To me, St. Paul alone has no authority, ergo his verses by themselves carry no wait to me unless they can be shown to be in harmony with the Gospels. I know this is sacrilege, but such references will only result in my responses showing why I take him with a grain of salt. In some ways, he "created" Christianity based on what he calls "his" gospel.
You mention 1 Col 1:16. In verse 15, St. Paul calls Christ the "firstborn of all creation" (prototokos pases ktiseos), in essence calling Christ a creature.
St. John on the other hand says that in the beginning (at the creation) the Word was with God, and the word was God. Christian theology states that the Word pre-existed creation and is not the "firstborn of the creation," the first "creature" through whom the rest of creation was made.
Moreover, Genesis 1:1 says nothing of any Word. Where does John get this from? He is re-writing Genesis.
We also have a conflict with Jesus is God vs Jesus is man or Jesus is lesser than God form various New Testament statements, and it is easy to see how some of these led different people into various Christological heresies.
In Matthew 19:17, Mark 10:18 Christ is quoted as saying "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God."
Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34 Christ is quoted by two authors (neither rof which was there!) as saying "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
Mark 16:19 says "...he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God."
Even John, who is generally the greatest source of Jesus is God statements says in John 8:40 "But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God."
And again, in John 14:28 Christ is quoted as saying "My Father is greater than I" and in John 20:17 "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God."
Which can be reduced to Mark and Matthew (and some odd John statements, possibly not of the same date as the rest).
There are of course assertions that Jesus is God to a much greater extent (summarizing them for brevity), such as John 1:1, 1:14, 8:58, John 10:30-31, 14:9, 20:28, Acts 20:28, Colossians 1:16, 2:9, 1 Timothy 3:16, Titus 2:13, Philippians 2:6, Hebrews 1:8, Revelation 1:17, Revelation 22:13
Which are authored John and Paul.
This clear-cut division (Mark-Matthew, Paul-John) is indicative of the problem of a dichotomy that emerges here: one seeing Jesus as a Jewish messiah (a human), and sub ordained to God, and the other one as deity equal to and essentially identical to God (a heretical concept in Judaism).
You also reference and 1 Cor 3:23 which says "you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God." Correct trinitarian statement would read "and Christ is God.
So, orthodox faith states that neither did God create Christ for the world, nor does Christ belong to God, but is God. Orthodox Christianity does not make distinction between Christ and God, the way Paul does on occasion.
God created the world for his reasons which he doesn't reveal. It couldn't have been out of a need; it couldn't have been out of any lack; it couldn't have been out of any unfulfilled desire; God lacks nothing and God's will is not based on a need or even a purpose, because God cannot be subject to a purpose; God eos not exist for a purpose but for himself; he is his own purpose and reason.
St. John of Damascus (8th century), the last of the Desert Fathers, outlines the whole Trinitarian subject in his "An exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith" which is available online. His assertion is that God is the supreme Wisdom and that this wisdom couldn't be "wordless" (i.e. without expression), or without a spirit. So, the Word is simply an expresison of the divine Wisdom.
Any expression of our inner state can be a "word," whether it is in a spoken or written word, in art or music or any other creative expression. In that sense we can see why the Word was "with God" and is God, and there was never a time when the Word was not. The word is eternally begotten as an expresison of the Wisdom, and the Spirit eternally proceeds form the Wisdom and is made manifest through the Word.
To go back to our initial discussion, after some of these hurtles have been defined so that you know where I am coming from, Adam either fell because God wanted him to fall or God allowed him to fall and then devised the "plan" of salvation in response to sin.
There is at least some biblical evidence that this could be so (such as Isa 38:5), that God "jumps in" and changes things and we call it God's intervention, rather than a plan.
The first possibility makes everything a God's choice, and none of ours. The second one makes it all our choice and none of God's.
As I said before, you can't have it both ways: we can either be independent and responsible for our actions and God intervenes in time to save us from perdition, or God ordains everything from the fall to the salvation.
If we are independent of God's will then God is not perfectly free. This is possible only if God wills to limit his freedom in order for us to have some of it.
I will get back to the rest of your post later on.
NB: These are my views and not necessarily the views of the Orthodox Church.
"Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. 2 Peter 3:14-16
St. Paul's Epistles are difficult and the unlearned and unstable make a mess of them, nonetheless St. Paul's Epistles and "the other Scriptures" are the inspired Word of God.
The Lord give you his peace.
If Christ is not true man (the God-man), then he didn't suffer and die (God cannot suffer or die) and this would make his resurrection meaningless and would mean that we are still stuck in our sins. So I know that when you say Christ is God you are not denying that he is man.
As to St. Paul's beautiful expression, "firstborn of all creation" (prototokos pases ktiseos) in Colossians 1:15, this ties in with Philip Yancey's point about the primacy of Christ and the primary motive of the Incarnation. Clearly, Jesus is not the "firstborn of all creatures" chronologically--there are innumerable creatures born in time before him. So what does St. Paul mean? In the eternal purpose of God Christ is willed first--he is the firstborn in God's design, then he wills to create all things "through and unto" Christ, the one mediator between God and men. There is nothing contrary to the Gospel here. But as I noted, if you don't accept Paul's Epistles as inerrant Scripture, then I am writing more to "all" than to "kosta50".
Got to run.....
Before we got side tracked, mainly by my frustation that I can quote St. Paul as an authority, you responded (71) to my entry (60) and were going to respond some more. I’d like to return back to that part of the discourse, if you have time. I’m looking at St. John of Damascus at this point and his points on predestination, foreknowledge, omniscience and how these three realities don’t equal predetermination nor ignorance on the part of God. I’ll need some time to ponder these things. What else were you going to respond to in (60)?