I didn't read the thread to see if anyone answered sufficiently...

OH, you make statements that are often incorrect but you make them as if they're agreed upon. I don't understand the framing of your question and what you mean by it since it's your world and who knows what you mean, BUT what is not defined biblically is "good angels", "free will", and "100% good" as well as "bad angels" and "100% bad". So I'm going to define them within a biblical standard with the hope that we can get somewhere.

good angels = elect angels

free will = the ability to choose to follow God or not

100% good = always follow God

If we can change your first statement to:

Elect angels have the ability to follow God or not and always follow God.

Then we can progress.

Second, your latter statement should be changed to:

The non-elect angels have the ability to follow God or not and always do not follow God.

We immediately run into problems. With the first statement, biblically it is false-elect angels only have the ability to follow God, and they do. With the second statement, non-elect angels were created originally with the ability to follow God or not, and chose to rebel, which is necessarily within the sovereign plan of God as well.

Your definition of free will and applying it to angels is not biblically derived. It is your philosophical misunderstanding but is not the orthodox position.

Human beings were created in God's image; angels were not. I Peter 1:12 says that angels don't understand certain deep elements of spirituality (sorry for the ambiguous wording) that human beings do. Your assignment of "free will" (whatever that is-as it's disputed within Christianity as well as philosophy) to angels is misappropriated. Angels and human beings are ontologically different, and I don't believe any angels had what would be agreed upon as "free will", since they were created holy (man was neither created holy nor unholy, so he most closely can be considered as having free will--Adam and Eve (not us, since we are a product of the Fall)--supposing that this free will is within the sovereignty of God as all things must be biblically). I realize you very much most likely do not understand what holy means, either, but it does not mean perfect or unable to sin but rather in the case of angels it means set apart to God, whereas man wasn't created with this inclination.

1. Free will is not constant for both types of angels, as the elect angels cannot rebel just as elect people cannot disbelieve.

2. What makes elect angels do 100% good is God's electing of them as integrated into their nature--they can only do good, as I have said.

What makes non-elect angels do 100% bad is also due to their nature, but is a little more involved, namely that since they have such vast and profound understanding of God (being created holy, being in the presence of God frequently, etc.), their decision to rebel was in full knowledge of all that it meant, therefore there is no informational possibility that they could change their minds. There are a couple of Bible passages which speak of people who gain a great deal of knowledge and spiritual experience in the true gospel and then decide, having full knowledge of what it means, to disbelieve--not only were they never regenerate in the first place, but there is no hope for them to be saved in the future since there is nothing they have not yet considered in their decision. Hebrews 6:

And Hebrews 10:

So to summarize, elect angels do 100% good because it is in their nature to do so, being like elect people (in the sense that elect people cannot disbelieve), and non-elect angels do 100% bad because they have made an eternal decision by the nature of having full knowledge at the time the decision was made, much like people who truly understand the gospel, live the life of a Christian, but ultimately choose against God.

Not relevant to anything I've written.

Before we go any further, maybe you should read the thread. Your definition of good (elect) angels is shared by no other Christian in the thread, and probably no other Christian on this forum. So far, everybody has said that these angels have the freewill to not follow God.

Secondly, I don't believe any of this nonsense to begin with. But you know that already. I'm just assuming the majority Christian viewpoint (on this forum) for the sake of argument. Your issue is with other Christians, not me. It's impossible for me to debate against several different theological stances in a consistent manner. You guys need work things out among yourselves, because I'm not going to change my argument every time a new Christian pops in with competing theology.

Ah, I'm sorry, then. I was under the impression you were interested in orthodox Christian doctrine based on the Bible (my representation of Angelology is not debated for circa 1,700 years). I was not aware you are happy to argue against a straw man based on your impression of a few people on a gambling forum, over and against several centuries of established doctrine. But this makes sense, since the actual biblical representation owns your thread's intention, so I can see why you'd excuse yourself from dealing with it.

Why would you choose "the majority" over the correct? To be fair, I guess since your eyes will be nowhere near a Bible and you're not about to google "Angelology" for 5 minutes, nor will you venture to a library to read any systematic theology book, nor will you contact any Bible-believing theology professor, etc. etc., you have no way of telling which view is correct simply from hearing opinions on a gambling forum with zero research whatsoever. But it's not hard to figure out--there has been consensus in Christianity for centuries. You do have to read, though. Here is a good source from 20 seconds of googling:

http://bible.org/article/angelology-doctrine-angels

I have much better sources if you care to PM.

If you eventually foster the intestinal fortitude to abandon your straw man and deal with the Scriptures, you'll find you have nothing in the way of legitimate contention; you can consider my first post to realize this fact.

M

I realize you put a lot of effort into making that post as arrogant, condescending and hate filled as possible, but unfortunately, it's misdirected. Your beef is with the Christians on this forum and not me.

This statement is most certainly false. Predestination is certainly not the most historically Orthodox view. In fact it is a minority view. Nor is there any consensus about your proposed doctrine of Angel "free will".

Biblically predestination is probably the weakest held belief by the most people (even though it is really only held by a smaller sect of Christianity.) Personally I don't understand how anyone who has actually studied the bible can accept this doctrine, other than a priori.

And I am more than happy to take the brunt of this one.

I think that's like saying Adam and Eve still would have sinned if the serpent never showed up.

I want to know what this:

says about this:

Because if this is right:

Then this is wrong:

Let me point out that if what Megenoita says about elect and non-elect angels is true, then Satan, one of the highest ranking angels with the most access to God and his knowledge, was created *non-elect* with the ability to choose evil.

Is that odd?

He's arguing against Christians that actually hold these views. Maybe you should figure out what a straw man is before accusing OH of committing the fallacy.

With the help of: I found some relevant Scripture:

1 Timothy 5:21 - I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.

Matthew 25:41 - Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

The Timothy verse I noted just because there's a mention of elect angels.

The Matthew verse I think is interesting because it mentions "ye cursed" while explaining those who will be cast in the lake of fire. When doing a search of the original Greek I found that the word "cursed" is the Greek word "καταράομαι", translated "kataraomai", which means to curse, doom, or imprecate evil upon. When talking about the others it reads, "Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father". For this the word "blessed" means:

a. to cause to prosper, to make happy, to bestow blessings on

b. favoured of God, blessed

So we have mention of two kinds of people, the cursed and the blessed. With what Menetoia has already mentioned I think it's safe to assume that the angels are in some form of cursed and blessed rank too. But what does this mean? I don't know.

Are we cursed *for not* accepting God or do we not accept God because we are cursed to not?

Are we blessed by God *because* we accept him or are we blessed by God because we are the elect?

We would first need to prove that angels and demons exist before we could give them free will but I will play from a human point of view because they would be comparable.

Why do people sin or do evil is your basic question and the answer is that it is enjoyable to sin.

One would have to say that angels sin for the same reason, What other possible reason could there be. If it was not enjoyable or profitable in some way, people or angels would not sin. One hardly does something without a positive reason.

Regards
DL