Calvinism and Arminianism remix

In the first half of my life I was in a lot of churches, dozens at least. All of them considered themselves Bible literalists. All of them believed the Creation story (though there may have been some old-earth creationists). I don't recall ANY of them having your idea of "the Fall". As far as I can recall, they all believed that the story in Genesis 3 had to do with man's spiritual relationship with God - i.e. there was no suggestion of "damage".Maybe they actually read Genesis 3:22-23

quote:

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And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

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Adam and Eve didn't fall. They became more like God. They grew up and left the nest.

Yes. We are charged to do what we can to make the world better. We may well be responsible, in fact. I agree. Thats the best we can do. No shame there.

And then their son Cain killed their other son. Seems the parents were ineffective at teaching responsibility and love.

So was God.

Perhaps God, being a wise teacher, foreknowingly modeled bad behavior knowing that humans with a conscience would call Him out on it. Just as he expects us to do to each other. Seems Cain didnt listen.

Perhaps there is. It is an opinion that that is an/the issue, and it presumes that it is something that should be cared about. Right: what we call "evil" - is it actually evil, though? What if other people call it "not-evil", who's right?Too, on that same line, there are an infinite number of ways in which our world could be way more evil than the way it is, so there's that. How much of that has already happened and how much is still to come? I don't think us humans are in a position to be judging the whole world as evil or not. Well, I mean, we can... it's just pointless.

So what's your point?

Personally, I don't believe that God foreknowingly created evil, though I DO believe that God allowed it and the consequences rippling out from it.You and I have discussed this before. Allowing humans to choose evil is expected if we are to learn anything after leaving the nest. Eliminating all possibility of evil wont strengthen people in the long run.

They lost their original connection with God, they could no longer hear Him as they used to, they now had to deal with a world in which thorns impeded their work of growing food which hadn't existed before, the woman had to suffer pain in childbirth which she hadn't had to before, she was also subject to the domination of her husband which hadn't been the case before, they were now subject to physical death too, which wasn't the case before their disobedience. And God subjected the entire Creation to death as well because of their sin (Romans 8:18-22), and the whole point of Jesus' coming was to save us from the eternal punishment incurred because of sin, and to eliminate sin and its effects from the world that were brought about by the Fall. If there hadn't been a Fall there wouldn't have been any need for Jesus to come, to redeem us and the whole Creation both.I don't know why you didn't get at least some inkling of all this basic theology in your church experiences. If Adam and Eve's disobedience had had the positive consequences you impute to it, one does have to wonder why there is so much turmoil and bloodshed in life now that didn't exist before their Fall.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It's only energy that is being used. There are a myriad of ways of powering organisms that don't require them to kill and eat other organisms. Yet your religion taught that principle for millenium - and still mostly does. Now you're allowed to form your own 'conclusions' ie, make stuff up.But you're shying away from the negligence argument. In our ethical - and legal - code, to cause a harm by negligence - allowing something to happen that you should have or did foresee, but did allow or caused anyway - is culpable.

OK...so say we were allowed to form our own legal codes and we used them to successfully try and convict God. All He is gonna say is for us to go and do likewise to each other. In other words, He will take the conviction and the sentence...and won't deprive us of our right to judge and convict.

Phat, he made our world a vicious, disease ridden place were kill or be killed is a fact of life. Survivors then die. You're in a comfortable place now but our ancestors lived exactly like animals, they had no way to 'grow' - whatever that means. This entire thing is a nasty experiment - your god's playing with us like mice in a trap.This is evil by any definition.

Yes, it is an opinion.It is my opinion that having to kill nothing in order to grow is better than having to kill another-intelligent-living-creature in order to grow.And yes, I presume to care about it.Do you care about it? If not, to what ends are you participating in this discussion?
If you do care about it, and you do not agree... why not?I think my reasons for why I think it's better is rather obvious... we get no difference in the decisions we make or our perception of the reality we live in other than "no intelligent organism has to die in order for another to grow."
This is because I am of the opinion that intelligence has value.If you do not agree, why not?
If you simply do not agree that "intelligence has value" then I bid you good day and hope I never meet you in an alleyway Agreed.But self-congratulations has ever been the adversary of progress.
(And, yes, I am wearing a top hat and monocle, as well my body is that of a peanut). If such a thing were in place... then how can we say God is all-powerful?
If God were all-powerful, why the need for progress? What about all the people who died 300 years ago... were they nothing more than to advance progress just a bit for us? Are we nothing more than to advance progress just a bit for those to come 500 years from now?
Surely an all-powerful God can put 'the best' system in place directly without the need of working His way towards it?Of course, in the context of a not-all-powerful God... the point is extremely salient.
But I don't have any issue in the context of a not-all-powerful God, either. As I understand that things are not "as good as they could be" simply because God can't make them that way. As pointless, and powerful as it is to consider questioning an all-powerful God for any reason.

So which is it: Did He not create everything? Or was He not foreknowing? How is that substantially different from creating it? What can we learn from punishment after death?

The question is, are we working our way towards it and is this discipline necessary?