we now understand them to be, is indeed proof that she is not to be made as the only, and final source of our Biblical understanding. The Classical View was purposefully maintained “(present) truth” for her time, so it is not surprising that her related comments on this issue implicate that deliberately non-Divine corrected view.
Ironically enough, given the actual confirming role of the SOP as rightly stated here by A.G., if the scholars and expositors of her day had brought forth this view, then God most probably would then have explicitly given her any needed “confirming light” on this issue which would be the Biblical Foreplanning View, as it was implicitly revealed in her direct revelations. However that “Divine Mystery” was kept hidden from the eyes of that generations as God, overrulingly easily can, if He so chooses to be fitting. I understand the reason to be because He wanted to effectuate the Second Coming in the days of that first SDA and EGW generation, thus in the late 19th century. Ample SOP testimony indeed explicitly confirms this understanding.
The Biblical Foreplanning View was concretized from and is completely summarized by God’s own statement at the end of Isa 46:9-11 where He says: ‘I have fashioned/formed/planned [#3335] it, how much more will I surely do [#6213a] it.’
ReplyDeleteThis Divine, summarizing, first-hand Testimony here settles this issue for me!
The following comments are from prior email exchanges with Arthur Gibbs. They may help to explain the overall context in which some of the above replying comments were made. Gibbs’ comments are in bold. (He was priorly notified b me of this eventual posting of general email comments).
ReplyDelete[Emailed on August 14, 2010]
[Quoting of Raoul’s Dederen’s comments in SDABC 12:113-115 (Sect. IV A) - Handbook of SDA Theology on “Foreknowledge”]
I do not agree with most of Raoul Dederen’s slant and extrapolated extent on these Biblical passage, all which indeed are/will be addressed in detailed in my view. When one has a specific basic view in mind, then it is easy to view, or try to view everything in that one way. Unlike Dederen’s actual one-sided mono view here where, typically enough, the clearly opposing passages are not addressed, I allow for all of these passages to make their contribution and harmonize them with a view that wholly encompasses both sides and this is what the Bible reveals as the Foreplanning View. Dederen’s main unsubstantiated point is that what the Bible reveals about God does not lead into such Theological studies, however that is simply his quite private opinion.
[Emailed on August 22, 2010]
I think because the standard views on God didn't answer all your questions you have found a 'new' view that actually weakens His character. I understand you feel that you uplift omnipotence. And in a sense what is the difference between God knows the future and God controls the future. However because God claims to predict the future we are left with only two options: 1. He can, and knows it. 2. He can't, and yet He creates it.
Well you have indeed “thought” wrong. I did not set out to “find a new view” I searched the Bible to answer the questions I had on the Classical view and this evident “foreplanning view” came forth of itself, so I ascribed to it. And it, quite tellingly enough of its validity and truth, did indeed coherently resolve all of the issues I priorly had.
God does not control the future, per se. God instead says that He will accomplish His ultimate will whatever the future may bring. God uses necessary force to accomplish His future will and that solely for the benefit of those who adhere to Him as their God in this Godless world. As long as He has this vote of faith and confidence He is fully entitled to shape and redress the future to benefit His (remnant) people.
Also, there is no future to be “seen,” so not “seeing” this non-existence is not a fault or deficiency for God. Conversely planning and shaping it in the light of this total future non-existence is indeed solely a Divine attribute as God repeatedly states in Isaiah.
The problem with #2, is that you make Him a god of force. When push comes to shove, He can't just see the future, He has to create it. What if Satan decides to not surround the Holy City of God on the New Earth?
As I previously said in my illustration of the Chess player, God has painted the Devil in a corner where he can’t but do what God has prophesied. Satan’s only other option is to just give up which, as the Bible states that would not be a problem for even when God prophecies of something, if the circumstances change, He does not need to accomplish what He had previously said would happen (See Jer 18:1-11ff). So if Satan should not incite the lost to try to capture the, evidently seemingly capturable, New Jerusalem, but instead just give up then and concedingly bow to God, God will not have to accomplish this prophesied event, and that solely to accomplish the prophecy as stated.
Without omniscience, God has to force His word to be true.
Once again, omniscience does not automatically mean knowing a non-existent future as you circularly assume.
This is not God.
It is rather, indeed “quite like God” to avoid doing but the absolutely necessary to accomplish His perfect will and not to needlessly engage in an exterior “power show.”
cont’d
[Emailed on August 22, 2010] cont’d
ReplyDeletePlease. Think about this. If this was true, God wouldn't have let Ellen White be wrong, and just let you by yourself be right.
I have already addressed this point. God felt that this belief, still based on Faith, would/should have led the EGW generation of SDA’s to be ready for a Second Coming in the late 19th Century. So just like the allowed 1844 disappointment despite the Bible’s actual teaching on what was “the sanctuary”, and the disciples disappointment when Christ was crucified despite Jesus many mentions of this, it was purposeful and could have been ascertained by these upon a closer study of Scriptures and Jesus’s words. You should also know and understand that truth is not determined by numbers or popularity but by what the Scriptures actually teach.
[Emailed on August 22, 2010]
God knows the future. I can't prove that anymore than I can prove God is all powerful. There is evidence but it must be accepted. What can be proven is that God said He knows the future. His claim is not only that He controls it, but that He KNOWS, SHOWS it, makes it plain.
Well you have to get around and wholly demonstrate the validity of your assume view from Scripture. I know I will concretely prove the Biblical view in my forthcoming.
The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan. This work only one Being in all the universe could do. Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make it known. Upon the world's dark night the Sun of Righteousness must rise, "with healing in His wings." Malachi 4:2. {DA 22.1}
Indeed force is contrary to God’s government, which is why this GC is still going on. But you have to assume that God only uses overwhelming and brute force to accomplish future evidence, when, as already stated, He has yet to actually have to. Simple suggestions and manifested divine acts have thus far, and probably will only been needed, to convince even heathens to follow His injunctive will.
[Emailed on August 23, 2010]
I always assume if you knew what I knew, you would see what I see. But looking at the same facts can still lead us to different places.
I will say that the facts that you presented from the SOP do indeed support your view, however, like I said, I do not believe, based on the testimony of Scriptures and the direct revelations of EGW which contradict her view, that these were similarly direct revelations. In seeking to elaborate on her early writings in order to publish larger books, Mrs. White used many “filler” materials, e.g., from other books as she herself states. She would also insert many statements which seemingly were also inspired revelations but really were only theologically assumed comments. So while I believe that God did indeed show the future to many Bible characters, I also believe based upon the testimony of Scripture that these were solely representational visions and views and not literal/concrete revelations of future events. In regards to Scriptural facts, when the original languages are properly taken into consideration, it is then that the actual “facts” involved are truly revealed. Translators have in many parts done a terrible job in faithfully reproducing the original meaning and have super imposed their theological understanding on these underlying facts. So these facts first have to be properly ascertained through exegesis in order to accurately understand the actual meaning of the text.
cont’d
[Emailed on August 23, 2010] cont’d
ReplyDeleteYou said I cannot even adequately address these exegetical and theological issues. Well I tried. I gave you clear Ellen White evidence that is contrary to your view. I gave you lots of Bible evidence. All of it was either not enough or dismissed.
I think and know that what was not “good enough” or dismissed by me was done with proper cause. If they were not so properly dismissed then it is up to you to show/prove that with countering arguments as I had done with your arguments. Again in regards to EGW, I think she would actually scold you for making her writings the final authority in matters of Biblical understanding and interpretation. As I said, God purposely allowed them to hold this known-future view in order to both test the genuineness of their faith and thus be able to effectuate the Second Coming in their day, but that generation, like Ancient Israel on the border of Canaan, failed to bring this about, as EGW pointedly says.
We actually agree and what is most important. And that is that God says before correctly what happens in the future.
Yes and no. My view do not have to insist that all that God says must happen. As the Bible clearly teaching in Jer 18:1-11, what God says will happen in the future, either good or bad, may or may not happen depending on whether or not require conditions are met. The Classical View has many problems with explaining how God can prophecy something of the future and it does not happen exactly as He had said. E.g., the OT prophecies concerning literal Israel. Of course your answer here too is “conditional prophecy” however that does not fit with a “this-is-what-I-have-concretely/definitely seen in your future” view.
We agree that God can be trusted.
I think that our views are really theologically irreconcilable in that you pointedly believe in ‘an assumed power of God to travel through future time and see things that have already happened(?!)’ while the foreplanning view believes more that what God says He can and will do if I maintain my faith in Him and walk in His ways. In your view it should not really matter how one behaves in the past because the future has already been “seen”. So whatever happens then is what was always meant to happen. That is why people who hold to the Classical view or some form of it, have to resort to all kinds of quasi-mathematical philosophical equations in order to try to explain this incoherence. That is why I call the Classical View the “loaves and fishes” view (John 6:26) because it would make no sense not to believe in someone who “knows” what the future will be. This is doubly worst with SDA’s who also have the end time prophecies of the SOP. The foreplanning view rather has faith in God Himself and what He has said He will do.
We agree that God is able to do all that is within His will.
Yes. But that really does not reconcile the theologically divergent Foreknowledge and the Foreplanning Views.
cont’d
[Emailed on August 23, 2010] cont’d
ReplyDeleteHopefully you will study this more and with an open mind. Sometimes it is hard to let go of something that we have spent so much time developing.
I have indeed studied this out indepth and that is why I know it is the Biblical Truth. Considering the much more time and effort that is required to transpose these studies into a concise book, it would actually be more advantageous to abandon it at this point than seek to pursue to organize and present it in a published work. I will literally have to independently discuss every single passage (i.e., the 2300+ passages listed by Stephen Roy in his book) that involves God and the Future, along with related theological themes. However the fact that I have seen the Biblical foundation of the foreplanning will not let me give up now. I have absolutely no problem abandoning a view that is not Biblical, as e.g., the many spurious explanations that SDA preachers give for the chronology/dates of the 70 Weeks. The dates indeed are correct, but the explanations/reasons for these dates are quite spurious. And that is why most other Christians do not accept our chronology.
But sometimes we find that old answers to old questions are the best.
Consider these “old answers” with an open mind, i.e., pretend you are not an SDA but a seeker trying to understand God and the Bible and see if any of these “old answers” make any logical and even theological sense. I personally God tired of hearing explanations that effectively painted God as an indecisive and/or senile geiser, or worst a play-acting “hypocrite” who never meant what He had said or did. So when He twice became infuriated and was about to completely blot out Israel in the wilderness (Exod 32 and Num 14) these “old answers” simply dismiss this as ‘Him not really meaning this’. Many other such examples can be cited.
And that some details on God's character will be fully known.
I have seen that the Bible has much to teach on God’s character which are actually ignored by most due to an adherence to the incoherent “Classical View”.
I suspect the real issue isn't really about what God knows about the future. But I suspect that it was the reasons you didn't like the standard answers that bothered you.
(Same answer as above for “old answers”)
Often we make God fit into the box we think is best. If you don't want a God that 'repents' in a sense, then another box must be found.
It was because I did not want to make God fit in “a preferred box” that I sought out to see what the Bible fully and actually, really teaches (i.e., stop ignoring what did not fit in my “Classical View Theology), and that was only done through proper exegetical studies because many key points have been lost in translations.
None of your 'evidence' was helpfully to me to change my mind either. You seem to make much of minor points.
Sincerely speaking, unless you are actually functional and competent in Biblical Exegesis all of these exegetical points will naturally ‘not be helpful to you’. Making much of minor points such as the significants jots and tittles in the Hebrew or the tenses in Greek, etc, is indeed the purpose and incontrovertible end result of proper Biblical Exegesis.
While avoiding the obvious clear reading of the scripture.
That is really on your part, solely ‘the obvious clearing reading according to some translators of the original language’ or even personally assumed thinking. I think as, at least, an (Andrews) University educated Pastor you should be able to easily understand this point.
cont’d
[Emailed on August 23, 2010] cont’d
ReplyDeleteIn time we both ask God Himself. I'm sure we both will be content with the truth, whatever it is.
Though that may be the politically correct thing to say, I personally loathe it because I know that the correct understanding of God and the Future actually has many crucial current implications, especially for non-SDA’s and non-Christians. So that is why I am relentlessly endeavoring to finish this work.
[Quoting the text of Daniel 2:29; 8:26; 10:14 from the NASB]
Glad to see that you’ve used the NASB. In my estimation, it is ca. 90-95% accurate in its translation. However I hope you do not think that these cited text someone sink my view because ‘speaking of what will take place in the future’ does not have to only mean that “God travelled in time and concretely saw what would happen.” These apocalyptic prophecies are indeed the perfect demonstrations of God’s absolute knowledge and wisdom in crafting these “prophetic plans”. It is indeed perhaps because Satan knows that God does not know the future that He thought he could defeat these prophecies, but in doing so only walked right into the frame that God had prepared for him. Satan probably realized this undefeatable wisdom of God in prophetically planning the future when he was unable to cause Jesus to fail in His redemptive work.
[Emailed on August 26, 2010]
I think I see the key problem in that you view the future as non-existent and impossible for anyone, God or otherwise to see. If you start with that assumption it is hard to end anywhere else but back there.
My view that the future is indeed non-existent and thus not know by anyone is actually a last phase conclusion based upon my prior study on this topic in the Bible. And this is indeed the view that harmonize all of the passage of the Bible on this topic. To uphold your view, you only have to cite the passages that seem to support your view and completely ignore the other ones. I do not and that is proper and actual exegesis.
And you seem to look down on proof-text study, and left up exegesis as the sole way to learn truth. I suggest you think about a little more. I know 'exegesis' is all the rage right now, and great emphasis is placed on each word in the original languages. This isn't all a bad thing. But it isn't the only thing.
Consider how the NT used OT verses. How did they 'prove' the messiah. Was it closer to 'proof-text' type study or deep Hebrew word studies? How did Ellen White and our founders discover and prove our beliefs? God obviously has a place for 'proof-text' type study.
In regards to proof-texting and its ‘validity’, see the introductory paragraph on this blog post and endeavor to understand what a “proof-text” unacceptably is. The only “proof-texting I see in the Bible is in the writings of Matthew, probably because the Jews were used to this Midrashic style of interpretation and thus they would readily “get” his point, and since these passages focused on the person of Christ which ‘all of the indeed OT testifies about’ (John 5:39; cf. Luke 24:27) then it was the right. However we do not have this theological license for literally any other teaching in the Bible and that failed method of proving our Scriptures which made us the laughing stock of the educated Christian world indeed had to stop as the GC did starting in 1974.
That post also explains why I believe, along with, e.g., the former professors and Dean at Walla Walla College, John C. Brunt and Douglas R. Clark why the book of Isaiah is an assimilation of 3 works from 3 authors living in 3 different time period, yet all from the prophetic school of Isaiah, hence their seamless assimilation. (See their book Introducing the Bible Vol. 1 pp.274-78, which was my Andrews University textbook for my “Law and Writings of the OT” class).
cont’d
[Emailed on August 26, 2010] cont’d
ReplyDeleteDon't throw the baby out. If you aren't careful you can't see the forest because of all the trees.
I have actually been throwing away solely the bathwater. It is you who is holding on to the dirty bathwater and futilely trying to clean a needing-to-be-cleaned baby with/in it, self-evidently, i.e., as with maintained and continued non-cogent explanations for the Classical View, to no avail.
Interesting, yet quite oblivious “forest because of the trees” statement here. If you were honest with yourself, you would see that ‘you are actually still seeing a forest while there are (now) no longer any trees standing.’ I.e., I have answered all of your arguments point by point as applicable, yet you only have selectively replied to a handful of my counter arguments, which now have also been answered. By not similarly at least providing an answer to my countering comments, questions and statements you are only indicating that you have no valid answer for them. Thus this “tree” of yours has been felled. However you still insist that you see a forest while none of your “trees” are still standing. Again just saying “I do not know” or “I cannot explain it” does not at all prove your point, but only shows that your Theological view is not based on a proper Biblical foundation.
This October 2010, “Arminianism and Adventism” Symposium by the Adventist Theological Society may be of, (at least, [in my view*]), contributive background/informational benefit to this discussion. A little too deferentially, and spuriously, “philosophical” vs. directly, soundly exegetical for me!
ReplyDelete