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The so called Great Controversy theme is a foundational theme of the writings of EGW. One may argue that Gustave has not correctly stated it. If so that may be due to his simplified summation of it. In any case he has gotten the major parts of it correct. Any valid issues of his statement involves issues of wording. I will take a position on the Great Conttoversy theme. It has a root in some Biblical passages. But that root is loose and it is not well grounded. In short as expanded by Ellen White she has gone beyond what can be clsimed to be taught in the Bible. That does not make it wrong. But it does tell us that it should not be a required belief. It is not a required SDA belief

As a former employee of the virology department of USAMRIID (United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases) that has worked in both cold and "hot" suites, I will say that at the time of my service they had 5 mutant varieties of the plague on ice . They were cultivated and stockpiled to have on hand so that if the plague ever mutated along those lines there would be a stockpile available from which to produce a vaccine. The point of the comment is say that the plague did not mutate on its own while being cultivated there. The scientist facilitated the mutations preemptively.

Greetings Greg, A few comments on why I do not accept the article. Daniel 8: I hold a different view as to the start and finish of the 2300 years. I believe that it starts in BC333-334 and terminates in AD 1967. The little horn depicts the growth of the military aspect of Rome, when in BC133 Attalos III of Pergamon bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans and it became the Roman province of Asia in BC 129. Antiochus was not a little horn, but one of the four horns. The little horn power did stand up against “the prince of the host”, Jesus and removed the daily sacrifice in AD 70 Daniel 8:11-12. Jesus alludes to and quotes Daniel 8:11-14 in Matthew 24:15 and Luke 21:20-24 and applies this to the Romans in AD 70 and the ongoing treading down of Jerusalem for a period of time after this. Daniel 7: The fourth kingdom is Roman, and Daniel 7 is parallel with Daniel 2, the fourth kingdom of iron. The little horn is the Papacy. Both prophecies conclude with the return of Jesus and the establishment of the Kingdom of God upon the earth to replace the kingdoms of men. Daniel 7 ties in with the beast prophecies of Revelation, and these are Roman, not Greek. Daniel 9: I support the view that 70 weeks represent 490 years and speaks of the sufferings of the Messiah. Kind regards Trevor

Gustave has pointed us to the following URL, in SDA literature: https://spectrummagazine.org/article/2017/12/13/no-longer-neglected-biblical-doctrine-trinity I consider it to be of immense value to many of us and suggest that you read it.

The following are two relatively recent SDA statements on the Trinity, which I have not yet read: God in Three Persons in the Old Testament, 2015. 27 page document. https://adventistbiblicalresearch.org/sites/default/files/pdf/Bediako290915.pdf God in Three Persons in Theology, 2015, 29 pages. 29 pages. https://adventistbiblicalresearch.org/sites/default/files/pdf/Donkor290915.pdf NOTE: I see that I left off the URL. where you can read the above. I will recover and post.

Thanks Gregory, my hunch is that the transition toward the Trinity came after the death of Ellen White. Ellen made some statements in Desire of Ages that are held up as being Trinitarian or helping move the SDA Church toward that direction. I disagree with that because I found the same statements made by SDA Pioneers that everyone agrees were anti-Trinitarian. I must admit that the SDA Church officially appears (at least to me) to be taking a position on the side of the historic Trinity. The Peccability of Christ teaching seems to be the last part of the Pioneer's theology that's hanging on for dear life. I still wonder why Shawn Boonstra's video on "THE SUBSTANCE OF GOD" is the only video / training I've seen produced from SDA's that admit the Council of Nicaea and others (about the Trinity) got it right? I[ve not seen another video that spelled it out like Boonstra did.

As I understand a comment made by Gustave, he has asked for a specific date as to when the SDA Church converted from an anti-Trinitarian belief to a Trinitarian position. I consider this question to be fair and worthy of an answer. However, I do not believe that a clear, good, response can be made to this question. * Fundamental Belief # 2, in the 1988, so-called 27 Fundamental Beliefs, is a clear Trinitarian position. * Substantially all of the early SDA Founders held a view of the Godhead that was not the classic Trinitarian view held across Christianity today. * However, as I have posted before, those views were not unified. In actual fact they ranged from a mild Arian view to a total rejection of the Trinity. * Part of the problem resulted from the fact that those early SDA founders often totally misunderstood what the actual doctrine of the trinity taught. IOW, they rejected something that was not aught by the classical doctrine of the Trinity. * As an example, some (Frisbie) confused the doctrine of the Trinity with Docetism. Bates confused it with Modalistic Monarchianism. Loughborough confused it with Tritheism. * In addition, among those early founders, there was an anti-Catholic bias that associated the doctrine of the Trinity with the Catholic churches. I do not consider this to be a major aspect. But, it was present. * One suggestion has been that the SDA Church had shifted to a Trinitarian position by about 1900. * In any case, I can not give Gustave a clear, specific date for this development of SDA understanding of the Trinity. It was a progress that took place over a period of time. NOTE: I am not repeating here some aspects of this question that I have posted before. I consider the following book to be of value to consideration of this issue, but, it does not give a comprehensive, clear answer to the question as I have stated the question. Much of what I have posted above has come from this book. Paul Petersen & Rob McIver, Editors. Biblical and Theological Studies on the Trinity. Avondale Academic Press, 2014. 251 pages.

They are next to each other, probably touching each other.

It is a good thing to fine tune organizational structure to become more effective. I cannot see the full picture of our administration from conferences to unions to the NAD. It could well be the Holy Spirit is impressing you with a helpful change, and if that could be effected positive results could happen. What organizational circle of individuals are in a position to address this level of change? And would it be done by those who are impressed to do God's will? Regardless of this kind of change we need members, pastors, administrators and Spiritual leaders all through the organization to be in obedience to the Holy Spirit, who is the mighty General in the winning side of the battle of Good and evil. In spite of the weaknesses of our structure, God can still work and bring every heart to their decision for or against God for eternity. For me, finding a group of individuals committed to prayer, meeting regularly outside of Church to seek God and pray for the Holy Spirit and for other's salvation, has been the greatest blessing in a long time. This is the Church organized in the smallest unit above the unit of the household. And God adds His sufficiency by the Holy Spirit. "My grace is sufficient for you." Perhaps this is also the experience of our leadership. If so, if changes are needed Spirit led persons could present it and it could well take place. I know there is no limitation with God on changes that can happen when we are united to seek His will. The leadership issues at every level are the problems of the human nature, and this is the same as the problems of every individual. Change is not simple at any level from the micro the the macro church body. Thanks for bringing up this concerns, Debbym

Your use of the word "numerical" here is based upon a presumption to KNOW the physical Substance of divinity, something no one can know.

I don't mind discussing yes or no do we belief such and such in this topic. but I don't intend to have any "trinity" discussions unless its a different thread. While you continue to repeat the same thing over & over again and trying to make one thought an entire spectrum of doctrine, you could do better by recalling I am very cognizant of what the various materials out there teach. If you did know as much about Adventist beliefs as you seem to be saying here; you would know that in the official belief does not even use the word "trinity" and there is, I believe, very good reason for that: While some have expressed concern that "trinity" is an RCC construct, and therefore we shouldn't believe what they do; I would posit that there are many miles between how Adventists see this subject, and how our RCC brethren typically see it. What you seem to be doing here my friend is taking one thought/sentence and isolating it from its context, and then from that, bruiting it into what Adventists "really" believe. I am not very interested in such discussions.

EGW did teach that Christ could have failed.

Standard SDA belief would agree that God knows exactly what will happen in the future. But, it would also say that God's knowledge of the future does NOT mandate that such a future will happen. As an example, Let us say that God knew that in the future, due to God's gift of "free will" to created beings, there would be a rebellion among the angelic beings, and sin would arise. But, foreknowledge did not mandate that one of the angels would rebel and it did not mandate that Adam and Eve would also sin. It is from this perspective that a SDA would agree that both the OT and the NT agree that Christ would not fail and yet at the same time such agreement does not preclude the idea that Christ could have failed. My point is to establish that area of mutual agreement (The Biblical teaching that Christ would not fail.) and to narrow the point of disagreement to the idea that Christ could have failed.

my thought in response is this. it will not be a more effective structural organizational change that will effectively empower the NAD or our denomination to fulfill it's calling to meet the demands of the mission for the end times. what is limiting our imperfect organization filled with imperfect leaders and imperfect members is the lack of interest in being filled with the Spirit of God. The lack of love for our deeply lost and broken world including our church family exposes our unbelief in God. i am not talking about not believing God exists, but not giving ourselves to serve the purposes of God. Now i may be naive. I have not worked denominationally. I have talked with some who left denominational employment. I am convinced denominational leaders will not necessarily be a part of the great army of workers that will proclaim the goodness and power of God that will prepare everyone who is willing to be ready to meet Jesus when he comes. (sorry about this long sentence) It is an individual matter. Our leaders may not be those who lead the work of giving the last message to the world.

Sounds like so many other non-Adventist churches as they try to explain away the book of Daniel. If the "errors" were so far off base, perhaps they would have been corrected over a hundred fifty years ago. Of course, you have to really believe that EGW was actually receiving visions from God. I am aware that much understanding of Daniel did not come from visions. I tend to agree with one pastor who said three times in this earth's history God raised up a movement and his third movement was the Seventh-day Adventist church. The author of this article seems to want to kick out the legs of one of our most important prophetic beliefs. As one pastor said, "The Seventh-day Adventist faith claims one verse as our own." No one pays much attention to Daniel 8:14 And to deny the seventy week prophecy as being related to the ministry and death of Jesus?! Another prophecy that people may not believe is one that in the end times people would be deceived by seducing doctrines. So, I think I will stick with the historical (as laid out by the pioneers of the SDA church) Adventist approach to prophecy.

Has anyone with a negative view of the article considered that the individuals who noodled out the Investigative Judgement Doctrine were the same folks who also taught that God the Father had a body of flesh, bone and functional human organs & also that the Trinity Doctrine subscribed to by the Methodist, Lutheran & Baptist Church was nothing more than "the wine of Babylon"? Moreover, Herb Douglas (a fairly renown Seventh-day Adventist) explained that SDA Theology can not be explained or "defended" without understanding "The Great Controversy Theme". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBY1-MRgMjA I needed to do some digging into the archives to get my head wrapped around what this meant so I went to work on it. What I discovered was that the theme Herb was referring to was essentially Ellen White's unique take on what happened to cause the Son of God to come to this planet. The Cliff Note version: Lucifer had been (in secret) positioning himself against the Government of God and after the Original Sin of Adam & Eve Lucifer leveled the charge against God that His commandments were too difficult for men to keep. This legal charge Lucifer made against God was proclaimed throughout the Government of heaven AND throughout the Universe to "millions" of Alien Civilizations referred to by Ellen White as as "the un-fallen worlds". God was now in a real pickle and all the angels and aliens were looking at God (presumably for an answer). A plan was quickly formulated to "vindicate God's holy law" whereas Michael the archangel would "risk his eternal existence on the outcome" & come to planet earth and battle Lucifer to prove that man could actually keep God's holy law. Thus, all heaven (God the Father and Angels) and the Alien's on millions of planets watched this reality show between Christ and Satan with "intense interest" because there was the possibility that Lucifer would become the ruler of the Universe - thus, A LOT was riding on this controversy. This collection of teachings was known as The Great Controversy Theme or the Great Controversy between Christ and Satan. Ellen White developed a science of study into alien intelligence's. I am now looking for more information on this specific teaching so if anyone knows about this I'd appreciate a pointer. This kind of specific detailed information about the happenings of heaven prior to Noah and Enoch would seem to require specialized communication. I mean you simply CAN'T get this stuff from reading the Bible Only. And I'm not a Bible Only guy anyway but the Pioneers obviously weren't either! Herb Douglas, in the video I posted above, claimed that the SDA men who were dealing with Walter Martin and other Evangelicals over the book Questions on Doctrines in 1957 were unable to present or defend Adventist Doctrines because they didn't fully grasp this Great Controversy Theme and because of this ignorance the Adventists working on the book Q.O.D. were forced or shoe-horned into making concessions to Walter Martin and thereby betrayed the SDA Faith. The point I'm making is that would it not be reasonable to admit that the Doctrines the SDA Pioneer's formulated and Ellen White affirmed pertaining to the Book of Daniel were the result of good intentions but also error? Would it not be logical if someone wanted to double down on the SDA Pioneer's view of the Book of Daniel they would also defend the "The Great Controversy Theme" teaching as well?