To Act for Ourselves

[Calm]

13 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

I see no alternative plan that would convince me there was ever another path planned

If God can create this earth for humanity, why couldn’t the plan have been to create more as needed?

[Calm]

11 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Now, is there anything in God's revealed word to indicate that was his preferred goal?

Some people don’t see a need to spend time on might have beens.  Maybe God falls into that category.

[CV75]

15 hours ago, Mark White said:

I refer to that as transformation, rather than death.  Such as when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, or two things become one.

That is fine, semantics are helpful. I suppose we could call the Fall a transformation too. But to put a finer point on it, the caterpillar and the butterfly is the same being. The prior developmental phase is dead, and the same creature is reborn in a new state (as with baptism in a way).

I'm suggesting that Adam and Eve were experientially naïve about consequences that hadn't yet happened and life in a fallen world, but not about sexual activity, and that not having offspring had to do with their environment lacking the principles of physical death. Once this principle was introduced with the partaking of the forbidden fruit. the physical laws of a fallen world became the norm and they were able to conceive. I'm suggesting that the relationship between death and conception was manifest on a cellular level and with the respective sex cells (there being opposition in all things).

Edited May 1, 2021 by CV75

[theplains]

On 4/30/2021 at 4:44 PM, JLHPROF said:

@MiserereNobis, @Mark White, @theplains

You are still not addressing the point.

Sure we may be teasing a bit about naked innocent people.

But the question still hasn't been answered.  From the time God placed Adam and Eve in the garden in an unfallen state how did he want the course of man and the world to go?  What was his expectation for his creation?

Because any plan other than the fall that I've heard simply doesn't work with anything else in scripture.  I am genuinely asking.  If man hadn't fallen, what was supposed to happen?

Adam was created outside the garden and then placed therein. Eve was created
in the garden.

From the time he created Adam and Eve, he told them not to eat from the forbidden tree.
When he gave the commandment, like other commandments, it was with the intention for
them to be obeyed.  Unless you believe he gave us the Ten Commandments and then wanted
us to disobey them.

If man had not fallen, we would have paradise.  Paradise was lost and paradise will be regained
in the future.  I suppose a subsequent question is whether God wants people to disobey him
after they are resurrected from the dead since they will still have free will?

[theplains]

On 4/28/2021 at 4:18 PM, InCognitus said:

The Bible tells us that God first planned the Atonement (before the foundation of the world).  Given that the Atonement was clearly planned first, it's up to you how you want to construe the way the fall of Adam and Eve fits into to God's plan.   

Since the Bible tells us that God planned the Atonement first, do you believe that God needed the assistance of wicked men to bring about the atonement by crucifying our Lord Jesus Christ?  Or how do you think God intended the Atonement part of the plan to be played out given your belief that the original creation was what God intended for Adam and Eve?

Ok. So it appears to me that you believe the Atonement is the cause, and the Fall is the effect.

[Stargazer]

2 hours ago, theplains said:

Adam was created outside the garden and then placed therein. Eve was created
in the garden.

Yes, that does seem so.  

Genesis 2:15 says: And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

So he had to have been outside of it in order to be put into it.

Earlier in the chapter, in verse 7, God makes it clear that Adam was created on earth: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

I do wonder why he was not created in the Garden, but that's neither here nor there, I guess.

Quote

From the time he created Adam and Eve, he told them not to eat from the forbidden tree.
When he gave the commandment, like other commandments, it was with the intention for
them to be obeyed.  Unless you believe he gave us the Ten Commandments and then wanted
us to disobey them.

What was that forbidden tree called again? Oh, yes, that's right, "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil".  Adam was permitted to eat everything in that garden, except for the fruit of that one tree. He's not allowed to know anything about good or evil. Got it.

I've helped raise ten children successfully to adulthood. Although there were guns in the house, they were kept strictly under lock and key. We kept no booze in the house. And we kept the car keys secure on our persons or in our bedroom. We took care that our children would not have access to things that could most readily kill them, until they were mature enough to deal with those things in a responsible way.

But you seem to think that God is a very neglectful parent. He hands Adam and Eve a paradise, says they can have everything in that paradise except for the one and only thing that could cause them to be bounced out of that paradise and ultimately kill them. Which, I might add, is parked right where they could see it and get to it. And then He goes away in the apparent assurance that they aren't going to touch that one and only thing, just because He said not to? God told them not to do it, and then walked away, leaving them completely unsupervised, knowing perfectly well that Lucifer had been let loose in the world and was itching to tempt and to try them.  Hey, I could easily have done such god-level negligence, too, simply by handing my very venturesome 5 year old Daniel a loaded gun, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue, and the keys to my car. 

No, He put that tree right where He knew they would see it, because He expected them to partake of that tree. If He had intended for them to be kept safe from that tree, He would have put the angel with the flaming sword to keep them away from the tree right from the jump. Or even better, He wouldn't even have planted that tree in the Garden at all. He put it there because He wanted it there.

He obviously intended them to disobey; and He knew they would. Go ahead, tell me that God could not foresee their disobedience. Isn't that what we credit God to be capable of, to see the end from the beginning? If He can see the end from the beginning, and still put that tree where they could get at it, then what happened was what God intended.

Or did God make a mistake? That we've been paying for, for millennia?  I don't think it works like that.

Quote

If man had not fallen, we would have paradise.  Paradise was lost and paradise will be regained
in the future.  I suppose a subsequent question is whether God wants people to disobey him
after they are resurrected from the dead since they will still have free will?

That God placed the means for paradise to be lost under the direct control of those two ignorant and inexperienced beings named Adam and Eve, this tells me that God definitely wanted Adam and Eve to disobey Him. He did not intend for us to live in a paradise. If He did, then He completely failed to ensure that it happened.

All of this tells me that God knew what would happen, intended it to happen, and even prepared in advance to provide a Savior, in order to deal with the effects of what he intended and knew would happen.

Does this seem inexplicable to you?  

Isaiah 55:8,9 says this: 

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by Stargazer

[InCognitus]

3 hours ago, theplains said:

Ok. So it appears to me that you believe the Atonement is the cause, and the Fall is the effect.

No, I believe what the Bible says, that the Atonement of Jesus Christ was God's plan from a time before the fall even happened ("before the foundation of the world"), thus proving that God knew the fall would take place and therefore the fall was incorporated into HIS plan from the beginning, just as God knew that wicked men would crucify the Lord Jesus Christ in order to bring about his plan for the Atonement.

[InCognitus]

On 5/3/2021 at 12:56 PM, theplains said:

Ok. So it appears to me that you believe the Atonement is the cause, and the Fall is the effect.

I want to elaborate on what I said in my last post, and ask you a few questions.  You see this as a cause and effect, that the fall is the cause and reason for the atonement, and I see this as one plan of action that God knew from the beginning.  

Doctrine and Covenants section 38:1-2 says:   "Thus saith the Lord your God, even Jesus Christ, the Great I Am, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the same which looked upon the wide expanse of eternity, and all the seraphic hosts of heaven, before the world was made;   The same which knoweth all things, for all things are present before mine eyes"  

Isaiah 46:9-10 says (in part):  "I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" 

1 John 3:20 says that God "knoweth all things".

And we have already discussed how the Bible says that Jesus was the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev 13:8), even "foreordained before the foundation of the world" (1 Pet 1:19-20).

Given the foreknowledge of God, and that he knows all things even "from the beginning", is there even such a thing as a linear cause and effect in the mind of God? 

Do you believe that God can ever intervene to influence how things will turn out?   If so, what kind of event might God choose to step in and change the direction that things are going?  And, if so, why would the fall not be one of those times?

Edited May 7, 2021 by InCognitus

[theplains]

14 hours ago, InCognitus said:

Given the foreknowledge of God, and that he knows all things even "from the beginning", is there even such a thing as a linear cause and effect in the mind of God? 

Do you believe that God can ever intervene to influence how things will turn out?   If so, what kind of event might God choose to step in and change the direction that things are going?  And, if so, why would the fall not be one of those times?

I think there is such a thing as a linear cause and effect in the mind of God.

Yes to the question about God intervening.  One example: God told Abraham to sacrifice
Isaac and then intervened to influence how things turned out.

After Adam and Eve caused the Fall, God intervened with the Atonement.  I don't believe
God first planned the Atonement and then required Adam and Eve to intervene so His
purpose would not be thwarted.

[InCognitus]

3 minutes ago, theplains said:

After Adam and Eve caused the Fall, God intervened with the Atonement.  I don't believe
God first planned the Atonement and then required Adam and Eve to intervene so His
purpose would not be thwarted.

So you don't believe the Bible when it says that God first planned the atonement?

[theplains]

4 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

So you don't believe the Bible when it says that God first planned the atonement?

I am aware of God planning the atonement but I don't believe the Atonement is the cause
while the Fall is the effect.

[InCognitus]

27 minutes ago, theplains said:

I am aware of God planning the atonement but I don't believe the Atonement is the cause
while the Fall is the effect.

So which came first?  The plan or the cause?

[theplains]

On 5/7/2021 at 4:19 PM, InCognitus said:

So which came first?  The plan or the cause?

I believe the cause is the Fall.  The effect is  the need for the Plan of Salvation.  The cause
came first.

I don't understand if you view the Fall as the cause and the Atonement as the effect or if
you view the Atonement as the cause and the Fall as the effect.  Maybe you could clarify
it for me.  Basically, do you believe God planned the Atonement first and then required the
Fall or do you believe God planned the Fall first and then planned the Atonement?

Thanks,
Jim

[teddyaware]

35 minutes ago, theplains said:

I believe the cause is the Fall.  The effect is  the need for the Plan of Salvation.  The cause
came first.

I don't understand if you view the Fall as the cause and the Atonement as the effect or if
you view the Atonement as the cause and the Fall as the effect.  Maybe you could clarify
it for me.  Basically, do you believe God planned the Atonement first and then required the
Fall or do you believe God planned the Fall first and then planned the Atonement?

Thanks,
Jim

The key theological element you’re missing is that in Mormonism the atonement of Christ is infinite and eternal and therefore exists outside of time as an ever present reality that has always existed, which is one of the reasons why Christ bore the sacred title of the sacrificial Lamb of God before the earth was even created.

In fact, in 2 Nephi 2 the prophet Lehi makes it clear that without an infinite and eternal atoning sacrifice of God, affixed as the very foundation of eternity there can be no existence without it.  And because this great atoning sacrifice of God is the very cornerstone of reality and eternity, it necessarily means that the battle between good and evil has existed from all eternity and there is no escape from the necessity of intelligences having to confront the eternal reality of evil and ultimately defeat through the power of goodness if true joy, happiness and inner peace are ever going to be obtained.

You appear to mistakenly believe that goodness can exist without the active, countervailing reality of evil.

[Jamie]

2 hours ago, theplains said:

I believe the cause is the Fall.  The effect is  the need for the Plan of Salvation.  The cause
came first.

I don't understand if you view the Fall as the cause and the Atonement as the effect or if
you view the Atonement as the cause and the Fall as the effect.  Maybe you could clarify
it for me.  Basically, do you believe God planned the Atonement first and then required the
Fall or do you believe God planned the Fall first and then planned the Atonement?

Thanks,
Jim

1 Peter 1:20 indicates Jesus was foreordained before the foundation of the world to be the Savior of all of us:  Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

So yes God planned the Atonement before he created this planet.

And then later God placed Adam and Eve here on this planet.

And then later Adam and Eve fell from the glory of God they shard with him in the garden of Eden.

But I would not say God caused Adam ad Eve to fall.  God just knew in his infinite wisdom and foreknowledge of what had not happened but what he knew would happen that they would eventually fall.

[2BizE]

On 3/20/2021 at 10:56 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

All those in the temple, performing the liturgy are as real as you and me.  According to Anglican Bishop Tom Wright, the Garden of Eden is a temple, and the story of Adam & Eve is a "temple story."  He made that statement without any reference to the LDS POV.  The account in Genesis is liturgical, same as it is in any LDS temple today.  That includes the original performance in which God and Lucifer play themselves according to the preset liturgy.  All is figurative and symbolic, but the consequences are real.  In other words, no one eats an actual piece of fruit, and no one is created from a rib.

You will find another occasion in which Lucifer performs his appointed function as accuser/prosecutor in Job.  On that occasion, it is a formal court trial.  The story does not have to be a real account, but merely a parable to have full effect.  Same applies to the highly liturgical Song of Songs.

I agree with Bishop Tom Wright, the creation story is not real but symbolic. There was no fruit or snake or rib to take out....it was a way of telling a concept of how humankind started based on limited knowledge.

[Robert F. Smith]

45 minutes ago, 2BizE said:

I agree with Bishop Tom Wright, the creation story is not real but symbolic. There was no fruit or snake or rib to take out....it was a way of telling a concept of how humankind started based on limited knowledge.

Based on limited and primitive human knowledge, yes, but not at all based on an absence of reality.  It is only that reality is depicted in symbolic form.  Once our childhood is over, all can become clear and symbols are no longer necessary.

[InCognitus]

On 5/13/2021 at 9:31 AM, theplains said:

On 5/7/2021 at 1:19 PM, InCognitus said:

So which came first?  The plan or the cause?

I believe the cause is the Fall.  The effect is  the need for the Plan of Salvation.  The cause
came first.

If the cause came first, then why (according to the Bible) did God set up and plan the atonement prior to the cause?

On 5/13/2021 at 9:31 AM, theplains said:

I don't understand if you view the Fall as the cause and the Atonement as the effect or if
you view the Atonement as the cause and the Fall as the effect.  Maybe you could clarify
it for me.  Basically, do you believe God planned the Atonement first and then required the
Fall or do you believe God planned the Fall first and then planned the Atonement?

I've already explained that several times in prior posts in this thread.  See also teddyaware's post on the infinite and eternal atonement.

[2BizE]

I wish this phrase was revered and used more in Mormonism. Also the statement to teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves.  Seems like these concepts have been hijacked by exact obedience and covenant path.

[theplains]

On 5/14/2021 at 5:52 PM, InCognitus said:

If the cause came first, then why (according to the Bible) did God set up and plan the atonement prior to the cause?

If God planned the Atonement prior to the cause, then that means God planned for the Fall and
wanted Adam and Eve to disobey him in the Garden of Eden.

It appears you believe the Fall is the effect and the Atonement is the cause.

[theplains]

On 5/13/2021 at 2:40 PM, Jamie said:

But I would not say God caused Adam ad Eve to fall.

But would you say God wanted and needed Adam and Eve to fall?

[theplains]

On 5/13/2021 at 1:19 PM, teddyaware said:

The key theological element you’re missing is that in Mormonism the atonement of Christ is infinite and eternal and therefore exists outside of time as an ever present reality that has always existed,

Do you believe the same about the Fall?  If no, does that mean the Atonement caused the need
for the Fall?

[JLHPROF]

25 minutes ago, theplains said:

But would you say God wanted and needed Adam and Eve to fall?

I would.

[JLHPROF]

26 minutes ago, theplains said:

If God planned the Atonement prior to the cause, then that means God planned for the Fall and
wanted Adam and Eve to disobey him in the Garden of Eden.

It appears you believe the Fall is the effect and the Atonement is the cause.

Actually the path through mortality leads to the atonement.  It's not cause and effect but an unavoidable journey.  Within the USA you cannot drive from New York to LA without crossing the Mississippi.

You cannot get from creation to resurrection without the atonement.  It's not cause and effect.  It's natural development.

[InCognitus]

2 hours ago, theplains said:

If God planned the Atonement prior to the cause, then that means God planned for the Fall

"IF" God planned the Atonement prior to the cause?   The Bible clearly says that God planned the atonement "before the foundation of the world".  So why make this a hypothetical question?   Obviously God planned for the fall by providing us a Savior in the beginning before creation began.  Why do you dispute this?  Do you not believe what the Bible says?  Please explain.

2 hours ago, theplains said:

and wanted Adam and Eve to disobey him in the Garden of Eden.

You're repeating yourself again.  You tried to suggest that God would have "wanted" Adam and Eve to disobey him in this post here, and I addressed your argument here.  And in trying to twist the fall into God "wanting" them to disobey, you don't even recognize that you have the exact same problem for God's plan for the atonement of Jesus Christ, since that plan depended on God "wanting" evil men to disobey him to kill his Son on the cross.  In the response I made to this argument previously, I explained that God used his foreknowledge of men's actions to further his plan.  It's not that he "wants" them to behave a certain way, he simply knows what they would do.

2 hours ago, theplains said:

It appears you believe the Fall is the effect and the Atonement is the cause.

More repetition.  You said this before here, and I responded here.