Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: dcatla!mclek@gatech.edu (Larry E. Kollar) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: He loves me, He loves me not, He loves me, He... Message-ID: Date: 5 Aug 89 01:23:02 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: DCA Inc., Alpharetta, GA Lines: 43 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I can't agree with the premise that God hates sinners (or a non-elect). If this were the case, it would be better -- and probable -- that such people *were never born.* I believe (best not to presume to absolutely know the mind of God -- see Job) that He hates the sin and love the sinner. This is going to get pretty metaphysical, but I'll keep it short. Point 1: God, being all-powerful, can easily know whether a newborn will become saved. Point 2: If God knows our fate at birth, our fate is sealed. God cannot be wrong. Premise: God wants us all to accept His gift of His son, who died & went to hell so we didn't have to. Given the above, could an all-powerful God *choose not to know* whether someone *will* be saved or not? He would know when a person accepts Christ when it happened, of course. But perhaps the unsaved have the benefit of the doubt until death, so that they have every possible opportunity to hear of and receive His gift. Just another electronic target for y'all to shoot holes in. -- Larry Kollar ...!gatech!dcatla!mclek : life BEGIN funds @ enough_to_retire < WHILE work REPEAT ; [Actually, the problem you mention is not necessarily fatal. Most people who believe in predestination believe that causality happens on two levels, so that the fact that something is determined on God's level doesn't rob decisions of their reality on the human level. If you're not familiar with this, I'm sure someone can amplify it. Thus your point 2 does not necessarily follow. However your proposal is an interesting one. It is distantly related to a model of the incarnation referred to as "kenosis", self-emptying. Someone has commented that the real miracle in the universe is not the existence of God, but the existence of anything else. How could a self-existent, omnipotent being leave room for anything else to be real? In some sense the existence of people as independent agents has to involve some decision on God's part to allow us an independence which "naturally" would not seem to be ours. You suggest that he does so by voluntarily failing to exercise some of his powers. Do you see any Scriptural evidence for any of this? --clh]