Why Did God Plan for the Fall of Man?

[makesends]

Did God really cause the Fall?

Or, did God not prevent the choices made by Adam and Satan which resulted in the Fall?

Stop running away and trying to hide in a chamber of complexity.

Asking whom?

 

[GeneZ]

Asking whom?

Anyone who can think with integrity.

It was a "simple" question.

 

[makesends]

He could have made us incorruptible and immortal at creation. So we are back to the question---why didn't He? And even it that was the long range purpose in Jesus coming, the eternal purpose, which it is, it is the corruption and its cause---sin--that Christ came to abolish. In your scenario, at least without having it fleshed out, so on the surface, we have God creating something imperfect in order to recreate it perfect as the primary purpose of Jesus coming.

I accept the hypothetical as you intended it —you are not presenting an obstruction to the notion: That in fact God did create us incorruptible and immortal at creation; and he created also this temporal existence for that incorruptibility and immortality to be accomplished. I mention this because I think it is a useful way to look at his temporal creation.

But when you imply that he created beings already sinful, he did not. I'm hoping the statement was "for short".

 

[makesends]

Anyone who can think with integrity.

It was a "simple" question.

Your "chamber of complexity" is the human mind, that makes blatant assumptions for the sake of self-determinism, such as to parse between God causing the fall vs God failing to stop it from happening. Nothing can happen apart from God's original causation.

 

[Arial]

A corruptible mortal person need not become corrupted in order to become incorruptible and immortal.

Nowhere does scripture state a person MUST sin.

But----it is what happened. And not without the knowledge God before He created us.

Sin is not necessary for humans to partake of Christ.

We were once good, unashamed, and sinless and expected to eat from the tree of life. Being corruptible we disobeyed God and in that act all humanity was corrupted. Having previously been corruptible, we than became corrupted. There is a huge difference between the two. Onto that difference is added our removal from the tree of life's presence and access. The tree of life was foreknown as the perfect blemish free sacrifice. He has always been the way, the truth, the life, and the only means by which anyone comes to the Father (and no one can come to Christ unless the Father drags him/her there).

If God is immutable (and He is immutable), then not a single iota of this is a contingency. God is not out there thinking, "What if.....?" Oh! I guess I ought to make a plan for that!" That is why, imo, this op fails.

I agree.

I think there is a lot that is made known in scripture that is ignored in the typical discussion of God planning for the fall.

I agree with that too. But there is also much we don't know because we are not told. It is going beyond that, or trying to, in ascertaining "why did God plan for the fall?" that we take a thousand wrong turns. He didn't plan for the fall. When He created the world for us to live in and then created us, He was not planning what He would do if man fell.

Yes, and He tells us.....

• Humans are made good, unashamed, and sinless.
• Humans do not have to sin.
• Humans are made corruptible, not already corrupted.
• Humans are made mortal.
• Humans have limited volitional agency.
• Some humans will one day be made incorruptible and immortal.
• Other humans will be destroyed (however one construes the scripture to define that).
• Jesus was foreknown as the perfect sacrifice.

Yes.

• Jesus is the life, the resurrection, and the only means by which anyone comes to God (including sinless man).

And it's that last line that is usually neglected. Because the still good, unashamed, and sinless Adam and Eve living prior to Genesis 3:6-7 were corruptible and mortal, they needed the tree of life. The tree of life is the necessity, not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus, the tree of life, is the only way even for those who have not sinned. He is not the life only for those dead in transgression. NO ONE, not even the sinless person, can come to God apart from Christ. John 3:18 applies to Pre-disobedient Adam and Eve just as much as it does post-disobedient Adam and Eve. I do not care how good and sinless a person is, if they are not calling upon the name of Christ they stand already condemned.

Again, I agree. Christ always was and always will be. He always was the life, the way, and the truth. However, there are no sinless men, Adam changed the character of sinless man into sinful men through God's decree of federal headship. A creature who by nature sins as it both dwells in him and crouches at his door. This was not God's doing. The decreed consequences and directly spoken to Adam were God's doing. Unholiness cannot dwell with holiness and it cannot be allowed to live forever. And that is what Christ came from the Father as one of us to deal with. Woulda, coulda, shoulda is irrelevant.

Jesus's purpose in creation is not dependent upon the existence of sin. When a fruit is removed from its tree it dies. Its seeds, if planted will grow and produce more fruit, more trees, more fruit, more trees, etc. Sin kills.

There seems to be a bit of conflation here. His purpose in creation---He is God after all----and His purpose in His incarnation. His purpose in the incarnation was to deal with sin and death once and for all through the redemption of a people for God.

No contingency plan is needed for the fall.

Agreed.

 

[Arial]

I'm not going there because there is no need to limit the answer to the question of this op to just one book of the Bible. Neither is there any reason to limit the answer to soteriology or eschatology. A bad Theology and/or Christology is going to lead to errors in everything else, including any answer to the question asked in this op.

I wasn't limiting anything to anything. I was addressing what you said.

 

[GeneZ]

Your "chamber of complexity" is the human mind, that makes blatant assumptions for the sake of self-determinism, such as to parse between God causing the fall vs God failing to stop it from happening. Nothing can happen apart from God's original causation.

Neither could your state of mind for that matter apart from God's original causation.

God is not a boogeyman.

There are fantastic answers to be found that seem inscrutable at first. But, not found without securing needed raw materials (categorical Bible doctrines) to have The Holy Spirit put answers together at the right time in God's plan.

Until that can happen? For some, a form of a sub clinical panic mode is experienced due to the assumption that what is needed to understand with must remain unknowable until after we die.

Yet, God wants us to have inner peace and happiness in this lifetime.

What gives? Using the same deficient approach that always fails ... and persisting in it? Is a form of spiritual insanity.

That was not directed towards anyone in particular.

grace and peace ............

 

[Arial]

I accept the hypothetical as you intended it —you are not presenting an obstruction to the notion: That in fact God did create us incorruptible and immortal at creation; and he created also this temporal existence for that incorruptibility and immortality to be accomplished. I mention this because I think it is a useful way to look at his temporal creation.

Except for the fact that if He created us incorruptible and immortal then we would be unable to be corrupted. And if we were immortal we would not be subject to death. We became corrupted and that corruption produced death.

But when you imply that he created beings already sinful, he did not. I'm hoping the statement was "for short".

I did not imply that and I do not see any way in which I did, "for short" or otherwise.

 

[Josheb]

How does your post above answer the question of what went on in the spiritual realm before God----?

1 Peter explicitly states Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world as the perfect blemish free sacrifice and he was revealed in those last times.

1 Peter 1:20-21
For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

That answers the question, "What went on in the spiritual realm before God?"

However, I will argue dichotomies like "spiritual" and "earthly" or "physical" are false. They are the assumption to be avoided. Before the heavens and the earth were created there was only God. No dichotomies of any kind. Because the heavens and the earth are created at creation - together - any dichotomy that asserts absolutely no overlap, no share domain, is the assumption needing proving.

Christ was foreknown as the perfect sacrifice. That's what went on in the spiritual realm before God.

I think it is a presupposition to assume that Christ came for any other reason than to atone for sin.

Again, scripture tells us quite explicitly we were sown corruptible/perishable and mortal. It just as explicitly states we (the saints) will be raised incorruptible/imperishable and immortal. That is the outcome.

1 Corinthians 15:42-54
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also, it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living soul." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly. Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality....

Notice Paul said flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom. Adam and Eve were flesh and blood. Even in their good, unashamed, and sinless state they were flesh and blood. According to 1 Cor. 15:50 they could not have inherited the kingdom of God. Notice also Paul says, "sown perishable." The word here in the Greek means decay or rot or corruption; that is why I use the word "corruptible." Otherwise "perishable" and "mortal" are unnecessarily redundant, and the reader misses the distinction about which Paul is writing. We might think Paul was referencing "perishable" as a consequence of being sinful but if that were the case he would have to use the word, "perished," or "corrupted" (past-tense). He does not use that ending. Instead he says, "perishable," or corruptible."

1 Corinthians 15:42-44
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

Paul appeals to the "sowing" of a perishable body. Who is the sower? Who did the sowing? The body of flesh and blood God "sowed" into the world was good, unashamed, and sinless but it was perishable. It was not already-perished. The body buried is sown perished, not perishable. That guy who gets tossed in the grave is twice-dead; he's died once in sin and then again died physically. He is not perishable, he is perished. Perishable AND mortal.

So there is reason to KNOW, not assume, Paul is writing about something other than the effects of sin.

Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God and humans were made corruptible and mortal not corrupted and not immortal. All of those conditions existed prior to Genesis 3:6

The Bible unequivocally tells us that is why He came.

Yes, it does but not a single one of those verse uses the word "only".

 

[Arial]

1 Peter explicitly states Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world as the perfect blemish free sacrifice and he was revealed in those last times.

1 Peter 1:20-21
For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

That answers the question, "What went on in the spiritual realm before God?"

No it doesn't. It tells us who Christ is and was and always shall be.

However, I will argue dichotomies like "spiritual" and "earthly" or "physical" are false.

And yet the Bible uses those dichotomies repeatedly.

They are the assumption to be avoided. Before the heavens and the earth were created there was only God

That assumes that God created nothing before He created the heavens and the earth.

Because the heavens and the earth are created at creation - together - any dichotomy that asserts absolutely no overlap, no share domain, is the assumption needing proving.

Do we occupy the same time and space as the angels? As that great cloud of witnesses gathered around His thorne? As those who were redeemed in the OT? As our own redeemed loved ones? Are we said to be seated in the heavenlies with Christ and yet at the same time we are here physically? Does the Bible speak of the visible and invisible, and tell us or things that exist but are not seen by us?

Christ was foreknown as the perfect sacrifice. That's what went on in the spiritual realm before God.

Not before God, but before He created our world. And that was certainly foreknown, but is that everything that took place in the spiritual realm?

And after that you segue into another topic which I really do not feel like addressing as doing so would depart another couple of miles off the OP.

 

[sawdust]

I'm not going there because there is no need to limit the answer to the question of this op to just one book of the Bible. Neither is there any reason to limit the answer to soteriology or eschatology. A bad Theology and/or Christology is going to lead to errors in everything else, including any answer to the question asked in this op.

No separate, special, or dedicated plan for the fall is needed because God and His plan for creation is unaffected by sin. There are no contingencies for an omni-attributed immutable God. Adam eats the forbidden kiwi and God says, "Meh." He tells Adam, "That's going to be a problem for you, Adam, but it's not a problem for Me," and proceeds onward with His original unadjusted plan because that plan has not been adversely impacted at all. Jesus is still coming into creation just as he was always going to do. He lives and dies and is resurrected and ascends exactly as he was always going to do. Those who place their faith in him are going to be raised incorruptible and immortal whether or not the ever sin or not because Jesus is the only way any corruptible and mortal human is ever raised incorruptible and immortal. A plan for the fall is not needed.


Assuming a plan for the fall is needed is where the op first failed. In this particular case, it is a presuppositional failure, a foundational error that should not have been treated as a given.

Are you saying Jesus didn't die for sin, He died for immortality?

 

[GeneZ]

Are you saying Jesus didn't die for sin, He died for immortality?

Wait for the pin ball to stop zipping and bouncing around before asking such a question.

 

[sawdust]

Wait for the pin ball to stop zipping and bouncing around before asking such a question.

I thought I better clarify now as the score didn't look right.

 

[Josheb]

No it doesn't. It tells us who Christ is and was and always shall be.

...in the spiritual realm before God. There wasn't any heavens and earth when Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world. God is Spirit. Before anything and everything else was created there was only God.

And yet the Bible uses those dichotomies repeatedly.

Yes, it does.

There are valid dichotomies and there are false dichotomies. Distinctions between "spiritual" and "physical" are often false because there is a lot of overlap between the two in scripture.

That assumes that God created nothing before He created the heavens and the earth.

No, that is not an assumption. Scripture plainly states, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," (Gen. 1:1) and "All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being," (John 1:3), and "by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities—all things have been created through him and for him" (Col. 1:16).

Nothing existed prior to creating the heavens and the earth is not an assumption. It is the plain reading of scripture. Theologically we call this ex nihilo creation, or creation created out of nothing.

Do we occupy the same time and space as the angels?

Yes!

There are angels encamped all around you and me. They are ministering spirits sent to those who inherit salvation (Heb. 1:14). Just because I do not see them does not mean we do not share the same space and time. Even our sharing space and time differently does not mean it is not the same space or the same time. In fact, if our current cosmological understanding proves correct then space and time are simply different functions of gravity or, more accurately, singularity.

So, yes, we do occupy the same time and space as the angels when they come here . That does not preclude angels from have a far greater range of travel than humans. Nor does it preclude humans from seeing or being brought into the heavenly realm(s).

As that great cloud of witnesses gathered around His throne? As those who were redeemed in the OT? As our own redeemed loved ones? Are we said to be seated in the heavenlies with Christ and yet at the same time we are here physically? Does the Bible speak of the visible and invisible, and tell us or things that exist but are not seen by us?

Not before God, but before He created our world. And that was certainly foreknown, but is that everything that took place in the spiritual realm?

And after that you segue into another topic which I really do not feel like addressing as doing so would depart another couple of miles off the OP.

You do know no one forces you to respond to anything anyone posts, yes?

..... really do not feel like addressing....

Then don't.

And after that you segue into another topic which I really do not feel like addressing as doing so would depart another couple of miles off the OP.

Everything I have posted is directly relevant to this op's inquiry.

 

[Josheb]

Are you saying Jesus didn't die for sin, He died for immortality?

Well, technically Jesus died for us while we were dead in sin. He did not die on behalf of sin; he died on behalf of sinners . The distinction between sin and sinner is sometimes very important.

Yes, of course Jesus died for sinners. He came to destroy the works of the devil. He came to bring life, and life in abundance. He came to do the will of the Father. He came to heal. He came to call sinners.

I can cite scriptures explicitly stating every one of those reasons.

Not a single one of the verses describing why Jesus came contains the word "only." Jesus did not come ONLY to heal lepers and blind folk and then leave without doing anything else. Jesus did not come ONLY to teach and then leave with a bunch of folks possessing new lessons without any redemption from sin. Jesus did not come ONLY to preach repentance and then not pay for sins we'd committed.
.
Jesus did not come for just one reason.

One of the MANY reasons Jesus came was to provide a way for flesh and blood to inherit the kingdom of God. Another of the MANY reasons Jesus came is so that the perishable and mortal could have imperishable and immortal eternal life on the other side of the grave.




And those last two are very necessary to answering the question asked in this op because even the good and sinless Adam was mortal and needed to be made immortal. He needed the tree of life even in his good and sinless pre-disobedient state.


God did not have to have a special plan for the fall. Assuming a plan was necessary is where the onus should lie in this thread. It should not be treated as a given. Especially not because of our anthropomorphic dilemma. The answer to this op's inquiry is simple: The immutable omni-attributed sovereign Creator has a plan for creation that is not in any way affected by the fall. His plan proceeds as He has always intended because his pre-existing plan covered all possible occurrences without any need for their being contingencies. Christ came to make the corruptible and mortal incorruptible and immortal and the fact that the corruptible became corrupted did not change the pan one bit.

 

[makesends]

Neither could your state of mind for that matter apart from God's original causation.

God is not a boogeyman.

There are fantastic answers to be found that seem inscrutable at first. But, not found without securing needed raw materials (categorical Bible doctrines) to have The Holy Spirit put answers together at the right time in God's plan.

Until that can happen? For some, a form of a sub clinical panic mode is experienced due to the assumption that what is needed to understand with must remain unknowable until after we die.

Yet, God wants us to have inner peace and happiness in this lifetime.

What gives? Using the same deficient approach that always fails ... and persisting in it? Is a form of spiritual insanity.

That was not directed towards anyone in particular.

grace and peace ............

I can understand the perplexity, but Job, at one point, might tell us God does not want us to have inner peace and happiness in this lifetime. For many many years I prayed urgently (to put it mildly) and still do, for obedience, for Godliness, for understanding and wisdom —both good and commanded things— but instead he showed me I can do nothing apart from him, and I found peace and happiness in the joy of knowing HE is doing all this for HIS sake, and letting me watch. The security of knowing that this is all up to him, and not up to my fickle, ignorant, presumptuous will, (though I must and can't help but pursue him), is overwhelmingly satisfying to me. Let God be my judge! He is merciful, trustworthy.

The difference is me asking ignorant, self-important questions, as if they actually had any meaning in and of themselves. (Once again, CS Lewis, "...the babble we think we mean.")

"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled". Christ is our righteousness.

 

[GeneZ]

I can understand the perplexity, but Job, at one point, might tell us God does not want us to have inner peace and happiness in this lifetime. For many many years I prayed urgently (to put it mildly) and still do, for obedience, for Godliness, for understanding and wisdom —both good and commanded things— but instead he showed me I can do nothing apart from him, and I found peace and happiness in the joy of knowing HE is doing all this for HIS sake, and letting me watch. The security of knowing that this is all up to him, and not up to my fickle, ignorant, presumptuous will, (though I must and can't help but pursue him), is overwhelmingly satisfying to me. Let God be my judge! He is merciful, trustworthy.

The difference is me asking ignorant, self-important questions, as if they actually had any meaning in and of themselves. (Once again, CS Lewis, "...the babble we think we mean.")

"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled". Christ is our righteousness.

Not to get sidetracked. But since you brought up Job.

Why did God instigate Satan to go after Job to test him?
Satan had been bypassing Job because God had been protecting Job.

Then the LORD said to Satan,
“Have you considered my servant Job?
There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” (Job 1:8)

Why would God actually desire for Satan to put Job through the wringer?

Job went through undeserved suffering.

Why would God want that to happen?

grace and peace ...............

 

[makesends]

Except for the fact that if He created us incorruptible and immortal then we would be unable to be corrupted. And if we were immortal we would not be subject to death. We became corrupted and that corruption produced death.

I did not imply that and I do not see any way in which I did, "for short" or otherwise.

Your answer is temporal.

Let me expand a bit on what I was getting at. Atheists love to demand an answer to the apparent problem, that if God is all-powerful, why did he not create his finished product that we will see in the end? Why not make the believers immediately complete in heaven? Why go through all these thousands (or billions) of years? Well, I believe that in one sense he did. I think he spoke the completed product into existence. And these many thousands (or billions) of years of trouble and corruption and death and vanity is how he did it.

So in that sense he can immediately make us incorruptible and immortal, though we do not yet see it so. God's creation was not only what we consider past. It may well be that from his POV we already are what we, from our POV, are not yet. This "already but not yet" sort of thing shows up quite a lot in Scripture. But our POV is a vapor compared to God's reality.

 

[fastfredy0]

I've been pretty much excoriated for suggesting that the way God did things is the only way it could have been done, to produce the effect he "planned" to effect. We don't know all the nuances as to why, but to me, a hypothetical in such matters is useless. It is akin to the Arminian claiming that someone could actually have chosen what they did not, as though God's predetermining does not establish, but rather violates the reality of choice.

Why is comes to sin coming into the world Calvinist's tend to change their theology and flee to "free will" as the explanation or "it's a mystery".

 

[fastfredy0]

So in that sense he can immediately make us incorruptible and immortal, though we do not yet see it so. God's creation was not only what we consider past. It may well be that from his POV we already are what we, from our POV, are not yet. This "already but not yet" sort of thing shows up quite a lot in Scripture. But our POV is a vapor compared to God's reality.

The "God has no succession of moments" type thinking?
My POV always gets confused in such matters.

Aside: Similarly, I heard God lives in 11 dimensions ... what ever that implies/means.