The Pre-Fall Plan

[Vance]

Of course "fall and redemption" is an inferior plan. Make beings that must become fallen, some remain so, and save the rest through infinite suffering of a Savior. Makes, no, sense, to, me, at, all.

 

Omnipotence means the power to do literally anything. If anyone thinks, that s/he can think, up something that is impossible for "God", they are seriously not thinking clearly enough. A finite mind cannot come up with impossible things for an Infinite Mind, no matter how cleverly worded the apparent conundrums dreamed up are....

Apparently, God can NOT create a free willed person that will be 100% obedient and therefore not need a savior.

[Calm]

I don't know how to get a free-willed being to not "fall". In other words, if you control or force people to "not-fall" you don't have free-will, so that doesn't get to the end goal. 

What about creating a world where there were no evil choices, all options were good, better or best?

[ERayR]

Sorry for the confusing wording.  I meant that without the Fall none would be lost to hell, yet with the Fall many will be lost to hell.  How is that equally meeting God's goals? 

 

Because Gods goal is for us to sift ourselves to the existence (kingdom) where we are happy and content. 

[ERayR]

What about creating a world where there were no evil choices, all options were good, better or best?

 

 

Isn't that what we really have except what one calls best another might not.

[Calm]

Isn't that what we really have except what one calls best another might not.

In the next life perhaps, I do think in this life there are unfortunately many, many choices that are evil.

[Questing Beast]

Apparently, God can NOT create a free willed person that will be 100% obedient and therefore not need a savior.

Given enough time and experience everyone will learn to comprehend the simple principles that govern Joy. They do not vary, and despite endless scenarios of opposition the outcome is always the same: Joy or misery, failure. To some degree we fail all the time as mortals, thus showing how the Joy was vitiated by the pursuit of counter choices. It isn't necessary to be obedient in order to learn a lesson. What is necessary is to learn the lesson and not make the same mistakes. If "God" cannot accomplish that through eternal instruction then something is missing from the paradigm of omnipotence and the other "alls" that God Is. A savior is redundant, since God Is fully capable of saving his own creation, should "saving" be required....

[danielwoods]

What about creating a world where there were no evil choices, all options were good, better or best?

 

Consider that the very definition of a free moral willed person has the ability to create his own evil. By his/her very choices. For example. The moment a person has a child, they are obligated to care for that child, to not do that, would be very wrong, evil if you will. So, the very existence of a free moral agent contains the potential for evil. If it didn't, it wouldn't be free. So, it's doesn't seem possible to do as you are describing. 

[Vance]

So, the very existence of a free moral agent contains the potential for evil. If it didn't, it wouldn't be free. So, it's doesn't seem possible to do as you are describing. 

God is a "free moral agent" and therefore He has the potential for evil.  Is that correct?

[Tacenda]

God is a "free moral agent" and therefore He has the potential for evil. Is that correct?

I'm going to assume that Daniel believes God wasn't a man before becoming a God and God doesn't need to be a "free moral agent" because He wrote the book on it.

[danielwoods]

God is a "free moral agent" and therefore He has the potential for evil.  Is that correct?

 

No. However, Jesus had to have had the ability to be tempted, otherwise his temptation was but a sham. So, when Jesus "put on flesh and dwelt among us..." his flesh did. As it states in Hebrews he was tempted in all ways like we are (4:15).

I'm going to assume that Daniel believes God wasn't a man before becoming a God and God doesn't need to be a "free moral agent" because He wrote the book on it.

 

Right. God is infinite, and the only "I AM" John 8:58 (Self-existing being), meaning the only Eternal being not created (according to traditional Christian theology). 

Edited August 30, 2013 by danielwoods

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Of course "fall and redemption" is an inferior plan. Make beings that must become fallen, some remain so, and save the rest through infinite suffering of a Savior. Makes, no, sense, to, me, at, all.

 

It is an inferior plan because you say so? How do you come up wiht a plan that requires people to love (follow) God with their own free will? What is your plan? You know that some will not do that. How do youy explain the fall then? If it was not part of the plan then there some are serious baggage and issues  that comes with that belief.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Mola Ram Suda Ram

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I'm going to assume that Daniel believes God wasn't a man before becoming a God and God doesn't need to be a "free moral agent" because He wrote the book on it.

Both of those points are completely irrelevant. Being a free moral agent has nothing with "being a man" or writting the book on being moral. Being a free moral agent means that you always have a choice before you and you can chose what ever you want. God is moral because he choses to be moral. If he chose not to be moral he would not longer be God. But he still has that choice.

[SamIam]

Rescinded...

Edited September 1, 2013 by SamIam

[Questing Beast]

It is an inferior plan because you say so? How do you come up wiht a plan that requires people to love (follow) God with their own free will? What is your plan? You know that some will not do that. How do youy explain the fall then? If it was not part of the plan then there some are serious baggage and issues  that comes with that belief.

No baggage at all. I seem to have more faith in "God" and the human race he created than you do. I don't see anyone in my more than half a century on earth that is not learning from their experiences. And this is just one puny mortal scenario, not even a blip on the timeline for immortals. Don't you think it's reasonable to allow that "this life is the time to prepare to meet God" is equally at home with the concept that an entire immortal life is "this life"? I don't see, "one mortality and that's it for you", as justice. That has serious baggage and issues, spawning centuries, millennia of philosophers arguing about the problems of the existence of evil either caused by the Supreme Being, or independent of the SB. But believing that "God" made everyone to learn to become joyful in process of time allows everyone the privilege of learning how they can, not how you or I say they must in order to be "saved"....

[Calm]

I read something from a book called "Where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity". Satan

could have thwarted God's plan and prevented any humans beings from being born if he

did everything in his power to keep Adam and Eve away from the forbidden tree. Even Adam

and Eve themselves could have thwarted the plan without Satan's involvement if either of

them also stayed away from that tree.

 

Well, in traditional Christianity, Satan did thwart God's plan by having Adam and Eve eat of the fruit....save for the fact that God know what would happen and planned for it, just as occurred in the LDS interpretation.  LDS do not believe that a God whose knowledge encompasses the entirety of space and time and all humanity and other creatures is going to have his glorious Plan of Salvation sabotaged by a couple of toddlers who think they are overly clever.

 

If you are attempting to learn about the doctrine and understandings among members of the Church of Jesus Christ, then it would be well to avoid most, if not all of what Shawn McCraney produces, he is not know for his nuanced approaches or being intent on getting it right.

 

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=21&num=2&id=774

 

http://www.lifeongoldplates.com/2010/02/correction-for-my-review-of-shawn.html

[Vance]

No baggage at all. I seem to have more faith in "God" ....

I am so glad that you condescended to grace our presents.

[mfbukowski]

I've been following the extended detour in the Predestination thread.  The question of what exactly God intended is intriguing and I wanted to pursue it in a dedicated thread.

 

First off I am interested in what non-Mormon Christians believe was God's 'original' plan.  danielwoods referred to the "pre-Fall plan".  Perhaps he covered that in more detail before I started following the conversation but I am interested in knowing what God originally intended and how that goal could be equally met with or without the Fall.

 

Secondly, I am interested in knowing whether any think that Mormon doctrine is capable of conceiving some sort of 'Plan A'.  Not in the sense of "Was the Fall necessary?", but rather "Was following Satan necessary to the Fall?"  Was there some other way that God intended?  He certainly didn't sound pleased that Adam and Eve followed Satan's temptations.  Adam and Eve realized the benefits that came with their choice, but did those benefits stem from submitting to temptation or simply from eating the fruit?

Were I to write a prequel for the story, I would have Satan giving the fruit of the tree routinely on other planets to Adam and Eve, without much to-do by God.

 

But as the story goes, this was a special world in which the atonement had to happen, so the fall here would have to operate differently- here it would involve a choice on the part of Adam and Eve, where such choice would not be necessary on other worlds, since the plan was already in operation there- there would not have to be a fall from innocence, since elsewhere all would be born already subject to the fall, as we are now here.

 

As part of the dialogue in my story I would have Satan getting very angry at God for God cursing him for doing the same thing that was done in other worlds, here.

 

That takes care of the problem in the story line of how it happens that one infinite atonement happens for all worlds on one world- ours.

 

But of course that would just be a story

[thesometimesaint]

The transgression wasn't having the knowledge of good and evil. The transgression was in listening to Lucifer as to timing.

[Tacenda]

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101112003604AAf0GfJ

Did God Lie to Adam and Eve? This is a question on Yahoo. And the best answer was very interesting to say the least. And it was given by Tao. I wonder if it's our own Tao?

[thesometimesaint]

God didn't lie. He said they would surely die. They did die, and God didn't kill them. They simply became mortal. There is a big difference between knowing that we will all die eventually and directly killing them.

[Tacenda]

http://web.mail.comcast.net/service/home/~/Strategy_of_Satan_Ch1.pdf?auth=co&loc=en_US&id=492724∂=2

 

 

He denied God’s Word. “You surely shall not

die!” It is but a short step from questioning God’s

Word to denying it. Of course, neither Adam nor

Eve had ever seen death. All they had to go on

was the Word of God, but this was all they needed. If

Eve had not listened to Satan’s questioning God’s

Word, she would never have fallen into his trap

when he denied God’s Word.

 

He substituted his own lie. “You will be like

God!” Adam and Eve were already made in the

image of God, but Satan tempted them with an

even greater privilege: to be like God! This was, of

course, Satan’s great ambition when he was Lucifer,

God’s angelic servant.

“How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the

morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down

to the earth, you who have weakened the nations! But

you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will

raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit

on the mount of assembly, in the recesses of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will

make myself like the Most High.’” Isaiah 14:12-14

The Deceiver 9

Satan is a created being, a creature, but he wanted

to be worshiped and served like the Creator. It was

this attitude that led him to rebel against God and

seek to establish his own kingdom. “You will be like

God” is the one gigantic lie that has controlled civilization

since the fall of man.

For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie [literally

“the lie”], and worshiped and served the creature

rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Romans 1:25

Satan desires worship and service, and Jesus Christ

would give him neither!

Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain

and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and

their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things I

will give You, if You fall down and worship me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written,

‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him

only.’” Matthew 4:8-10

Satan’s lie, “You will be like God,” motivates and controls

much of our civilization today. Man is seeking

to pull himself up by his own bootstraps. He is working

to build a utopia on earth and possibly take it

to outer space. Through education, psychiatry, religions

of one kind or another (most of which ignore

Jesus Christ, sin, and salvation), and better environment,

men are defying God and deifying themselves.

They are playing right into the hands of Satan.

How did Eve respond to Satan’s approach? She

responded by making three mistakes that led her

into sin.

10 The strategy of satan

She took awa y from God’s Word. In verse 2,

Eve omitted the word “freely.” God’s original word

in Genesis 2:16 was, “From any tree of the garden

you may eat freely.” We get the impression that Eve

caught Satan’s subtle suggestion, “God is holding

out on you!” When you start to question or forget

the grace of God and the goodness of God, you will

find it much easier to disobey the will of God.

She added to God’s Word. We do not find

the words “or touch it” in God’s original command.

They may have been there, but they are not in

the record. Not only did Eve make God’s original

word less gracious by omitting the word “freely,” but

she also made the commandment more grievous by

adding “or touch it.” “His commandments are not

burdensome” (l John 5:3). Satan wants us to believe

they are burdensome, and that he has something

better to offer.

She changed God’s Word. God did not say,

“Lest you die.” He said, “For in the day that you

eat from it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

The penalty for disobedience as presented by the

enemy did not seem as harsh; therefore, Eve could

consider forsaking God’s will and obeying Satan’s

will.

Once you have treated God’s Word in this fashion,

you are wide open for the devil’s final trick.

He merely permitted Eve to consider the tree apart

from God’s Word. “Get a good look at it! See it as it

really is!” It was “good for food . . . a delight to the

eyes . . . desirable to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6).

She had to make a choice: God’s Word or Satan’s

The Deceiver 11

word? She rejected God’s Word, believed Satan,

and sinned. You and I have been suffering from

the consequences of her decision, as has the whole

human race.

 

 

  

1st bold....still confused if Satan lied or not.  Are we not to believe we'll be like God?  As in, become a God ourselves?     

 

 

2nd bold.....In the AoF # 2 "We believe that men will be punished for their own his sins, and not for Adam's transgression"  How does this stack up to what is said?