Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: stripes1776; kosta50; Dr. Eckleburg; Forest Keeper; AlbionGirl; annalex; jo kus
Ordain means to predestine, to prearrange unalterably, to decree. You are saying that God orders evil to exit, but he doesn't create it. It seems to me that ordering something to come into existence that didn't exit before the order is very close to creating it, if not an equivalence.

If one would step back, forgetting all the theological implications, under any soteriological belief, God must have ordained the fall of man. Before the world began God wrote Adam's name in the book of life (for argument sake we'll assume he accepted God's mercy). God must have known what was going to happen before anything happened. If God looked down the "corridor of time" to see that Adam would make such a bad choice why did God allow it? Why didn't God make him so that he would do the "right thing". Why didn't God instruct him better? Why was God was conspicuously absent when the serpent offered the fruit?

Instead God deliberately place the tree, man and the serpent in the Garden causing the final outcome. God set in motion the events that would eventually caused Adam's downfall (and redemption). God had to ordain the fall simply because God is in control. He did nothing to prevent it and everything to allow it to take place. Some would say this was Adam exercising his will but God deliberately set everything in motion for Adam to fall.

I can't explain the working and logic of God except to say this is what the scriptures tells us. While ordaining and creating may seem close to us, apparently it isn't to God. God ordains all things such as His Son's death and then appointed men to carry it out (Acts 4:27-28). It is a mystery but there can be no doubt that this is the way God works. An article that further explain this nature of God is Did God's Decree Bring About The Fall

3,571 posted on 03/14/2006 6:04:55 PM PST by HarleyD ("A man's steps are from the Lord, How then can man understand his way?" Prov 20:24 (HNV))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3570 | View Replies ]


To: HarleyD; kosta50; Dr. Eckleburg; Forest Keeper; AlbionGirl; annalex; jo kus
While ordaining and creating may seem close to us, apparently it isn't to God.

You are making a subtle distinction between creation and ordination that is difficult to perceive. It would be easier to count the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. Indeed, the word apparently does not carry the implication of logical certainty.

It is a mystery

This is the first time I have heard you use the word mystery. Yes, using rational categories to describe God's relation to and action in the world always runs into contradictions at some point. Perhaps you can begin to get an inkling of why the Eastern church never developed a scholastic theology of its own. The Eastern church always valued both kataphatic and apophatic theology. They are both necessary, but with the emphasis probably placed on the latter in the East.

3,573 posted on 03/14/2006 6:42:28 PM PST by stripes1776
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3571 | View Replies ]

To: HarleyD; stripes1776; Dr. Eckleburg; Forest Keeper; AlbionGirl; annalex; jo kus
God set in motion the events that would eventually caused Adam's downfall (and redemption)

Let's analyze just this sentence, HD: God set in motion, i.e. God willed a chain of events. These vents caused Adam to fall. Notice here, the cause of Adam's fall is not, as most Christians believe, his arrogance and pride, but God's trap for the lack of a better word.

Adam simply fell into a hole God prepared for him and even led him directly over it! It's all God's doing! Ergo, through God's sovereign will, evil came into the world and poor Adam was just a puppet who suffered the "honor."

Then you throw in the crescendo: (the events cause Adam's fall) and his redemption. Wait a minute! Redemption for what? What did Adam do that God didn't want him to do according to your belief? Nothing! God ordained his steps, as your tagline says, and Adam fell into a hole God prepared for him (then ordained His own Son to die for our "sins" which were ordained to begin with!? What exactly are we being "redeemed" for? Obedience to God?

3,574 posted on 03/14/2006 6:46:06 PM PST by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3571 | View Replies ]

To: HarleyD
God ordains all things such as His Son's death and then appointed men to carry it out (Acts 4:27-28).

The prayer for the Lord's "hand and council" is to the conversion of "the Gentiles and the people of Israel", which indeed happens when Peter and John speak.

3,577 posted on 03/14/2006 7:05:35 PM PST by annalex
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3571 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson