some other What Ifs

[Tobiwan]

This time of year I have some questions that go around in (some would say twisted) my mind.

1. If the angel that came to Christ in the Garden had not come would the blood shed there have been enough to deal with the sin problem?

2. If as presented In the DA chapter all of humanity hung in the balance during this "is it worth it" struggle would Enoch, Moses, and Elijah have been cast out of Heaven had He failed?

3. If there was a risk, what does this say about the supposed pre and foreknowledge of God?

Any takers?

[debbym]

1. Jesus was dying in Gethsemane, the blood on his brow was from the distress, and he was many hours dying. The cross did not kill him he was dying of separation from His Father. Jesus would have died even if not placed on a cross.

i have wondered this... if the Jewish leaders had accepted Him, would He have died at the temple as the Lamb of God.

2. It was the risk of the a decision in the process of being made. Jesus could have said no i will not, the price is too high, and returned to heaven. He chose to save us at that moment, to fulfill the plan and carry it through.

3. God's omniscience does not remove freedom of the will.

[Geoarrge]

Regarding #1 I imagine the answer is probably no. "The sin problem" is a roundabout way to describe Satan's rebellion, which seems to be predicated on the thesis that there can be an alternative to God's Law. So, if the problem is fundamentally a legal and political one, then it was extremely significant to wait for the full involvement of the human authorities and a larger gathering of witnesses.

On #2 I doubt it. Presumably if this scenario had somehow happened, it would have meant Satan securing sovereignty over Earth. It doesn't seem likely that this could be leveraged in any way to compel the return of any off-world refugees.

#3 is tricky. On one level, I guess you could say there never was any real risk because God applied His omniscience to set up the plan to work right from the beginning. The risk is only apparent from our perspective.

Or you could suppose the many-worlds hypothesis and say different possibilities are equally real in one universe or another.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

if God did not have a plan for "what if's," then there is no "free will" and Christ's sacrifice was not really a sacrifice...rather, it would have been a planned certainty that had no basis in, nor hint of temptation on Christ's part... that would hardly have been an acceptable substitute for humanity...

at least, that's how I see it.

[debbym]

what if's can get one involved in speculations,

perhaps the "if then" is better for referring the freedom of choice. i believe God has multiplied contingency plans, if this happens that that will be done... so on and so forth.

what if's are what we are saying, if then's are what God is doing.

[Tobiwan]

I like the ideas presented a lot better then "well that did not work, what do we try now" . I like the computer flow chart "if this... then this" thought presenting the idea that They did Their impact analysis and included any and all possibilities.

debbym, I think given the need for at least two options for there to be freewill to say yes or no to God They decided if someone said to say no, They came up with a secret Plan of Salvation to be activated, If or when.

Rudywoofs, along the same thoughts I have had. I like

Toby in New York

[Kevin H]

Excellent questions and excellent answers!!! I hope that my two cents worth will add to the jewels that have already been said.

1. Technically, yes. Had he died under the weight of sin during the wilderness temptations or in the garden it would have been enough. The continuing goes on to first of all have Jesus' death be public and not just a thing witnessed by no one or just a few to a public event. Second, the horror of being separated from his father was so intense that he barely felt the physical pain. This teaches us that the worst thing that can happen is for us to be separated from the one altogether lovely. If God was to add a literal fire or any thing else the lost would barely notice the flames as they are dealing with the horror of being separated from their deepest desire.

2, The whole universe was at risk. God created the universe. The beings loved him but it was an immature "My daddy can beat up your daddy" love. The Holy Spirit lead them to asking questions that were needed to grow. Questions such as was God really God and the creator and what is the difference between me as a creature and God as creator? Is God really God and if not does he really have a right to impose upon us the law of self sacrificing love? If God is God he claims to be both Just and Merciful. Can God really be both?

God gave them much time (billions of years?) to think about and discuss these issues. He made a new world for then to evaluate their situation and they choose either to stay faithful or rebel. Once they made the choices based on Faith, God began to give some proof with creation week. While the sides had been set by the time creation week started, they did not fully close their probation until the cross.

Had Jesus not died, Moses, Elijah, and Enoch would not face a firing line of angels. But God would have proved not to be all he says that he is. God would have broken the law of self sacrificing love. The whole universe would have been destroyed, including Moses, Enoch and Elijah.

3, This is trickier as we are trying to explain what we can't explain or comprehend. God is from the perspective of being both inside of time and space and outside of Time and Space. We use the word "foreknowledge" but it is more transcendence. God lives in the eternal present, It is not as much looking into the future as living and experiencing the moment by moment of all that happens.

[Ellen]

I have heard people say that because it was predicted that way in the old testament it had to happen that way. But they are thinking too small.

It was predicted the way it was because to the Godhead the future is the present and they are not predicting what will happen but what they see happened, so it couldn't be predicted wrongly.

So your what ifs are good to analyze the pros and cons of Jesus life/death, but only that.

[Aliensanctuary]

That's how I feel, too. Either YHVH is in the future and we must catch up, or, YHVH can access the future to see what will happen. Without fail, what he has seen in the past will happen in our future. We should study carefully the events surrounding the Day of the LORD in the OT rather than rely on others' interpretations of that time.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

When God gave John his visions of the future, had the future already happened in God's realm?

Maybe we're only living holograms of lives, and the judgment has already happened, and actually, life in heaven is already begun? Perhaps loved ones who died in this hologram life are actually in heaven?

okay...my imagination went wild there, for a minute....

[Tom Wetmore]

Wildly running imaginations often take you to more interesting places!

I don't know that you are so far afield though... As I have contemplated this idea of God's foreknowledge, our free will, time theory and the space time continuum, I think that what is so often taken as absolute truth suffers a bit under careful scrutiny and logic, at least from a human perspective. If God sees the future as it is (emphasis on a present tense for Him) or it is immutable, or as you have said it, the place where God is time wise, we do have a conundrum when it comes to the life cycle of mankind and any afterlife or life through eternity. And it really does put a serious kink in the whole idea of free will, leaving us at the mercy of Calvinist predetermination. If the further is present for God in a real sense, then it would seem quite right to say that those who have died in our present to be later resurrected in our future, have already reached that point in God's time and therefore to say they are with God is not so far fetched as our good Adventist theology would hold. The dead would be alive in a different time dimension. How is that different from saying that when you die you go directly to heaven, where God is?

However, I do find some merit in Open Theology, (heresy in to those of a more orthodox mindset). I am not so sure that the future is immutable. Otherwise, what is the point in us having any choice in the matter? I don't think God is into make believe, especially when it comes to moral decision making. So if at the point in time where I am faced with the choice, life or death, God or not, accept salvation or be damned for eternity, what does it matter to my making any choice if the future reflecting the results of my "decision" has already been set immutably in stone?

But let's assume the future is not immutable, a more pliable time reality. That would mean that if we make a wrong turn we end up in a different place than had we not made the wrong choice at that point in time. Free will has to mean something now. I can make a difference for the future. We live that way and teach our children from an early age that the choices they make actually count and make a difference for their future. If the decide to study hard they get into a better college, have better career options, etc. Countless people testify that the decision they made , changed the course of their life, their future was altered.

What about God in that picture? Is he just chuckling and shaking his head wondering if we realize our life choices are not our own? That the future is already set before we breath our first breath? That we really do not have a free will? Or is God's relationship with time different than we have theorized? Maybe he is really Master of all the possibilities. He knows choice by choice what the long range effects will be in combination with all the other choices and events in the future. He knows that if I brake hard to avoid the deer crossing the road in front of me that it is not just an avoided accident at that point in time, but that it will also make me one second later at the next intersection safe from the tractor trailer just passing through the red light the second before I arrive. But it is not my life in the balance at that moment but those of my descendants not yet born and the people their lives will effect. And so on and on and on down through time. One thing leads to another.

I do think the past is immutable. And the present is fleeting, simply the future become the past in a rapid fire set of continual flashes of our existence. But the future remains open for choices yet to be made. God however is wiring on His plan to save the future from all the bad decisions and choices of the past.

[CoAspen]

I put new wall paper on my desktop ever so often. I go to the Hubble site and pick out some photo from the Universe. It reminds me of how little we know beyond our own close environment of this earth. It also reminds me of how little I know about God and creation. To think this little speck of a world has people on it who know everything, often claimed, about how God can, does or doesn't operate is beyond my belief.

[JoeMo]

This is excellent! I've always wondered how to present this question. My idea - can't support it by scripture but ...

I think God is totally transcendent of time. He has considered every possible scenario for our lives; and acts like a Garmin GPS. It's like when we, by ignorant random choice or premeditated "wrong turns", He says the equivalent of "recalculating - turn right at next opportunity". We then have another choice. If we choose wrongly, the Navigator says the same thing. We ALWAYS have a choice to turn and walk in "The Way" until our dying breath. God might know the outcome (because our future is history to Him); but it's always our choice. Just like I know if I offer my vegetarian family bacon and sausage with their eggs (not that I would), they would say "no, thanks". I know their answer; but it's still their choice.

Question 3 - I believe that my previous discussion gives my opinion. Foreknowledge is independent of personal choice.

[debbym]

Jo,

i am enjoying this discussion very much also.

i believe God Can redefine our past. When we accept Christ into our life in the present, Christ also enters the impact of our past.

this is amazing to me. Every life experience of our past, every sin, and every mistake; God can make something of it that serves His purposes and serves our destiny.

this changes our future and it is an interplay of our choices and the power of His love expressed in the intercession of Christ.

it is a kind of power through knowing the past instead of knowing the future and dealing with the power of the past and changing it completely to completely change the future.

This is in very specific ways, and very explainable and not to mysterious and nebulous. it is very tied to our experience and understanding.

[Aliensanctuary]

Yeah.

The choices we made in the past, right or wrong, changed our pathway to the future, that is, if we had made a different choice of action in the past than what we did, we would probably be on a different path.

If we can learn from our mistakes, though, we may be able to alter our destiny to our benefit.

If our ultimate destiny is already known by those who have seen or come from the future, perhaps they are not permitted to change anything by traveling to the past, which is our present.

Since humans have failed to protect the weak and defenseless against criminals, if our Creator came here back in time and did our job for us, it might violate some non-interference law of the universe. Even though we suffer, and are surrounded by pain and suffering, in the end all memories of evil will be deleted from the memories of those picked to join the Kingdom of YHVH. Those who caused others harm will be incinerated, if unrepentant, and they will be forgotten for all time.