GOD and SATAN the confusing definations

I think God knows the past present and future because He exists outside of time, so for God the future has already happened and the past is happening right now. If you spin a top, you are aware of all the sides of the top simultaneously because you are above and eyond the top. An Ant crawling on the top would look out to see a series of movements in the world. Similarly, we experience time as a series of events, but God, existing above and beyond time percieves time as a thing and all the events are simultaneous to HIm. God gave us the ability to choose because freewill is a greater good than mechanical or robotic good. However, just because He allows us to choose does not mean we can do evil and expect not to be punished. God did not force us to do evil, in fact He explicitly instructed Adam what not to do and what the consequences of disobedience would be. Finally, God's punishment is done in love. He uses discipline to try to correct our behaviours before it is too late, and those who choose evil over good, who choose in essence seperation from God are punished because God loves the rest of us enough to give us justice for the wrongs done against us. The ability to choose does not imply that all choices will be correct. It is good for men to obey God, far better to love Him. However, love is only possible if the lover has the ability to love or not love. If I marry my wife then lock her in the basement just to make sure she doesn't cheat, her love is forced, and is not really love at all. If I instead allow her to go into the world and interact with others, she has the choice whether or not to love me and be faithful. If she chooses to cheat, there are consequences up to and including permanent seperation from me, but the risk of losing her forever is justified by the far greater reward of her unforced, unfaked love. It is the same with God.

Though not a complete satisfactory explanation, many points in your argument should be complimented and agreed upon. Till now I feel this explanation is most convincing to a large extent. Yet there are questions raised. Will come back to you soon (in a hurry to go somewhere :-)

Thanks for the response. If it is so, how would you define this "God is the maker of our destiny" . If you agree god is ultimate and he is omnipresent, future-past-present then again we are contradicting the argument you put forth. WHy we have the choice to do good when we say that if we are bad then god will punish us !! I mean may be I am putting it in a simple language, The gist of it is we say God is above all causes. Its human to have a cause, then we are contradicting the destiny.

Thanks for the response. If god wanted us to know the difference between good and bad, it is meaningless. The absence of bad itself is good, and every preacher of religion says god wants us to be good to each other and so on... Human is Human, we created windows and viruses because we had a monetary cause for it. If your argument holds good then whats the meaning of saying god is the maker of our destiny ??

Dude, sorry but I am refraining myself from this. This is a never ending discussion and would only drive me crazy. :-)

I understand pal.