Plan B

* It seems the 5 videos can't play in a continuous way. So u gotta click at the individual subsequent clip at the end of each one.

Was God surprised by Adam & Eve's fall? Well, to be frank, I was quite shocked when I hear some members in my care-group said, "Yes!"

I shared my view that the Fall of mankind was "planned" by God (come to think of it, may be I should have used the word - "allowed".) Never in my mind did I ever thought God had to go for PLAN B when Adam bit into that forbidden fruit!

So lovingly without sounding too harsh I touched on the Doctrine of Election & Predestination, and the fact that God is Omniscient & Sovereign. So how could God NOT KNOW the outcome of His creation? God only has Plan A, and that plan was predetermined from BEFORE the foundation of the world. God is not the one who needs to adjust His plan to accomodate "latest unexpected changes" brought about by either free-willed-man (?) or the devil.

even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

(Eph 1:4-6)

But I did have a question during the discussion - How could Adam & Eve fall when they were supposedly sinless? The answer by my loving care-group: "Free Will." O well...

Update @ April 13th:

Using 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith as my guide -  on The Fall of Man, Sin & Punishment:

Although God created man upright and perfect, and gave him a righteous law, which secured life for him while he kept it, and although God warned him that he would die if he broke it, yet man did not live long in this honour.

- Satan using the subtlety of the serpent to subdue Eve, seduced Adam by her, and he, without any compulsion, wilfully transgressed the law of their creation and the command given to them by eating the forbidden fruit.

- And this act God, according to His wise and holy counsel, was pleased to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory.

Baptist Confession of Faith on "Free Will":

1. God has indued the will of man, by nature, with liberty and the power to choose and to act upon his choice. This free will is neither forced, nor destined by any necessity of nature to do good or evil.

2. Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well-pleasing to God, but he was unstable, so that he might fall from this condition.

3. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has completely lost all ability of will to perform any of the spiritual good which accompanies salvation. As a natural man, he is altogether averse to spiritual good, and dead in sin. He is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself for conversion.

4. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into a state of grace, He frees him from his natural bondage to sin, and by grace alone He enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good. But because of his remaining corruptions he does not only (or perfectly) will that which is good, but also wills that which is evil.

5. The will of man will only be made perfectly and immutably free to will good alone in the state of glory.

So in conclusion:

- Adam did sin wilfully 

- After sin entered the world, unregenerated men have lost "free will". Only "corrupted will".