I concede that Genesis quotes God as saying it was good, not perfect. But most (if not all) Christians believe that God (and only God) is capable of perfection, so He could have created perfection if He wanted to. Thus your point is that He intentionally left room for sin. Perhaps. It certainly exists, so it is either placed there by God, or is there because His creation was only in the biochemical and physical ways that allow for the evolution of our body forms and our minds within the principles of survival or reproduction advantages. And one such advantage must be the notion of sinful behavior. That is absolutely one component of what we now call free-will.
OK mitchellmckain, perhaps some have been found wanting in our choice of words. Rather than asserting “God is outside time”, we should have said “God has his existence outside our particular space-time …or quantum field or whatever our not-at-all-well-understood physical/temporal reality is.” 
My point in responding to Adam’s original question was that, therefore there doesn’t have to be a contradiction between God creating “instantly” and an ancient evolving universe.
Goodness mitchellmckain! Do you have all the answers then, maybe a private hot line? 
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It’s perfectly natural.
The only version of the doctrine of simplicity which I agree with is the one which explains it as follows:
There is nothing which is not God which makes God be God.
That I agree with. But your usage to make God incapable of particular thoughts is not one I agree with.
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Would you please be more careful in thinking about what’s being said.
I said particular thoughts are not necessary to God’s understanding, but he is still capable of thinking particularly.
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Yes. I think you are not aware of the reason God created anything in the first place, or don’t remember, because I suspect I have posted this before ‘within earshot’ of you:
Goodness mitchellmckain! Do you have all the answers then, maybe a private hot line?
I have not been assigned the duty of defending mitchellmckain, but I will (without his approval of course). In the course of a serious discussion of issues without absolute certainty of conclusions, it is reasonable (and desirable) to insist on logic and rationality. To do so does NOT mean that we know, or should know, all the answers. Demanding logic and knowing all the answers are not mutually inclusive concepts, just as ignorance and demanding answers are not mutually exclusive. There are too many examples to cite, but e.g. one may ask the logic of having an ability to choose otherwise about an action (free will), if one assumes it is already known by God as a future event…in other words if it is already ‘coded’ to happen. Similarly, one might ask the logic of believing that there is no power of prayer by asserting that God created everything to perfection, thus leaving no room to alter events or outcomes. In both cases, there is a logic used to express an opinion to a conclusion, even though there is no certainty whatsoever. I agree with mitchellmckain on this point (and many others, btw).
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I am guilty as charged. Please tell me exactly why God created anything in the first place.
So He was planning all of this 13.8 Bya at the ‘big-bang’, and continued that thought through the first cell life 4 Bya? Then for the next 3 B years allowed for the evolution of bacteria, archaea and eukaryota to finally have not only a nucleus, but membranes around it and the cell wall itself? And then the organelles such as the golgi apparatus, ribosomes, plastids and mitochondria. So for 13.8 B years, He has done only the prep work so that in the last .00000724 of the universe’s existence, we are only now fulfilling Gods purpose and motivation? Surely you generalize (that’s OK) or use figurative speech, or expect me to understand your hyperbole (also OK).
Now I understand better michellmckains frustration with many who are reluctance to apply logic rather than simply claim that it is fruitless to attempt understanding. At the end of the day, it feels better if we can make it all make sense to us.
Plan is a time-bound word and God is not bound by time. You should remember that from a couple of places in the Bible. Is God short of time that you have to deny what his creation tells us about how he used it?
You may have seen this before as well?:
Nope… that would be Dale… LOL
I do not agree with Piper/Dale’s answer to this question.
Frankly I think it is an example of religious people are confusing THEIR purpose in life with that of God’s purpose. They are the ones with a need to magnify the glory of God. I don’t think God has such a need or desire. God might see a need to do this for our sake so that we would listen to Him and follow His guidance. But that would not apply to God’s reason for creating in the first place.
I do have an answer for that question required by consistency with everything I see in what God had done. I mention it quite frequently actually. It is God seeking relationship with beings other than Himself, those made in His own image, like children, made as an end in themselves, to love and give of His abundance. It would explain why God created the universe with natural law working automatically, why God made the self-organizing process of life (the essence of free will), and why God made it so He could participate in events and have a relationship with those He created. It is an answer to make sufficient sense of theism for me to believe in it, while Piper/Dale’s answer does not. I know this is not their problem or concern I am sure, but it is one fairly significant to me personally.
You can now see this was overly optimistic.
Dale and I have a lot in common as well as some big difference in the way we think about Christianity. We are also somewhat annoying, particularly to each other. LOL
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We so often choose what we are willing to see.
I still say there was a shred of agreement there, even if Dale doesn’t agree with me either 
Well then, let’s change my statement to use YOUR word, not mine.
Thus it would become…“So He was motivated…”
So what’s next?
I disagree with the idea that only God is capable of perfection. When tasks are simple enough even monkeys can manage perfection.
I very much doubt the word “perfect” is even applicable when we are talking about a world with living organisms.
Occasionally people bring up this idea of God creating the best of all possible worlds. I don’t think there is any such thing.
No… it is just a side effect. Give us the freedom to choose our own direction and it becomes possible for us to make the perverse choice opposed to our own life and freedom.
He still is and it hasn’t changed?
Yes, he did.
Agreed, but with the realisation that it’s just possible our logic and rationality may be flawed.
We have to beware of assumptions/presuppositions – but
maybe the assumption here is that: if God knows or sees the future, it is ‘coded’ to happen.
I know what I just said seems to contradict what I said in my original post in this thread, where I more or less said God coded (if you like) the entire development of the universe and evolution of life into the big bang. But maybe the free will of the individual is the one thing not predetermined.
My spouse is always telling me that a huge amount of human behaviour is genetically/chemically driven, however it is possible to modify it by willpower. For example, he says he “sometimes feels his mother’s anger welling up in him but he wills it away”. I sincerely thank God for that!
Your second example seems to be responding to a post by someone else as I didn’t use the words “God created everything to perfection” in talking about the big bang or the reality we experience. Whether God did “originally” create a perfect creation described as The Garden of Eden is entirely another matter… heck, you are going to ask “when?” aren’t you?
But I’m off to finish making my pyjamas.
Flawed and probably limited. When you try to consider something that can affect change without changing, you may get a sense that it defies possibility. It’s never been observed, and yet that is what every conscious being is when it determines to act. It’s really quite ironic when you think about it.
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Scientifically, only us slow-moving turtles see a beginning and end, here or there as separate. I asked a quantum physicist to glance at my simplified write-up on time that I promised you earlier since it also speaks of quantum gravity that I wanted his feedback on. I may pull the gravity piece out and post the first part to help us visualize Wayne Grudem’s description of what is beyond time, or the source of time.
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