Thistle
Well-known member
I may have started this conversation in the deep end. So perhaps I should go back and take it a little more slowly. God decided to create a universe with a large variety of creatures. But one creature in particular was going to have moral agency such that he could love God after the same basic manner that God loves him. God doesn't need anything. So God didn't need to create the universe. And creating the universe God didn't need to put creatures in it. And having decided to put creatures in it God didn't need to put a creature who can love him back. But if there is going to be a creature that can love him back it has to be able to exercise volition the same way God exercises volition. This creature must have free will with which to voluntarily love God. So God created this universe filled with creatures, but only one creature needs to be aware of God and that creature is the one who could love him back.So basically "God" our creator is saying we cannot be?
Now I need to back up and talk about God. Most people are pretty familiar with the quantitative attributes of God like immutability, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. There's also qualitative attributes of God and the two big ones that most people are familiar with and these are his biggest qualitative attributes from what we can glean from the Bible, love and holiness. I'm gonna focus on holiness. When we speak of holiness as a qualitative attribute of God it means moral holiness. There is a kind of holiness that is a quantitative attribute of God and that is called ontological holiness. Ontological holiness means that God is set apart in his much as he is not contained within the universe he transcends the universe. This is what we mean when we say God is transcendent. That's not what we're primarily concerned about here. Gods qualitative holiness is moral holiness. When we say that God is morally holy what we literally mean is that there are certain things that God will never do. Likewise there are certain things that God will always do. And in the same fashion there are certain things that God might choose to do in accord with his volition. If you could comprehend all of that Godly behavior you would have a perfect description of God's moral holiness.
Now I can return to the subject of God's moral agents man. Man at a certain level of maturity comes to recognize that he is a moral agent and when he recognizes that he is created by God and that God is as the Bible says "holy, holy, holy," the man is on notice that he is not to violate the holiness of God because God is his creator. Because God is our Creator we have an absolute obligation not to violate his holiness.
Why is that, you may ask. Remember above when I mentioned that God is immutable. That is to say God does not change. If God is "holy, holy, holy" that means that he is holy to a superlative perfection which is absolutely complete. I also said above that God is omniscient, which means that when he decided to put in his universe a moral agent (man) he knew that man would choose to violate his Holiness.
How could God possibly do that if he is "holy, holy, holy?" God could only create man (who would violate his Holiness) if at the same time he schedules judgment day on which to balance the scales of justice condemning man for his violation of God's holiness.
By creating man (who would violate his holiness) and scheduling judgment day (to balance the scales of justice) at the same time, God's holiness is not destroyed on the fulcrum of his mutability. God cannot be less than God even for a moment, so we know that God had to schedule judgment day the moment he decided to create a man who he knew would sin.
Now you might be objecting "but wait a minute, didn't you say above that God is love? How could God possibly be love if he is going to create man who will violate his Holiness only to be thrown into the fires of hell for all of eternity?"
You're absolutely correct, God could not create man only to be thrown into the fires of hell for all of eternity! To do so God would destroy his love on the fulcrum of his immutability, and God cannot be less than God even for a moment. So in order for God create man (who would be judged for violating his holiness on judgment day), God must also schedule the cross (so that the punishment for man's violation could be covered by God's on propitiation for sin).
So because God has created man, and scheduled a judgment day, and scheduled the cross, all at the same time, he has not destroyed his holiness, or his love, on the fulcrum of his immutability, proving that he is God, and is never not God, even for a moment.
This may be more explanation than you had in mind, but we can now answer your question above. We can "be" as you say, because God scheduled the cross and we can rely on what he said in John 3:16 and 17.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him." - John 3:16-17 RSV
I hope my comments above clarified…That seems more like Satan to me .....
God is infinite and no one else that we know is, therefore it can be a little bit of a challenge to get our mind around the universe from his perspective. There are limits to which we can achieve this, but I hope what I said above is sufficient to understand the points that I made.Theology get's kind of weird.
Last edited: