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
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.
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.
Tag me if and when you do, please. You may have noticed my interest in the subject. ; - )
Since the topic of time in being dicussed here I’ll offer it here first as a strawman to pick apart. My wording is purposeful as my intent as usual is so a child can understand.
Alpha & Omega, A condensed and inspiring peek into astrophysics.
TLDR; A nice quick version is traveling at the speed of light, space and time both fully collapse. Only us slow-moving turtles see a beginning and ending, here or there as separate.
If enticed, the following is offered in hope of removing some of the confusion between thousands and billions of years passing. It’s both. And a proposal that may eloquently unite quantum and cosmological gravity that can be falsified.
First I should note brevity and slight liberties are used to help introduce and visualize ideas, then build a clearer larger picture from what we see. This is also a hobby as I refer to Einstein’s equations for his proofs, I like the pictures. grin
Let’s look at what we know.
Let’s unpack those before adding anything new.
Einstein shows us that space and time are two sides of the same coin, they are not separate but are parts of the same thing. If we express both space and time together we are speaking of constant motion, speed, as in kilometers in space per hour in time, or miles per hour and feet per second as more examples.
For our satellite clocks; Einstein also shows us how accelerating to high speeds causes space and time to get shorter for the traveler. To others, even our rocket looks shorter and our seconds are shorter than theirs. We slow the clocks down on our satellites so their shorter seconds don’t tick faster than ours.
cite.
Simply, how long a second is depends on how fast we are going. Even traveling slightly faster than one another our clocks will eventually become out of sync.
Did we have difficulty imagining how light passes us at the same speed, no matter how fast we are going? We are shorter.
For a simple visual analogy, let’s say light travels a foot a second so we can watch it move, and it so happens both your feet, fortunately, measure one foot in length. Mine too, we’re twins. So it takes one second for the light at the back of our heel to reach the tip of our toe. And… we agree, it took that long.
So you now jump in your rocket and you pass me so that the light hits our heel at the same time.
When the light reached your tow, you check your watch and report; “Yes, one foot a second”.
But I say; "Wait a minute here, you look a bit squished. Your foot is only half the size of mine. For me, the light has only traveled half a foot in half a second. We measure the same speed because your space and seconds are physically shorter than mine.
I incorrectly stated it this way to easily visualize the basic idea of shrinkage before I add that you moving and my prior example is not complete yet. In reality, I will see my second pass before you.
I am the first one to say “Yes, one foot a second” because you are still speeding along. Even though the tick of your second is shorter and your foot is shorter, your toe is ahead of mine when the light hits my toe. I’m first.
When you claim one second has passed, I will see the light having traveled two feet in two seconds. And you will have lived only one second of life within my two. At the same time. Even though we are twins, you will return younger than I am.
Now that we are a little more comfortable about shrinking space and time together, the opposite occurs when we slow down. Space and time expand again. The universe looks bigger already.
So let go back to our expanding universe and ask; Is the universe really expanding or are we slowing down and it just seems like it? It’s both, or more accurately, the same thing. If we were instead traveling at the same speed as the expansion, our measurements would say the size of our universe is static, with no change. Any faster and the universe would begin to shrink and we gather predictions and theories of an eminent big crunch. [inside joke]
But for us on earth, we see the universe as expanding and our seconds are getting longer. As well as the Planck constant. A second back then was much shorter when we add in the exponential curve of acceleration, and seconds were even shorter before then. There should in fact be a historic point in time having a ratio of a thousand years passing within our day. And if you take the length of every year in between, laid out end to end, short to long…
Dinosaurs were not that long ago.
Yes that many clock ticks have passed as carbon dating suggests but clocks tick faster and faster as we go back in time. Even the years start to pack together, the further back in history we go.
Below is a simplified comparison of six billion recorded years occurring within our perceived four billion fixed-length years.
The first is a simple linear scale of equal length years as we perceive time passing.
0
|-----|-----|-----|-----| ← perceived 4 billion years passing
The next scale is a sample of 5 billion years passing in an expanding universe, time expands.
||-|–|—|----|-----| ← actual time having passed
A proper logarithmic scale would include the acceleration rate of our expansion.
Now we can ask an odd question. Is God waiting for our prophesied end?
A key we learned is we don’t have to go back in time to find shorter time lengths, we have a rocket. As we accelerate faster and faster, space and time are getting smaller and smaller. Thankfully we are also shrinking in proportion so as not to get overly tight in here. We don’t even sense we are shrinking as everything else is shrinking proportionally with us.
For reasons I’ll skip, along with new FTL theories, in claiming as Einstein did that the fastest we can travel ‘through space’ is the speed of light. Once we reach the speed of light; both space and time have fully collapsed. In essence, all there’s are here so it takes no time to go anywhere.
And our clock was running so fast in the last few seconds that we made it to the end of time, in no time. But our rocket did not get us to the proverbial end of time faster than anyone else. For them, years had passed and we arrive at the same time. For them, space is way out there and they see us still zooming away year after year. The difference is how much time we experienced.
Generations will have passed within our final second.
At the speed of light, we are now where all things begin and end. The proverbial Alpha and Omega. At the speed of light, there are no divisions to distinguish. If we try to imagine it, as if using our senses, we can’t. There is nothing separate from us to reference, there is no there, no beginnings. Only us slow-moving turtles see a beginning and end as separate.
And fortunately, there is No Waiting.
The following link is a nice video by famed scientist Brian Greene explaining the Block Universe theory with some nice graphics to go along with my story but leaves out the expanding universe pieces for simplicity (or He hasn’t realized it yet, grin). The video also provides additional references.
video.
Is this not also predestination?
And with that, I’ll just say “God help me”, be merciful, I’m not insistent. grin.
Let me know if you found this helpful, or at least understandable. thanks
I didn’t include this piece as I’m having it reviewed, hoping he finds the time.
Yes, thanks. It intuitively works for me anyway, and God’s omnipresence and his omnitemporalality (a word I made up, according to someone 
) fit hand in glove. I need to watch the whole NOVA maybe, not that they’re exactly scientifically rigorous.
Yep, I even give Brian some room. Where he started talking about the alien seeing our future, it is more accurate to say he is seeing a more recent history of us all along his travel the point of physically reaching us and sharing our now.
As to traveling FTL, I have another one about history is not lost. One light year away from us is the image of what we were doing last year. Sitting still with a good scope, we could watch the movie. If we want a more current view, fast forward, we simply move closer. Or slow motion as we move away. Rewind requires we move away faster than the image traveling the speed of light.
Are scientific theories of traveling back in time only observational?
And that right there is more important than beliefs.
Is one day a week more precious or all of them? If we eat meat or abstain? It is the good intent that makes both acceptable. Without it, neither are acceptable on their own. Is an act of kindness acceptable if not from a kind spirit?
Spirit: [intent, motive, what compelled] Spirit is not mindful, as we see neither love nor anger care about a reason.
A verse says we may think a thing is right, but God weighs the spirit. As we do without realizing it sometimes.
That was a 
This is not a direct response to reality, I’m thinking there is a deeper question but may be off base.
Function is in the subjective, as if I want the curve to be concaved for a slide, or convexed for a roof. The objective cares not.
Are we thankful everyone focuses on different things? If everyone was like me, a lot wouldn’t get done. Not that I wouldn’t try if needed, but not my focus or skill.
It sounded like you were scoffing subjectivity. If the dislike is the subjective view is constrained, who else but mom puts us as most important, or will we allow anyone to operate on us if a surgeon is there? Each have a different view of us, which is wrong?
If the dislike of subjective is limit, consider when we rephrase a question that answered itself. Was it not the change viewpoint that revealed the answer? The answer became obvious before we even formed the words. Highlighting one perspective out of many revealed the answer [to a subjective question]
I find life is in the subjective and truth is persistent in all perspectives wether we can see it through the minutia or have a clear view.
Thought experiment: if you could choose to create a new world free of all bad actors, or one with all kinds of criminals, why not choose the former?
A much cleaner explanation would be that He allows us our total free-will to do as we choose. Some of us sin more than others. So then God did not create a world intentionally to fabricate sin. It just happens.
My first reaction is to say this is a difference between writing a play for entertainment and making a place for your children to grow up. In the former you need conflict to resolve, but in the latter you want to protect your children. This argument would then call into question whether a God doing this for entertainment should be called good.
But then with further thought, I realized I would question the basic assumption that making a place for your children to grow up would put have protection as your only consideration. How can you grow up without challenges. As parents we don’t have to worry about this because there are challenges enough in the world already. But God’s situation is different, isn’t it?
Someone upstairs must be watching. grin.
By chance, I came across this nice progression and differences between scientific thoughts on the nature of quantum mechanics.
In the end, the presenter leaves open the observer affecting reality question but I feel his lead-up supports my view…
Reality is persistent and falsified according to our intent that frames reality with value (qualia). Observation does not create the curve but the curve’s reality falsifies it according to our needs. “Nope, I need it to be convexed”. The reality of its nature is objective but the reality of my purpose with its own true or false requirements is just as subjectively real having falsifications. As in I know it’s a rock but it makes a great slide for the pond. Objectively, the rock cares not.
The results of measurement without a need are objective, lacking purpose.
Without a need, even to prove a theory, what does a measurement falsify?
Quanta v. Qualia, or Quantity v. Value.
In conclusion, Hope I got the idea across, our perspective is what falsifies and adds value to reality, else I may be off with the fairies as an NZ sentiment in disagreeing with your perspective…
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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