Yes, it was no accident. Omniscience means that when God created lucifer, He knew that if He did so exactly in the way He did, that the result would be as it happened. He chose to create anyway. When lucifer fell, God was not surprised.
Did Lucifer really have a "free choice" in his "rebellion" or was it something that, as FK says, God said must happen?
In all honesty, I don't know how to answer that. I don't know how grace works with angels. All I can say is that lucifer's fall was just as predestined as man's. No surprises to God, and God always gets what He wants.
May I remind you that Judaism considers Satan a loyal servant of God, and not a rebel?
Really? I've never heard that. Do you have a reference?
My impression is that Reformed Protestants either don't seem to realize that their theology implies that God is the author of sin, or they find it so threatening that they unconsciously deny it.
Our theology does not at all imply that God is the author of sin. It holds directly against that. Others choose to draw their own conclusions on our theology which are not in concordance with it. I hope that some recent posting has helped to shed some light on this.
When God created everything, He made it perfect. Now you are telling me that in order for his perfect plan to play itself out perfectly, God needed to introduce imperfection?
Better yet, professional religious rationalizers are telling me that God actually allowed it, get this — for the greater good!
Now, what can be greater good than God's perfect creation? Is the tragedy of Lucifer's pride necessary to make God's perfect creation a "greater good?" or is human disobedience, preordained by God, a mark of perfection?
Is God dying on the Cross to free us from the bondage of death we bondage pf death we brought on ourselves a necessity even god has to submit to in order for us to return to the very pristine state of creation we were in to begin with?
Kosta: Did Lucifer really have a "free choice" in his "rebellion" or was it something that, as FK says, God said must happen?
FK: In all honesty, I don't know how to answer that. I don't know how grace works with angels. All I can say is that Lucifer's fall was just as predestined as man's. No surprises to God, and God always gets what He wants
So then God wanted a sinful man. He gave man a pristine home and then trapped him and threw him out?!
As for grace and angelic creatures, there is no redemption for the fallen angels. Their sins are higher because they are not temptations of the flesh but of envy and pride.
Yet the Bible tells us that God prepared hell for satan and his angels. So, if all this was predestined, God is not only the God of life but of death as well.
That's not Christianity, FK.
FK: Really? I've never heard that. Do you have a reference?
Of course.
From the Jewish Newsgroups FAQs. It's as good as dozens of others.