When God thought of creating. He knew that giving man free moral agency there was the likehood that someone would sin. And so before the foundadtion of the world he devised a plan whereas to redeem man.
He could have destroyed Adam and started over, but the same thing may have happened. So what to do? we learn three ways. Word of mouth, obervation and experience. We humans are hardheaded, and thus experience was our teacher. It's a hard lesson, but one we still haven't learned.
In answer to your hypothetical question: God exists outside of space-time because he created it and is not a product of it; therefore he sees all of space time in one lump and would have to take a human perspective by entering the universe himself in order to experience time in a serial manner that we do.
Before I read everyone elses comments, I'll make my own, I like shooting from the hip. Predestination has nothing to do with God's foreknowledge. Just because God KNEW that Adam and Eve would screw up doesn't mean he foreordained it. God Knows EVERYTHING, and loved us enough to create us even knowing we would sin, this is why he had a plan for salvation lined up even before the foundation of the world. Hell is not torture and punishment, it's simply the inability to experience God's LOVE. If on earth we choose to live without God, God honors that choice and allows us to live eternity without the ability to love or be loved. Most JW's miss this for some reason.
Added (edited) portion after reading some of the replies. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, hmmm. What the sin was is this, that Adam and Eve wanted to decide for themselves what was good and evil, without reference to God. It's the proposition of every sin, I say this is good because I WANT IT. The sin was pride, I can decide what is good, I don't need God. YERUSALYIM "Vanity! It's my favorite sin!" [Al Pacino as Satan, in "DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"]
Is love really love without choice involved. God Gave us free will knowing that some would abuse it. Without the ability to choose, to sin, then neither can we love. Love is not a feeling, it's a decision.
YERUSALYIM "Vanity! It's my favorite sin!" [Al Pacino as Satan, in "DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"]
Is love really love without choice involved. God Gave us free will knowing that some would abuse it. Without the ability to choose, to sin, then neither can we love. Love is not a feeling, it's a decision.
But was God really not capable of creating humans who would not sin? I mean, it's not like it was only a small percentage of humans who sinned, it was both of the humans that God created directly. If God knew they were going to sin, did he have to implement a policy of also punishing their descendants? That way, nobody but Adam and Eve really got a chance. And what about God's (absurd) backup plan of sending Jesus as a redeemer? What if Jesus had exercised his free will and sinned? Wasn't the free will of every human since Adam and Eve constrained by their inability to live without sinning?
-- Those who can induce you to believe absurdities can induce you to commit attrocities - Voltaire
God knew Jesus wouldn't sin, remember, God knows everything. Having free will means being able to choose, therefore, being able to sin. The amazing thing is that God KNEW we would sin, but still choose to love us.
YERUSALYIM "Vanity! It's my favorite sin!" [Al Pacino as Satan, in "DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"]
Love can not be hard wired but must be developed from free will, very very,...interesting...Yerusalyim! Love that thing that makes the world go round. I wish I could be guided by it,.. and it alone, but alas I'm so selfcentered it's so frustrating, miserable man that I am!
If someone lived a trillion X longer than you, and had a billion X more reasoning ability would he come to the same conclusions as you?
The amazing thing is that God KNEW we would sin, but still choose to love us.
Surely the amazing thing is that God knew we would sin if he created us in a certain way, but did so anyway. Why did he not change his blueprint, so that, like Jesus, we would not sin? Surely God wanted to create beings who would be happy and make him happy? Why did he choose to do something that would have the exact opposite effect?
-- Those who can induce you to believe absurdities can induce you to commit attrocities - Voltaire
God knew Jesus wouldn't sin, remember, God knows everything. Having free will means being able to choose, therefore, being able to sin. The amazing thing is that God KNEW we would sin, but still choose to love us.
Wouldn't it be truly loving of God to simply supply a simple and unconfusing path to Him? There are so many ifs and buts and "that's not what the scriptures meant" you wonder if God isn't a God of confusion. Why would he choose to speak to some humans but not all? Would Noah had believed a flood would destroy the entire world if God did not tell him? Would Abraham have attempted to sacrifice his son if he had not directly heard the voice of God? Why did God alleiviate Thomas' doubts but not others? God created us with critical minds. If we aren't critical about the things we see, learning usually gets stagnated. Wouldn't it be truly loving if God simply made it known once and for all (and not to individual obscure people) to all people who he is? Why does he expect us to take his existence and Godhood for granted despite the fact his so called holy book contains factual errors? Why can't He be less difficult to comprehend if our salvation is truly his motive?
Go therefore and baptize the people in the name of the father and of the son... what the hell, we just need to bring up the yearbook numbers!
