Everyone
If it is not God’s will for any to perish why didn’t God stop Adam from eating the forbidden fruit? There would be no need for Jesus to go to the cross if sin, corruption, death, and the sin nature were not released. Why didn’t God sovereignly interfere and stop Adam?
Because He knew He could (indeed would) save Adam (& everyone else) after he fell.
Okay, but everything was perfect before the fall. Don’t ya think it would of saved Jesus a whole lot of unnecessary pain and punishment if God would of sovereignly stopped Adam? So are you saying it was God’s will for Adam to release sin, death, corruption and the sin nature into His perfectly created universe? If so, what would be the purpose for God sabotaging His perfect creation of Adam and the universe just because He knew He could save Adam and everyone else after the fall? 
If not, why didn’t God stop Adam if His will is for none to perish?
Revival, I’m interested to know your answer too.
Romans 11:32
For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.
I think Paul is saying that Yahweh wants to demonstrate how wonderfully merciful and loving He is to those who disobey Him!
Are you saying Yahweh wills for some to perish?
Personally, I think Yahweh wants us to love Him freely. I think we can only do this with a will that possesses a capacity to sin. But at the consummation of the ages, when we understand our own wickedness and know the misery of it, then we can truly love Yahweh freely, and truly hate wickedness freely. As AllanS once suggested, Yahweh would be criminally negligent if He permitted the Fall and knew that some would be lost in misery forever. I haven’t swept this thought from my mind yet.
God said it was good, it was perfect in the “innocent” sense, but not in the God-natured sense. It had not overcome all possibility of defilement by overcoming defilement itself; as God is by nature above all defilement.
Eden was as a virgin, untouched, and unspoiled; but subject to the possibility of losing her virginity. The Perfection as God wishes to give is as a virgin who has overcome all possibility of losing her virginity, as God is by nature incapable of losing it, and above all possibility of losing it.
We are finite creatures, contingent to the necessary God. God is by necessity, perfect.
God desires perfection that brings innocence, immortal perfection and immortal innocence. Not innocence that has only a mortal, temporary sort of perfection. He wants immortal perfection that is the source of endless, immortal innocence, not mortal innocence that is the source of temporary perfection - easily and swiftly lost.
Everything was perfect sans Creation, but only good or very good afterwards. The Prodigal Father allowed the Prodigal Son to leave (rebel, sin), because that was the only way for him to reach maturity (knowing how bad sin is & that we need God rescue us from it) and for him to freely return the love of the father.
Even if you don’t agree with the above, after the Fall occurred, we are told it’s God’s will that none should perish, therefore, we should expect God’s will to come about eventually, especially as we see Christ came to reconcile everything that became separated by the Fall.
nail’s head: you hit it!
Innocence is weak. Hard-earned, heart-felt, experiential knowledge is strong.
I love this bit in Isaiah 66: "From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,” says the LORD. “And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”
All mankind will come and bow down in celebration before God.
All mankind will go out (out where?) to gaze upon the rotting bodies of the rebellious (and remember: all of us are rebellious.)
All mankind will declare these dead bodies (their own rebellious corpses, their bodies of death) to be utterly and eternally loathsome.
Our experience of sin in this life will immunize us forever.
that’s an excellent point!
i believe God wanted us to come to Him not as little children that have no choice but to trust their parents, but as reasoning, thinking, experienced adults…and i believe that’s the end result of all this. we’ll have grown up. to me that makes the future look better than “perfect”.
When God said His creation was "Good’…In other words, it met His standards. If you believe God’s standards are below perfect…I don’t know what to tell you. **If it is God’s will for none to perish why didn’t He sovereignly stop Adam, Alex? everything was just how God wanted before the fall…no sin, no death, no corruption, no sin nature…so why would God want to sabotage this and want creation to be separated from Him? **
The mere fact God did not jump out of Heaven and stop what Adam did is proof there is a limitation upon the sovereignty of God in ones life. God has established a sovereign law and that law keeps him from sovereignly acting in our lives. Gen 1:26-28; Ps 8:1-9.Therefore allowing Adam to make a free-will choice to release sin, death, corruption and the sin nature into creation knowing the consequences of that choice because God never wants anyone to perish but He leaves that up to the individual otherwise God would of sovereignly stopped Adam and no one perishes. If God willed for no one to ever perish He would of never let Adam ruin that plan because it was already in place before the fall. 
“Good” meaning it met God’s standards. Everything was how God wanted it before the fall. no sin, no death, no corruption, no sin nature…why didn’t God sovereignly stop Adam if His will is for none to perish?
God already had Adam and Eve to love him freely before the fall. They already had the capacity to sin otherwise they would not been able to sin against God in the first place. So you are saying God purposely sabotaged His perfect creation in order to get us to love Him freely when He already had that before the fall? Releasing sin, death, corruption, and the sin nature does nothing but separate creation from God…if it is God’s will for none to perish why did He not sovereignly stop Adam, brothers?
Revival, I’ll answer your two questions, but I expect you to return the courtesy and answer my two. It is only fair and reasonable.
That’s right, they had the capacity to sin and were already freely loving Yahweh. But they (not Yahweh) freely chose as self-determined beings, experientially ignorant of death, to poorly exercise that capacity. (I believe as you do, that Yahweh created self-determined beings in order for love to have any meaning). God didn’t sabotage anything because the cause of sin lies simply in Adam’s free will. Yahweh now endures our sin, and the effects of ancestral/original sin, to demonstrate His radical love, mercy, long-suffering and humility and so forth. At present, He waits because He obviously wants a huuuumongous population of friends to love (the New Earth is going to have to be massive!). Evidently though the suffering gets all too unbearable and Yahweh decides to pull it up. So in the consummation of the ages when Yahweh finally abolishes all wicked influences, humanity will return to obedience knowing the horrible consequences of their previous disobedience. As why would anyone, under no delusions and having experienced the pain of death, ever willingly choose to return to sin?
So in conclusion, Yahweh allowed Adam and Eve the capacity to sin in order to come to this (personally experienced) knowledge of who God is and the horrors of Sin, in order to enrich their love and appreciation for the Father … And we all live in the presence of Yahweh on the New Earth, happily ever after. Amen. That’s my simple take on a universalist theodicy (though I’m not entirely there yet in faith).
Now I offer my two questions, that I hope you will answer thoughtfully:
So what your saying is God didn’t stop Adam to sin because He wanted them to know him better through the horrors of sin even though that very sin separates God spiritually from creation? . If its God’s will to have no one perish then He stops Adam because there are certainly billions upon billions of people perishing as the result of God not stopping Adam. Your explanation makes no sense.
Pretty much all is agreed here, I’m a free-will person too (Though I don’t think Adam could really know the consequences of that choice – a minor point though). I differ mainly in that I believe humanity, loved by God in remedial judgement, can repent into the ages. I don’t exactly know whether that means that absolutely everyone ultimately will. But I largely think it’s inevitable. I’m still thinking it through though. If Yahweh did create humanity with the ability to choose eternal misery, why create us? Isn’t Yahweh fully self-sufficient and self-satisfied? Isn’t it selfish to create something you don’t need that has the capacity to choose eternal misery?
God never wants anyone to perish but He leaves that up to the individual otherwise God would of sovereignly stopped Adam and no one perishes and goes to Hell and eventually the LOF. If God willed for no one to ever perish He would of never let Adam ruin that plan because it was already in place before the fall.
Your last statement (a statement you’ve written numerous times) seems to imply that God sovereignly willed the perdition of some even before the fall. But that you freely choose whether you are of part of this reprobate group or the elect. I’m sorry Revival, I’m profoundly confused, is this what you are saying? How can Yahweh “never want anyone to perish” but planned, before the fall, that some would perish and go to an eternal Hell/Lake of Fire? This seems entirely contradictory to me.
No, brothers, get Calvinism out of your brain. Think about this. God knew Adam was going to fall before He created man. He already knew this yet still created man with free-will to choose Him knowing the consequences of Adam’s free-will. God already knew that not everyone will choose him after the fall and if He wanted no one to ever perish He would of sovereignly stopped Adam because He already had this before the fall.
I’m sorry Revival, I wholly confess, I still don’t get it. How can Yahweh be possibly justified in allowing this eternal madness, if He knew it was going to happen and could have sovereignly stopped it? As I said before, why create at all? Isn’t Yahweh fully self-sufficient and self-satisfied? Isn’t it selfish to create something you don’t actually need that has the capacity to choose eternal misery?
But I might just have to leave it there. My brain has clearly reached the end of its tether. Sorry that I couldn’t engage with you better. It is verrry late though and maybe I will do better in the morning, after a big cup of coffee
You are asking this as if it is God’s will for some to perish when the scripture clearly teach that it is not:
2 Peter 3:9
King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
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.
1 Timothy 2:4 KJV:
3For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.