God can destroy Creation and all Sin and evil this very moment, and yet He chooses to endure our rebellion, which is not unforeseen, for His ultimate plan of (at least) raising an Elect people through Jesus Christ, which presumably would not be possible without allowing a temporary evil, in the first place.
#ToChristAlone
We call this Grace. He’s still building His church.
Yes.
What is triggering for people about this is the entering thought that suggests "If God permits evil, even allowed it, even authored, then how can God be good?"
Which is the wrong takeaway.
The proper takeaway is that God deemed creaturelu Free Will within the bounds of Creation important enough to allow a temporary rebellion, and in His grace, allows for it until His greater purpose, which at least includes raising an Elect people, is accomplished.
The allowance of the existence of evil does not denigrate God, but speaks to how vital His plan is for good.
Correct. God’s allowance of evil actually magnifies His goodness by demonstrating that His purposes are so glorious, so comprehensive, that even the worst human rebellion serves His redemptive plan.
God’s glory is not diminished by evil’s existence, it’s ultimately vindicated through evil’s defeat.
YES
"Well why didn't God raise an Elect people without allowing Sin in the first place"
God determined the most glorious plan for good that we cannot even begin to comprehend it other than to humble ourselves and simply TRUST GOD that the ends are truly so glorious as to warrant all of this.
Better to simply be wholly and entirely confident in God's sovereignty to see everything through to His glory.
God is not operating in time. He is the author of time.
Time, reason, and all transcendent categories are parts of creation, they are not God’s essence, they are how He allows us to make sense of creation — and the life of Christ is how He revealed who God truly is. This is what it means to be the Alpha and the Omega, and that all things were made through Him (the incarnate Christ).
There’s a beautiful tradition here that made this explicit, but unfortunately lost in the modern west.
What did God do after his ascension?
He created the world.
This is why church fathers denied a “pre-incarnate” Christ, pointing out that the incarnate Christ is eternal and outside of time — that Moses and even Adam and Eve in the garden, Enoch, all were with Christ.
This is what John 1 makes clear.
Very good response indeed.
