This letter about why God makes people who will ultimately be damned from the Eastern Church Father perspective is truly enlightening. I find it more satisfying that the Western Church Fathers who generally held that God made them knowing that although they would be damned God would ultimately bring more overall good to be than if they had not lived at all.
Why did God make the damned? He didn't. He made the man in his image and the man freely chose to make the choices leading to damnation.
One question that did pop into my mind is this: God did not know the ultimate choice the man was going to make until He formed him in the womb. From that point, God knows the man's future ultimate choice. It sounds like the Lord knows all the man's future life choices as well. Or does God know the in-between choices only as they are made? As God says to Abraham, "NOW I know that you truly fear God".
If God does not know whether we will be saved or damned until He makes us (because we are not a thing that can be known before we are a thing), then He knows all our future choices from when we are formed in the womb, then what is His knowledge of the wife I would choose to marry and my children and others who were born after me? Are those lacunae in His future knowledge of me until they are "fleshed out" themselves? Is God's foreknowledge of all my future free choices like a movie that can be watched or is it more like He knows the tendency of my choices and my ultimate choice for or against Him?
David, thank you so much for your kind remarks. As soon as I have a free moment, I'll offer a reply to your specific questions. But in the interim, you may want to listen to my recent appearance on Faith Unaltered, where I discuss these issues at length. (Be warned, we run into technical difficulties on the live stream for the first 30 mins, but they do clear up; so hang in there.) Here's the link:
This letter about why God makes people who will ultimately be damned from the Eastern Church Father perspective is truly enlightening. I find it more satisfying that the Western Church Fathers who generally held that God made them knowing that although they would be damned God would ultimately bring more overall good to be than if they had not lived at all.
Why did God make the damned? He didn't. He made the man in his image and the man freely chose to make the choices leading to damnation.
One question that did pop into my mind is this: God did not know the ultimate choice the man was going to make until He formed him in the womb. From that point, God knows the man's future ultimate choice. It sounds like the Lord knows all the man's future life choices as well. Or does God know the in-between choices only as they are made? As God says to Abraham, "NOW I know that you truly fear God".
If God does not know whether we will be saved or damned until He makes us (because we are not a thing that can be known before we are a thing), then He knows all our future choices from when we are formed in the womb, then what is His knowledge of the wife I would choose to marry and my children and others who were born after me? Are those lacunae in His future knowledge of me until they are "fleshed out" themselves? Is God's foreknowledge of all my future free choices like a movie that can be watched or is it more like He knows the tendency of my choices and my ultimate choice for or against Him?
David, thank you so much for your kind remarks. As soon as I have a free moment, I'll offer a reply to your specific questions. But in the interim, you may want to listen to my recent appearance on Faith Unaltered, where I discuss these issues at length. (Be warned, we run into technical difficulties on the live stream for the first 30 mins, but they do clear up; so hang in there.) Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/live/h-iO6oeTpNE?si=AcrUU7mMJoVXSSFm