Eljay asked the following question in another thread. But that thread had already been overly hi-jacked. So I thought I'd start a new one for this topic concerning God's Master Plan.

Eljay wrote:
“Do you have any examples of "self-inconsistencies" in the Bible? Please post a couple, so that we can have a logical debate as to the merits of your arguments."

I’ll just post one until we get it resolved because I see the tendency is always ignore the real questions.

So here the “self-inconsistency”

God is supposedly All-knowing and All-powerful and he has a Master Plan. It is also said that he is ‘perfect’ so let’s just toss that in there too. Those are givens and if you like to reject any one of these I’m all for it, but let’s make it know what’s been rejected if that’s the case.

Let me list them here again for clarity.

God is,…

1. All-knowing
2. All-powerful
3. has a Master Plan
4. is “perfect”

There are other attributes we could list but these is all we need for now.

Ok, so we begin with an All-knowing, All-powerful, ‘perfect’ God who has a Master Plan. He creates a heaven and the angels.

This is his FIRST creation. However, it evidently isn’t ‘perfect’ because 1/3 of his angels aren’t happy in his heaven. Now you can argue that it’s the angels who aren’t prefect, but God created those angels too!

So the normal thing is to chalk it up to the idea that he gave them FREE WILL and they ‘chose’ to rebel. It was their own choice and somehow wasn’t God’s fault.

Fine, let’s blame it on the angel's Free Will and give God a pardon on this one. It wasn’t his fault. Despite the fact that he is All-knowing, All-powerful, and ‘Perfect’ with a Master Plan. His first plan failed. Seems like this would be strike one against the idea that he’s ‘Perfect’ . His Master Plan didn’t work out, and surely he knew that it wasn’t going to work out ahead of time because he’s all-knowing. And in spite of the fact that he’s all-powerful he couldn’t prevent the disaster.

So his first creation failed to work out the way he had panned it (unless of course he actually DID plan it to work out that way). But if the latter is the case then God chose to create evil purposefully as it was part of his Master Plan, and therefore the angels had NO CHOICE but to rebel.

In short, Eljay, you just can’t have your cake and eat it too. Either God screwed up, which flies in the face of all the attributes that are given to him, or he himself is responsible for creating evil and did it PURPOSEFULLY. This means that no one every had a choice in the first place! They had no choice but to rebel.

But, that’s not even my question. Please notice that there are NO QUESTION MARKS in any of the above. I didn’t ask any question yet. I simply stated the facts that are proclaimed to be true by the Bible and how they are self-inconsistent.

Now let’s move forward.

So the Devil and his band of rebellious angels confront God and God prepares a place for them and casts them out of his heaven. They have been banished by the all-powerful God. That should be the end of them right? After all, God cast them out and made a place for them. That’s where he placed them, and that's where they should remain.

So now God decides to try another creation. He makes the physical world and creates all of the animals and man. Again he creates everything perfectly without a flaw because he’s a ‘perfect’ God.

But THEN, what happens? The Devil comes along and screws it all up by coercing Eve to disobey God!

Some even claim that it wasn’t really Eve’s fault because the Devil convinced her that it would be alright (but that’s a whole other story).

The bottom line here is that the Devil (who was supposedly cast from God’s heaven) is now screwing with God’s new creation!

How could that be? <---- There’s the question!

How could it be that the Devil can screw with God’s creation after God had banished him to a prepared place? How did the Devil escape? Why would an All-Powerful God allow the Devil to screw up yet a SECOND creation?

God is supposed to be all-knowing (not just of what’s happening at the moment, but of all future events too!) Therefore not only did God know at the moment that the Devil was tempting Eve, but he knew it was going to happen before he ever even created her. He KNEW ahead of time precisely how things were going to unfold. And if he didn't then he's not all-knowing.

So to answer my own question, I say that there are only TWO possible answers.

1. God really isn’t All-powerful and All-knowing, in which case he’s not all he’s cracked up to be.

OR

2. It was God’s plan all along for things to turn out precisely the way they did thus proving that no one ever had a choice!

You would need to come up with a THIRD alternative. One which does NOT include “FREE WILL” as an excuse. The idea of FREE WILL does NOT explain how the Devil was able to screw with God’s second creation after he had been cast out of God’s heaven.

Evidently it REQUIRED the Devil to tempt Eve. We all KNOW that a woman would have been too busy looking for new shoes and therefore wouldn’t have had any time to be thinking about disobeying God on her own!

Besides, the Bible CLEARLY STATES that the Devil Tempted Her! So this has nothing at all to do with FREE WILL. That’s not the question. The question is.,…

How did the Devil Escape from where God had banished him, to come back and screw with God’s second creation without God’s PERMISSION?

Either God wasn’t powerful enough to stop him.

OR

This was all part of God’s Master Plan and no one ever had a choice in the first place.

OR,… perhaps you have a third explanation that doesn’t just try to sweep it under the façade of free will?

Free will does NOT explain how the devil escaped from where he had been banished to come back and screw up God's second creation.

god is only the symbol for the things we dont understand and as science and technology progress god gets smaller and smaller

magic man

you finally did it didn't

i just can't believe it



i never expected any one to actually do it

but you did

sometimes amazement does happen simply amazing

you finally explained it

no everyone will know it is true what i say

i am sure you know of what i speak

which is

organized religion ===== the root of evil

amazing simply amazing

Abracadabra,

1) I posted that, not Eljay.
2) Theodicy is nothing new, I have answered this question a number of times in these forums. I recently posted a link to a website which has several very good answers to theodicy.

The question is based on a faulty premise. Your assumption is that the Garden of Eden was supposed to be eternally perfect. God's plan was to test His creations to see if they will choose good over evil. Therefore, Satan didn't screw up God's plan, Satan unwittingly futhered God's plan. For a full answer, follow the link I supplied in the previous thread.

adj4u,

Theodicy is hundreds of years old, Abra didn't make it up, it's been asked millions of times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy

spidy

adj4u,

Theodicy is hundreds of years old, Abra didn't make it up, it's been asked millions of times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy
------------------------------------------

i did not say he made it up

i said he explained what i said

>We all KNOW that a woman would have been too busy looking for new shoes and therefore wouldn’t have had any time to be thinking about disobeying God on her own!


ABRA!!


pssssst..... only on clearance

looking for new shoes

only on clearance

i missed that entry about malls shoe stores

did the angels build those or was it the demons again

in case the snake did not work

Spider wrote:
“Theodicy is hundreds of years old, Abra didn't make it up, it's been asked millions of times”

Thank you spider.

Obviously if it has been asked millions of times then there has never been given a satisfactory answer.



Keep thinking on it, maybe some day you'll come up with one and surprise everyong.

Yokoke wrote:
"pssssst..... only on clearance "

Yeah, I forgot to add that.

Spider wrote:
"Therefore, Satan didn't screw up God's plan, Satan unwittingly futhered God's plan"

So then you're agreeing with my second conclusion,...

This was all part of God’s Master Plan and no one ever had a choice in the first place.

Thanks again Spider.

You always come through for me.

the answer to the question is that he gave all free choice. next question?

rambill wrote:
"the answer to the question is that he gave all free choice. next question?"

You obviously didn’t understand the question Bill.

The question is, “How did the Devil escape from where God had banished him?”

Free will cannot be the answer to that question.

If the Devil has the free will to leave the place where he had been banished to then it would be meaningless to have banished him there in the first place.

Try again.

but magic man

have you not heard the phrase hell on earth

Robin wrote:
"but magic man

have you not heard the phrase hell on earth"

Yes, but that's only because of organized religion.

If it wasn't for that earth would be heaven.

back to evil again

why does it always go back to evil


insert head scratching emoticon here

Abracadabra,

==============================================================
The question is, “How did the Devil escape from where God had banished him?”
==============================================================

He hasn't. Satan was banished from heaven to Earth. So Satan is still here. You probably thought Satan was in Hell. Satan doesn't want to go to Hell, Satan and all His demons fear Hell, because it is just punishment for their actions.

==============================================================
This was all part of God’s Master Plan and no one ever had a choice in the first place.
==============================================================

That's not what I said at all. God has a plan to test His creations to see if they are good or not. If we or the angels lacked free will, then it wouldn't really be a test, would it? God is wise and all knowing, so no matter how much we (or Satan) trys, we are used to further God's purpose. If you follow God's path, then you pass the test. If you don't follow God's path, then you test others. Either way, it works out in God's favor. That is not because your decisions are made for you, but because God is the source of all wisdom and He knows the hearts of His creations.

>did the angels build those or was it the demons again

For Jesus, who is the very image of God, there was no split between spirituality and technology. Peter, James and John were fishermen, Paul was a tent-maker, they were all people who used technology. God can "dwell" in a Temple. And our cultural spirit has its temples including shopping malls. Our technology also expresses both the best and the worst of our spirit.

So I would say the angels may have built the malls, but the Devil's demons are in charge of the Clearance Sales...

Spider wrote:
“That's not what I said at all. God has a plan to test His creations to see if they are good or not.”

Well again, you’re just agreeing with me.

If it is God’s Master Plan to test His creations to see if they will choose evil, then he had no choice but to create evil in the first place.

So there you have it again. The Devil had no choice but to become part of God’s Master Plan. Without the Devil God’s Master Plan would be meaningless.

You just keep agreeing with me like a broken record.

Abracadabra,

You seem to take a lot of joy out of twisting what others are saying, why is that? It's still a lie and a lie is a sin, even if you think it isn't.

God didn't create evil, evil isn't a thing. Have you ever gone into a store and bought "evil"? Evil is word that describes an action. Since we all have free will, we choose to perform evil actions. God has nothing to do with evil, it is God's creations who do evil. Nobody "creates" evil, evil is NOT a thing.

Haven't read the whole thread yet, but point of interest and amusement for me Abra. Eve would NOT have been too busy looking for new shoes to listen to the "devil/serpent" cause she hadn't listened to him yet and didn't know she was supposed to be wearing shoes cause she didn't learn fashion sense until after eating of the tree of knowledge, which is probably why snake skin shoes and boots are so friggin 'spensive.