First of all, I want to acknowledge that we are off in speculation land in all this, as the Church doesn't teach authoritatively on some of these questions. That being said.
The other is that there are two ways to take your contention here. One is that you're expressing doubt in my idea because of the reasons you give. The other is that in any case, you are suspicious of God, and if you can see a way that God could use His power to do something untoward, that you suspect Him of doing that. I feel that this is unwarranted. In any case, we ought to expect God to be holy, as He tells us that He is, and so even if His power suggests that He could use it for evil purposes, or evil means towards excellent ends, He tells us that He is holy, and will not do that.
Your contention here also evokes this thought: God is a personal God. We are made in His image, and we like to try things, just to watch them unfold, we are curious, and experimenters, and even if God were to change history, once, or multiple times, it doesn't necessarily mean that He didn't know what He wanted to do ultimately, it may be that we are like Him, and He is curious and an experimenter, and just enjoys watching a thing occur, and perhaps He iterated but didn't breathe His Spirit into Adam until it was the final go-round, so that nobody was ensouled yet, and that nobody experienced the suffering that would have occurred in vain in any previous iterations.
I guess I'm only saying that I don't see the interpretation of God being able to "time travel" as being limited to only negative explanations. It's at least unnecessary to presume such, if not unwarranted.
A couple thoughts. One is that God "going back in time" can support the kernel of the Open view, if Open theism could accept that God is classically eternal, and not subject to time. If the world is the result of God basically experimenting and optimizing and refining creation, iteratively, changing this and tweaking that, then that would equate to Open theism with the addition that God's transcendence of time gives Him the power to "time travel," but doesn't given Him exhaustive definite power over our freedom to disobey His will.
The other is that there are two ways to take your contention here. One is that you're expressing doubt in my idea because of the reasons you give. The other is that in any case, you are suspicious of God, and if you can see a way that God could use His power to do something untoward, that you suspect Him of doing that. I feel that this is unwarranted. In any case, we ought to expect God to be holy, as He tells us that He is, and so even if His power suggests that He could use it for evil purposes, or evil means towards excellent ends, He tells us that He is holy, and will not do that.
Your contention here also evokes this thought: God is a personal God. We are made in His image, and we like to try things, just to watch them unfold, we are curious, and experimenters, and even if God were to change history, once, or multiple times, it doesn't necessarily mean that He didn't know what He wanted to do ultimately, it may be that we are like Him, and He is curious and an experimenter, and just enjoys watching a thing occur, and perhaps He iterated but didn't breathe His Spirit into Adam until it was the final go-round, so that nobody was ensouled yet, and that nobody experienced the suffering that would have occurred in vain in any previous iterations.
I guess I'm only saying that I don't see the interpretation of God being able to "time travel" as being limited to only negative explanations. It's at least unnecessary to presume such, if not unwarranted.
I don't support the view that God is not integral to who ultimately comes to believe Easter is nonfiction. Everything is providential to me.
