No, actually I don't get that AT ALL. :) Why or how could an omnipotent and loving God do that? Think about it. You are saying that our God limited His own sovereignty. For what? If you had an "uber-specific" plan that had to be completed, and if you had all the power to complete it yourself, would you turn major parts of it over to a pack of 3-year-olds who might do anything with their free wills? Of course not. If your plan was at all important to you, and you had the power, you would execute it yourself, period. That's what God is doing right now.
As to "divine condescension", perhaps our disagreement is over whether God lowered Himself TO man or IN FRONT OF man. I suspect that Apostolics and Reformers see this very differently.
You responded: No, actually I don't get that AT ALL. :) Why or how could an omnipotent and loving God do that? Think about it. You are saying that our God limited His own sovereignty. For what?
Oi... Well, this explains our different points of views on various Scriptures. We "apostolics" (never heard that one before) believe that God condescends to man, whether it is in BECOMING one of us, DYING as one of us, or even inspiring the Bible to be UNDERSTOOD by the men of the day (note, God doesn't inspire men with knowledge of quantum physics. He tells us what He wants us to know at OUR level of knowledge).
God became man so that man could be "god-like". To share in His divine nature. When a person loves another, that person does some "strange" things - I know, because I did when I first was courting my wife. I still do "strange" things that I wouldn't do for another person. I see God acting analagously to us, since He is our example of Love.
Do you actually think God became man because the "PLAN" forced God to follow what is in Scriptures? Is the Bible the script that God must follow or does the Bible relate what God ended up doing? If you believe the former, than there may be some truth to the idea that you worship the Bible...
Regards
I suppose that if you believe that God has created a clockwork universe for His mysterious ends that He programs and runs the program through to completion, then that would kinda fit.
If you believe that God wishes all men to freely love Him, as the purpose of creating the universe, then it wouldn’t.
How do you know that God’s plan cannot be accomplished if man has free will?
God is omnipotent and omniscient; man has free will.
Somehow, you know better than He that this can’t possibly have the results He wishes.
I think I’d put my money on the omniscient one in this case.