I would still be interested in your conclusions, Craig. It is a new idea to me so, I have not thought a lot about it.
It is possible that, since (according to a middle knowledge perspective) God knows what a given free creature would do in a given circumstance, there is no possible way that reality could be in which truly free agents can become perfect without making morally wrong choices beforehand (and this universe is the ‘best of possible’ ways that God could have made it before the everlasting happiness of eternity, whilst retaining truly free creatures), since freedom requires that the individual agent is responsible for the decision and not forced by an external agent acting upon them and causing the decision.
I don’t know if it is necessary? It is certainly consequential. Adam and Eve chose to follow morality (that is what knowing good and evil involves) and thus they lost thier orginal relationship based life with God. God can deal with good and evil - His judgments are aways true. His morality is perfect. A and E and all who have follwed have proved that we are not able to handle morality properly. Ultimatly ethics is beyond us! Jesus made an end of the law. He fulfilled it. A death occured! Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creation, the old has passed away the new has come. Paul called the Galations foolish because they wanted to return to a law based life. After 2000 years We still try to mix law into our Christian faith and create confusion as a result and also incidentaly rob the Gospel of its power. Paul says in Romans 5 that we reign in life through the provision of grace and the gift of righteousness. Expecting the provision of grace is called ‘living by faith.’ Accepting the gift of rightousness deals with sin once and forever. What a great deal!
It would appear to all evidence, both biblical and experiential, that it is necessary. It would seem to me that if it was not, that it would be some other way. When God created, He called it “good”, He did not call it “perfect”. It would seem that our perfection is a process.
There is a saying that we learn from our mistakes. If this is true, then if we start with perfection, we would never learn anything.
I agree that we see some of the principles taught in scriputure built upon references of either non historical storys or historical figures with non literal events surrounding the story. It takes research and confirmation of other parts of scripture to make sense of these, and each of us is at different stages in our knowledge of these things. Therefore our interpretations may differ. Which is perfectly understandable. We are all in process.
Craig, I think you may have been making a point to just be careful how to interpret Job as some parts may not be Literal, which hypothetically in my opinion could be possible, and I can appreciate you dropping in your 2 cents. It’s probably a good reminder and having read your posts i know you have a great deal of insight on alot of different portions of scripture.
Not to get to far off the subject of the original question but I think the key in this Job case is what is the Moral of the story. What is God communicating, even if the whole thing or even some parts were fictional to make the spiritual point. One of the points that James makes is the idea of persevering through trial and how we need to keep in mind when suffering that the Lord is Merciful and full of compassion, despite what conclusions our present sufferings may tell us.
Which leads me back to my original question. Why do we have to go through pain and suffering when God could of just created a world in which we don’t experience this much pain and suffering. And my conlusion is inconclusive 
But I also think its important to be reminded that(as the Job lesson teaches) I do not have the wisdown of God and scripure reminds me that despite my sufferings the end result is blessings because God is indeed Compassionate and Merciful.
CC wrote
I think that is also the point Melchizedek is making.
But in the resurrection (or when a person is resurrected to heaven) what makes us perfect is not “making morally wrong choices” but rather a new sinless body. Correct? And if that is true, doesn’t it negate the above quote?
I appreciate everone’s posted answers and am considering those as well. Just want to think through and analyze one possible idea at a time if possible.
I have observed in my practice with patients that pain (among other things) is a part of any true healing process. So maybe the answer to your original question lies there. What most people don’t realize is that pain (and other symptoms) are a sign that the body is getting better, and is always present in what we refer to as “healing crisis”, where things feel worse temporarily as part of the process of recovery.
The common cold is an excellent example of this. We actually have the virus for days before any symptoms are exhibited, but once we know we’re sick (due to symptoms) that means our body is already well on its way (and working hard) to eliminate the virus.
Remember also that even Jesus was perfected (in obedience) through the things that he suffered.
One of my favorite songs these days (message-wise) is Blessings by Laura Story. There’s a lot of truth in that:
youtube.com/watch?v=4mmgV6mPvb0
"We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things
Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we’d have faith to believe
Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It’s not our home
Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching(s) of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise"
Necessary?
Well isn’t sin simply a fact of life until “wolves and sheep will live together in peace”?
I believe God planned a perfect world.
But it looks as if it is going to be a long, long, very long term project!
Jesus Christ showed us the impossible was possible, for example leprosy, madness, illnesses could be healed. He told us to love our enemies, showed us how, forgave those who crucified Him. It took nearly 2000 years for us develop modern medicine still has a long way to go…cancer for example. Isaiah prophesied “…there will be nothing harmful or evil. The land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the seas are full of water” .
How long will that take? Paul states clearly that the Peace of the Lord is beyond all understanding, but encourages our hearts and minds to grow in the love and knowledge of His Son. This Forum helps! Christ gives us so many clues, not least that we have a built-in capacity to forgive: the prayer that He Himself taught us to ask His/Our Father to forgive us our sins (our estrangement from Him), as we forgive those who sin against us (are estranged from us) …?
God bless!
Michael Witty
Retired and in in process of being born again aged 75!!
Barcelona Spain.
Could God have created a perfect world where we never had to experience sin?
I think that he did but it just didn’t work out that way.
H’m.
While the view expressed above seems to be the position of most Christians, I can’t help but think the following whenever I hear or read it:
“Poor God. At least he’ll get it right some day. As the saying goes, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.’ It’s just a shame God couldn’t get it right the first time.”
I believe Martin Zender was spot-on when he said, “God is still on Plan A.”
Amen to this!
Thanks for the kind reply, I sit in Awe, yes it is the moral of the story. Whether it is real or fictional story makes not difference on the lessons learned from it.
Kelly, One of the classes I took while in school was Bible Poetry, and it was a credited literary academic. From there I studied Psalms, Proverbs and Job. Why job? Job is a didactic Poem, a literary moral play. Didactic Poetry is instructional poetry with the goal of teaching a moral story and the poet expects the reader to learn skills, science, philosophy, love, crafts, etc. from the didactic verses. Job is neither ‘Law’ or ‘Prophet’ but a considered one of the ‘Writings’ and considered part of the ‘Book of Wisdom’ which is composed of Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and, of course, Job. The reality is the particular events and the order of these events were constructed to fit a specific literary device to reflect a moral story, not a literal history.
This is why our teachers, including Jesus, can refer to Job even if it was fictional story because Job was a didactic poem, a story created for the sole purpose of teaching us a moral lesson.
So if you are feeling down because life seems rough, remember Job and learn how to deal with it.
I can’t disagree with any of that.
Student of the Word strangely has a special place in my coming to UR, if I remember correctly. One of the first things God used to open my eyes was a Wikepidea page on Chirstian Universalism, I think. Or something like that. And it’s my understanding that Craig was the one maintaining that page. At least I think Alex said that in my introductory post. So I would never Diss the guy. 
Regarding the Bible Poetry class, I took a similar one a very long time ago at a juniour college. I think it was called “The bible as literature”. I was a pretty hardcore christian at the time and figured it would be easy as cake to get some electives knocked out so took the class. Soon I found out the Teachers whole purpose was to show that the bible was a man made book clearly not inspired by God. Noting all contradictions she found etc. Going into the Final exam I was sporting an A in the class. When I sat down to take my Final I was surprised to read that I was expected to write an essay proving that the Bible was NOT inerrant and was expected to use supporting evidence such as bible contradictions 
I proceed to write the essay doing the exact opposite, explaining how the bible was Inerrant and written by men as they were moved by the Holy Spirit of God. I also showed how all major supposed contradictions could be easily harmonized. And I think at the end I provided an invitation to my teacher to repent of her sins and receive Eternal life 
Citing invitations from scripture noting that they were from God since the Bible was written through the Spirit of God, as I had indicated and proven.
When my report card came in the mail. I looked down and noticed…an “F” grade. I think I laughed and thanked the Lord for letting me be persecuted for his names sake.
Yea, I keep trying to maintain the Wiki page. It is difficult with a lot of people able to make changes. Thanks for the encouragement!
Blessed, I was in a Christian school for my Bible Poetry class, so they were never disproving the Bible or that it was man-made, but rather that we should understand the Scripture and the way it was written from even an academic learning standpoint because it was written in the way it is written for a purpose.
Proverbs is an amazing book, it is written in such a way that if someone is confused by the first line, there is a secret line which clarifies the ambiguity later on. Knowing which lines match which lines, we can read another message written within.
Psalms uses Parallelism, which is just amazing to gain better understanding of what the author was communicating.
Anyways, sorry for the sideline.
I can relate.
The way I see it is non-love (sin) is on the path to becoming obsolete. When you understand it that way, you will no longer wonder “what keeps us from sin”. Do you know what I mean? Once non-love is finally exhausted, once the big picture finally settles into our being of the destructive nature of non-love and the absolute POWER of love… then there will be no use for us experiencing the contrast any longer. What God wants us to learn, the knowledge He wants us to have, we will have. Our understanding that Love conquers all. Non-love is weak, pathetic and is on the road to destruction. Love is the most powerful thing there is, God IS Love.
I fully believe that experiencing non-love is a necessary journey for creation.
We would never know what light was if we never experienced darkness.
However the darkness does not have to exist forever, but the KNOWLEDGE of it will.
Ignorance is not bliss.
Knowledge is power.
just some thoughts,
peace,
sparrow