Omniscience means fatalism.

Rosenritter

New member
It is plain from the account that none aboard the ship were to be lost, for God so stated. Paul knew this for he was told this. Per your view, Paul need not have heeded the warnings and made them plain to the men aboard the ship and all would have been well. Rather, the warnings served to stir up Paul such that the ordination of God that none would be lost on the ship, is made manifest. This is how what God ordains is actualized: by free, necessary or contingent, means.

No, the "per your view" part would be completely opposite to what I have said.

I suspect you did not take due care to review my provided content related to "conditions" in my earlier post. If you did, I see no interaction with them at all, merely you repeating what you initially asserted. My provided content answers your complaints and treats what may and may not be said when the word "condition" is being used in this context.

Using hypotheticals, as in "but without the warnings they would not" is not proper. We have the revealed word of God before us. Speculating about what God's secret will (Deut. 29:29) would be, absent what He has revealed, is a fool's errand. When God shuts His mouth, so should we.

AMR

I was reading what you said, it wraps around in circles until you've stated two contradictory things to exist at once, and where your prescribed behavior (which I might add, at least is the correct action and behavior) of heeding the warnings as if the consequences could also affect you does not actually match your initial stated premise.

But God has not shut his mouth as to his will, it's just that where he does state his will you keep saying it isn't really his will or that the words don't mean what they usually mean because it conflicts with your particular philosophy / world-view.

2Pe 3:9 KJV
(9) The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Mat 23:37 KJV
(37) O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

Don't change your approach to obeying warnings... but the Calvinist premise doesn't seem to help in other applications, and it certainly doesn't make sense when its practice requires that one ignore the premise.
 

genuineoriginal

New member
The Covenant of Grace is not conditioned in any antecedent manner on on any prior fulfillments, otherwise we could not have any such doctrine as "unconditional election."
If your "Covenant of Grace" is based on the doctrine of "unconditional election" then it is not based on the testimony of the Bible.
The history of God's Chosen (elected) People (the children of Israel) shows that the condition for remaining elect is righteousness.
 

Grosnick Marowbe

New member
Hall of Fame
The observation that Calvinist doctrine renders God to be unjust is absolutely right and true!

Have you ever wondered why the Calvinist cannot see it?

If you repeated this to a Calvinist 10,000 times, it wouldn't penetrate even once. My theory as to why has to do with their willingness to have alternate definitions for what would otherwise be easily understood terms. The words 'justice', ' reading of the Bible can be done in any other way! (e.g. Augustine) This, they say, is in keeping with the idea that people cannot come to God in faith (i.e. understand the Bible) until after they've been regenerated. This, of course, implies that only Calvinists are regerate and therefore only Calvinists believe the real gospel and therefore only Calvinists are really saved. Rarely will you find a Calvinist willing to state this outright but we have a few here on TOL.



Resting in Him,
Clete

Well done Clete. It is true that Calvinism appears to be at odds with the Bible. When I read the Bible, I see God's love shown through His willingness to sacrifice His only Son, in order for those who hear the Gospel of the grace of God and believe (Faith) might have: forgiveness of all their sins, the indwelling and sealing of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life. I see this 'Gospel' as being open to anyone/everyone, and not just a few, chosen before the foundation of the world. (Elect) As I've stated before, I first heard the 'Gospel of the grace of God' (As the Apostle Paul called it) in and around 1962-1963. I have abided with that same 'Gospel' for the past 56 years. (Over a half a century)

I have read the entire Bible: Cover to cover, word for word, and I have NEVER seen anything close to what your average Calvinist sees while reading the same Bible. (King James, New King James, and the New American Standard Bible) My choice of versions is at present, The New King James Bible. I believe with all my heart, mind, and soul, that Calvinists don't base their 'Biblical beliefs' by only reading the Bible itself. In most cases, they have been indoctrinated by the 'Calvinist belief system' somewhere along the line. Be it through a Pastor, church affiliation/denominational affiliation, another professed Calvinist, a Bible College, etc. I just do not believe they just opened the Bible and saw those particular doctrines pop out at them. I don't buy it for one second.

I was first introduced to Calvinism in the 1970s. When I used to live in Orange County, California, I listened to a radio station called: 'Family Radio.' They played good Christian music and had sermons by John MacArthur and others. (Presbyterians mostly) I even ordered some Cassettes by MacArthur. The main speaker taught that, if a baby died and was one of the Elect, they would go to Heaven, if not, they would go to Hell. He also taught that if a Christian Wife was married to a man that abused her physically, she MUST stay with him. For an short period of time (in the 1970s) I began to be indoctrinated into thinking that Calvinism might have some validity. That didn't last long. The Lord brought me back to the 'Gospel of the grace of God,' eventually. And, that's where I have remained. In conclusion, I didn't get my understanding of Calvinism from the Bible, but from an Calvinistic radio station.
 

Rosenritter

New member
Well done Clete. It is true that Calvinism appears to be at odds with the Bible. When I read the Bible, I see God's love shown through His willingness to sacrifice His only Son, in order for those who hear the Gospel of the grace of God and believe (Faith) might have: forgiveness of all their sins, the indwelling and sealing of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life. I see this 'Gospel' as being open to anyone/everyone, and not just a few, chosen before the foundation of the world. (Elect) As I've stated before, I first heard the 'Gospel of the grace of God' (As the Apostle Paul called it) in and around 1962-1963. I have abided with that same 'Gospel' for the past 56 years. (Over a half a century)

I have read the entire Bible: Cover to cover, word for word, and I have NEVER seen anything close to what your average Calvinist sees while reading the same Bible. (King James, New King James, and the New American Standard Bible) My choice of versions is at present, The New King James Bible. I believe with all my heart, mind, and soul, that Calvinists don't base their 'Biblical beliefs' by only reading the Bible itself. In most cases, they have been indoctrinated by the 'Calvinist belief system' somewhere along the line. Be it through a Pastor, church affiliation/denominational affiliation, another professed Calvinist, a Bible College, etc. I just do not believe they just opened the Bible and saw those particular doctrines pop out at them. I don't buy it for one second.

I was first introduced to Calvinism in the 1970s. When I used to live in Orange County, California, I listened to a radio station called: 'Family Radio.' They played good Christian music and had sermons by John MacArthur and others. (Presbyterians mostly) I even ordered some Cassettes by MacArthur. The main speaker taught that, if a baby died and was one of the Elect, they would go to Heaven, if not, they would go to Hell. He also taught that if a Christian Wife was married to a man that abused her physically, she MUST stay with him. For an short period of time (in the 1970s) I began to be indoctrinated into thinking that Calvinism might have some validity. That didn't last long. The Lord brought me back to the 'Gospel of the grace of God,' eventually. And, that's where I have remained. In conclusion, I didn't get my understanding of Calvinism from the Bible, but from an Calvinistic radio station.

Perhaps another question of measure: how many Calvinists are unacquainted with and do not use terms like "Total Depravity", "Unconditional Election", "Perseverance of the Saints", "Doctrines of Grace" "Reformed Religion" and so forth? Those are specific word phrases that aren't learned from scripture, they are rather an indication of having heard or received a specific training or teaching from people who do use those words.
 

Grosnick Marowbe

New member
Hall of Fame
Perhaps another question of measure: how many Calvinists are unacquainted with and do not use terms like "Total Depravity", "Unconditional Election", "Perseverance of the Saints", "Doctrines of Grace" "Reformed Religion" and so forth? Those are specific word phrases that aren't learned from scripture, they are rather an indication of having heard or received a specific training or teaching from people who do use those words.


Very good point.
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
So, I was thinking about this question about whether Calvinists are saved while driving too and from one of my jobs today and it reminded me of something that beloeved57 has posted in his signature.

It's a quote from Charles Spurgeon. It reads as follows...

"And I have my own private opinion that there is no such a thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else."​

B57 stops the quotation there but Spurgeon continued...

I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering, love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having believed. Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a gospel as that. We preach Christ and him crucified in a different fashion, and to all gainsayers we reply, "We have not so learned Christ." (Sermon number 98 New Park Street Pulpit 1:100)​

And to be clear about what Spurgeon was referring to when he spoke of Calvinism, he expressly refers to that Calvinism which he read in Calvin's writings and nowhere else...

Again, I must say, I am not defending certain brethren who have exaggerated Calvinism. I speak of Calvinism proper, not that which has run to seed, and outgrown its beauty and verdure. I speak of it as I find it in Calvin's Institutes, and especially in his Expositions. I have read them carefully. I take not my views of Calvinism from common repute but from his books. Nor do I, in thus speaking, even vindicate Calvinism as if I cared for the name, but I mean that glorious system which teaches that salvation is of grace from first to last. (Sermon number 385 Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 7:554)​

That is not to say that he believed Calvinism because Calvin taught it. In fact, he states clearly that, " I believe nothing merely because Calvin taught it, but because I have found his teaching in the Word of God." The point is, however, that Spurgeon's Calvinism is Calvin's Calvinism and not some watered down version where there is wiggle room inserted where Calvin's own words get uncomfortable.

Spurgeon then would agree with Calvin when he said the following...

“The devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how muchsoever they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as he permits, nay unless in so far as he commands, that they are not only bound by his fetters but are even forced to do him service” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17, Paragraph 11)

“Therefore, those whom God passes over, he condemns; and this he does for no other reason than that he wills to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his own children.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christia/n Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 1)

“We cannot assign any reason for his bestowing mercy on his people, but just as it so pleases him, neither can we have any reason for his reprobating others but his will.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 22, Paragraph 11)​

Most people who call themselves Calvinists DO NOT believe these things! Many of them wouldn't even believe you if you told them that these are direct quotes (translated of course) of John Calvin himself and will begin to get wobbly about the label of "Calvinist", saying things like, "Well, I don't take it that far." or something similar. These are the Calvinists that are almost certainly saved. They're Calvinists in name only and make up significant percentage of the Calvinist universe and make up a clear majority of Calvinists who are also Baptists. The real Calvinists, people like Spurgeon, Knox, Sproul, McArthor, beloved57, Nang, Nanja and, I'm sorry to say, probably AMR do not fit into that category and their salvation is very much in question for they believe in a god that does not exist and which would be unjust if it did.

To be clear, I do not say that they are not saved but that their salvation is in question. I would also say that, in my view, it seems wise to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are NOT saved and treat them accordingly lest they die thinking they've believed the truth when, in fact, they've placed their faith in an inherantly unjust idol that does not actually exist.

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

genuineoriginal

New member
Spurgeon continued...
nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having believed. Such a gospel I abhor.
(Sermon number 98 New Park Street Pulpit 1:100)​
It appears that Spurgeon chose to reject what scripture teaches, and that is why he believes in Calvinism instead of the Gospel.
 

Rosenritter

New member
It appears that Spurgeon chose to reject what scripture teaches, and that is why he believes in Calvinism instead of the Gospel.

Hebrews 6:4-6 KJV
(4) For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
(5) And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
(6) If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

But Jerry Shugart would correct the above so read "For it is impossible for the Jew who was once enlightened..." and "If that Jew shall fall away..."
 

Poly

Blessed beyond measure
Staff member
Administrator
Super Moderator
Gold Subscriber
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
The observation that Calvinist doctrine renders God to be unjust is absolutely right and true!

Have you ever wondered why the Calvinist cannot see it?

If you repeated this to a Calvinist 10,000 times, it wouldn't penetrate even once. My theory as to why has to do with their willingness to have alternate definitions for what would otherwise be easily understood terms. The words 'justice', 'righteous', 'fairness', etc simply has no meaning when applied to God in the Calvinist system. In reality they mean their opposites. Arbitrary reward and punishment is justice, creating evil people for the sake of creating evil people is rightousness, predestinating people to Hell for no reason at all, is fairness. And they think that simply rejecting such accusations and verbally insisting that "God is just!" is accepted as sufficient in their minds. The Westminster Confession states the following in Chapter III section I...

I. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.​

Here we have a statement that proclaims that God both is and is not the author of sin. The statement implies that God is the author of sin and knowing that this is the implication, the opposite claim is made outright. You can search high and low for an actual rational argument attempting to reconcile these contradictory claims but you'll be hard pressed to find one. The closest you're likely to get is a quotation of some bible verses - some that they take to mean that God predestined everything and others that, in fact, do say that God doesn't do evil. In other words, they believe that the bible teaches both and so they accept both - period. There is no real attempt made to explain it. They just accept it and that's it. They call it an "antinomy" and consider the matter closed. AMR's post #498 on this thread is a great example of an argument but it is not a rational one. At bottom it is still just a Calvinist making the claim that both doctrines are true.

The problem, of course, is that the Bible doesn't teach both and if it did, it would be proof that the Bible was false. (The fact that Calvinism does teach both is proof that Calvinism is false.) What is actually happening is that the Calvinists is not getting his doctrine from Scripture but brings his doctrine with him and interprets the Bible in light of his doctrine. In fact, they will occasionally even admit that no propper reading of the Bible can be done in any other way! (e.g. Augustine) This, they say, is in keeping with the idea that people cannot come to God in faith (i.e. understand the Bible) until after they've been regenerated. This, of course, implies that only Calvinists are regerate and therefore only Calvinists believe the real gospel and therefore only Calvinists are really saved. Rarely will you find a Calvinist willing to state this outright but we have a few here on TOL.

So, we can see from their own writings, even right here on TOL, that all of this is true but if any of them were to read this post, they would all universally and immediately reject it as flatly false and ridiculous. In fact, they are quite completely convinced and passionately insist that they use the most stictly objective and rationally consistent hermanuitics of any Chistian sect in existence. They literally cannot even conceive of how it is possible that anyone could accuse them of bringing their doctrine to the Bible rather than taking their doctrine from it and yet that is precisely what they do.

One of my favorite examples of them doing this is from an article by R.C Sproul. This article is explicitly about the objective interpretation and understanding of Scripture. In it he writes the following...

Closely related to this point is the principle that the implicit must be interpreted by the explicit, rather than the explicit interpreted by the implicit. This particular rule of interpretation is violated constantly. For example, we read in John 3:16 that “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” and many of us conclude that since the Bible teaches that anyone who believes shall be saved, it therefore implies that anyone can, without the prior regenerative work of the Holy Spirit, exercise belief. That is, since the call to believe is given to everyone, it implies that everyone has the natural ability to fulfill the call. Yet the same gospel writer has Jesus explaining to us three chapters later that no one can come to Jesus unless it is given to him of the Father (6:65). That is, our moral ability to come to Christ is explicitly and specifically taught to be lacking apart from the sovereign grace of God. Therefore, all of the implications that suggest otherwise must be subsumed under the explicit teaching, rather than forcing the explicit teaching into conformity to implications that we draw from the text. - R.C. Sproul "Knowing Scripture"

Mr. Sproul and every other Calvinist that reads this paragraph is entirely blind to the fact that it is their doctrine that tells them which passages are implicit and which are explicit and they REFUSE to consider that they could possibly have it backward or that there is the slightest possibility that it is their paradigm which makes one passage implicit and another explicit (or perhaps both explicit for that matter).

So, where do they make their initial mistake? Where is the crossroads where they make their first wrong turn?
Well, in an importance sense, their mistake is in thinking that they've started with the Bible and that they are capable of reading the Bible objectively or that it was ever intended to be read objectively or that the objective reading of the Bible (or anything else) is even possible to do in the first place. It isn't and they don't because they can't - no one can.

Atheists make a similar mistake when attempting to understand the world with logic as their first principle. Logic cannot be a first principle in the way atheist attempt to make it so because you cannot explain the existence of logic without using logic to do it which is question begging (i.e. not logical)! They have placed logic in the place where God should be and by the same token, the Calvinist (and most Christians of any flavor) has likewise put the Bible where God should be. The Bible is NOT the foundation of correct doctrine - God is!

"But our understanding of God is doctrine!", you might be thinking. Quite so! Theologians call it "theology proper" and there is loads of information about who God is in the pages of Scripture but I submit that our understand of God is it not derived from the Bible but rather confirmed and completed by it. The existence of God is intuitively understood, as evidenced by the fact that no more than 16% of the world's population is "religiously unaffiliated" never mind actually atheistic. Further, we can know rationally that God is living, personal and rational because we are those things and the effect cannot be greater than the cause. Likewise, we can know that God is righteous and just because these concepts are understood to be right and good by everyone, including both good and bad people. Punish an atheist for a crime he did not commit and he will object because he knows, both intuitively and rationally, that it is unjust but no one objects to the punishment of a murderer. Sleep with a drug dealer's wife and you and she will probably both get shot because even the most hardened criminal understands that there is a line there that ought not be crossed, even by him! The imbecilic college professor that claims that "All private property is theft!" would be first in line to press charges against someone who stole their Prius. The anarchists who thinks that people ought to be permitted to do whatever they want, wouldn't like it much if I punched them in the face. And even the most naive amoung us knows that someone who sets a person's house on fire so that they can then rescue the occupants from the flames is an arsonist, not a hero.

Thus we can know that God exist and that He is alive, that He is personal, that He is relational, that He is rational, that He is righteous and that He is just. And that is not a complete list!

It is upon this foundation that ALL UNDERSTANDING, including but not limited to the understanding of Scripture, is to be based! Any thought in your head that renders God as impersonal, irrational, unrighteous or unjust, whether implicitly or explicitly, can be immediately rejected as false whether you got it from the Bible or not! In fact, all understanding of any truth by anyone about anything is based on this foundation! To reject it, as atheists do, or attempt to modify/substitute it, as Calvinist do, is to guarantee error in one's worldview. More than that, it is to invite erorr that you cannot detect and that you will refuse to acknowledge much less correct.



There is probably 10,000 more words I have to say on this topic but I am out of time. For a more detailed discussion of this and related topics read Does God Exist?, Openness Theology - Does God Know Your Entire Future? - Battle Royale X and Our Moral God

Resting in Him,
Clete


POTD
 

joeyarnoldvn

New member
I'm not a Calvinist, or maybe not completely with all five points, but I do redefine terms. I believe in total depravity. I do not believe in pacifism, fatalism. Omniscience would mean the opposite of fatalism. I believe in freewill predestination. I believe God knows the future. God helps us in what we will freely choose to do, Ephesians 2:10. I believe in eternal security.
 

Derf

Well-known member
I'm not a Calvinist, or maybe not completely with all five points, but I do redefine terms. I believe in total depravity. I do not believe in pacifism, fatalism. Omniscience would mean the opposite of fatalism. I believe in freewill predestination. I believe God knows the future. God helps us in what we will freely choose to do, Ephesians 2:10. I believe in eternal security.

The question I've been asking myself is how does God know the future of a person. I've surmised two ways: 1. That He can see or visit the future and find out what we are going to do (this would include the idea that God is outside of time and thus everything is happening at an "eternal now", although that presents its own problems); and 2. that God causes all things to happen, and since He knows what He plans to do, He knows what will happen.

Calvinism's view of God's foreknowledge is decidedly the latter, and for good reason: that if God can look into the future to see what will happen, then the future is fixed beyond anything even God can do to change it--it removes God's sovereignty over the future.

But the Calvinist view has the problem that if God knows because He brings everything to pass, then God is the author of sin, which Calvinism rejects, again with good reason.

Great doctrinal gyrations occur when a Calvinist tries to deconflict those two things--that God causes everything, and that God never causes sin, since we recognize, from God's own testimony, that there is sin in the world. On the one hand, he will say that God "ordains" everything that happens, meaning that He allows creatures to do the things they would be most willing to do, even sin, but if He knows what those things are before the creatures are even created, then, because He doesn't look into the future to determine what someone will do, He must create the creature with the will to do those things He knows they will do--meaning He creates creatures with a will to sin; to thwart His will. The creatures' wills are created expressly to go against His own will.

Thus, if God is opposed to sin, yet He creates creatures specifically to sin in a specific way (since He knows what they will do by His ordination), God is at odds with Himself. And a contradictory God is not compatible with truth.
 

Idolater

"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
If an entity is omniscient, that means it knows everything — down to the movement of every subatomic particle throughout all history.

That entity must precede every physical thing.

The entity must be the source of everything.

The entity cannot have arrived at omniscience.

The entity had no option but to create exactly as it knew would happen.

An man living in this universe would be fated at every moment of his life.

Sn fo m M-50Fuin aptlk
LLBLB

This is absolutely correct and logically inescapable. Except for faith.
 

joeyarnoldvn

New member
I see no problem. I like that. Do you see a problem? God knows what will happen for a few reasons. One, because God is smart. Two, because God is outside time and can see it. God can predict it and can see it and can react to whatever happens. We have freewill. God has freewill too. God is opposed to anything that is against love. Not giving people freewill would be to violate what love is all about. Letting us choose God or not God is what love is all about. So, sin is the absence of perfection. It is the opposite or the void of God, of Love, of all of that. God lets use decide to go towards God or not. Simple. No contradiction.
 

JudgeRightly

裁判官が正しく判断する
Staff member
Administrator
Super Moderator
Gold Subscriber
I see no problem.

I see many problems with that.

I like that.

That you see no problem with something where there are many?

Do you see a problem?

See above.

God knows what will happen for a few reasons. One, because God is smart.

So am I. Doesn't mean I know everything that will happen.

In other words, a non-sequitur.

Two, because God is outside time and can see it.

This is a cliche that originated with the pagan Greeks, and was introduced to Christianity through Augustine.

The Bible, however, says that God is not "outside of time," and that God did not create time.

See http://kgov.com/time

God can predict it and can see it

God Himself says things like, "It never entered My mind."

That doesn't seem like He can predict everything.

and can react to whatever happens.

Not if everything has been predetermined beforehand.

See OP, because you are now in contradiction with it, even though you said you see no problem with it.

Two things that contradict cannot both be correct.

We have freewill. God has freewill too.

These things we agree upon. But by definition these are not possible if all things are predetermined.

God is opposed to anything that is against love.

Your point?

Not giving people freewill would be to violate what love is all about. Letting us choose God or not God is what love is all about.

This is not what is described in the OP.

This describes OPEN THEISM (aka "openness theology").

So, sin is the absence of perfection. It is the opposite or the void of God, of Love, of all of that.

:blabla:

God lets use decide to go towards God or not. Simple. No contradiction.

You have just described open theism, the exact opposite of what is described in the OP.
 

Rosenritter

New member
I see no problem. I like that. Do you see a problem? God knows what will happen for a few reasons. One, because God is smart. Two, because God is outside time and can see it.

Who told you God is outside of time (or what do you mean by that expression?)

God can predict it and can see it and can react to whatever happens. We have freewill. God has freewill too. God is opposed to anything that is against love. Not giving people freewill would be to violate what love is all about. Letting us choose God or not God is what love is all about. So, sin is the absence of perfection. It is the opposite or the void of God, of Love, of all of that. God lets use decide to go towards God or not. Simple. No contradiction.

Nothing disagreeable above, it's just that reason is not what is normally employed in combination with "God is outside of time" explanations.
 
Top