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From: gregbo@houxm.UUCP (Greg Skinner)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: QUESTIONS FROM A FRIEND
Message-ID: <1172@houxm.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 10-Mar-85 19:12:35 EST
Article-I.D.: houxm.1172
Posted: Sun Mar 10 19:12:35 1985
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Before we get into another debate (debacle?) about omniscience/ominpresence
again, like we did last year about this time, let me offer a few points.

Just because God knows everything that was, and is, and will be, does not mean
that no one has free will.  You see, as far as we mortals are concerned, we
DO have free will, because WE are not omniscient nor omnipresent.  If we were
to assume, for example, that there was no God (I don't think so, but anyhow),
that would not change the facts that our futures are determined from the day
we are born, in that in the day that we die we will have lived out our lives
according to the pattern that they were lived, and not according to any other
pattern.  Put in simpler terms, after all is said and done, we did certain
things and did not do others and whether or not someone was around who knew
exactly what we were going to do does not change the fact that we did it any-
how.  (If you are one of those persons, like me, who believe that the future
exists in much the same way as the present and the past, you will understand
what I said a little better.)  It's not as if we have the options of forking
off clones of ourselves to live out certain decisions, terminating when the
results are unpleasant.

Now, letting God back into the picture does not change things.  When He
created humans, he did not wish them to eat of the tree of knowledge.  In that,
he withheld from us the ability to be like He is, to know all things.  There-
fore, for every decision we make, we have a choice to do or not do something.
You can't say "God knows that I am not going to belive in Him, so I won't
belive in Him", because God is not pulling the strings on any of us, making
us do this and that.  Rather, he is watching the story of the universe unfold
(rather like Iluvatar watching his Themes unfold in "The Silmarillion", if you
are into fantasy fiction).

The other point that is raised a lot in this newsgroup is "Why did God create
humans at all, if He knew they were going to fall and be sinners, and He then
had to send Jesus to save them, and have him killed ... Why didn't he just
leave well enough alone?"  The answer to that is based on whether or not you
believe the Devil exists (if you don't, hit your 'n' key now).

In the beginning of the universe (before Man came to be), God created the an-
gels.  (Don't ask me why he created the angels.  Like Iluvatar, he wanted to
create beings to inhabit his creation, I guess.)  Anyhow, one of his angels
(Lucifer) was the most powerful he created.  Lucifer was unhappy with just
being the most powerful -- he wanted to be like God, and create his own things,
and order the universe the way he wanted it.  (Lucifer was a lot like Melkor.)
There was a war in heaven, and the some of the angels rebelled.  God and his
faithful angels (like the Ainur) were victorious over Lucifer and the rebel-
lious angels, and banished them to Hell.  Afterwards, God decided to create
a new being (unlike the angels) called Man (no sexism intended) who would
inhabit a place called Earth.  God wanted to show Lucifer and his rebellious
friends that His love and mercy were greater than Lucifer's hatred and jeal-
ousy.  When Man was first created, God gave him everything (except the
tree of life and knowledge).  Man had food, warmth -- everything he possibly
could have wanted or needed.  But Lucifer had a stake in Man also, because
he wanted to prove to God that he was the mightier, and that with his tricks
and lies he could seduce anyone away from God's goodness.  So, he tempted
Man in the garden, and Man fell, and you know the rest of the story.  (A lot
of this is like Melkor's banishment from Arda.)

So you see, God was not out to create humans just to see them suffer.  He
really wanted to give them all they needed.  You can blame the devil for
enticing humans to fall, but you can only blame humans for actually falling,
because they had everything they needed, but wanted still more, and were
tempted and fell.  No one made them fall, they had a choice, and chose to
take more than they needed.  Likewise, we humans have a choice.

The Biblical account of this can be found in the books of Isaiah and Daniel,
I believe.
-- 
			... hey, we've gotta get out of this place,
    			    there's got to be something better than this ...

Greg Skinner (gregbo)
{allegra,cbosgd,ihnp4}!houxm!gregbo
gregbo%houxm.uucp@harvard.arpa