The Invasion Called Eden
By Jack Hoehn, January 20, 2016: Did the battle for earth begin after the fall in Eden or was it going on throughout the creation process? Was Eden the same as the rest of the earth, or a unique invasion into God’s battle to retake earth from the powers of chaos? This is a second response to the topics discussed in Sabbath Schools this year.
We live in a universe of beauty, and we experience much joy. But it is a shadowed beauty and we have imperfect joy.
What is this Shadow and why is it there? Our joy is partial; when shall our joy be full? What kind of a God do we worship, and what kind of creation has He made? Last week we discussed what kind of God permits a Satan, an adversary. A God who enters into war with evil, instead of preventing it, or destroying it. We suggested that although God is Creator of all, He is not creator of evil. But that evil is real and adaptive, and that God too adapts His methods as a general on the battlefield adapts to the enemy. The General is not in control of the battle, but is in control of His response. Earth is now rebel territory, being invaded by God through Jesus to regain control of this part of the universe.
January 9 our Sabbath School lessons asked us to behold again a place called Eden. So how do we see Eden? Was it “the most perfect part of a perfect creation,” or an invasion base camp, a Heaven sent Normandy into occupied territory?
Adventist Truths
The previous article on the nature of God by design was entirely Biblical and generic Christian. But for questions about earth’s prehistory, although the Bible contains hints of pre-earth history such as Job 38:7, we have very little direct information.
Seventh-day Adventists were given unique insights into the pre-earth history in the writings of Ellen White. We do not accept these revelations as infallible or in any way equal in authority to Biblical revelations, but when not contradictory to the Bible they can open and deepen our understanding. So as we used C.S. Lewis and Dante to help explain things in the Bible, let’s see what happens if we use Ellen White to help us better understand the earth and Eden of Genesis 1-3.
Biblical Basis
Revelation chapter 12 is the Biblical basis of Ellen White’s revelations. John has a holy dream of a dinosaur in symbolic color and anatomy, including a powerful tail. It is opposed to the seed of the woman that Eve was promised after her fall. Verse 7 suggests the history of this opposition seems related to a heavenly “war” between Michael (“He who is like Elohim”) and “the Red Dragon” (identified in verse 9 as “the ancient serpent” of Eden, “the Devil,” or “Satan”) who both had angels on their sides. The losers lost their place in Heaven and were “hurled” (thrown or cast out) to planet earth.
Many consequences of this banishment to earth are listed. 1/3 of the “stars of the sky” fell to earth (verse 4). A pregnant symbolic woman gives birth to a child destined to rule all nations (identified in verse 17 as Jesus) that the dinosaur wants to destroy, but cannot (verse 5), so the woman herself has to flee the dinosaur who continues to relentlessly “accuse brothers and sisters,” many who died giving their testimony to Jesus.
But the fall of Satan and his angels to earth did not only have consequences for the saints of God, It also brings trouble to the land of earth and the water of earth and presumably creatures “who dwell in them.” Verse 12: “Rejoice you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury…” What the fury of Satan and his angels do to earth and sea and those who dwell in them is not specified, but as his fury did to the saints, it may have ended in many deaths.
When did the cosmic war begin?
Both Ephesians 1:4 and 1 Peter 1:20 say that God planned for us to be saved by Jesus, “before the creation of the world.” And Revelation 13:8 reminds us that Jesus was prepared to be the saving sacrifice for sin, not from Adam and Eve’s fall, but “from the creation of the world.” Sin’s battles began before the creation of earth, not just after the human fall.
With these and a few other slender first-century Scriptures, Ellen Gould Harmon White in 1858 at Lovett’s Grove, Ohio, had a 2-hour holy dream that gave Adventists a view of the pre-creation history of this universe forming a broad, deep, cosmic theme called The Great Controversy Between Christ and His Angels and Satan and His Angels or simply The Great Controversy. Jonathan Butler calls it “a dazzling, cinematic view of salvation history.”[1] Fritz Guy notes that it is “extraterrestrial” and “a grand metanarrative of the…cosmic conflict of the ages.”[2] Bull and Lockhart called it “Mrs. White’s classic exposition of the ongoing battle between good and evil…traced from its origins in heaven to its final resolution at the close of the millennium.”[3]
Great Controversy not Recent nor of Limited Duration
Ellen G. White in The Great Controversy, 1888 edition, does not time these heavenly events, but uses phrases suggesting deep time. “Evil must be permitted to come to maturity. For the good of the entire universe through ceaseless ages Satan must more fully develop his principles…a lesson to the universe through all coming ages.”[4] And again later, “God in His great mercy bore long with Lucifer… Long was he retained in heaven.”[5]
Whatever the chronology you choose to use, the authentic Adventist chronology is not “recent.” The Great Controversy is “long” and not through “literal days” or short weeks or many months or even measured in years, but through “ages,” in fact “through ceaseless ages.” Long.
Great Controversy starts during the detailed planning of Creation
Adventist theology suggests the earth was indeed very much Intelligently Designed. Whatever happened during the creation week was not a magic event at the snap of a finger of seconds or minutes or hours or even 24 hours or 144 hours in 6 days! Earth’s creation week was long planned, in detail, over ages of heavenly time by the Trinity. Ellen White explains,
“Especially was His Son to work in union with Himself [God the Father] in the anticipated creation of the earth and every living thing that should exist upon the earth…Lucifer was envious and jealous of Jesus Christ…Christ had been taken into the special counsel of God in regard to His plans, while Lucifer was unacquainted with them.”[6]
Satan works Deliberately and Systematically
There is a giant intellect against God, and the battle is not one of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks; the Great Controversy has been going on for a long time, for thousands of years, and that battle has been deliberate and systematic.
“The aim of the great rebel has ever been to justify himself and to prove the divine government responsible for the rebellion. To this end he has bent all the power of his giant intellect. He has worked deliberately and systematically, and with marvelous success…. For thousands of years this chief of conspiracy has palmed off falsehood for truth.”[7]
“Thrust out of Heaven, Satan determined to set up his kingdom on the earth. Through him sin entered the world, and death by sin.”[8]
Note that this was before the creation of the earth; Satan’s rebellion and the war in Heaven begins over the planning for the creation of earth. The Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the earth, salvation was implemented “before the creation of the earth.” Death by sin started with Satan’s sin, not with Eve and Adam’s sin. After Satan was cast out of heaven, earth became the new battlefield for his giant intellect to make deliberate and systematic attempt to establish his own kingdom on earth.
God too works Deliberately and Systematically
God too in creation works according to the long-thought-out Trinitarian plans, deliberately and systematically. As the Sabbath School lesson pointed out, Creation is a work of differentiation or separation. God introduces or creates something different from what was before. This, not that. Something was not so good; now it is good or better than what was before. “God created everything by a series of separations with clearly defined boundaries: light and darkness, waters above and waters below, land and sea, night and day, creatures according to their kind, a day separated from the others, a woman separated from a man, and a tree set apart from the others.”[9]
Each Creation Day Starts in Darkness
Darkness overcome by Light can be a motif of the entire creation as each Genesis Creation Day starts in darkness (“and there was setting,” or darkness) and ends in light (“and there was dawning,” or light). At the end of each darkness into light cycle God announces the victory of light over darkness, announcing that “it was good” or sometimes “very good” which suggests that before His creation was implemented it was not “good,” or at least not good enough.
Each Creation Day is a victory of light over darkness. This could support this Adventist understanding that creation was part of the Great Controversy. That on earth Satan and his expelled-from-heaven host stand ready to renew their battle with God creating through Jesus the Trinitarian plan. Each Creation Day is an invasion by God of “not so good” by “good” or better.
- Dark, formless, empty water-world invaded by God’s light.
- Airless, lifeless world, changed by atmosphere and the hydrologic cycles.
- Watery world invaded by land and then plants.
- Timeless, cloudy hidden-from-universe world changed to clear atmosphere with sun, moon, star cycles and seasons now possible.
- Empty seas filled with life, empty skies filled with life.
- Empty land filled with animals, uncontrolled animals given rulers with dominion over what was previously not dominated.
Each Creation Day was a problem, solved by a Creator. An invasion of disorder by Order and Intelligent Design. A darkness solved by light for six Great Creation Days. By the 7th Day the creation wars are over. There is no “darkness followed by light” for the 7th Day. God has done what God wanted done, and now human history begins with a man created outside of Eden, brought into a special place on earth called Eden.
Eden different from rest of earth
The created earth was not Eden. Eden was a different and better place than the rest of earth. Genesis 2 has a Biblical geography that places Nod east of Eden, and Havilah, Cush, Ashur outside of Eden. The word paradise means a walled or separated place, different from the earth as a whole, just as the Sabbath is different from the week as a whole.
Besides the fact that God planted it (see footnote[10]) Eden was special because it had two unique Trees, a Tree of Knowing and a Tree of Living. They were commanded to not open their lives to know misery, woe, grief, and harm by eating the fruit of the Knowing Evil Tree. They were invited by perpetuate their mortal lives by eating exclusively from the Life Tree.
What purpose would a Tree of Life have on a world free of death? But before the Eveic/Adamic fall God placed a Life Tree on this world, in His garden. The answer seems obvious. Death was present on earth, from the beginning of Creation, because sin was present on earth before the human fall because of Satan’s fall. Jesus testifies that the Devil was a liar and a murderer (one who kills), not from Adam’s fall, but, “from the beginning.”
“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:44.
As the Serpent lied to Eve before her and Adam’s fall, so the evidence of fossils and geology suggests Satan was murdering animals and plants long before Eve and Adam’s fall. There was no death inside the garden of Eden, but after humans elected to know misery, woe, grief, and harm their mortality was not caused by anything except the invitation to leave the garden and its Life Tree, and begin to live in the rest of the world outside of the garden, a world very much like the one we live in now with its shadowed beauty and imperfect joys.
So what was Eden?
Eden was where God created His answer to Sin and Death. The garden was in fact a protected castle on the map of a Greater Controversy earth. Eden was a safe place for Eve and Adam to choose which side they would join in the battle they were designed to fight. Eden was God’s beachhead back into rebel territory claimed by Satan the Prince of the Air, the Prince of This World.
From Eden, a tested and tried Eve and a tested and tried Adam could have begun to take over earth from Satan, to establish their dominion over the undomesticated animals roaming the earth red in tooth and claw as Satan had taught them to murder each other or to die in catastrophes with no Ark that he repeatedly brought onto the creation. Is this just speculation? No, revelation:
“…that garden of delight, a sample of the perfect work of God’s creation, untouched by the curse of sin—a sample of what the whole earth would have become, had man but fulfilled the Creator’s glorious plan.”[11]
So what kind of God would have a Satan?
The God of the Bible. Patient, long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, but engaged in long continued warfare with sin–long warfare, ceaseless ages of warfare. The same God you have known from childhood, loving, kind, caring. The God of your Sabbath School and My Bible Stories, wise, powerful, coming again. Yet a dynamic God whose character never changes, but whose methods and actions are new every morning. A God not in a hurry, with whom a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day.
The God of the “Big Bang” with His incomprehensible expanding Universe. The God of the Milky Way with a 4.8 billion-year-old earth. The God of Geology with over 600 Million years of progressive life in fossil layers, Intelligently Designed and not randomly mutated, but opposed by the giant genius of an intelligent destroyer. The God of DNA, with humans 70,000 to 200,000 years outside of Eden, on this battlefield of the Great Controversy, with God slowly winning. The Father of Jesus who sent the beloved unique and only Son to destroy in that DNA from Eve, death by dying. The One who reopened the gates of Eden to whosoever will and restores our mortal access to that Life Tree of immortality.
The kind of God who wants you. The God who requires your obedience and yearns for your love, but will not force it. The God who wishes to grant you access to the Tree of Life but not unless you are safe for the Universe to come. What kind of God would have a Satan? — The kind of God who would have you!
“The Great Controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love.”[12]
____________________________________________________________________________
NOTES:
(All Ellen White Books quoted below are available on line at www.whiteestate.org )
[1] Ellen Harmon White, An American Prophet, page 13, Oxford University Press, 2014.
[2] Ibid, page151.
[3] Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart, Seeking a Sanctuary, Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream, page 21, Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1989.
[4] Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, page 135.
[5] Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, page 495.
[6] Ellen G. White, Story of Redemption, pages 13-14.
[7] Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, page 670.
[8] Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, February 11, 1902.
[9] Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, Rebellion and Redemption, Lesson 2, Crisis in Eden, reading for January 4, 2016.
[10] This reminds us that God does not take credit for “planting” the rest of the world, He gave the earth permission to plant itself in Genesis 1:11, “Let the land produce vegetation….”
[11] Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, page 63.
[12] Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, page 678.
(Comments for this article are open and will not be moderated.)
Jack,
I am surprised you make no mention of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
I was puzzled by the same thing. The major theme of EGW’s Great Controversy is in Paradise Lost. EGW’s take was largly a 19th Century gloss on Milton by a mystic who added details from her out-of-body experiences.
Yes to both Bill and Ervin above. Without Milton’s epic poem, the Great Controversy could not have been written. To claim it as a “two-hour dream” is to negate the fact that she had read Milton and it was in her library (although she denied it).
Ellen White was not a capital “P” prophet like Joseph Smith. Her commentary is in not authoritative. She is not an interpreter of scripture. She is a lesser light. She can not illumine things not found in Scripture. Scripture alone is the source of doctrine.
If, as Dr. Hoehn says, we have no biblical evidence of the primordial fall. Why is he speculating about doctrines that have no biblical basis? This is not what Ellen White’s prophetic voice admonishing us. She is not the Gnostic source of secret history. That is NOT the spirit of prophecy.
As fine a commentary as EG White is the following verses are sufficient to enlighten me on life before the creation of this earth.
Before creation, God planned secrets to be revealed to His creation by Him personally on the earth as the Christ and through His church.
–Matthew 13:35, Jesus stated “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world.”
–1 Corinthains 2:7 “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory”
–Romans 16:25 “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began”
–Ephesians 3:9-11 “and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 10to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, 11according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord”.
–Colosians 1:26 “the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.”
These verses are fine for now, the rest will come throughout eternity.
Really? Is anyone really surprised why there is no mention of the Milton’s Paradise Lost in a commentary that presumes to tell us that we have special revelations from EGW?
Most of what we think we know about Satan is complete fiction clung to because of the presumed revelations of EGW. Thus certain Christian traditions have become codified in the Adventist church. And we are forever poorer for that acceptance of mythology.
Are you saying it is wrong (not God’s will) that we speculate? Doesn’t He want us to use our imaginations in good ways. I agree we must accept the mystery for God cannot be explained or He wouldn’t be God. But I don’t see why we should not imagine His work in the context of the Bible and use at least some of what EGW saw.
Prophesy or visions are only “partial” truth according to Paul. There is nothing wrong with mythology. CS Lewis used it well in telling truths. Truth is unfolded through story and what it means.
HOW ELLEN WHITE’S BOOKS WERE WRITTEN
ADDRESSES TO FACULTY AND STUDENTS AT THE 1935 ADVANCED BIBLE SCHOOL ANGWIN, CALIFORNIA
by W. C. White
page 3,4 (part 1)
I remember a year or two later when she was writing on the lines of the early patriarchs, Elder J. N. Andrews was visiting at our home. After dinner was over, Mother would propose to read to him and Father what she had been writing. Both Elder White and Elder Andrews were attentive listeners and one day after two or three chapters had been read to them, Elder Andrews said, “Sister White, have you ever read Milton’s Paradise Lost?”
“No,” she replied.
“Have you ever read any of his writings?
Again she replied, “No.”
A few weeks later he brought a copy of Paradise Lost, and read to Father and Mother some of Milton’s descriptions of the experiences of Lucifer in his great rebellion. Later on he brought a new copy which he had purchased and gave it to Mother.
She thanked him for it, and looked at it a few minutes without opening it, put it on a high shelf in a cupboard built in back of the stove and under the chimney support. There the book lay many days and several years.
page 4 (part 2)
In view of the fact that a careless statement has been made by one of our much loved teachers that Milton’s Paradise Lost was a favorite book of Sister White’s, and that she read it often, I think it is worthwhile to make this clear and full statement, and to add to the above, that I never saw Milton’s poem in her hand, and never saw her reading it. I never heard her refer to the book, except on one or two occasions, when she stated to visitors what I have related above, and said that she felt that she ought not to study what anyone else had written regarding the rebellion in heaven until she had written out very fully what had been revealed to her.
So there you have it folks, straight out of the hoarse’s (foal’s) mouth. Unfortunately most of you will choose to disregard it because it will interfere with your script – namely that to believe in EG White is seen as unscholarly and uneducated so we have to find reasons to disregard it no matter what (at all cost) so that we can look educated and smart i.e. belong to the inteligensia club so that people can feed our vanity and look up to our wisdom.
Peter: There is probably more truth in what you say than most would admit. We need scholars, of course, and I read them and believe much of what they have said. However, I can see an elitist thought pattern among them just as one can find in science, medicine, etc. So they can be an arrogant bunch. As a sample I recently read a comment on FB praising someone for his great intellect that was so much far above the rest of us.
Interestingly, The White Lie alleges again and again that Ellen White borrowed from Milton, the book provides no evidence to substantiate the claim. Scholarly studies have noted some similar thoughts, but no literary dependence.(see below)
Elizabeth Burgeson, “A Comparative Study of the Fall of Man as Treated by John Milton and Ellen G. White” (Master’s Thesis, Pacific Union College, 1957). Burgeson notes the similarities between Ellen White and John Milton on extra-Biblical information, and wonders why two authors, living two hundred years apart, would be in such agreement. But unless direct literary dependence is demonstrated it cannot be said that Mrs. White actually read Milton’s poem. The ideas of Milton, the great Puritan poet, permeated New England theology for generations. The fact that Mrs. White uses a phrase from Milton in Education, p. 150 [as noted by A. L. White, “Supplement to the Reprint Edition: Ellen G. White’s Portrayal of the Great Controversy Story,” in Ellen G. White, Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 4 (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1969 reprint), p. 536], does not of itself indicate literary dependence, since memorable lines of Milton were as current in her time as those of Shakespeare
So guys do your research a bit better. For someone with a PhD, as Erv Taylor no doubt holds, I would have expected a lot better scholarly research than just quoting verbatim from The White Lies. That is very poor research. It seems to me that his goal is to defend hid position at all cost rather then come to the truth.
It is amazing how often some throw stones in glass houses. As if they have ever been capable of original thought. All ideals/therories/beliefs they hold today are the summation of someone else’s thoughts!! The evidence for this can be seen throught their articles/comments/opinion pieces, which are at best a rehash of ideas that have already been spoused by someone else.
If Milton and EGW had similar themes throughout their works is because they were both Bible students.
I am surprised that Dr. Luke has yet to be accused of plagarism, being that he relied heavily upon the works of Matthew to write his book!
Wow to Bill, Ervin, Peter and Elaine. Were we reading the same article. Did you guys get past the first few chapters. Jack’s mentioning of Ellen White was indeed one of his points, but it wasn’t his only point.
Forget about Ellen White the prophet, if that makes it easier for you. Consider Ellen White as a short cut to describing an historic Adventist position, which nonetheless is still involving. Think White copied Milton? Ok great, so what do you think of Milton’s take on this whole issue of Eden as a Normandy beachhead.
Because that’s the whole point of Jack’s article, as I see it – viewing the story of Eden differently than many of us have traditionally done. Even if Ellen White is a fraud, Jack’s use of her is important in addressing those more conservative voices who would say his view is “new” or at odds with historic Adventism.
Looking at your comments above, you’re all now in a frenzy about the White Lie and other stuff. You all remind me of a book I’m reading about Japanese officers who refuse to surrender at the ends of WW2. You’re so obsessed with a situation that doesn’t really reflect contemporary Adventism. You’re fighting battles that, to be frank, no one in contemporary Adventism perhaps under 50 cares much about.
As a result, I feel you have all maligned Jack because you haven’t really got what he is actually trying to say. But that’s just my reading of it.
Great post! and Jack, I like what you are saying and giving us some fresh ideas to chew on. I have always thought Lucifer was behind the look of chaos. I tend to think more about our idea of time being so different than that of God. His time is from a different perspective (or parallel universe?). What may seem like a million years on earth in another place is maybe a day!
Well stated, Jack. I’ve long thought of the creation of earth as the inoculation which would bring about the eventual cure for sin. The creation is the perfect cure, not the ultimate perfection where sin will never again exist. Remember that God made a place for satan in this creation where in the new-creation there will be no place for him. Humanity, you and I, are part of the cure for the sin disease.
Presenting this idea to other Adventist usually provokes a strong negative response which still surprises me. I’m not sure why. Your support of the idea from EGW will make these future conversations much more interesting as I add them to the Biblical support.
I appreciate your noticing that day 7 has no evening/morning cycle! Great catch. I know this story backwards and forwards and still miss things. Have you ever noticed that in the Hebrew bible day 2 gets no “good” declaration?
I don’t think anyone is saying that Milton originated any of the Lucifer/Satan myths he put in his poem. He is just taking the traditions of other Christians and putting them into his poem. That it became one of the classics of English literature and was widely disseminated throughout the English speaking world is the point. That some 300 years later EGW says much the same thing and that some how gives her credence or evidence of inspiration is the problem
Who can say Milton was not inspired as well? There have been prophetic voices throughout history as God enlightens more minds. Certainly EGW was not the first and hopefully not the last. Think outside the box. Thank you, Jack for doing so.
The bible know nothing of the primordial fall of Satan.
Hi Jack,
It appears you are a strong proponent of the proof text method, consequently I wonder whether you have considered quotes such as the following that apparently do not support your primary suppositions regarding Eden.
“At the very beginning of man’s existence a check was placed upon the desire for self-indulgence, the fatal passion that lay at the foundation of Satan’s fall.” {CC 13.2}
“He permitted his mind to run in the same channel that led to Satan’s fall–indulging the desire for self-exaltation and questioning the divine justice and authority. . . .” {CC 24.2}
“Among the lower creatures Adam had stood as king . . . ; but when he transgressed, this dominion was forfeited. The spirit of rebellion, to which he himself had given entrance, extended throughout the animal creation. Thus not only the life of man, but the nature of the beasts, the trees of the forest, the grass of the field, the very air he breathed, all told the sad lesson of the knowledge of evil.” {AG 41.2}
Jack, you state at the beginning: “Did the battle for earth begin after the fall in Eden or was it going on throughout the creation process?”
I don’t see how that sentence makes any sense, given how you cite Ellen White. As you know, she pointedly stated that the creation of this earth took 6 actual days. I don’t see any way that there could have been any sort of huge battle during those first 6 days.
Was it not Adam’s sin that gave the planet into Satan’s hands? I think that point is well established.
Why can’t “paradise” mean simply “garden”? To take some shade of meaning of a Persian word used in a Greek work (in Rev. 2), and impose that meaning on the creation event 4000 years before, that doesn’t seem valid.
As I read it, the Bible seems to say the two were “placed” in Eden or the garden. This leaves us to question what was outside the garden. And how large was the garden? It could have been the whole MidEast or more. When the Bible speaks of the “world” it usually means the known world to its audience.
Pretty deep (and interesting) stuff. I sure hope we don’t have a quiz on this to get on the other side of the “GATE”. I’m sticking with what Jesus said, “It’s so simple a child can understand it”. GOD Bless you. See you in Heaven. Chuck A.
The God who wants your love but doesn’t force it…
If God cannot but love, which is the underlying thesis of the Great Controversy, as well as the implication of scripture, then what is demeaning about creating creatures that can only love. Such is, it seems, a form of being created in the image of God.
If God can only save us if we love him freely, then the Creator has become ‘obligated on the creature,’ as Sister White puts it. This is antithetical to grace, to justification by faith, to the very sovereignty of God. In explaining this, Sister White notes that it give rise to the ‘heresy of the Catholic’ who believes he can redeem himself by the purchase of indulgences.
Moses uses Eden as stage setting for the plight of the Israelites in the desert as well as the establishment of the God of monotheism, who from the very beginning promises that the human plight is not our fault and thus is not our responsibility, but is fully the Creator’s accepted responsibility.
As Paul notes, when we yield to the inevitable incompleteness of knowledge, spiritual practice, and prophecy we are left with what endures. Faith, Hope, and Love. Testimony rather than theology.
I rather like Jack’s testimony that The God who would have Satan is the God would would have us! That makes God’s love more vivid than I’ve ever sensed it before!
Thank you, Jack!
What do you think of the concept that Adam sinned because he loved Eve so much–more than his creator–that he wanted to save her? This is because he was “programmed” to love and maybe couldn’t help it (a false theory). Did he purposely choose Eve over God? Suppose it had been in reverse? Would Eve have chosen Adam if he had eaten the fruit? In that case would we claim female headship?
Could a man born into the complete isolation of a dark cave, grow up and discover what was on the outside merely by reasoning with himself? That is the problem faced by the philosopher who does not accept Divine revelation as a valid means of acquiring knowledge concerning our existence.
We each contemplate these things in our own way. For myself I find it useful to reflect on what is “Revelation based” speculation as opposed to pure speculation. Thanks Jack for helping us to do that.
Here we go again. Speculation about evil and sin and Satan and inspiration. EM suggests that perhaps Milton too was inspired. Are we Adventists ready to admit an inspired Milton? Then what about Shakespeare and Cervantez and Einstein and Copernicus? IN my view, all these and more others were inspired.
Let the speculation continue, and let us observe the snake more carefully. I always observe them eating rats, birds, lizards and other snakes; but I never see them eating dust, as Genesis decrees for them. I read stories about how the crab got a crack on its back, and how the agouti lost its tail. Perhaps the story about how the serpent manages to be crawling,instead of walking like many other animals derive from a similar reasoning. It might be helpful to get the lesson, and throw away the illustration.
Jack Thanks You.
Thank you for the comments. I do not have time to moderate this discussion, much relief to the faithful regulars, I am sure. So no attempt to answer every question or objection. Many of you have written answers better than I would offer. But here is what I would offer in general.
1.) I am writing this article to Adventist who are going to church and care about the Sabbath School Lessons, to offer an alternative Adventist view on God and His plan of salvation than what is usually watered down 6th grade level opinions of the same editors for the past 17 years.
2.) I accept that Ellen White was inspired and I find her writings illuminating to my thoughts about spiritual subjects. I do not accept the doctrine of infallibility for inspired writers. So I do not accept that what she or David or St. Paul says is free of error, even while communicating to me insights into truth I could not otherwise have.
3.) I started these two companion articles by pointing out that a Persian poet before the time of Daniel had insights into the two poles of this universe, God the originator of Truth and an adversary known to Zoroaster as “The Lie.” I don’t think John Milton and Ellen White were dependent upon Zoroaster for the epic poem Paradise Lost or the epic Great Controversy. I think all three were approaching truth in their own time and own way. The points that they agree on may or may not show literary influence, but mostly shows convergence of open minds to parallel or complementary truths about this Universe and its morality.
4.) If you prefer it simple, just keep memorizing your SS lessons, that is their specialty, keeping it simple. If you prefer a more complex discussion to help understand a more complex world that you live in, keep reading Adventist Today. Our writers and our commentators are more interested in keeping it real than keeping it simple. Although you will find that both simple disbelief and simple credulity are on display here in equal measure! So read, think, add from Zoroaster, Milton, and Ellen White what helps you understand yourself, your life story, and the world we all live in, and be patient and kind to the rest of us, instead of dismissive of any. I find I learn things from both Bob Pickle and Erwin Taylor, and all in between. Although I reserve the right to frequently and pointedly disagree with both!
Jack
Jack:
I know you have put much thought into the scenario that the world outside of Eden was already corrupted by sin because of the presence of Satan, even before Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden. And you claim to believe that Ellen White was inspired, but you appear to be selecting only those writings of hers that allow your speculative ideas.
But Ellen White’s writings are directly opposed to the hypothesis that you present. Specifically, in Early Writings, chapter 4, she describes a vision in which she was transported to another world that had not fallen to Satan’s temptations and which did have the same test of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Ellen White’s teaching is that the Tree of Knowledge was placed in the garden to limit Satan’s access to human beings to only one place, not the entire world so that they would be able to avoid Satan and his temptations. After a period of time, the test (the tree) in the other worlds was withdrawn and the inhabitants who have not sinned have been able to continue their lives in a perfect non-corrupted world.
I do not understand any value or logic to your hypothesis that is unsupported either Biblically or in EGW’s writings.
Good response, Jack.
Your thoughts about inspiration Nathaniel, (regarding who else might have been inspired) are worth contemplating. I, like many reading this forum I suspect, grew up believing that there were two inspired sources; the Bible and EGW, (with EGW the “lesser” light – an interesting concept when talking about inspiration). At one time I would have automatically balked at the suggestion that others have been inspired, but that is no longer the case. Indeed, it seems rather unlikely that an omnipotent God would thus limit the channels of communication with those originally created “in His image”. When Paul spoke of the many spiritual gifts to be showered on men, (I Cor 12) it seems clear that these gifts, which include the gift of “prophecy”, were to be available to far more than one or two people. (continued)
(part 2)
Of course it is unlikely that everyone claiming to be inspired is actually inspired by the Spirit of God. (I could relate an interesting personal encounter on that subject but will save that for another time.) The uncertainty of this may scare some SDA’s into refusing to consider any source other than the Bible or EGW as a possible source of inspired thought, but we do I believe have enough information in the record of Jesus’ sojourn on earth to compare the words and actions of any “prophet” to the example He left us without having to be concerned about being misled. The key is to always compare all to the example of the Greatest Light that walked the earth.
One of my favorite thoughts on this subject, (which I think EGW also quoted) is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson: “All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.”
Thanks for giving us a peek into the mystery of evil, earth & the war in heaven.
Is it possible that the mysteries behind life & death can, in part, be better understood? I think so.
See Romans 16:25&26.
Not until Adam and Eve witnessed the death & dismemberment of the first sacrificial lamb did they realize they were made up of blood and guts, not dirt.
After nearly 6,000 years we learned that blood & guts were really made up of microscopic bags of a mysterious substance called protoplasm.
A few decades latter we learned that those microscopic bags contained mysterious particles, we called organelles, that made stuff.
A few years latter we learned that the activities going on inside those microscopic bags is as sophisticated as a small city & that those mysterious particles are managed by a miniature computer we call the nucleus.
Today, with the advent of the computer, we know that the nucleus in each microscopic bag stores and processes billions of bits of information, tells the mysterious particles (organelles) what to do and communicates with every other cell in its neighborhood.
The mystery today is that where Adam and Eve had no question about their origin, today we seem to have doubts.
Now, regarding the so called mystery of evil. Is it possible, as we have been privileged to learned regarding life, to also understand a bit more about the history of earth, evil & the comings and goings of Lucifer and his followers? I believe so, and Jack has just given us…
The world goes round and round, and if it ever stops, no one will know it. Yes, i believe there are many seers of times past, and continuing. Seers of poetic expression, and mythologists through out all of mankind’s habitation of Earth. First by verbal speaking and hearing, and since the 14th century by the printing press. The statement “nothing new under the Sun”, is true, just waiting to be rediscovered. Early forms of upright human types, also many horrible creatures incompatible with the existence of man, notable dinosaurs, obviously were Earth bound before the Creation and Eden myths became a reality. The allegorical Bible story of Creation, is one of many. We don’t have any accurate verifiable information how it all began. Mankind has been highly prolific in storytelling of origins of species, but “NO ONE KNOWS” for a certainty. Science has prove beyond “earthly doubt”, by “the HUBBLE”, and by he “CERN”, the reliability of E=MC2, the discovery of Albert Einstein, that Energy is Mass, and Mass is Energy, both made up of Particles of various formulations, of which we Living Creatures are also constituted.
Having voiced the above, yet, i believe in a Cosmic Master Creator, but the anecdotal stories will soon be of past expressions of origins.
Thank you Dr Hoehn for your provocative piece.
Earl Calahan, in an eloquent response to your first article said:
“Satan had Carte Blanche against naive Adam and Eve who had not a chance to resist the wily evil foe”
Thank you Dr Hoehn for supplying EGW’s quote:
“Satan has bent all the power of his GIANT INTELLECT. He has worked deliberately and systematically”
EGW elegantly corroborates Earl’s quote that NAIVE Adam and Eve were “easy pickings” for Satan”
Our naive ancestors, created “lower than the Angels” were in a HANDS DOWN, NO WIN contest with a “GIANT INTELLECT”
In modern metaphor, they were the JV team battling the NFL SUPER BOWL winning team!
No wonder that God, who intuitively must have know the outcome of this grossly UNEQUAL contest, had ” from the foundation of the world” already planned for Christ’s intervention.
This contest was already OUTRAGEOUSLY in Satan”s favor, but you, Dr Hoehn want to give Satan further advantage,
by designating him 70,000-200,000 years to wreak havoc on this planet!
I am not a “young earth creationist ” and give intellectual assent to your estimate of life on earth.
However, in this instance, I would prefer Ted Wilson’s SIX THOUSAND years, a period already TOO LONG ,
for a truly loving and compassionate God too have allowed Satan “CARTE BLANCHE” in creating MISERY.
70,000 years is a TRAVESTY,
WHY WOULD A LOVING GOD SO GENEROUSLY WEIGH THE SCALES IN FAVOR OF AN ARCH ENEMY??
Do people still believe in a literal battle in the cosmos?
The ideas are ancient cosmology.
More and more Adventism’s medieval literalistic preoccupations are alienating the people of our contemporary world.
With bows and arrows? Of course not. With ideas and arguments, debates and advertising, politics and polemics. Of course, why not? Warring ideas are as dangerous and consequential as swords and spears and AK47s. Literal, yes, with tanks and guns and sling shots? No.
The brain is a mental arcade for video games. Heavenly war is one of those games for entertainment purposes only. The concept of the cosmic war of good and evil is a mental construct with eons of historical roots. It was and is now an attempt to explain the unexplainable chaos of humanity, called sinfulness in Christian circles. It has always been a myth, metaphor or allegory. Adventism attempted, without success, to transform it to a real media event via The Great Controversy.
Jack acknowledges here its imaginative nature by redefining the word, “literal,” but without actual armaments (“tanks and gun and sling shots”), which is an admission of it as symbolism, not reality, a myth, metaphor or allegory.
Once you pass through that door the assumed security of literalism gives way to uncertainty and the chaos of individual interpretation. Where is the secure boundary between certainty and ambiguity? Well, there isn’t any and never was. Religion, faith, is a mental exercise and product. Literalism is impossible. It is conviction turned inward, purposeful blindness.
Faith is an individual amusement of the mind where one controls his own “joystick” in his world of make-believe. It is literal, yes, employing Jacks redefinition. Faith is a valuable aspect of being human in a world of chaos, “sinfulness,” where absolute is unachievable and no final word of causality is possible. We need a fantasy “score” to satiate our need for plausibility, even if nil.
What amusing nonsense you invariably spin Bugs! Think about the logical conclusion to your religion. God is not concerned with the morality of man, because He doesn’t really exist; except that Jesus came to show us what God is like, which is really Love. But Jesus came to die; or at least that is what He thought. But He could have been wrong; except the part about showing us what God is like.
You’re not making sense.
Stephen, you don’t like the game of a happy God? You like the video construct of a grumpy one, tromping across the screen, whacking awful mankind, those despicable polluters of the universe? You don’t have to play that game. That God doesn’t exist, that’s manmade Superguy.
Logical conclusions and faith can’t live in the same room, maybe even the same universe. Logic disqualifies faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (I have that on good authority). Mr. Paul couldn’t append logic to where it doesn’t logically fit.
The convoluted theology you espouse is the spun version. Adventist theology is twisted into a web so intricately wound of thousands of strands of doctrine, theology, dogma, and guilt that few can bare it.
The brain, as you clearly demonstrate, is the mental arcade for religious video games. Isn’t it time for you to change your mental game of Angry God, Despicable Humans and Heavenly Wars for something a little less stressful? Engage the eternal coder and his game of God as Love. I know, simplicity is nonsense for those who fawn over inane complexity and love the specter of shameful mankind dangling over hell by a spider web.
The mind is the abode of faith. May as well furnish it with a spirit of peace and joy and let the God of love take care of unfathomable details as he envelops us in love. And then rest in tranquility (Fields of Ambrosia) where you can devise a nice game of God as Love.
Sorry Stephen. Yes, Larry offers logical input to the God phenomenon. Since i believe in a Master Designer of Life forms with high intelligence and inventiveness, which in the past 80 years has produced knowledge greater than all input since the Earth was peopled. Absolutely amazing, it has happened in my lifetime, so i speak with authority of first person observance. The Bible is such a mixture of blood and guts, which is a contradiction of a loving Creator, which causes great confusion to mankind, to possibly grasp the truth, without making excuses for the Almighty. Many billions of bloody victims. Massive mental anguish of most everyone, unbelievable torture and suffering that must be endured as a victim, and mourning the annihilation, generation after generations. Supposedly, God Himself, unable to stand the stench of the Earth, that He drowned every single living soul except the nucleus of future
mankind existence?? How is it possible that every thing He created “good”, turned out to be rotten to the core?? The confusion leaves mankind unaccountable. There is no logic to the theme. No way we can possibly know anything of God’s philosophy, or how He thinks. The only thing that has value is to ignore most of the Old Testament, except for the Psalms, and some of the Prophets. In the New Testament we have Jesus the Christ, his living a testimony of the nature of the truth in LOVE, expressed in the very fibre of His being, is all we have to cling to.
Earl you have an eloquent gift of articulation, I concur with your graphic post !
“The Bible is such a mixture of blood and guts, which is a contradiction of a loving creator”
If filmed , the Old Testament would be X rated for graphic sex and R rated for gratuitous violence,
So repugnant, we would all exit screaming, from any screening!
And if we examine the book of Nature we see “blood and guts” everywhere.
Who created the loathsome crocodile, with its unique sensory organ in the floor of its mouth?
Lying with snout immersed in the river, this sophisticated sense organ can detect a human toddler
putting his foot in the water, fifty yards upstream, even though the human eye would not detect
a surface ripple. Seizing the toddler (or other prey) the “modus operandi ” is to submerge the
victim till drowned, before consuming, A programmed implanted neurological reflex that makes
this beast a formidable “killing machine “.
Not to forget the great white shark, who allegedly can detect a minute dilution of blood in the water,
to track its prey.
The eagle has an eye the size of a human’s despite its small head, and visual acuity four times that of man,
to help it espy its prey from high altitudes of flight.
Even in my garden, death prevails, as the spider’s web entombs,
The neighbor’s cat devours the bird who is devouring the earthworm on the lawn.
Did “creation”or “evolution” produce this cycle of death at my doorstep?
Perhaps much of the Old Testament just needs to be looked through a different lens in order for it to square with the God revealed in the New Testament. In fact, I found for myself that was the case..
The Lord God of all Creation is a Almighty being. The storytelling through out the Old Testament is a prevarication of many patriarchs of ancient times,as they wrestled with the very fact of their existence, to attempt to make sense of what? how? why? when? The powerful ones assumed God gave them victories, that they were His chosen of all the tribes, and this was their desire to be the survivors in a hostile existence. They were a bloodthirsty bunch, and denied the desire of their Creator to live in love and peace. Christianity has believed and lived a lie by accepting the literalism of the Holy Bible. It is made up of mistakes in understanding, by the early Fathers, and perpetuated by the continuation of oddball stories that we have nothing to logically value any truth in it, what so ever. In the Gospels we arrive at some semblance of recognition of the quintessential truth meant for mankind. That constant theme
of Jesus Christ; L-O-V-E your GOD, and L-O-V-E YOUR neighbor. Jesus said “On these two commandments hang “”All the LAW and the PROPHETS””, Matt.22:40. Did Jesus lie when He made that statement?? i think not. Why does mankind continue to try keeping the TEN COMMANDMENTS, which ensures the death sentence?? The answer to life is the true LOVE, exhibited by JESUS Christ. Go ye and do likewise.
Bugs,
Where in the world did you get the idea of a grumpy God, if not from some distortion, convolution, and/or omission of some part of the scriptural narrative that has undoubtedly resulted in trauma for many (but of course, not you)?
God took the responsibility for man’s morality by sending Jesus to not only show us what He is really like, but also to save us from the consequences of bad choices; eternal non-existence and separation from love and life.
How simple is that? It is what Jesus said was His purpose. He also said (Earl) that the Old Testament is that which testified of Him.
God wins and we win. Love and self-sacrifice wins and hate and self-seeking lose. Pleasures for ever more does not sound like grumpiness to me.
Now, is any of that complicated or unscriptural?
Jehovah as a grumpy god comes to mind. The second advent God is portrayed as being pretty mad when he shows up for the 144,000 (maybe fewer) SDA’s and who will leave billions behind to suffer and whack each other for a thousand years before lighting a match to the idiots. The Adventist god comes to mind, who is struggling with a chore, PO’d in the “Most Holy Place, Heavenly Sanctuary” employed to sort out sheep and goats, a mindless and time consuming job, determining the 144,000 so he can slam shut the “door of probation” on the losers.
The portrayal by the ultra-devout of Ellen as a grumpy old lady, comes to mind, while not god, as a prophet, gods rep. And the finale, the propitiatory hungry god who made a world of suffering and pain, chaos and mayhem, observes it without regret, reportedly had his own “son” join in the pain by getting him slaughtered allegedly to fix the past and future, but not now, someday.
Stephen, you are the only one to get me figured out, trauma and all! Congratulations! But I have you figured out, too! You are blind in one eye and can’t see the god of love out the other!
In the dreamy arcade of your mind you love the game of Angry God, Despicable Humans and Heavenly War so much it is an addiction. You control it with a joystick that enjoys frantic action assuming it is all there is. Right? “God wins and we win?” Only in your version of the arcade game. Nothing has changed in real life. We die. God as love lives.
I see that you would rather fabricate a straw man caricature of what you would like to me to say as opposed to address that which I actually do say. Thankfully there is a (lengthy) record on this site of what I have said, including my preceding post addressed directly to you.
When you get around to addressing what it is that I actually do say—including the preceding post—and characterizing what I actually do say and have said (as I’ve attempted to do with what you’ve said), then maybe we can continue (if not get somewhere).
A straw man caricature you aren’t, Stephen, and I have no intent to present you as such. I enjoy corresponding with you. I do have some understanding of your position and am quite sure that whatever I write won’t change it. And I don’t want to. My venture into enlightenment is under development, has been for sixty years and will last until I croak. So challenging you and others, and your responses adds to the process of my encountering light. I view myself as a student, learning through prodding and airing my views, and understanding diverse prospectives by the kickback I receive. You have my trauma (?) figured out, so now work on this puzzle!
God’s laughter is one of his immutable characteristics. And unless we see that side of God, I’m not sure we’ll totally appreciate him.
Think about his creation. Surely he made creatures such as the otter, dolphin, and penguin, just because they delighted him so much. Or consider what we find in Scripture itself (keeping in mind that Scripture was inspired by God). Job 39:13-18 (a very serious book) describes the life of a stork in pretty funny terms. Verse 17 says, “For God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense.” I hope I’m never described that way!
The prophet Jonah (found in the book of the same name) was a “drama queen” who makes us laugh in retrospect. After running from God, being rescued from drowning by spending three days in a fish’s belly, and then complaining that God rescued Nineveh from destruction, Jonah throws a tantrum about a vine dying because it made him so hot and uncomfortable to lose its shade. In Jonah 4:9 he complains about the vine saying, “I am angry enough to die.” Doesn’t it make you want to say, “Good grief, Jonah. Lighten up!” God must have had a sense of humor not only to put up with but use Jonah for his glory and purposes.
Of course God’s humor is never cruel the way humans twist it to be at times. In fact, God is entirely pure and untainted, thus so is his humor. Such a God inspired the author of Proverbs to write, “A happy heart makes the face cheerful” (15:13
God created. He created animals who could only live on other animal’s flesh. Either He created them this way or gave the Devil permission to re-create them into such monsters. Which is it? Who defaced the perfect world God created? Either God created the world as we now know it or it is only in the ancient minds that the story was created. And since God neither wrote nor approved what was written, which is it?
And then there are those pesky dinosaurs, carnivores with teeth as long as a human arm, among them, real monster sized monsters. The fed on the vegetarians. They were here before people (or they ate them all up), in the millions of years, millions of years before the “flood.” It’s a curve ball for the creationists and a strike out for the theory of a God created perfect world of peace and tranquility prior to those no-goods, Adam and Eve.
In Monopoly game terms, god is provided a “get out of jail free” pass from human enablers so he can escape responsibility for the enigma of eaters chomping meat, killing their kin in a perfect world. Maintaining the farce at all costs is the intent. It’s quite a concept of god, one who needs our help. Of course, that’s the god created by man, a faulty anthropomorphic version, Superguy. The god who can’t be God. I’m glad that wimp isn’t real!
The book of Genesis, Jonah, and Job, are among some of the allegorical renditions of the Holy Bible, which is interspersed through out. The Master of the Universes has given us very little of His view of the humor or idiosyncrasies of mankind. Hail’ fellow, well met?? “i looked into his eyes and could tell Putin and i had an understanding”?? Seeming, just as non-committal. Committing to love and support by sending the HOLY SPIRIT, Jesus Christ is about the business of the Ancient of Days. The eternal bulletin of Heavenly decorum has not been circulated on Earth. However, you are welcome to entertain your comfort level of faith, as no one can deny the truth of your beliefs. “When i became a man, i put away childish things”. But for now we see through foggy glasses, very opaque, but then “face to face”. In the wilderness
of Sin, God provided sustenance to the hungering tribe, called Manna, it had the taste of honey. To paraphrase Larry, in the heavenly environs, God will provide sustenance never to be undesired or tiresome, honey from the Fields of Ambrosia, blended with the leaves of the Tree of Life, and the perfect love of Jesus Christ. Every child of Earth will taste the nectar of Gods, in one or more of the Universes, prepared for the saints of our Almighty GOD, before the foundations were set. Believe it and it’s yours, purchased by the love of our Living GOD, JESUS, the Christ.
The God that sent the manna for 40 years, is that the same God who destroyed all life on earth, save eight? Is that the same God who created man in a beautiful garden and then kicked them out because they were also created with the gift of curiosity–that only gives man the search for meaning and knowledge?
That’s what the god Janus was: two-faced: good at times; sending evil at times. Take your pick but it must include both.
Now we’ll see lots of explanations.
Although I can understand the questions posed by the OT as written by primitive peoples who attributed everything to God, I choose to believe in the God of the NT and the many places in Psalms and other OT verses that say again and again–His love endures forever, and He is a God of love.
By believing in the goodness of God–that He is more wonderful than we can imagine, more patient, and tolerant, forgiving all our sins, we can read these verses in a different light. Without starting with the Truth about God (and praying for it), we cannot interpret the Bible rightly but are in a position of judging God. God is not on trial in the Bible.
But it is our choice to believe in the god we want to take literally in the negative sense, but not in the positive sense. That’s why many reject Him, and it was not because they didn’t have the truth of His character in the Word.
If there was one important thing I learned from Graham Maxwell, it was the reason for the flood (whether local for the only early inhabitants or worldwide). It makes such sense to me, and I choose this answer.
If the eight believers had not been rescued from that world, then all humankind would have lost contact with God. Apparently Noah and his family were the only ones who had communication with God then. In losing contact with God and memory of Him, they would have quickly destroyed themselves through war and destruction of the earth. Then the earth would have belonged to Satan and been left for him and his subjects to have as his planet in the universe from which he would attempt to control other universes and planets.
This is about to happen again when Christ comes and the earth erupts in a purifying fire and sets for a thousand years earth-time. Obviously we have had to have the first death up to this time or there would not have been space for the population to live. It is the second death that is final.
o’ by the by, i’m taking my 15 year old sweetheart with me, we call her the Dowager Queen, MITZY. She is ailing, full of years, and totally dependent and trusting.
It is amusing to read the thoughts of you guys on this topic of good and evil, God and Satan. I enjoy your choice of words and language; but it must be painful for some people to read, since you sound like a bunch of sacreligious heretics, who sometimes dare to speak about god in such vulgar terms. Stephen is having a hard time to impress the caucus with his views on the whole subject. He is overwhelmed this time, I think. If God is as our church teaches, He must be well amused by this exchange. Or Perhaps, He must be mad about it.
Something must be wrong about the way God is portrayed in parts of the bible,and by the majority of the brethren. If God is in full control of His creation, how things are ,is how He intended them to be. If how things are, is not what He intended, then clearly, He is not in full control. And for Mr Satan,if he heard the things our church people are saying about Him, and he knew them to be true, He would long have been converted, or would have surrendered ages ago. Clearly, we have created our god in our own image,and created a Satan to embody all the evils we can think about. Can we by searching find out the Real God? Let’s keep trying.
Nathaniel,
You may have noticed, or perhaps you haven’t noticed, that for me this site represents what they call a “road trip” in professional sports; when a team plays multiple games over a period of time in somewhat hostile territory.
I am playing against the crowd (or the caucus as you put it) practically all the time; and as such I am frequently “overwhelmed” in terms of the majority of opinion or consensus of the caucus.
For the most part, the participants on this site simply do not believe what I believe; so look for me to be overwhelmed most of the time; but that certainly does not make them right. LOL
I’ll say this about your post; God is not in full control of His creation because He is not in full control of you or me. On the other hand, He is never caught by surprise by His creation and is working out His ultimate will within the confines of the choice that He made—which was to let us choose.
One can agree with that or not; but it certainly doesn’t make it any less true.
Nathaniel, the “either/or” portrayal of God you describe leaves out a third possibility – that God is in full control but is for some reason committed, (at least for now) to a level of non-interference. Even if one does not subscribe to this explanation it must at least be allowed as a possibility. And in fact we have hints that this is indeed the case.
I read carefully “The Invasion Called Eden” by Jack Hoehn and find it very difficult to reconcile it with the Bible and what we know from the research and studies in quantum cosmology. I will not comment on entire post it would take much space.
Brother Hoehn states: “War in heaven begun over God’s planning for the creation of Earth”. Based on my understanding of the Bible (I have been reading the bible since age of five)and the theological implications of quantum cosmology, it is absolutely impossible for any a created intelligence to know what was “on God’s mind” prior to creation of anything. There is nowhere in the Bible mention of God planning to do something.
Before creation there was only ONE GOD. Isaiah 44:24; Isaiah 45:7, among other verses. God did not and He does not consult anyone. No created order of intelligence can know all that God knows,and no one can know better, or have same knowledge God is. God IS knowledge; He does not have to learn. Read again Isaiah 40:13, 14, 18, 28. All possible knowledge originated with God before He created anything. In addition to Bible, our universe, thus far, tells us the same thing. The heavens do declare the Glory of God. All possible events with all possible outcomes were known to God before He begun creating. All possible thoughts by all created intelligentsia were known to God before He begun creating. Brother Hoehn asks question “What purpose would Tree of Life have on a world free of death?” Answer is…
Last verse to my comment above is Revelation 22:1,2
I have enjoyed Jack’s speculations and how he has tried to fit them into the Bible, sometimes unsuccessfully in my mind. But I don’t see anything wrong (against God’s will) in using one’s imagination in interpreting these mysterious parts of the Bible that don’t fit what we know today. What is most important in inspired mythology like that of Bunyan is what it means. Stories tell truths better than preaching and are more interesting and challenging. The Spirit helps us understand them (as in the parables of Jesus), even when they are based on local myths.
What I believe we miss is that God is outside our time frame. Perhaps all things are simultaneous as in Revelation. We know He can see the future. Some of us will accept the mysteries of God and not try to imagine them, but some perhaps more creative will try to imagine them.
I do know that the plan of salvation was from the beginning and that every name must have been in the Book of Life until they rejected God and were blotted out. Thus Christ’s salvation is for all who ever lived.
Ron, kindly give us one, or two of those hints you refer to in your final sentence on January 29,10:18pm.
One or two hints suggesting that God respects individual choice? Ellen White for one had much to say about this – and while we may wonder at the nature of the inspiration attributed to her, even questioning some statements, I’ve found her “big picture” descriptions of God’s character to be not inconsistent with the Biblical narrative. But if we want to limit ourselves to the Bible only we still find much evidence that God consistently allows mankind free agency – both in the Old and New Testaments. Jesus clearly seemed to suggest that each individual has a choice between two ways of living. And we have the powerful description of Jesus’ struggle as he faced his own death just a few days before he is reported to have been resurrected – suggesting that even He was struggling with a choice of cosmic dimensions. (We are later told by Paul that we “wrestle not against flesh and blood”… again suggesting that we have choices to make.)
But the Bible also clearly speaks of a future new creation over which God presides – that there will be a point in time when God steps in, so to speak.
Put this all together and it suggests that God is presently committed to a level of non-interference in some sort of cosmic conflict while still anxious to intervene, (when requested) on our behalf – all while promising a future resolution on a grand scale.
There are many good minds who have shared thoughts on this subject – Tyler Franke is just one of them. I recommend his blog post found at: http://www.godofevolution.com/did-jesus-believe-in-a-six-day-creation-and-a-literal-adam/
Thank you,Ron for your attempt; but think about it,that while God is committed to some period of non-interference,during that period millions of people are suffering,and many evil people are inflicting their will on innocent,weak and helpless victims all around. Yet He is anxious to intervene.
Given the present circumstances, are you confident that any attempt at a future resolution will be successful?
G
It is always rather amazing that there are people who seem to know when God intervenes and when he allows events to happen. Maybe we should ask such people to predict the outcome of future events if they have unique ability to know God’s intentions.
When speculating whether or not Jesus was right or wrong it would be helpful to keep in mind that during the three and one half years of Jesus’ ministry He did not speak His own words. According to Jesus, Father told Jesus what to say and how to say. We must never fall into temptation to say or imply that God is, or may have been wrong. God is Absolute so, by definition, God is always right.
With respect to God and freedom of choice. Objectively, we as an order of intelligence (perhaps we and intelligence should not be used together always)have an unlimited freedom of choice; but, we do not have an option of unlimited choice. God established a set of laws which govern our universe and everything in it. He did it before the creation. There are, for our purpose, infinite histories to choose from. If the theological implications of quantum cosmology are a good indication then, all possible histories have transpired from beginning to end in mind of God before He created anything. Which history we experience depends on our choice. God told us which way is better for eternity. In the Garden of Eden we have chosen this history. All events of it must take place. Histories, according to our understanding of the law of intelligence, are irreversible; and, all intelligent decisions/choices are irrevocable. If we listen carefully to God’s advise we can mitigate the severity of impact on us personally but we cannot alter or stop any of the events which must take place in history.
Yes?? Elaine, what do you wish to know about the future?? About the personages of Elohim, and or elohims?? Or powers in high places, such as the Skull and Crossbones; the Illuminati and the group which meets in January, annually, in Davos, Switzerland; The CFR; The Luciferrians, such as 33rd degree guys; The Green Peace, and all other Environmentalist organs, and many other structured
ring within rings, hierarchical money people?? O’ BTW, they are all interrelated. i’ve investigated this whole ungodly system, should you require actual names of the participants, and their game plan to reduce the Earth’s population to five hundred million desirables.