Is God's plan working?

[OnceConvinced]

In another thread:

If he hides, he hides very well - but why?

I think this would be a very good argument if the majority of the world were atheists. Since many seem to have "found him", his plan seems to be working out quite well.

So here we have a claim that God's plan is working well as the majority of the world believe in him. However the statistics show us that only actually around a third of the world's population believe in the Christian god.

So questions for discussion:

How can we tell how many of that 33% of the world's populations genuinely believe in the Christian god?
How can we tell how many are actually kidding themselves and worshipping a false version of the Christian god?
How can we tell how many have an accurate belief in this god?
Is God's plan to save mankind really succeeding at all?

[ttruscott]

Furthermore, God has planned that everyone repent so that none will perish.

2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

So is that plan working?

ImCo, this verse cannot be interpreted as you would have it because your interpretation contradicts other verses of the bible which is anathema to Christians.

What you seem to be saying here is the words in this verse don't actually mean what they say and that other verses trump this one. There is no card game here that I am aware of.

I write that Christians hate it when people use one verse to contradict another and you then claim that must mean 1. I don't think the verses mean what they say and 2. other verses trump this one???

Let me correct you about my thinking: the verse means what GOD wanted it to mean and is interpreted to mean what we think it means. No verse contradicts another and if any interpretation contradicts another, something is wrong with the analysis of the verses and they should be re-evaluated to bring them into resolution.

[dio9]

[Replying to post 45 by OnceConvinced]

The world was doing good enough before We humans showed up and will continue on its merry way after we are gone. The world was doing so good in fact as to have evolved human beings. Just because no one can rationalize the whole amazing thing doesn't mean there isn't a divine principle at work woven through all the many things. This law , plan if you will, does not stand solitarily outside the world but is deeply part of it. Its a mistake to look for the plan somewhere abstractly outside when the place to look for the working plan is in the world itself. The universe is working .

[ttruscott]

Who says anything about MAKING someone knock? It is his will that NONE should perish. To avoid perishing one must knock at the door of God and ask him to come in. It can't be done any other way.

If one choses not to knock then God has failed to convince that person that they need to knock.

Are you referring to Revelation 3:20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.?

Your insistence HE cannot convince some people to accept HIM is inarguable but to make that HIS failure and not theirs is arguable. Is it a failure that if you dunk a cat in a tub of water that the cat gets wet? It is an inevitable natural consequence, not anybody's failure. In the same way we were warned that to reject HIS deity and HIS promises of election and salvation would make us eternally evil unable to be brought to righteousness and therefore only fit to be banished from HIS reality and we see the natural consequences of some people, Satan et al, choosing just such a rebellion.

More than one person has argued here that no free will to sin would make a happier life for us but I can't get past the idea that without a true free will decison to love or to marry, there can be no true love nor true marriage.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

In another thread:

If he hides, he hides very well - but why?

I think this would be a very good argument if the majority of the world were atheists. Since many seem to have "found him", his plan seems to be working out quite well.

So here we have a claim that God's plan is working well as the majority of the world believe in him. However the statistics show us that only actually around a third of the world's population believe in the Christian god.

So questions for discussion:

How can we tell how many of that 33% of the world's populations genuinely believe in the Christian god?
How can we tell how many are actually kidding themselves and worshipping a false version of the Christian god?
How can we tell how many have an accurate belief in this god?
Is God's plan to save mankind really succeeding at all?

If one is going to claim that God is omnipotent and omniscient, then one must accept that God has a plan and that everything is going exactly according to that plan. As it surely must. So when one looks around and considers the state of the world, what they are seeing is God's plan in action.

Many Christians in fact rejoiced at the election of Trump, seeing this as evidence that God's will is being done. Apparently God was off walking in another part of the garden both times as Obama was being elected, and was unaware of what was transpiring behind His back. There IS precedent for this in the OT.

[ttruscott]

So when someone chooses him freely, then God's plan that they don't perish has worked. However if they choose to reject him, then his plan that they don't perish has failed.

HE did not have a plan that none would perish since HE created us with the possibility that some would chose to reject HIM and so perish...

the Scripture quite plainly states that he is WILLING that NONE shall perish. You don't see that as a plan on his part? God's will usurps everything and everyone.

Since this denies our free will which denies any true guilt for our sins and that GOD cannot be loving, I must reject. HIS WILL BE DONE cannot refer to the free will decisions of HIS creation except that they must choose. Since Jesus talked of hell, I cannot see that HIS unwillingness that any should perish can mean what you are claiming it must. To me it must mean that HE did not create us with the desire for us to end in hell but that did not stop people from choosing by their free will the unforgivable sin since hell is talked written about in the Bible as real.

Fail from the get-go, Ted, fail. It's the only logical way we can look at it.

Hardly, my take is just as logical and within the meaning of the words as yours without contradicting other verses like your position does.

I just don't buy into your claims that only the elect qualify for salvation.

The interpretation that all the good stuff comes to the elect and none to the non-elect is
pretty standard except in Pentecostal services, Ephesians 1:4-5 Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, being a pretty strong linking of our election/being chosen and HiS predestination of our lives.

The thing is here if God has been rejected and God accepts that, then he has given up and failed in his mission.

His mission was to let us choose to accept or reject HIM so someone rejecting HIM is not a failure of HIS plan.

His plan was also that none should perish. Please send your objections to Peter if you don't like what he says.

I have no argument with him as I'm pretty sure it is you that is interpreting him wrongly.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Since this denies our free will which denies any true guilt for our sins and that GOD cannot be loving, I must reject. HIS WILL BE DONE cannot refer to the free will decisions of HIS creation except that they must choose. Since Jesus talked of hell, I cannot see that HIS unwillingness that any should perish can mean what you are claiming it must. To me it must mean that HE did not create us with the desire for us to end in hell but that did not stop people from choosing by their free will the unforgivable sin since hell is talked written about in the Bible as real.

This raises two questions.

First, where does the Bible implicitly promise humankind free will?

And second, if no God exists, then free will is a NATURAL STATE OF EXISTENCE, is it not?

If God exists and is omnipotent, then free will is an illusion. If no God exists then free will is a natural condition.

[Kenisaw]

So when someone chooses him freely, then God's plan that they don't perish has worked. However if they choose to reject him, then his plan that they don't perish has failed.

HE did not have a plan that none would perish since HE created us with the possibility that some would chose to reject HIM and so perish... HE created us with the plan to separate all those who wanted to live with HIM in a marriage relationship from all those who scorned HIS offer. This plan succeeded perfectly.

Exactly. He created us, so we can only do what is possible under his creation of us. So doing evil and sinning was part of his creation, which is why we can do it. And we were created like that by a being that IS love. Screams love to me...

[Kenisaw]

[Replying to post 44 by OnceConvinced]

the Scripture quite plainly states that he is WILLING that NONE shall perish. You don't see that as a plan on his part? God's will usurps everything and everyone.

An introduction to theology would clarify this. Contradiction does not fall under the Omnipotence of God.

To ask that God bestow free WILL and in the same case withhold it is a contradiction: a nonentity which looks like a rational statement but is really like saying, "A blue square is as round as a yellow cat". Its nonsense.

Yes it is. So the claims in the Bible that both things are going to happen is nonsense, as you state.

By the way, the omnipotence of the Bible god does contradict with the characteristic also attributed to the god that it is all knowing. It also contradicts with the claim that is all love...

So, no, God is not willing that any should perish, but he has given us the right to choose him.

You read Ezekiel lately? We sure seems more than willing to have all sorts of peeps perish. Or is this one of those conversations where the Canaanite war god called Yahweh incorporated into the OT is ignored...Good thing the god is all love and good and stuff...

You are a free creature.

With no right to choose to be born, and labeled with a sin because of what some gal ate off a tree back in the day. Your definition of free is a little different from mine.

Are you not rather happy that no great power is interfering with your will to choose as you please?

Assuming we actually have free will you mean. Since our brains run as deterministic computers, I'm not sure we can even say that we have free will...

According to Christianity, that is God's gift to you.

Was the original sin just a bonus prize for being one of the first 7 billion callers?

Now, if Christianity is true, that would only mean that you are happy with the ability to reject God, and he has graciously said, "Okay, if that is what you want."

I'm very happy with my ability to reject a god incapable of deceit and lie that put billions of pieces of data and empirical evidence in the universe that directly contradicts the stuff found in the book of it's "word"...assuming free will isn't just the uncertainty found in quantum mechanics...

I don't see the problem. He has given you the option, and you have gotten what you want.

I would agree. You don't see the problem.

[ttruscott]

Since this denies our free will which denies any true guilt for our sins and that GOD cannot be loving, I must reject. HIS WILL BE DONE cannot refer to the free will decisions of HIS creation except that they must choose. Since Jesus talked of hell, I cannot see that HIS unwillingness that any should perish can mean what you are claiming it must. To me it must mean that HE did not create us with the desire for us to end in hell but that did not stop people from choosing by their free will the unforgivable sin since hell is talked written about in the Bible as real.

This raises two questions.

First, where does the Bible implicitly promise humankind free will?

It is implied in our being counted guilty for the evil we chose and do and it is implied in GOD being characterized as morally good yet evil is a reality.

And second, if no God exists, then free will is a NATURAL STATE OF EXISTENCE, is it not?

I don't think so...we would still be a complex of our genes and our experiences which deny our free will.

If God exists and is omnipotent, then free will is an illusion.

Nice try with this opinion, what is your proof, to follow the lead of the secularists here?

[ttruscott]

So when someone chooses him freely, then God's plan that they don't perish has worked. However if they choose to reject him, then his plan that they don't perish has failed.

HE did not have a plan that none would perish since HE created us with the possibility that some would chose to reject HIM and so perish... HE created us with the plan to separate all those who wanted to live with HIM in a marriage relationship from all those who scorned HIS offer. This plan succeeded perfectly.

Exactly. He created us, so we can only do what is possible under his creation of us. So doing evil and sinning was part of his creation, which is why we can do it.

Funny how you leave the word possible out of what HIS creation contains.

Rather, to fit Christian doctrine, it should read "He created us, so we can only do what is possible under his creation of us. So doing evil and sinning was a possible part of his creation, which is why we can do it." When HE created us, evil was not part of HIS creation but the possibility of it becoming a part certainly was. Then by our free will we made it a part of HIS universe, not just a possibility any more.

I also contend that a love chosen by our free will is greater than the love we get if someone else chooses who we are to love and then makes us to love him/her....your sarcasm aside. Without free will you cannot get the love you laud so loudly but with free will you also get the possibility of evil.