11. There is, however, another point asserted in the statement we are considering, which is of still greater seriousness and importance.
We are told: “This design (the meditation of Christ), conceived from all eternity, was manifested to the angels long before its accomplishment.” God knew, then, from all eternity, that the angels, as well as human beings, would stand in need of this mediation. God did, or did not, know that some of the angels would fall; that this fall would cause them to be damned to all eternity without any hope of rehabilitation; that they would be destined to tempt human beings to evil, and that those among the latter who allowed themselves to be seduced by their tempting would share the same fate. If God knew this, it follows that God created these angels on purpose that they might bring irreparable ruin upon themselves and upon the greater part of the human race. Let the advocates of this doctrine twist the matter as they will; it is impossible to reconcile the creation of these angels for a fate of misery thus foreseen, with the sovereign goodness. On the other hand, if God did not foreknow the consequences of God’s creative action, God is neither all wise nor all-powerful. In either case, such action on the part of the Deity would be a negation of two of the attributes without which, in their plentitude, God would not be God.
