How did knowing that Judas would betray Christ help him plan well? Plan well what? His suicide? It may have helped Jesus but not Judas.
I said knowing the "good things" helped. Not knowing the bad things allowed freedom of choice.
No, it doesn't matter what God reveals. My argument may be slightly complex, but I'm pretty sure you can get it if you give it a try. You missed my point completely. You basically rephrased the WTS argument: God has a radio, but he doesn't always turn it on, or he only receives a blurred message to make things look fair. I repeat: the fact that God doesn't turn on his big temporal radio doesn't mean that Judas' betrayal will not be broadcast.
My point was that if God prophesied something about someone and they didn't realize it was about them until after the fact, then it did not affect their freedom of choice! Judas didn't know he would be the one who would betray Jesus! He realized that after the fact.
But while we're on this. Jesus told Peter the night he was arrested that Peter would deny him six times; three times before a cock crowed once and three more times before a cock could crow twice. It probably wasn't told to him that way (i.e. Jeus probably told him he would betray him three times before the cock crowed that night and then Peter insisted that would not be true then he said, in fact another three times before a cock crowed twice). At any rate, Peter heard about his own prophecy of what would happen and refused to believe it. But it happened anyway. All the while, he was acting out his own volition. So, yes, it is complex. So in a way, I could compare Judas to Peter. If Jesus had told him he would betray him, and Judas didn't understand that and refused to believe it, it would have turned out the same as with Peter. But was God forcing his hand to fulfill a prophecy, or was God simply telling in advance what would happen?
Again, it's irrelevant. How does this example apply to Judas? Could God have possibly known Judas' inclination to betray before he was born, if he wanted? If the answer is yes, then the conclusion is that the future is predestined.
This is interesting, but the answer is no. You make a good point though. I think about Jacob and Esau. God manipulated things with Esau and Jacob from the womb! So God saw in the womb who he liked and in line with that prophesied about how Jacob would be chosen over Esau. So was Esau doomed from the beginning by God, or could God see in the future and know what Esau was going to be like "by his own choice" and decided to choose Jacob instead? God manipulates affairs for sure, but I think also is able to see the future, simply because he has that great power.
You say it's "predestined" but I don't. I see it as throwing the dice at a craps game in Vegas. You can "predict" that the number that will come up will be between 1 and 12. That's easy for us. Does that affect the odds? Is that "predestination"?
There is no escaping it. Know this: Whether God wants to know if he's gonna have to kill us or not is utterly irrelevant. I mean it may make God (and us too) feel like he's a really fair player, but still the future can potentially be discovered, so it's been all written down in advance.
I understand what you're saying, and maybe it is a sense of technical "predestination", but it includes "free will". What I'm saying is just because God sees in the future what YOUR CHOICES are doesn't mean he created those choices for you. He has the power to let you make your own choices but also to see what choices you make in the future.
You are right, it's not but it's irrelevant to my point. My question is: is the future predestined? I'm not asking who is responsible for it. I'm not blaming God.
You know, now that you have me cornered on this, I would have to agree with you, in principle, that, yes, it is.
So for the sake of argument, let's say that everything is basically pre-seen by God. Where does that leave us? It leaves us with the choice as to whether we will live under God's arrangement or die. Just because God sees what you will do and even if he tells you what you will do in the future, like Jesus told Peter he would deny him six times, doesn't mean your final outcome is something that God has chosen for you. So perhaps that's the issue of concern.
Which brings up the issue of why bother living or doing anything if it's all predestined anyway? The answer being, it's fun to be alive and to be in love. Is love and laughter worth all the pain and suffering? Apparently God thinks so. Like I said. If somebody told me I was going to win a million...uh...ten million dollars (a $$ million ain't what it used to be, duhhhh!) and I'd be young forever, then yeah, I'm ready to fullfill that "predestination!"
I don't want to be coy, here, but, I sort of won the JACKPOT by ending up as the Messiah, so I sort am glad about it and so predestination works for me since there are many good things about to happen for me, thanks to God's love. But I'm not alone in this. So if it ends up being a "predestined" script that we are all following, then I'm kinda happy I've got a leading role on the right side. So it works for me.
You phrased it well. It's playing, it's a game. And it's an unfair game if the result can potentially be known right from the onset, even if the smartest player (GOd in this case) doesn't wanna know.
Yes, more like a "play" or in some ways a "court room drama". But whether it's "unfair" I don't agree with. And I also didn't say that God "doesn't wanna know". That's JW doctrine which I don't agree with them on. I have a different take on that.
But I've expoused this before. After looking at everything and knowing a little of what heaven is like, it seems clear to me that God created the physical universe to get rid of Satan who was polluting the heavens. Why? Because heaven, in a way, is much like the "fairies" in the Disney classi "Fantasia". Little fairies flitting about in a wondrous world of freedom, with very little rules, and lots of beauty. There was no "sin" and no penalty for sin. There were no real laws to break that carried the penalty of death. Even the "battle in heaven" was a courtroom drama. There were no weapons, it was debate on the issues. But when God created the physical universe where "actions" were possible, not just thoughts. Where "death" was possible and penalties for disobedience, it raised the standard in God's worship. It required more to prove your love for him. But it also provided a "way out" for Satan. Don't forget that Satan got the death penalty as well for playing a part in the Garden of Eden, that test was not just for Adam and Eve, but for all the angels and Satan as well! Through that penalty of death for eating of the tree, God could "legally" have Satan removed and killed in the lake of fire. But it was Satan's choice.
God gave Satan a test that he could not win successfully because he was too corrupt. But was God wrong in setting this up so that Satan could rightfully be removed? That's a "moral issue" debate.
My position is no. No more than we consider it wrong for a drug task force to set up a "sting operation" of drug dealers, which involves catching them red handed breaking the law. Now some might object by saying they would not have broken the law had they not had the opportunity to buy drugs from a government agent; on the other hand, a law-abiding person wouldn't have been tempted with dealing drugs. So it was only a trap for someone bad, not for someone good.
But in that way, and a point to appreciate about God, he is manipulative. He doesn't just let you get away with certain acts of disrespect. For instance after looking over God and surmising that you'd rather not live forever in the world he had planned after all, "Thanks, but no thanks, I respectfully decline." You imagine that's it. But it won't be. Judgment Day is about that. All those people who decided "it didn't matter" and decided to live the "good life" and murder and kill and do whatever they wanted, will come back and see what the "innocent people get" before they met their eternal death. They will not have died without knowing they made a huge mistake or lost out on FOREVER! They won't die in peace, but will be in philosophical "torment" for ever. As they should be.
You say: it's possible that we are are dramatis personae acting according to a certain script. Still the choices a person makes at any given time are this person's choices. What you fail to account for is how these can be this person's choices if they can be known from the script before you hire this preson as an actor.
I didn't say that. What I'm saying is that whether or not God can tell the future, it can be done that still allows choice. In other words, God made all "perfect" creatures and gave them freedom of choice. Then he looked into the future to see what CHOICES they made and then decided to write down what some of those choices were. They still were CHOICES.
But this is academic. I figured God knew right along that HAPPINESS, true HAPPINESS is enhanced or perhaps only possible if it is a "willing" process. And if so, there has to be freedom of choice. That carries with it the risk of somone choosing the wrong things. So I basically thought God had a plan for his universe and the world, tht eventuality being say that 20 billion beings would be deliriously happy throughout eternity, by their own choice. But in oder to fill that 20 billion freedom choice quota, he knew all along that a certain percentage would choose not to be obedient or whatever. So let's say the odds were always that out of any given number of people with free choice, given what they had to choose from, a paradise earth, peace, all that, that one third would not go for it, but two thirds would. So God's CHOICE was, was it worth the happiness of the good two thirds to sacrifice that bad one third? God decided, YES, it's worth it.
So if he knew going in a third would corrupt but two thirds would come through the "fire", it was just a matter of deciding if it was worth it.
I can live with that much "predestination".
On the other hand, perhaps there is a built-in RANDOM FACTOR that's part of creation that God participates in to control the "predestination" aspect of it.
For instance, lets say God has so many marbles which represent possible realities. And he throws them out like dice. When they settle in place, he can then see well into the future of what would be with this combination of things. Maybe he threw out the marbles and only got about a 25% return with one combination, maybe a 50% return with another. But then he noted that one combination perfectly balanced predestination and choice and everything and that this certain "random" combination paid back 66%, which he considered a good percentage that he could live with and so he went with that!
So yeah, it's all predestined once God decided to go along with that hand, but it still was a "random" hand. He just kept throwing out combinations until he got what he wanted and went with that!
Sure we all feel sorry for Satan in this case, but it was either that or non-existence ever!
The other thing that you have to factor in, though, is ROBOTICS! Animals are really robots. Robots are preprogramed and they follow certain patterns of behavior. Some are "smart" and can make choices within a certain prescribed range. So God could have left the entire world simply filled with animals. I mean, does the world really need humans to subsist? No! Lots of places totally devoid of humans are doing quite well, like the bottom of the Pacific! So how about that for PREDESTINATION? Yup! If you keep watering this jungle it's going to keep on growing! Those monkeys and giraffs are going to keep on having kids! Is that all?
So in a way, since God could predestine everything if he wanted and make everything the way he wants like we can do with robots, it seems that he values "choice" by giving that to the angels and man, and in that way, mankind and the angels, though somewhat predestined since God can see into the future, are still less predestined than if the universe only contained life at the level of animals. Or much less plants!
So no matter what, the END RESULT is wondrous!
So I suppose, when you think of Satan and Judas, perhaps we should consider them as the "refuse" God was willing to allow to develop in order to have persons aspire to nobility. They weren't "necessary" for the happiness of others, but they were the sacrifice for this random hand that God decided to play out.
Having said that, it must be incredibly fun being GOD!!!
I'm not blaming him I just think if I want to believe him, I have to stick to prophecies of type A. Prophecies of type B are just a poor, badly explored philosophical concept, as I have shown. I realize you have your agenda, but as with any agenda you just cease to be critical at some point.
You know. I'm glad you brought this up. Because ultimately, it doesn't bother me if God knows everything that will happen in precise detail.
One question is, though, does he know BEFORE he creates something what will happen? Technically, that's IMPOSSIBLE! Because you can't see into the future of something that never happens. So maybe the FUTURE is connected to the physical entity presence. So that only AFTER God, say created Satan, could he see into the future what choices Satan would make. It doesn't become Future until something happens.
It is a game! A wonderful game called CREATION!
So let's just say that God knew in advance that Satan would rebel against him if he created him under the circumstances where Jesus was his chief son and the other angels were less beautiful than he was. Was it wrong for God to create Satan? Was it worth it? Did Satan have a "choice" in the matter?
Well guess what? That was a key point in the "war in heaven" which I witnessed and was party to! Satan was basically giving your argument, that he had been created in this manner which left him little room for the choices he made. To this, there was a non-contest, generally. So Satan was excused of that claim, but the judgment was insistent upon his death because he murdered billions of mankind.
In other words, poor Satan, made beautiful in a world that was making men the center of the universe, what is a beautiful person to do but feel like life wasn't worth living. That's understandable, subjectively, perhaps. So Satan was miserable, didn't think things were fair, what choices did he have. It life was that unbearable, he could have committed suicide. Which, indeed, he decided to do. But that wasn't enough. Because he was bitter, he decided to murder lots of other people as well, so he was rightly condemned. Killing mankind was outside of the scope of his argument.
How that worked out, therefore, as far as life goes, is that what Jesus said. "You must love God with your whole being and soul and spirit." And if you LOVE God, you will be willing to die for him, just as you'd lay your own life down for your spouse or your child if the situation required it, or your country for that matter. But if you don't love God enough, and in fact, you HATE him, then you will want to kill what is dear to him. It's not enough simply to refuse to participate. You know? You're unhappy with you like and want to end it. That's unfortunate, but your choice. You decide you want to kill 30 or 40 innocent people as part of your statement -- no, that's unacceptable, sorry.
It was nice to hear from you though, because you are probably the best defender of type B prophecies on this forum, and you failed to defend them.
Maybe I hadn't thought of them enough and maybe they are not defensible. Maybe they don't need defending. But you have made me think about these things and I thank you for that.
1) I make $ 300 a month as an academic teacher.
2) Even if I won in a lottery, and you asked me for money, we'd have to sign a contract. I give you money as long as you get proper medical treatment. What do you think? :)
That would be a good plan, but I think there's a law against "cruelty to psychologists" that would make that contract invalid!!! Tee Hee!
Reminds me of a joke though. One you've probably heard. But there was this guy in the insane asylum claiming he was Jesus to everybody. Then someone asked him how he knew he was Jesus. He told them that God told him so. He was asked why he thought God had told him that, to which he replied, "Beats me? Ask him yourself, he's right there in the corner in the blue pajamas."
The real joke had some punchline where the other inmate admitted that "I'm God!" but I forgot the joke. Maybe someone else can tell it.
But thank you for this discussion. It made me think. But what it makes me reflect on is how much God loves me (Michael/Jesus). It's clear it was all done for ME. My ultimate happiness and the end result. Even choosing the prodigal son "transmigration" to become a component of the Messiah as part of his whole character was carefully thought out, since Christ, being the chief son, being perfect and glorious was not dependent upon God, though he loved him and was obedient. That's not "dependent". But the prodigal son had a "dependent" factor involved. Like someone with many sins will be far more grateful for a second chance than those who had not sinned as much. So in this way, God could bring Christ closer to himself and Christ gains a perspective he could not have before, what it's like to be an ordinary man and how wonderful God's forgiveness is. So it's wondrous. He's such a loving God. Such an incredible God.
What we will have is God will have me, his son, and I will have the faithful chosen ones, the "gems of the earth" who I hold tightly in my hand and Satan cannot get them. He will kill many, but not these. So we are content with what we could salvage from everything. It's up to me to salvage the most I can since it will be mine. And having known sin and been forgiven, I can be very patient and understanding, so I'm the best hope for mankind in general. I won't get into it, but obviously, being black I won't look down on you if you're black like so many find it easy to do. If you're gay, I will still see you for a person. Even if you're a drag queen, I see you for the inner person because I've been there. I have come as a physician for the sick, not those who are well.
Thanks! I feel more "messianic" than ever now.
