Thread: Did God Predestine Judas to Betray Christ?

Originally Posted by Cardinal TT

Added after Fuegos comment below
I don't agree with Colonels last paragraph and agree with Fuego

Pulling him down to our level ? I was thinking of statements like this :

victoryword : God has made Himself known and pretty easily understood

Compare to :

Rom 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!

Originally Posted by fuego

Well, I don't think anyone is trying to pull God down to human level in this thread. I just think some are asking questions and want scriptural answers rather than "because He wouldn't be God if (insert reason) wasn't so." There's a lot of that kind of answer to these kinds of questions from people. Not based on anything other that what attribute(s) the individual thinks God would need to have 'to be God' born out of their own preconceived notions about God not necessarily based on scripture.

I think the problem in this thread is rather that people would like Time to exist independently of God and then go with that because that both makes things easier to understand from a human perspective and also it makes God easier to understand once he has been subjected to operating solely within time. As hansc pointed out, it boils down to who supercedes what. My basic premise is simply that nothing supercedes or is above God. God is God in the absence of everything else.

It does boil down to how we define TIME.....from a scientific viewpoint time exists with the creation of matter and hence first began when the universe was created

What about the angels....if they were created before the universe then even as spirit beings it is logical to assume that they lived under time

Before there was the physical universe and the created spirits like angels there was only God

We can only speculate in what realm he existed....was there time in this realm....my belief is that he existed independant of time

We should be able to agree that humans exist only within our time. How do we know that the angels didn't exist in a different universe with a different time while our creation didn't yet exist at all ? How do we know that our "time" permeates all of existence including God's fundamental abode ? We seem to agree that God at least exists independently of time.

A hypothetical scenario. Even if creation had existed eternally (without beginning) that doesn't mean that any attribute of it would supercede or exist independently of God. Godless scientists and thinkers try to arrive at the non-existence of God by way of arriving at an eternally existing Universe but that doesn't cut it. God would still be the fundamental cause of this eternal universe, including its timeline without beginning or end. Just because it would exist eternally does not imply that it is self existing, God is still the one who causes it to exist. At any and every point in time and space. Without him, it would not and would no longer exist.

To break it down so a little child can understand.....God is so big and powerful he can hold the universe in his hand like we hold a tennis ball

Originally Posted by Cardinal TT

To break it down so a little child can understand.....God is so big and powerful he can hold the universe in his hand like we hold a tennis ball

My version is simply that God exists without needing to rely on anything, including time. Then that everything else relies completely on him, including time.

Here is a passage that focuses on God in the fundamental sense. It does not name him the Father but it does make him distinct from specifically the person of Jesus Christ :

1 Tim 6:13 In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you
14 to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15a which God will bring about in his own time

Then it focuses in on who God fundamentally is :

15b God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords,
16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

* He is unapproachable in his abode of light
* Noone has seen him
* Noone can see him

That would include every human being who ever lived and for all of eternity. And every other being he has ever created. Why is that ? Probably because the verse is focusing on God's fundamental characteristics, the one who isn't placing himself inside his creation in order to interact with his creatures. Plenty of human beings have seen him manifested in various ways inside his creation, and of course also his angels have. Why can noone approach him or see him in that light ? It could be because our attributes as his creatures do not allow us to fit into that abode. Nor are we supposed to fit in there.

It could be a matter of God existing in an infinite-dimensional space instead of the four he has created for us. That is just an idea. The truth could be even more complicated. As quoted earlier, Romans 11:33 does say that his paths cannot be searched out. If it is as simple as "infinite dimensional space" then I just did, didn't I ?

Originally Posted by Colonel

victoryword : God has made Himself known and pretty easily understood

Compare to :

Rom 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!

How about leaving Scripture in its context:

Romans 11
33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?

1 Cor. 2
14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.

God says that we are to UNDERSTAND and KNOW Him:

Jeremiah 9
24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.

Under the "mystery religion" espoused by many on this forum, the above passage is meaningless. However, what is really interesting is that many of you actually claim to have an understanding of God in relation to His knowledge and time but when your philosophy contradicts clear Scripture teachings on these subjects then the claims is that God is "unknowable". If that is true then stop pontificating about stuff that you all claim is unknowable.

Or admit that you embrace your own philosophical view about God and you do not care one iota about whether or not it makes sense or contradicts Scripture.

Victoryword, I just concluded above that I can not possibly have reached a full understanding of who God is, not even at the level I was discussing him. The Spirit searches out all things - that is true, but Paul also says :

1 Cor 13:9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.
11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror (ancient mirrors were flawed and fuzzy); then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

So no, God is not easily understood. Maybe Christ understood him fully and was thereby able to consecrate himself fully. We have his mind but only upon having been fully transformed into his image will our minds be fully according to the mind of Christ and understand fully. We are light years away from that.