God's sovereignty and choice

[nebula]

I heard a teaching recently about God's sovereignty and how it relates to our freedom to choose.

Consider why God put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden to begin with. Why?

Long story short, the conclusion had to do with how God views choice.

The claim: God loves choice so long as it does not harm others.

So, God allows for anything (even legally) that enables choice, but He also desires laws against choices that will harm others.

[The_Patriot21]

Interesting thoughts, though would like to hear some solid scripture on this, because the one issue I have with it here is the tree-it was a choice that hurt others (the entire human race) so if God is only OK with choice as long as it doesn't hurt others, why did He give them THAT choice?

[Flsnookman]

I remember asking my pastor once why God would put the tree He did not want Adam to eat in the garden where it was easily accessible.. he answered "so we would have this conversation". God desires a personal one on one relationship with each of us. This is very hard for us to comprehend as it seems we are only in one place at one time while here on earth however God is everywhere all the time. When we stop looking at things from our limited human perspective and try and see things from God's perspective we begin to grow in faith. Obviously we will never fully comprehend God's perspective at least while we are here on earth, but in trying to do so we grow in our relationship with God.

We as humans tend to look at the events of the bible and try and see how they shaped all humanity when I believe we should look at these events and try and understand how they shaped our relationship with God. We waste far too much time trying to tell others how they should behave instead of trying to grow our own personal relationship with God. 

I do it and I have seen examples of everyone who posts here and elsewhere doing it and that's o.k., we are after all still human. I just think we should look inward and upward instead of down and outward. I will strive to do this more. Will I always be successful? Of course not, but it's the journey I need to focus on as my destination is secure.

Edited September 4, 2016 by Flsnookman

[Guest shiloh357]

1 hour ago, nebula said:

I heard a teaching recently about God's sovereignty and how it relates to our freedom to choose.

Consider why God put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden to begin with. Why?

Long story short, the conclusion had to do with how God views choice.

The claim: God loves choice so long as it does not harm others.

So, God allows for anything (even legally) that enables choice, but He also desires laws against choices that will harm others.

can you flesh that out a little bit?

[nebula]

1 hour ago, The_Patriot2016 said:

Interesting thoughts, though would like to hear some solid scripture on this, because the one issue I have with it here is the tree-it was a choice that hurt others (the entire human race) so if God is only OK with choice as long as it doesn't hurt others, why did He give them THAT choice?

OK, maybe I should have re-listened to the teaching and worded my into better. The point about the Tree just stood out to me the most.

His sermon had to do with God's government and government here on earth, and the point about the Tree was one example.

I would hate for the point to be lost over semantics. 

I did find this conclusion to be interesting.

[nebula]

3 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

can you flesh that out a little bit?

It was a 40 minute teaching. It would take a while. 

[The_Patriot21]

9 minutes ago, nebula said:

OK, maybe I should have re-listened to the teaching and worded my into better. The point about the Tree just stood out to me the most.

His sermon had to do with God's government and government here on earth, and the point about the Tree was one example.

I would hate for the point to be lost over semantics. 

I did find this conclusion to be interesting.

That's great, my question still stands.

[Guest shiloh357]

15 minutes ago, nebula said:

It was a 40 minute teaching. It would take a while. 

Not the whole thing.  Kind of the main points.  Think:  "Cliff Notes." 

[nebula]

3 minutes ago, The_Patriot2016 said:

That's great, my question still stands.

Can you name one choice for evil that doesn't harm another down the road?

A example he gave in his explanation was as such:

God allows people the freedom to drink alcohol and to get drunk, and government should not make laws against such. But, the government should make laws against you then driving in your drunken state because you can injure and/or kill people that way.

So, by "hurt" or "harm", he was meaning directly physically injuring or killing someone.

If indirect or down the road hurt was included, then alcohol should be made illegal because alcoholism does hurt other people beyond the person.

 

Putting another twist on it - guns harm people. Should the choice of gun ownership be taken away to all because of this? It's the same principle.

[nebula]

4 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

Not the whole thing.  Kind of the main points.  Think:  "Cliff Notes." 

It would still take me a while to re-listen and transcribe such!

I'll try to get it by the end of the day.