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To: stfassisi; kosta50; MarkBsnr; irishtenor; Mad Dawg; Kolokotronis; HarleyD; Dr. Eckleburg; ...
If God planned satan and evil,than satan and evil happened according to God's will.

So far, so good.

Therefore the CAUSE of satan and evil is the will of God,thus there would be no need for Him to ordain His own plan.

I don't see how that follows. We exist within time. God executes His plan within time. God does not cause evil Himself, but He does use the evil authored by others in the execution of His plan.

Thus satan could not have acted freely because it would have thwarted the plan of God for the need of evil in the world.

Apparently, for Apostolics, freedom is DEFINED by the ability to thwart God's will. I have never understood that kind of thinking, and obviously disagree with it. God is omnipotent. No one can thwart His will.

I would like to know how you would try preach Christianity to the Jews by telling them that God “planned” for Hitler to kill millions of Jews?

I wouldn't begin to pretend to speak for God's motives, so that's off the table. The Holocaust was certainly not the first genocide to occur on earth, nor has it been the last. God wiped out everybody, save 8, in the Flood. We are His creations and He is free to do with us as He pleases. Of course this is not to say that God injected evil into Hitler to cause him to murder. He allowed it by leaving him alone, for His own reasons.

Reformed theology is very similar to dualism.

There are many kinds of dualism so you would have to be more specific for me to understand what you mean. If you mean that God is the author of both good and evil, then that is not Reformed theology. That is, depending on what duties you place upon God and how you define responsibility.

5,422 posted on 05/09/2008 12:20:34 AM PDT by Forest Keeper (It is a joy to me to know that God had my number, before He created numbers.)
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To: Forest Keeper
Stfassisi to FK “”If God planned satan and evil,than satan and evil happened according to God's will.””

FK- “”So far, so good.””

Than hitler and satan followed the will of God according to the reformed.Every abortion ,murder etc must be the will of God than.

God cannot Will evil,FK, or God would be in error and opposed with Himself,thus making God dualistic in His essence.

From Saint Aquinas(again)

That God cannot will Evil

EVERY act of God is an act of virtue, since His virtue is His essence

2. The will cannot will evil except by some error coming to be in the reason, at least in the matter of the particular choice there and then made. For as the object of the will is good, apprehended as such, the will cannot tend to evil unless evil be somehow proposed to it as good; and that cannot be without error.* But in the divine cognition there can be no error 3. God is the sovereign good, admitting no intermixture of evil 4. Evil cannot befall the will except by its being turned away from its end. But the divine will cannot be turned away from its end, being unable to will except by willing itself It cannot therefore will evil; and thus free will in it is naturally established in good. This is the meaning of the texts: God is faithful and without iniquity (Deut. xxxii, 4); Thine eyes are clean, O Lord, and thou canst not look upon iniquity (Hab. i, 13).

FK- “”Apparently, for Apostolics, freedom is DEFINED by the ability to thwart God's will. I have never understood that kind of thinking, and obviously disagree with it. God is omnipotent. No one can thwart His will.”

Freedom is DEFINED as obedience to the will of God that applies to each one of us individually. God is also just,FK. This means that the FREE choices we make between choosing good or evil have consequences of heaven and hell.

Stfassisi to FK-””I would like to know how you would try preach Christianity to the Jews by telling them that God “planned” for Hitler to kill millions of Jews?””

FK,””I wouldn't begin to pretend to speak for God's motives, so that's off the table.””

Perhaps this might help?

From Saint Aquinas

That there is not any Sovereign Evil, acting as the Principle of All Evils

A sovereign evil should be without participation in any good, as that is the sovereign good which is wholly removed from evil. But there cannot be any evil wholly removed from good, since evil is founded on good (Chap. XI).
2. If anything is sovereignly evil, it must be evil by its very essence, as that is sovereignly good which is good by its essence. But evil has no essence (Chap. VII).

3. That which is a first principle is not caused by anything. But all evil is caused by good (Chap. X). There is therefore no evil first principle.

5. The incidental must be posterior to the ordinary. But evil happens only incidentally and beside the intention (Chap. IV). Therefore it is impossible for evil to be a first principle.

Hereby is excluded the error of the Manicheans.

5,427 posted on 05/09/2008 7:34:06 AM PDT by stfassisi ( ("Above all gifts that Christ gives his beloved is that of overcoming self"-St Francis Assisi))
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