When God created Adm, did he knw that Adam wd sin? (page 8)

funkyderek

Rex, you said:

Hi Derek,
Refute the argument from scripture. Don't play at 'pushing my buttons'. If you had happened to study Romans at any length you would see how ignorant your statement was.
Rex

Rex, I'm not pushing your buttons. I'm well aware what Romans has to say, and of Calvin's interpretation of it. It comes down to believing that God created humans, knowing the way they would behave, and then punished some or rewarded others. None of these humans had any choice in the matter. Personally, I think that's unfair. No matter how many times it's restated and rehashed I still cannot see how it could be justified.

--
Those who can induce you to believe absurdities can induce you to commit attrocities - Voltaire

D wiltshire

(I posted this first on Shimmer's thread, but felt it belongs here too)

I personally beleive in God's Existance 99% and maybe 1% doubt.
I realize I don't have all the facts and answers.
The reasons here expressed by those who choose Atheism seem to be well thought out, not spur of the moment conclusions. So I don't fault any of you and feel you have thought long and HARD about this.
My own feeling about justice and God's dealing with his creatures is:

If God lives outside TIME(since he is said to have created it), then his actions as we who live inside TIME see them would be very puzzeling. As my signature profile suggests we live only a short time and veiw personally only a little segment of TIME which as I see it TIME has no point that we can say this is where time began, or this is the point in the future time will end.

Maybe TIME had no begining and was always here this makes more sense to me. Maybe TIME has been around forever and will bearound forever in the future, to me this seem more logical.(I could be wrong).
Can time be slowed down or altered by gravity? Learned men seem to think so.
For that matter can anyone tell us all the mechanics of time.

I can not judge cleary and rightly a person who lives outside time for I know nothing about such.
So I feel more comfortable in my heart to beleive in him and give him any benifit of any doubt I may have about his justice.
Is that what FAITH is? I mean trusting God even though all the evidence is not in and perhaps may never be.
To me FAITH is a reasonable ASSUMPTION, without all the evidence.
I'm not talking about Faith in man made religious organizations they turn me off.

If someone lived a trillion X longer than you, and had a billion X more reasoning ability would he come to the same conclusions as you?

dubla

yerusalyim-

correct me if im wrong, but your posts seem to contradict each other. ill quote:

Without the ability to choose, to sin, then neither can we love.

1 John 3:1 tells us that when we see Christ (in heaven) that we will become LIKE HIM and He is LIKE GOD who is incapable of sinning

if jesus is incapable of sinning, does this mean he is incapable of love for his father?

aa

JanH

D w,

If God lives outside TIME(since he is said to have created it), then his actions as we who live inside TIME see them would be very puzzeling. As my signature profile suggests we live only a short time and veiw personally only a little segment of TIME which as I see it TIME has no point that we can say this is where time began, or this is the point in the future time will end.

If God is "outside time" then God cannot think, plan or do anything. All actions, thoughts and plans require a sequence of events. Without time, no such thing can exist.

This is essentially like saying "this is a mystery. I don't understand it, so I believe what I like anyway." But it is always the only rational choice to go with the little evidence you currently have, compared to chosing a random idea, totally unsupported in facts, and just beg the universe that by some cosmic coincidence it should turn out to be correct.

Is that what FAITH is? I mean trusting God even though all the evidence is not in and perhaps may never be.

Sounds exactly like a definition of gullibility to me.

Couldn't you likewise, by throwing your hands in the air and say "it's a mystery!", take it on faith that God works with the JW Governing Body? Or, that Hitler was God's chosen führer? Or any other atrocity or absurdity for that matter?

You use this .sig:

If someone lived a trillion X longer than you, and had a billion X more reasoning ability would he come to the same conclusions as you?

Logically, no matter how little reasoning power you have, as long as you have some, the chance is infinitely higher that you and this hypothetical super-being comes to the same conclusion, compared to the chance that the super-being supports a random, absurd idea that is unsupported by facts and logic.

- Jan
--
"Doctor how can you diagnose someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and then act like I had some choice about barging in here right now?" -- As Good As It Gets

Yerusalyim

Runningman,

Yes, this is a JW forum, I am familiar with the JW logic on this issue, and it is, IMHO wrong, which is why I present what I have on this issue. No one has yet shown that God's foreknowledge is predestination. My premise is this. God created us to know love and serve him. We could accomplish the knowing and serving portion without free will. The LOVING GOD is the part that requires free will. WITH this free will comes the possibility of SIN. The only way for God to have eliminated the possibility of sin was to eliminate free will. God loves us too much to take away our free will.

jdubla,

No contradiction whatsoever,
Jesus is GOD, in eternity past as part of the Godhead he loved God the Father, and was loved by him. At the incarnation, Jesus indeed was capable of sinning and not loving God, he choose not to sin, and to love God the Father. Now that he is again in Eternity rather than in time, Jesus' choice on earth is again the eternal choice the unchangable choice, to love God. When we enter eternity our choices are then eternal. Just as God is immutable, so will we be. It is while we exist here in TIME that we are capable of change. This is one reason I reject the "Once saved always saved" proposition.

YERUSALYIM
"Vanity! It's my favorite sin!"
[Al Pacino as Satan, in "DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"]

D wiltshire

Jan,
With regards:

Sounds exactly like a definition of gullibility to me.

To be absolutly fair don't the atheist and beleiver in God both show the same type of gullibility?

If someone lived a trillion X longer than you, and had a billion X more reasoning ability would he come to the same conclusions as you?

D wiltshire

Still looking for more pros and cons.
I've received much food for thought would like more.

Amazing

Hi Dwiltshire: Many good comments ahead of mine, so I will keep mine limited. You raise some good issues here. First, the Reasoning book statement is totally illogical. Just because God may know the future, does not mean he foreordained and planned it that way. I can lay some money out and know that if I let a criminal in the house he will get it. Does not mean that I planned it that way, but my forsight is just that I know what will happen. The choice was in the criminal's mind and heart to carry out the act. But in saying that, God must have had an idea that Satan would be effective in misleading Adam and Eve. Afterall, God did not have to 'set the money out' in the open. In other words, he could have not had the forbidden tree, and Satan would not have had anything with which to test Adam and Eve.

All this depends on what religious philosophy one believes in. Some religions say that God knows all and every detail into the future. Others, like the Society, say that Jehovah has "selective" foreknowledge. But to say that means that God would have to know what "knowledge" it was that he was not going to allow himself to know. So this cannot happen. Either God knows everything in the future or he does not know the future.

The Bible is used to suggest he knows the future. But what the Bible really argues is that God makes certain things happens, and in that sense he knows the beginning from the end. In other words, he is in control of the future with respect to hil will being done. He is in the driver seat. But, I do not believe that he actually knows the future like some kind of clarvoiant. With respect to conduct of freewil beings, I believe that God does not know, nor can he know what we will do.

Either way, God is still responsible, because he permitted wickedness. He is as responsible as if he planned wickedness. If my wife is laying asleep in the house, and I open the door and permit a rapist to come in and rape and murder her, yet I have a loaded gun and could have prevented the crime, then I am as guilty as if I raped and murdered her myself. And it is this level of complicity that disturbs me the most about God, and it is the one thing that has caused me to search more deeply into all issues, rather than just leave the JW religion.

Thanks for bringing up a good issue. - Amazing

JanH

D w,

To be absolutly fair don't the atheist and beleiver in God both show the same type of gullibility?

Only to the same degree one not believing in Santa Claus and one who does share this "gullibility." In other words, not at all. An atheist may be gullible, too, but not about god.

- Jan
--
"Doctor how can you diagnose someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and then act like I had some choice about barging in here right now?" -- As Good As It Gets

D wiltshire

Jan,

Thanks for you opinion, I'm sure you know it's just an opinion, and opinions don't have to be correct to be appreciated, they just have to be well,..opinions.

If someone lived a trillion X longer than you, and had a billion X more reasoning ability would he come to the same conclusions as you?

When God created Adm, did he knw that Adam wd sin?

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