A.Suarez's Treatment on a Pope's Formulation for Original Sin's Transmission!

I believe that God knows all that IS, not all that IS NOT YET. At one time it was standard, but today some people reject the Greek philosophical framework that distorts the message of Christianity, freedom to choose being one. Open Theology is one attempt to reform Christian thinking in this way.

Jesus is fully human and fully God. He is not a bifurcated person, half human and half God…

You are right, God can do whatever God chooses to do, regardless of what we think, but God does not. God is way above our pay grade, but God has revealed to God’s people that God is Love and acts in a loving manner. We are authorized and mandated to say this.

[quote=“Bill_II, post:320, topic:35442”]
Not so. At the time you make a choice you are completely free to make whatever choice you want to. The fact that God already knows what you are going to choose doesn’t influence your choice.

If you maintain that God’s knowledge is passive, which is a valid position, then you indicate that God is just an observer and not a participant in reality. Then God could create the universe and moral law and then watch how it all works out, knowing how it would end. That would result in freedom of choice, but not in the Kingdom of God.

This is the real problem of this position. It is so intent in protecting God’s Power and Knowledge, it sacrifices God’s Love.

If YHWH sent Moses back to Egypt to rescue the Hebrews from slavery, how is God outside human influence? If God so loved the world that God the Father sent the Son, how is God outside human influence? If God heard my cry and stooped down to save me from the power of sin and death, how is God outside of my influence. If our prayers fall on deaf ears, then indeed we don’t have free will.

That is not what I said at all. God created time just as he created space. If He is outside of space why is He not outside of time? Exactly how God participates in reality is a mystery which the Bible doesn’t address.

God knew before the universe was created that I was going to sin. So out of His love for me He made provision for that before I was born. If I understand you correctly God wouldn’t know that Adam was going to sin before he did so and therefore would not have a plan in place before hand.

God had a plan for the Hebrews that required their rescue. He didn’t rescue them because of what they did.

Roger, to those Christians who insist on a God who is unchangeable, I ask: 'How, then, can God love me? Love is relational, and if my love of God does not change Him in any way–i.e.,He does not ‘give a fig’ whether I love Him or not – then He cannot have any real love for me." Perhaps I am mistaken, but this is the most important conclusion I have reached from your previous posts and your book.
Al Leo

Bill, I completely share your view and what you claim is the reason why I think the Multiverse may provide an interesting way to approach “the big mystery”.

The Multiverse is a parable to explain that all possible choices humans can make are contained in God’s mind. Thus in God’s mind there is a world where you choose corn flakes for breakfast tomorrow, and an alternative world where you choose eggs. You are completely free to realize for you the world you want.

From the perspective of God all possible worlds are equal real because He looks at them so to speak “from their end” and the end of all possible worlds is the same: The Kingdom of God, where a huge but finite number of humans will be known by God, so that each of them will have a name, see God like He is, and be like God.

So God knows what would have happened, if something had happened that didn’t happen: This is the real meaning of the Multiverse, and it seems to me it is the idea you are conveying as well, isn’t it?

I would like also stress that each world in the Multiverse exists because of God’s Love.

I apologize for insisting:
“The Multiverse” understood as parable of God’s omniscience allows us to overcome the paradox and approach the mystery.

In God’s mind both alternatives are contained:
In one world Adam sins, and in the alternative world he doesn’t sin.

Adam is completely free to choose the world he wants to live in.

In either case God’s Son becomes flesh revealing His tremendous Love and completing Creation.

In world varieties where there is sin God has “a plan in place before hand” (as Bill very well states): Redemption through “Suffering of Love” on the Cross (in agreement with Roger and Albert).

Since God’s Love is one, in any case in the end we reach Eternal Life through the Grace of Jesus Christ, that is become God in Jesus Christ.

Antoine we both essentially agree. The only difference is, as I see it, is God’s mind can contain all possible futures, but He also knows which of those paths will be the actual future. So in essence He knows and plans for the future.

I know that I cannot say how God thinks and how God acts. All that I can say is that I am created in the Image of God and our best understanding of God is YHWH, I AM WHO I AM, as found in the Bible or the Trinity. To understand this I refer you to my essay found on Academea.edu God and Freedom.

While in some sense God might have known that some day I would exist and I would be a sinner, but God’s love for me billions of years before4 I exist and before I sinned really does not mean much, because at that time I did not exist.

I want to know that God loves me now and forgives me right now that I have made a mess of my life. @AntoineSuarez, I do not want a plan based on a what is determined a long time ago. I want help and guidance based on the situation right now, and I want to be able to discuss it with the Father and Son through the Holy Spirit.

A serious issue for those concerned about science and philosophy is the question Is God Personal? The Bible, the Trinity, and relational theology say Yes. Philosophy says No. Multiverse seems to indicate No. God as Infinite, Omniscient, and Impassive says No. Clearly I say Yes.

Humanity’s sin does not change God. God does not need a plan just because the world does not go the way God wants it to go, God is smart enough to come up with an alternative by thinking “on the fly.”

I am sure that God was not shocked by the sins of humanity. I am sure that God knew that the plan of salvation would undoubtedly put into effect, even if I were the only one who sinned.

I never said and indeed made clear that God has foreknowledge, but foreknowledge is not the same as knowledge. It is what might and mostly likely will happen, all things working out the way they most probably will work out. That means everyone staying in their sin.

I do not want people to stay with their sin. I want people to use their freedom to choose for God.

Sorry but for me knowing that God so loved me before the earth was formed means a lot. It means His love extends from then to now. It is not based on what I do or do not do.

I am not sure this makes a real difference. In any case I like very much your statement:

It is worth elaborating on this remarkable insight.

I presume we agree in that “the actual future” for which God plans is the Kingdom of God at the end of time, that is, achieving that a number (huge but finite) of creatures with help of Jesus-Christ’s Grace freely decide to love God and become like Him by seeing God like He is.

But it seems to me that all possible futures have to achieve this aim in the end. To claim that “God knows and plans for the future” is the same as claiming that God looks at all possible paths from their end, and this is the Kingdom of God. Hence it seems that all possible futures are actually only one: “the actual future”.

Accordingly I fully share also this other statement of yours:

If I freely reject God’s love I throw myself out of His love and knowledge, and this means to be without name and matter to no one forever.

I feel we are entering here a highly interesting and far reaching conversation that may shed some light on what you call “the big mystery”.

@AntoineSuarez

I’m completely shocked.

Above is a multi-sentence discussion, which apparently all three of us agree upon. @Bill_II, I will insist that you don’t ruin the moment!

Time enough later for some important disagrement! :wink:

How can I say that God loves me independent of what I do, which means independent of who I am. Would God save you if you were 45?

I certainly hope God loves me independent of who I am. If His love was dependent on me a holy and just God wouldn’t love me, or anyone else for that matter.

Sorry this question makes no sense. How did age get into this.

[quote=“Bill_II, post:332, topic:35442”]
I certainly hope God loves me independent of who I am. If His love was dependent on me a holy and just God wouldn’t love me, or anyone else for that matter.
[/quote

“God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son, so that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.”

The Bible says that God loves not only you, but the whole world, so much that God sent Jesus to die for our sins and give us eternal life with God. The Bible does not say that God does not love humans for who they are, but because they try to be who the aren’t, God.

God sent Jesus so that we might be reconciled with God the Father through the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is people who refuse to be reconciled with God, who are damned, not because God does not love them, but because they refuse God’s forgiveness and love.

John 3:16 says God loves everyone. Period, full stop. He never stops loving you for any reason. He loves me, chief among the sinners if I can borrow from Paul. So where in the Bible does it say God doesn’t love people that fail to live up to His expectations? Or are you saying that God starts out loving me, stops for a while if I am not doing right, and then go back to loving me when I start doing right again?

We may be talking past one another. You say

Which implies that God’s love is dependent on what I do. And then

Which implies that God continues to love those who are damned.

Count me confused.

Luke 23:39-45 (NIV2011)
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at Him: “Aren’t You the Messiah? Save Yourself and us!”
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence?
41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this Man has done nothing wrong.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”
43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in paradise.”

The other criminal on the cross defended Jesus from the taunts of his comrade. He admitted his guilt and did not ask to be rescued. He recognized Jesus as the Messiah and asked to be remembered in His Kingdom. Because of this Jesus granted him salvation.

The criminal did not “do” anything to earn salvation from Jesus. However he accepted responsibility for his life, expressed the need for a change, and accepted Jesus as the Savior and declared his faith in Jesus. He was saved by God’s grace through his faith.

God loves everyone until they die. Those who accept God’s love are saved and go to heaven. Those who reject God’s love get their wish to go to Hell where they cannot change and receive God’s love. Death is the end of this life ands the beginning of the next.

I have proposed that there were two populations of humans, the population generated in Genesis 1-2.4 and Adam and Eve created in the garden. If you simply read Genesis as if for the first time, I feel that this conclusion is obvious. In Genesis (and in Chronicles) the line not leading to the Messiah is always given before the line leading to the Messiah and this sequence of events is consistent with that approach. Man created in the Genesis 1 creation is referred to as the “daughters of man” in Genesis 6 and the descendants of Adam and Eve as referred to as the “sons of God”. This is why it is stated that “Noah was perfect in his generations” so that we would all inherit original sin from Adam, as we are all descended from Adam.
I feel that this interpretation is consistent with the context of all the books in the Bible and is consistent with current scientific observation as well.

@TGLarkin,

It all sounds reasonable enough … until you fly the whole scenario off the rails with “inheriting Original Sin from Adam”!

Our souls do not come from the biological side of our existence… they come from God.

So not only is it rather vile to think God does punish the children of sinners, instead of keeping the children’s guilt separate from their parents… but you create a metaphysical construct where Adam can taint the soul of an unborn child, not only too young to know guilt or evil, but too young to do anything.

Frankly, its magical thinking at its most egregious. The only mechanism for passing on Original Sin is by means of God deciding he needs to “add a touch of sin” to the souls he delivers to the womb… pretty much just because the scribes of Genesis want him to do that.

Paul states that through Adam all have sinned and have death, and through Jesus all have life. All fall short of the glory of God and all have sinned. If original sin were removed from me, unfortunately I would still fall far short of the glory of God and need to accept Jesus gift of forgiveness and eternal fellowship with God (in this life and the next) through His sacrifice that paid the debt of my sin.

God is the source of goodness, not of sin. This message is consistent through all 66 books of the Bible. I feel that my argument is firmly on the rails on the text of the Bible.

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George don’t be shocked, but we might be in agreement again.

I view humans as containing two natures, the fleshly and the spiritual. The fleshly we get from our evolutionary background. The spiritual we get from God. So I read Paul as saying like Adam, having a fleshly nature, all have sinned. There is no original sin only our original nature. So God is not the author of sin.

Agreed that God does not give us sin.

We inherit our body, mind, and spirit from others. What we do with ourselves is our responsibility.