JW's question of Paradise.

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Yesterday I began a Bible study with some JW’s, they will be back tomorrow, and I need some help with one point. Here is the idea as they put it to me. ( I know it is wrong, but need help in presenting it to them.)

God in the beginning put Adam and Eve on a paradise earth. Why would God change his plan? Therefore his plan for the end must be a paradise earth.

Can someone relate the plan and the time of creation to God’s plan for us in the end? Help, how do I answer this one?
 
What was paradise on earth?

What does your JW friends think or teach?

Basically if you read the Genesis story, each day when God created something it was good except when he created man on day 6, the bible does not say when God created man it was good. Go back and look. On day 7 God said that everything he created was good. 6 is known throughout the bible as sin, sinfull. Man alone is sinful, but with everything God created is good. If we reject God by sinning we are not good.

7 is perfection, from God, 6 is one less than 7 therfore it is (name removed by moderator)erfection, less than perfect.

To me the Church has kept all 7 sacraments and is preparing me for the end, when all things will be good again, but this time I will be given a new body without the sin nature.

Today only through his Church can we regain the goodness in God’s creation. Many of us will still have baggage (or (name removed by moderator)erfection) that will be addressed in the next age prior to us entering Heaven.
 
John Paul III:
What was paradise on earth?

What does your JW friends think or teach?

Basically if you read the Genesis story, each day when God created something it was good except when he created man on day 6, the bible does not say when God created man it was good. Go back and look. On day 7 God said that everything he created was good. 6 is known throughout the bible as sin, sinfull. Man alone is sinful, but with everything God created is good. If we reject God by sinning we are not good.

7 is perfection, from God, 6 is one less than 7 therfore it is (name removed by moderator)erfection, less than perfect.

To me the Church has kept all 7 sacraments and is preparing me for the end, when all things will be good again, but this time I will be given a new body without the sin nature.

Today only through his Church can we regain the goodness in God’s creation. Many of us will still have baggage (or (name removed by moderator)erfection) that will be addressed in the next age prior to us entering Heaven.
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JW’s believe that the Paradise earth was what God created in the beginning. It was the sin of Adam and Eve that changed that, and that in the end we will return to a Paradise on Earth. (Most of those who serve God will not go to heaven)

The problem here is their idea that anything else would indicate a change in God’s plan for mankind. Did God change his mind? (thier question not mine.) Why wouldn’t God just put us all in heaven to begin with? (because he is God, and he does not have to explain such things to us?) Is there any other answer besides, we don’t know, but that is what he did?
 
Hi e - I’m sorry I’m pressed for time right now, but if I may I would like to recommend that you look at the folowing website, at two articles; the first one is a response to ch. 3 of their new book, “What Does the Bible Really Teach?”, and gives a Catholic perspective on the JW version of “Paradise” catholic-forum.com/members/popestleo/bibleteach3.html

The second is a longer article from the same web site and is entitled “Is Your Hope Bible Based?” which examines the JW “two hope” teaching, but in the process it examines the idea of two separate destinations for redeemed mankind:
catholic-forum.com/members/popestleo/onehope.html

A specific answer to the question “Why would God change his plan?”, may not be given in the above articles, but they contain a lot of very good background information related to the subject.
Of course, the above question assumes that the orthodox Christian position is that God *did *“change his plan”; (not true). Related to this, many people don’t know that the JWs have a very different understanding of God’s foreknowledge; they believe that when He created Adam and Eve he exercised “selective foreknowledge” and chose not to know that they would sin. Effectively, He did not know that they were going to sin, according to the JWs. This mistake colors the rest of their thinking.

I would suggest to you that at the root of the issue is the question; are there two separate, distinct, different hopes for redeemed humanity(as JWs teach), or one? The article I linked to above shows, “one”.

At that point, the question of exactly what it will be like comes into question, but John tells us that “…it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2 RSV).
 
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