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Samuel1991
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What would have God done if Abraham never obeyed God s order to sacrifice Isaac? Would God choose an another person to test their faith instead of Abraham?
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joeybaggz
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I wonder if anyone but God Himself could answer this, and I don’t think he is a member of CAF.
Anyone willing to try??
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MaryT777
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That was my exact thought as well.I wonder if anyone but God Himself could answer this, and I don’t think he is a member of CAF.
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TK421
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Creatures are integrated into every level of God’s salvific plan for mankind. This reflects the superabundant nature of the Trinity. He is sustained perfectly within Himself, and yet he desires for His joy to be spread everywhere.
Absolutely none of them are absolutely essential for it in the slightest: “absolutely” in the sense that God requires creatures. They are, however, essential in the ordinary sense. Divine Providence has ordained that creatures be used as mediums for delivering His graces to mankind. This is the Communion of Saints: the Blessed Mother, the heavenly court, the ministering angels, and our petitions and prayers for each other here on Earth. It is impossible to persevere without prayer.
Absolutely none of them are absolutely essential for it in the slightest: “absolutely” in the sense that God requires creatures. They are, however, essential in the ordinary sense. Divine Providence has ordained that creatures be used as mediums for delivering His graces to mankind. This is the Communion of Saints: the Blessed Mother, the heavenly court, the ministering angels, and our petitions and prayers for each other here on Earth. It is impossible to persevere without prayer.
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StephieNorthCo
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Similar question to What if Mary said no. This has been talked about on CA Live numerous times, so a search ought to reveal something.
Agreed on the above “answers”, although God is infinite and outside of time and knew what the response was going to be. One often wonders whether God’s plan in those situations is more along the lines of getting us humans to understand how/that we would react.
Blessings,
Stephie
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Michael_Mayo
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Or what if he would have thought, “The God I worship would never ask such a thing. It must be Satan trying to fool me.”
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setarcos
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I personally am convinced this is all Gods story and everyone is playing out the part that’s been written for them. It all comes from God and circles back to God for God’s own good pleasure. No free will independent of God, no separate beings reflecting on God, simply God reflecting on God. Whatever is, is, whatever will be will be. By God, through God, for God. No deviation from the story. No independent possibilities apart from Gods story.
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setarcos
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There is no necessary salvific plan for mankind. Its merely Gods good pleasure to “write” his story with these pseudo necessities from our perspective. God could just as well make all his creatures perfect in heaven from the get go. Not one being apart from God is absolutely necessary in any sense. From Gods perspective there is no “necessary” salvific plan except that he wishes it so. God doesn’t spread joy outside of his own perfection since nothing is beyond or outside of God. All is for Gods good pleasure reflected within his own complete perfection. Any Graces God gives to his creatures are merely reflections of God on God in his own self perfection. Anything were capable of thinking, of doing, of being, all stems from the will of God for there is only God and no other.
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John_Lazarus
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See Ezekiel 4:12-15.
God to Ezekiel: Jerusalem has really annoyed Me again, so you’re going to do some weird stuff, like make a clay model of it and wave a frying pan around and eat bread baked on human dung.
Ezekiel: Sorry, God, no can do. I keep kosher.
God: Oh, OK then. Make it on animal dung, Mister Picky-Eater.
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joeybaggz
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setarcos
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Why not? Makes as much sense as anything else but why 8 years old?
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Wesrock
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Much of what you say is in line with classical thinking on the subject, though i hesitate on the line I quoted for it sounding almost pantheist. We are distinct from God, and not molded from His own substance.
We must also remember that God’s providence over all of creation and our choices is still in alignment with our free will.
To the original question, the “if” part is a little non-sensical. It was within Abraham’s power to say no, but God chose and created him knowing exactly that Abraham would freely say “yes”. God would not have chosen Abraham if Abraham would have said “no”.
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James248
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If that was the test, Abraham would have passed. However this was a test of his faith, a faith so strong that he knew that God would raise his son from death.
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setarcos
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We are only “distinct” from God in our capacities. Are we to say that there is a substance God is composed of and a substance that is apart from God which is not a part of Gods substance? Isn’t God in all, over all, and sustainer of all that exists? Ephesians 4:6 “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Romans 11:36 “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.”
You have it backwards, The choices we make from our so called “free will” are in alignment with creation since God is universally eternally present through creations past, present, and future sustaining them in total from the beginning. Its just as well to say that the future effects of our present choices dictate what our choices are in the present. We cannot but align with the totality of creation sustained through Gods eternal presence throughout reality. Abraham is a character in Gods story. To say that God aligned creation to Abrahams free will because God knew what Abraham would choose renders meaningless the idea of free will and is belied by the fact that the future is not an ongoing creative process, its already established and sustained by Gods eternal presence. It is not a matter of God knowing what Abraham’s choice would be, its a matter of God having known what Abraham’s choice would be from the moment he caused creation to exist. Free will cannot exist where the future cannot be changed in its actuality. God cannot be ever present in a future who’s actuality is contingent upon mans free will. There is no other potential Abraham for God not to choose contingent upon his free will choice. One Abraham, created by God, from the beginning, with the choices he made, to align with creation. There is no free will in actuality only in perspective. Enjoy the ride, the choices you think you make are the choice God actually made.
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Wesrock
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So you’re a pantheist, not a monotheist. You’ve intetesting views for a Christian.
God created put of nothing, not His own substance. God is still the sustainer of all that exists, because nothing but God naturally has an act of existence.
God doesn’t know before or after something happens, because there is no before and after from His perspective (He understands the temporal order of things, but He doesn’t experience events in a temporal way, which is why your argument fails. Our will is voluntary. What we choose not necessitated but contingent, but all in accordance with God’s will and in God’s knowledge. He doesn’t know before it happens, because He has no before.
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setarcos
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You drink shallowly, Abrahams strength comes in sticking with his convictions that God knows all but he (Abraham) knows nothing in comparison. Despite man thinking that he knows what is happening God goes beyond comprehension in his works to what will happen. Abraham, blessed as he was, knew that taking refuge in his ignorance would gain him nothing in comparison to taking refuge in trust in God which would gain him everything.
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Wesrock
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Of course it does. That still aligns with what I stated.
Perhaps instead of thinking you know better you’d do better to trust in Christ’s Church.
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setarcos
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I didn’t make up those quotes. I got them from scripture. If I’m a pantheist then so is Paul.
God created out of nothing but what was created cannot be separated from God. Is there anywhere God is not that what he created can be? Is there anything within God that is not a part of him? If you say here is God and there is what he created then you must be able to say that what was created can exist apart from God. The problem is your thinking I believe that you can point at anything, say a rock for instance and say that that rock contains some part of God without which God would not be God. I don’t believe God is his creation. I’m merely saying that the rock is a part of God merely in his sustaining its existence within himself. How is it that you can deny God an experience? God sustains our experiences within himself. His own words say this in scripture. His experience of temporal order does not limit him in his nature. God is not somehow banned from temporal movement, he is its origin and existence. You are equivocating in order to conceal the obvious. God is Omniscient and consequently prescient from our perspective. Within creation subject to time he knows beforehand from our perspective. If your frame of reference is outside of time pre knowledge is irrelevant only in comparison to our experience of temporal flow. God is the originator of his own thoughts, he foreknew everything because his will is the originator of everything.
As I’ve said Gods sustaining a set future is not contingent upon mans choices. God cannot sustain a future he doesn’t know. No more than by asking you not to think of a chair you could accomplish such a request once you comprehend what is being requested.****
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setarcos
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I’m not sure what you mean? This wasn’t a reply to your post. What reply are you answering?
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psalm90
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Yes, and we know faith is a gift from God. so, Abraham was given an abundance of faith to lead to his obedience.
We who have been Baptized and grown in the faith have the same options of living according to our faith and trust in God. What we may not have, compared to Abraham, is such a clear revelation of God’s will for our lives.
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