Some Questions that I can't get out my head

[trainers]

Wondered if anyone could help me answer a couple of questions.

I was at an easter service yesterday and the subject of the crucifiction came up (as you might expect). And these questions came to me.

Question 1
If God sent Jesus to die on the cross.

And people have free will to decide what they do.

What would have happened if the people who killed Jesus had decided they didn't want to kill him or they just hadn't gone down that route.

What would have happened to God's plan?

Question 2
When Jesus said to the theif on the other cross "today you will be in paradise with me" what does Jesus mean because I had thought Jesus went to hell until the resurrection.

Can anyone help me?

Gosh, they're some whoppers of questions!

I think the usual answer to 1 is that, even though the individuals had free will, God was still able to predict how they would react - because the religious leaders were the way they were at that time, they would not accept Jesus and God understood them well enough to know that this would be their reaction. Same with Pilate - because of who he was, and the position he was in, he was really very likely to end up acting the way that he did. That doesn't mean that free will has no effect - we don't know but there might have been individuals amongst the Roman soldiers for example who decided not to take part when they were humiliating Jesus, because they chose not to. But as a group, they did react in that way, even if some individuals didn't IYSWIM?

The "today you will be in paradise with me" is also tricky - you're right, the Bible says that Jesus doesn't go straight to paradise, but goes to hell (or the place of the dead) until the resurrection. But it also seems to say that when believers die, they will not be aware of any passage of time until the end of creation - so perhaps he was saying "so far as your consciousness is aware, you'll go straight from dying here to being in paradise with me" rather than trying to explain it to the guy in more complicated terms?

Hi MumInScotland thanks for your reply, I think I understand the answer to the second question, that time may be different in the here after. However, I think the free will question is one I will ponder for a while.

I am now thinking perhaps if God can look at time, as a whole, he could perhaps see when it is most likely that people would kill Jesus and thus fulfil his plan.

But this feels weird, why would he do this? He is hoping people will kill Jesus and what of these people, will they be forgiven? Will they forgive themselves?
Can I ask is he then using these people to fulfil his plan?

Sorry more questions, I think I have always struggled with the crucifiction.

I think you are getting there with context.

The parables Jesus told would have been understood a certain way.

Likewise they would have understood 'sacrifice' in terms of someone dying for others.

Seems strange to us, a gamble you might say but was perhaps easy to predict knowing the context of the time.

God wouldn't just be looking at the current leaders and predicting their actions. Since it was all planned he must have known from the time he created the world.

trainers

What if? That's the big thing. As a Christian, I have a very hard time getting my head around the sovereign will of God.

I don't necessarily believe that God "micro manages" events here on earth. God gives us free will to make decisions here on earth and we exercise that liberty on a daily basis. However, I believe there are some circumstance where God intervenes.

As I said, it's a subject I struggle to get my head around but I accept it for what it is.

With regard to your second point. When looking at scriptural matters, we need to examine scripture whilst looking at the scripture in the context it was written (like you would any piece of literature).

Scripture doesn't say that Jesus went to hell. There are a few verses that are quoted as support but quoted out of context. Most notably Matt 12:40 when it says "the Son of Man be 3 days and nights in the heart of the earth" - no mention of hell there. Just the heart of the earth.

Well it certainly says that both jesus and the criminal on the next cross went straight to heaven.

Luke 23:42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
Luke 23:43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

hell or she'ol literally means the grave...a place of inactivity...

"Today" may have a different meaning to what we use.

?But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.? (II Peter 3:8)

Dante has a lot to answer for with his portrayal of hell (& purgatory & paradise).

"Today" may have a different meaning to what we use"

I think you have to get away from the extra-scriptural view of hell.

Hell is simply separation from God (under teh penal substitution view of theosis). Paradise, mentioned only two other times in the NT, is a place rather than a relationship.

Fire and brimstone made good art, but it is not what the bible says, either directly or tangentially. The Reformation put things right.

As to Hell, my church has a footnote in the service book for the creed, against the term "Hell", saying that it means "the place of the dead" - ie it's where people went when they died, not necessarily hell in the sense that medieval Christians have handed down to us.

My view of the "straight to heaven" issue may have more to do with science fiction than traditional Christian belief, but I think it helps me to get my head round it.

The created universe exists within God. Time is part of the universe and would be meaningless outside of it (physicists would have to explain why that is, but I think it's generally agreed). So, if God is also outside of the universe then God must have an awareness which is not limited to the way that we experience time within the universe. So, as Trainers says, God can look at time and make decisions.

But that still leaves us with big questions - I don't think we're going to have any clear answers in this creation, but my guess is that there was something about that time that made it the "right time" for God to become incarnate and change the relationship between God and humanity. And if that was the right time, then it had to be done in a way that would work for those people and their understanding of God. And sacrifice made sense to them - it was a major part of how they tried to relate to God. So God becoming incarnate, and being the "full and final sacrifice" would have somehow "worked" for them.

Oh that didn't explain the "straight to heaven bit". But if God is outside of the universe (as well as in it), then we can "leave" the universe - our souls could leave it when we die - and immediately be in the "something else" with God outside of time as we know it. And we'd all arrive at the same "time" even though we died at different times IYSWIM.

Hmm so since no one wants to believe jesus meant "right now" it either has to involve being outside time or that jesus was using a special code. Seems like a long way to go not to accept a statement at face value.

But lots of points anywhere for the 'outside time' explanation as that does work. I'm impressed

ST's 'a thousand years is a day' didn't work as it doesn't say 'after 1 day' or after '24 hours' but 'today' or 'this day' meaning 'the day we are in right now' (I even checked the translation)

Well, perhaps he was being comforting to the guy - instead of saying "Well, you'll die and be buried but in 3 days I'm going to rise again, and your soul/spirit/personality/selfawareness will at that point return to awareness in exactly the same state as you left it, but in paradise, so that'll be great, won't it?" I know which version I'd rather hear in the circumstances - I don't think I'd be in the mood for a complex theological debate about exactly how it was going to happen, just that I'd pop straight from here to there in the wink of an eye, so far as I knew about it.

I rather think the point of 'Today you will be in paradise with me' is much more about the effect of the faith the thief on the cross showed. Best example in the NT of salvation being available for anyone, and coming through faith, not a good life.

All these posts are great and the fact that I'm more confused now is totally by the by!

I am still thinking about whether God used Pilate and co or not?

MyThoughtsNow

If Pilate (as an individual) had lived in a different time and was born into a different culture would he have done the same thing?
Did God take advantage of Pilate and the time and culture in which he lived?
or was Pilate evil?
Who made the decision that Jesus should die was it God or Pilate?
Did God use a soceity at a certain stage in history to enable Jesus to die and hence save everyone?

trainers, what you're asking about is the extent of God's 'Sovereignty', and tbh, you're going to get different answers from different flavours of Christian.

I'm basically what's often termed a 'Calvinist', so my view is that God ultimately is in control of everything. He masterfully weaves our own decisions into His bigger picture. It's not like a puppet master, though, it's more that He makes us who we are, and knows our weaknesses, so in His complete knowledge of everything, our decisions are part of the plan.

Other Christians believe different things about this, and have debated the topic for literally centuries.

I'm not a Calvinist (not sure what I count as TBH) - but I'd say that God picked the optimum place and time and set of circumstances at which to intervene and make a change. I don't know why that was the optimum point to do it, or how things would have worked out if it had been done differently. The idea of God "using" people to achieve an aim is one which feels negative, but I think God did take an opportunity which was there because of the way the people were. I don't think that God manipulated the people involved, or that there was anything except their freewill acting on them, but somehow all the pieces were in the right place for God's action to have a huge effect - like clipping a snooker ball at just the right angle to bump several others and make the pot.

Waiting thousands of years to pick the right moment seems odd. Whatever advantage the crucifixion/gospels gave to mankind was denied those who lived before that time.

Oh you could argue that they all benefit from being forgiven, but that implies that their not knowing about it made no difference either way. In which case there can be no point in spreading the word now.

If there is a point to spreading the gospel then you are back to the pre-christian people being denied it.

You don't even need to specify what the advantage was to see that as grossly unjust.

Although I'm not religious (in the slightest) it is a fascinating debate as to whether everything is predeterminated, and presumably foreseen by God, or whether we have free will. As I understand it, different branches of Christianity believe diametrically opposing things - I think Catholics believe in free will, but others like Calvinists don't, and others seem to believe something in the middle (um, I think).

At the risk of being staggeringly simplistic, how does it work for people who believe in predeterminism? I mean, don't you just do whatever you fancy as if you were damned you've been damned for all eternity and there's nothing you can do about it and vice versa? And how does it work if you're in the middle - which decisions are made under free will and which one's arent?

Can open, worms everywhere!

lol, well, I'm a bit lacking in brain power - today is a pretty bad day for me, anniversary of a death, so apologies if I don't make a lick of sense.

The way I understand it is that it's all about perspective. From my perspective, I have a certain amount of autonomy (no one has completely free will, I'm afraid - you can't will yourself to have blue eyes if you have brown etc.), and I try and live as though everything depended on my making wise and good choices.

But, when things get hard, and I don't understand, I find it a great comfort that, despites my mistakes, or the bad things that have happened to me that were outside of my control, they were all part of a bigger picture.

Corrie Ten Boom used the metaphor of a tapestry - from the wrong side, it just looks like a jumbled mess. From the other side, it's clearly been planned out and is beautiful. I'm hoping God is a better tapestry maker than I am, tbh.

It is almost possible to reconcile free will using the 'out of time' thing. If god is standing at the end of the universe then he can say what happens at a particular time without removing free will, since it has already happened. For example you freely chose to have tea or coffee this morning.
You cannot change that choice now so an observer can say that you had tea without removing your free will.

However it all falls down if god intervenes at all. If he reaches into the year 2009 to answer a prayer or to suggest someone change their ways in BC 2100 then he changes everything after that.

Some have said he makes promises not prophecies. That would mean he has the intention of interfering to make things go his way.

Others say he predicts based on his knowledge of how we were made. This is tricky too since the predictions must be absolutely reliable. That would mean he made us and said "hmm I have designed man so that the first one will eat the apple, a leader in about AD 30 will crucify my son and in the year 2009 one called onagar will be an atheist who gets on the nerves of decent christians"

In which case we were designed to be clockwork toys with no free will and therefore no responsibility for our actions. All scripted in advance and everything that happened was what god wanted to happen

Yes, I've always been dubious as to the school of thought that says either we have partial free will or we have the illusion we have free will. It seems to me (probably naively) that we either have free will or we do not.