Rocky wrote:<<WARNING>>>
The following Statements may be offensive to some readers, and is nothing personal against to whom it is addressed
Hi Ed, again others are giving you scripture and you seem to be rejecting it. I cant believe what I have been reading, and personally I believe you make God out to be very cruel, just a personal observation. Ok you claim that God knows our decisions and what we do beforehand and still tests our free will, to me you are making our God out to be some kind of sadist who wants to punish us and test us just to watch us squirm, And for what?, To make us stronger? Well do we need a safe word to make your version of god to stop whippings us? You seem to be denying a revelation that is shown in scripture about this. You will claim you are not, but according to your replies you seem to be. It's as if you are depicting a different god then what is portrayed in the bible. Warning, Blunt statement ahead >I will not follow a god that you are depicting in this thread. Ok now that is said, I hope your day is going well
With this logic you cannot explain and are just helping the atheist and most other unbelievers to be right about their understanding about the Christian God because you are unable to explain or answer:
why God tests us?
Why do bad and even horrific things happen to good people?
Why did God even create Lucifer if he knew he was going to fall?
Why did God create humans if he knew we were going to fall?
why did God even put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden in the first place if he knew Adam and Eve were going to eat it?
However if you really take the bible for what is says it can be understood, but not with your man made logic. People who usually have the same understanding as you always offers some generic response like " :oh we can never know" <Like how I put the emote as an O in oh to express embarrassment for not knowing? lol and "we will know when we get to heaven" and the oldie but goodie "every thing happens for a reason" But Ed guess what? In the bible it is explained as to why, you are just rejecting it...
Well said Rocky.
Ed, if God created mankind knowingly, that is, knowing many would deliberately chose to rape and murder their own babies, bash and murder their wives and children, steal from each other, hate each other, and hate Him, their creator, and still create these men anyway, the you accuse God of being the author of sin and not Satan!
Only God and Lucifer knows how long Lucifer, who was a free moral agent, remained true to God, before iniquity was found in him? And so, when God started over with Adam and Eve, God created them free moral agents, and had a plan, to first test them to see if they remained true, and follow up with His plan which included their and their children's redemption should they fail the test.
God never knew how they would decide, until He left them in the garden with instructions, not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil less they would die! Lucifer came and told them the would not die if they ate of the tree God forbade them to eat of. God hoped they would reject Satan and eat of the tree of life, sadly they failed.
God never new what they would chose until they carried out their choice. If God did know, then why carry on with the whole plan? God could have said to the Word, lets not waste time testing them, WE know they will fail the test? Lets just create them, leave them in the wilderness, let them kill each other and become so evil, we probably will regret we created them, and so we will destroy all but Noah and his family because I know he will turn out all right, not sure about his decendents? The Word would have been in His right to say, lets start with Noah and see how it goes from there? No says the Father, most of His decendent's will turn out bad as well, You see, we already know all this. Ok, lets start by creating Moses? No, he will sin, what about starting with King David? No he will sin, Solomon? No, he will turn to idols, I know, Peter? No another sinner. Sad Father, but knowing all this, lets create them any way? Well Ok, but you know we are creating beings who will commit the most horrendous sins, and We can be accused of being the authors of sin and death! Yes, I know Father! And if WE are accused of knowingly creating horrendous killing beings and are accused of being the authors of sin and death, we can blame it all on Lucifer, now Satan.
