The Problem of Good

[orangebox21]

...although, I suppose the knowledge he gives you could all be a ruse, too. I don't know how one would know God made them all knowing. He could sandbag just a little and the person might never know. So, I suppose it all really comes down to trust, and trust alone. Which basically means that God's inability to lie is an inherently unknowable claim; one that's simply asserted and not proven.

At this point it's an issue of epistemology.

Sure.  In every instance that God uses sin to bring about His purpose sin is involved.    

I don't mean that sin is involved tautologically. Obviously that's true of anything. If you ask me the purpose of a hammer and I tell you it's to drive nails, you can correctly point out that hammering nails involves the hammer. That's not what I'm talking about. The purpose is nails, which do their own thing. The nails hold stuff together, and the hammer is the tool for that. The ultimate reason for the hammer is to hold things together.

When you talk about sin, they way you describe the purpose is effectively like "to show how awesome the hammer is" and "to show restraint when not using it". Nothing is actually happening there that "needs" to happen. There's no other non-self-referencing purpose that you've mentioned.

Then as a skeptic I would simply ask: why does something need to be held together?  If the ultimate purpose of a hammer is holding something together, why not use glue?  Why is a hammer necessary?

I don't know that there's a single ultimate purpose revealed in scripture, except perhaps to glorify Himself.  A concept that is repulsive to the unbeliever, and at times to some Christians.

So, the purpose is narcissism? I mean, this is consistent with what a lot of other Christians say, but they always take umbrage with that wording.

Narcissism:  the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's own attributes.  To claim that God glorifying Himself is narcissistic has some assumptions.  Firstly that God uses  self-glorification to pursue gratification.  That one you might be able to claim from revelation.  Secondly, the gratification God seeks is from vanity.  [vanity:  1.excessive pride in or admiration of one's own appearance or achievements  2.  the quality of being worthless or futile].  Thirdly, the gratification God is pursuing is an egotistic admiration of His attributes.  Notice the passage in question:

"What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?  And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles" (Romans 9:22-24).

So what's happening here.  God is making known His attributes.  And why did He do so?   To make known the riches of His glory.  For what purpose?  For His own vain gratification?  What does the passage say?  It says the purpose is to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy (the believers).  Claiming that God's self-glorifying purpose is narcissistic is not consistent with the teaching of this passage.  In this passage, the purpose of God's self-glorification is for the gratification of the vessels of mercy, i.e. Christians.  

What's infinity minus a number?

If God is limited in choices, by definition His choices are finite.

You really like throwing around words like arbitrary, ad hoc, and circular.  If I assert that God cannot do X because X is contrary to His nature then there is a stated reason.  To say that God cannot do something just because would be arbitrary.  In the same way if something is ad hoc it is for the particular end or case at hand without consideration of wider application.  So saying that God cannot do X because His nature does not allow it is not ad hoc because it is considering the larger application.  Namely that we have to take into consideration God's nature when speaking about the choices He makes.

No, in this context, those words were used to describe any other limitation one might impose on God outside the one you mentioned (acting outside his nature). I've talked to others who try to limit god in ways that are basically consistent with the conclusion they want (ad hoc because they're doing it after the fact to steer to a particular goal and arbitrary because there's no basis for the limitation other than is works with their worldview). I wasn't accusing you of either in this case, but rather saying that I don't know how else you'd limit God without falling into one of these two categories.

Gotcha.  I misunderstood.