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KarenNC
Guest
That is more consistent with what I had understood, as well, but seemed at odds with what was being said.
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richardeekw
Guest
GOD is complete in itself in the communion and unity of the Trinity.
Knowing that the first created Spirits - Angels - some of which will rebel against Him, why even bother to create the Angels, foreknowing that “Problem” will come. - i.e. Satan and the fallen angels.
(This is the “mystery” I am trying to rationalize)
Knowing that the first created Spirits - Angels - some of which will rebel against Him, why even bother to create the Angels, foreknowing that “Problem” will come. - i.e. Satan and the fallen angels.
(This is the “mystery” I am trying to rationalize)
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spauline
Guest
In part, as I pointed out, the bigger answer is, “to bring a greater good”. Again, the greater good is that human creatures could be forgiven and able to love in a greater sense than if humanity had never fallen, namely, to suffer in love for others. That some will be lost seems a problem, admittedly, but I think in the end, we do not blame God. The damned angels and humans are fully to blame for their choices. God offered love to them, but they preferred something else. It’s like saying, I blame God that He wanted to have mercy on us and love us to a greater degree than if we had never fallen. It is also the creature that refuses to accept the invitation to suffer in love. That is, the creature does not want to love to a greater degree than if he had never fallen. God provides the grace. He does not leave us orphans. The damned have chosen to resist this love in favor of inferior goods.
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avflf
Guest
Have you ever entertained the idea that maybe God miscalculated when He created the Angels and then tried to correct it by creating man (and woman) only to find out that the formula was still faulty, and after this second attempt He gave up creating sentient beings altogether?
And as far as the reason for the 2nd creation, it is simple: God needed someone to till the earth … at least that’s what is written in Genesis.
And as far as the reason for the 2nd creation, it is simple: God needed someone to till the earth … at least that’s what is written in Genesis.
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spauline
Guest
No, that would be heresy. God is present eternally to every instant of existence, both the eviternity instants of angel and human souls, as well as to every instant of time in this Creation. What you are espousing seems to be the heresy Open Theism. God has “knows” the whole of history because, again, He is present to all of it, in much the same way that a person can be in a gallery and “see” several sequential paintings on a wall, where the paintings are instants of existence in time.Have you ever entertained the idea that maybe God miscalculated when He created the Angels and then tried to correct it by creating man (and woman) only to find out that the formula was still faulty, and after this second attempt He gave up creating sentient beings altogether?
And as far as the reason for the 2nd creation, it is simple: God needed someone to till the earth … at least that’s what is written in Genesis.
No, God has foreseen it all. But he has decided to create a world with creatures that fall, at least for the sake of those who will be with him in the end. Now, I hate to use an immoral movie for an example, but there was this one point of goodness in the film. At the end of Nick Nolte’s “Teacher”, after there had been a fake fire drill, the one character said to Nick, “you know, half these kids won’t even come back [for the rest of the school day].” Nick Nolte responded, “But half will! I think they’re worth it!”
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richardeekw
Guest
spauline;
I thank you for your response. GOD sees the BIG picture; we don’t. The real Mystery of LOVE.
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spauline
Guest
You’re welcome, Richard. I pray God Bless you and all of us as we seek to love Him and others.
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Renton405
Guest
Free will… Without free will there is no love…
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richardeekw
Guest
Thanks fro responding.
God is complete and Perfect in itself. Therefore He do NOT need anything or anyone. …and God is all-knowing. So why create Angels knowing so will rebel Him (Satan and the fallen angels)… thus creating an “unnecessary” problem for God?.
The only reason I gather from your response is that without the fallen angels, God creation of Man will have no one to challenge it to choose in order to prove its love for God. (Is this your train of thought?)
I am of the opinion that SPauline provided a reasonably satisfactory response to my thoughts.
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RC1960
Guest
God is not capable of creating “bad”, as God is all good. What God did extend to the angels aa well as to us is choice through the exercise of free will. That is what wrought death and evil. As such, God did not pre-plan to create angels who turned against Him, these angels chose to turn away.
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spauline
Guest
God does not will sin either as an end or as a means, but he FORESEES it because He knows that He will draw a GREATER Good. So God, in some sense, “planned” sin, not that He ordained it, but that he permitted it. Remember, predestination goes both ways for an orthodox Christian: God “predestines” good by ordination, but also bad by permission.
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Sarpedon
Guest
It’s tied in with the idea of free will. God desires us (and angels) to chose to love him. Because this has to be a choice on our part, this rationally requires the option of rejection. God did not create the rejection, but allows it to exist so that we can choose to love him. God could destroy evil if He wanted to, but then it would be impossible for anything to choose good.
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spauline
Guest
well, there is at least “some” creation involved in every state of existence for a creature. We do not bring into being from nothing our successive states of existence. What we rather say is that, to the degree that a creature sins, God’s involvement is not involved. But still, in every action, God must, in some sense, participate in creating the state, except that at some point, the power to do with it what they will is transfered to the creature. Welcome to can of worms that is Molinism and Thomism.
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bootleggersouth
Guest
Because struggle, and the refinement that comes from it, is the only thing that makes life rich. Without oppossing forces there can be no struggle.
To allow this scenario of growth, an therefore fullfillment, is an act of love.
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anthony022071
Guest
St. Jerome (from Against the Pelagians, Book 3):
Do you not see that your dilemma has landed you in a deep abyss of blasphemy? Whichever way you take it, God is either weak or malevolent, and He is not so much praised because He is the author of good and gives His help, as abused for not restraining evil. Blame Him, then, because He allows the existence of the devil, and has suffered, and still suffers, evil to be done in the world. This is what Marcion asks, and the whole pack of heretics who mutilate the Old Testament, and have mostly spun an argument something like this: Either God knew that man, placed in Paradise, would transgress His command, or He did not know. If He knew, man is not to blame, who could not avoid God’s foreknowledge, but He Who created him such that he could not escape the knowledge of God. If He did not know, in stripping Him of foreknowledge you also take away His divinity. Upon the same showing God will be deserving of blame for choosing Saul, who was to prove one of the worst of kings. And the Saviour must be convicted either of ignorance, or of unrighteousness, inasmuch as He said in the Gospel, “Did I not choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” Ask Him why He chose Judas, a traitor? Why He entrusted to him the bag when He knew that he was a thief? Shall I tell you the reason? God judges the present, not the future. He does not make use of His foreknowledge to condemn a man though He knows that he will hereafter displease Him; but such is His goodness and unspeakable mercy that He chooses a man who, He perceives, will meanwhile be good, and who, He knows, will turn out badly, thus giving him the opportunity of being converted and of repenting. This is the Apostle’s meaning when he says, “Dost thou not know that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God Who will render to every man according to his works.” For Adam did not sin because God knew that he would do so; but God inasmuch as He is God, foreknew what Adam would do of his own free choice. You may as well accuse God of falsehood because He said by the mouth of Jonah: “Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” But God will reply by the mouth of Jeremiah, “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to break down, and to destroy it; if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.”
Do you not see that your dilemma has landed you in a deep abyss of blasphemy? Whichever way you take it, God is either weak or malevolent, and He is not so much praised because He is the author of good and gives His help, as abused for not restraining evil. Blame Him, then, because He allows the existence of the devil, and has suffered, and still suffers, evil to be done in the world. This is what Marcion asks, and the whole pack of heretics who mutilate the Old Testament, and have mostly spun an argument something like this: Either God knew that man, placed in Paradise, would transgress His command, or He did not know. If He knew, man is not to blame, who could not avoid God’s foreknowledge, but He Who created him such that he could not escape the knowledge of God. If He did not know, in stripping Him of foreknowledge you also take away His divinity. Upon the same showing God will be deserving of blame for choosing Saul, who was to prove one of the worst of kings. And the Saviour must be convicted either of ignorance, or of unrighteousness, inasmuch as He said in the Gospel, “Did I not choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” Ask Him why He chose Judas, a traitor? Why He entrusted to him the bag when He knew that he was a thief? Shall I tell you the reason? God judges the present, not the future. He does not make use of His foreknowledge to condemn a man though He knows that he will hereafter displease Him; but such is His goodness and unspeakable mercy that He chooses a man who, He perceives, will meanwhile be good, and who, He knows, will turn out badly, thus giving him the opportunity of being converted and of repenting. This is the Apostle’s meaning when he says, “Dost thou not know that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God Who will render to every man according to his works.” For Adam did not sin because God knew that he would do so; but God inasmuch as He is God, foreknew what Adam would do of his own free choice. You may as well accuse God of falsehood because He said by the mouth of Jonah: “Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” But God will reply by the mouth of Jeremiah, “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to break down, and to destroy it; if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.”
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Don_Hepler
Guest
Nicely said. May I add that we may learn to chose good over evil, there must be opposites in all things, or God would not be God, for God knows both.
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Don_Hepler
Guest
would you go through that again a little slower, I got a little lost, not your fault …
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