14 May 99

Dear Friends,

This week's Sabbath School lesson begins with the assertion: "God knew before He created humans that they would sin." No supporting evidence is offered for this belief. Perhaps however, it is based upon the following Ellen White quote:

"The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was a revelation of 'the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal.' Rom. 16:25, R.V. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God's throne. From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He foresaw its existence, and made provision to meet the terrible emergency. So great was His love for the world, that He covenanted to give His only-begotten Son, 'that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' John 3:16." --DA 22 (1898).

Did God from the beginning "know of the apostasy of Satan" as future possibility, or as a certain historical event?

If from the beginning, God foresaw sin's existence not as possibility inherent in freedom, but as a certain choice to be made in the future by a specific being at a specific time, in what sense could sin be a "terrible emergency?"

We ourselves accept the possibility of terrible emergencies and make provision to meet them. That's why we have police, ambulances and emergency rooms. Why do our emergency vehicles run to and fro making loud noises? Because we know future emergencies as possibilities, not as actual events.

Suppose we retained our present moral concern for the wounded, but could also see future emergencies as events. Would we not place the ambulance at the site of the foreseen event? Having made such preparation, could we again foresee the event? Would our foreknowledge now include the ambulance? Might the presence of the ambulance change the nature of the event?

If we could choose between stationing the ambulance and mending the defective guardrail, which would we do? If we chose to fix the guardrail, would we still need the ambulance? With the guardrail fixed, what became of our foreknowledge of the tragedy?

Remember the above speculation is based upon mere human morality. Surely God is our moral superior. Did God make generous provision to deal with the "emergency" of evil, or did God plan evil? If God knew "in the beginning," before He created Lucifer, that Lucifer would invent evil, why did God invent Lucifer? Did God have free choice in this matter? Or was He compelled by some still higher authority, to create the creator of evil.

I fear we are wandering into a swamp.

To God is the future, like the past, a linear series of events? Is He powerful or powerless to direct the history He foresees? Does God's mastery of the future lie in the fact that He has fast-forwarded the video tape?

Or to God is the future rich in possibilities and alternatives? Can our all-knowing and all-powerful God see all possible futures, preserve the freedom of the actors, yet masterfully cope with the results of all their free decisions?

If "God knew before He created humans that they would sin," and if God was Himself free to create humans or not, and if, knowing the exact result, He chose to create them anyway, God did not risk evil; He planned evil.

If God planned evil, He is himself evil.

There is an alternative:

Perhaps God knew that in freedom there is risk, for good or evil. Yet God so valued freedom that He accepted the risk, granted freedom, protected freedom, and gave His own life to preserve freedom. Such a God could allow others to freely choose evil, without Himself being evil.

The God I know is not evil, but good. May He bless our study of the Sabbath School Lesson.