Issues with creation

Hello, peace be with you.

The hypothetical scenario is a little difficult for us to conceive since we are not God. Not to be smart, but there is simply no comparing our mind with his mind. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD." (Isaiah 55:8) Is there a specific point to your question? It seems you're struggling with/doubting some aspect about free will, God's foreknowledge and people's destiny.

Just because God knows what we are going to do doesn't mean he robotically controls it. Some Christians do believe he locked in our eternal destiny before we were even born, but the majority of the world's Christians do not believe this. We believe in free will. God has to allow us to have truly free will in order for us to love him, because love that is coerced is not truly love. Think about it: if someone told you they loved you, but were told to do so at gunpoint, would you accept their feelings as sincere?! Probably not. God has to give us the opportunity to reject him in order for our love for him to be sincere.

I understand, those who are skeptical of Christianity are troubled by the notion that God created some people, knowing they would reject him, and would end up spending eternity "in hell". But again, just because he knew what they were going to do, doesn't mean he made them do it. They chose hell if they chose to reject him. Further, it's also worth pointing out that again, the majority of the world's Christians don't really believe in a physical place called "hell" full of fire and pitchforked devils torturing souls for eternity - according to the teaching of most churches, hell is merely the soul's irreversible state of separation from God after death, if they are not saved. The "pain" may really be more emotional than physical. Therefore, looked at this way - after the sinner has spent their lifetime telling God to leave them alone, hell is God's way of saying, "you may have your wish".

Now, again, I understand it may be asked, "Why did God bother to create the people who would reject him if he knew they were going to spend eternity in hell? Wouldn't it have been more merciful to have just not created those people?" Well, if God did so, he would be doctoring up the results of his creation so that humanity wouldn't truly be free - then we really would be forced to love him and free will is gone. Then, therefore, any love for God also wouldn't truly be love.

Does any of this make any sense?

Peace

Peregryne said:

Hello there! My question is about the logic in God's creation of people. Now, I grew up Christian, so I don't need sermons or anything...just honest answers. With that in mind, here's a hypothetical scenario for you.

You are God, and you’ve just decided to create 100 people with free will.

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HOLD IT!!!!

Objection!

Peregryne said:

Since you are God, you already know all the choices they will make. With that in mind, do you:

(A) Create 100 people whom you know will use their free will to choose the right path and go to heaven. Pros: Yay! More people to love you and tell you how awesome you are! Cons: You don’t get to show off your epic smiting skills.

(B) Create 50 people who, by exercising their free will, will end up in heaven, and 50 people who, by exercising their free will, will end up in hell. Pros: You get to scare the crap out of people and make them fear you! Cons: Those 50 people really annoy you sometimes by not believing in you.

(C) Create just a few people who will go to heaven; the rest will pick Buddhism or Taoism or really anything besides your special favorite religion. Pros: Heaven is like a super-exclusive country club! Cons: Watching all those other people be tortured loses its novelty after a few million years.


Which one would you pick?

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There's a hole in your logic. If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, and if He created and designed every facet about us and every detail about the universe, then there cannot be any such thing as free will. That's not to say that there aren't Christians who believe in free will, but if you are going to address them only, you're going to get a big misrepresentation of what the Bible actually teaches.

Refer to the link in my sig for the Biblical evidence both sides have to offer, and notice how one side relies on "implied" (or weak) evidence while the other has a mountain of hard evidence.

Also, from the way you're wording your "question," it sounds like you've already decided what is right. I hope you realize this forum is not the place for attempting to prove to us how very wrong we are. It's here for people who honestly want to learn more about Christianity in a non-hostile environment.

Logically freewill means division. What you are asking here is for God to create a circular square, that is, freewill which doesn't divide at all.

Moreover, those in hell are in accordance to their freewill. They are no longer 'the people', they are the same devils as Satan. Because after leaving God the only source of good, they will turn themselves into the devils and thus get burnt.

Creation is like the painting of a good picture. Anyone bad enough can screw the painting up by adding their own stuff to the painting. After this change, the painting is not the original painting and thus no longer be regarded as being painted by the original painter. The painter who screwed it up will be "trashed" together with the screwed up painting.

I don't think there are 100% satisfactory answers. This doesn't mean that there is no God and that creation is false, however. Just because we don't understand something does make it false.

God’s Love forced God to make beings that could be like He is in that they would have the most powerful force in all universes (the Love that compels God to do all He does). This is all done for selfless reasons (not for God’s sake, but for the sake of those that would become as He is).

God cannot create being with this “Godly type Love” since that would make it a robotic type love and God cannot just force this Love on man since that would be like a shotgun wedding with God holding the shotgun, so this Love has to be obtained as a result of man’s free will choice (there will have to be some real alternatives to make it a choice and the perceived pleasures of sin provides those alternatives).

The world is thus arranged and allowed by God to help willing individuals to fulfill their objective.

God can know our free will choices prior to our (in our time frame) making those choices, because He is in the future also relaying back to himself in our present what we have done.

Peregryne said:

Hello there! My question is about the logic in God's creation of people. Now, I grew up Christian, so I don't need sermons or anything...just honest answers. With that in mind, here's a hypothetical scenario for you.

You are God, and you’ve just decided to create 100 people with free will. Since you are God, you already know all the choices they will make. With that in mind, do you:

(A) Create 100 people whom you know will use their free will to choose the right path and go to heaven. Pros: Yay! More people to love you and tell you how awesome you are! Cons: You don’t get to show off your epic smiting skills.

(B) Create 50 people who, by exercising their free will, will end up in heaven, and 50 people who, by exercising their free will, will end up in hell. Pros: You get to scare the crap out of people and make them fear you! Cons: Those 50 people really annoy you sometimes by not believing in you.

(C) Create just a few people who will go to heaven; the rest will pick Buddhism or Taoism or really anything besides your special favorite religion. Pros: Heaven is like a super-exclusive country club! Cons: Watching all those other people be tortured loses its novelty after a few million years.


Which one would you pick?

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I prefer the way God did it. He created all humans with the ability to respond to his love with love. Those that do He rewards with an additional gift of life and those who do not and hurt people are left to die in their sins. No body gets tortured ever unless it is by evil people.

GrayAngel said:

HOLD IT!!!!

Objection!



There's a hole in your logic. If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, and if He created and designed every facet about us and every detail about the universe, then there cannot be any such thing as free will. That's not to say that there aren't Christians who believe in free will, but if you are going to address them only, you're going to get a big misrepresentation of what the Bible actually teaches.

Refer to the link in my sig for the Biblical evidence both sides have to offer, and notice how one side relies on "implied" (or weak) evidence while the other has a mountain of hard evidence.

Also, from the way you're wording your "question," it sounds like you've already decided what is right. I hope you realize this forum is not the place for attempting to prove to us how very wrong we are. It's here for people who honestly want to learn more about Christianity in a non-hostile environment.

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Why do you limit the power of God saying He could not give us free will as in the ability to chose to love?

Peregryne said:

Hello there! My question is about the logic in God's creation of people. Now, I grew up Christian, so I don't need sermons or anything...just honest answers. With that in mind, here's a hypothetical scenario for you.

You are God, and you’ve just decided to create 100 people with free will. Since you are God, you already know all the choices they will make. With that in mind, do you:

(A) Create 100 people whom you know will use their free will to choose the right path and go to heaven. Pros: Yay! More people to love you and tell you how awesome you are! Cons: You don’t get to show off your epic smiting skills.

(B) Create 50 people who, by exercising their free will, will end up in heaven, and 50 people who, by exercising their free will, will end up in hell. Pros: You get to scare the crap out of people and make them fear you! Cons: Those 50 people really annoy you sometimes by not believing in you.

(C) Create just a few people who will go to heaven; the rest will pick Buddhism or Taoism or really anything besides your special favorite religion. Pros: Heaven is like a super-exclusive country club! Cons: Watching all those other people be tortured loses its novelty after a few million years.


Which one would you pick?

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D) Establish a righteous standard in which no one can obtain,(so that no man could boast of himself) then make a sacerfice to satasify that standard so all that is left is the truest sence of a man's heart and the desision of that heart as to where that man wants to spend eternity. And then stand back and let them choose, then hold each man accountable for the choice that he made for all eternity.. (give or take a few details)

elman said:

Why do you limit the power of God saying He could not give us free will as in the ability to chose to love?

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Umm. By definition, free will necessitates that God lack control of our wills. I'm not the one limiting God. According to the Bible, ALL things are controlled by him, including us.

If God holds all power, free will cannot possibly exist. It's like the question, "Can God create a rock so heavy He couldn't lift it?" The answer is no, because God is all-powerful. To say that He could would mean that He does not hold all power.

In short, it's the illogical free will version of God who is limited.

Peregryne said:

Hello there! My question is about the logic in God's creation of people. Now, I grew up Christian, so I don't need sermons or anything...just honest answers. With that in mind, here's a hypothetical scenario for you.

You are God, and you’ve just decided to create 100 people with free will. Since you are God, you already know all the choices they will make. With that in mind, do you:

(A) Create 100 people whom you know will use their free will to choose the right path and go to heaven. Pros: Yay! More people to love you and tell you how awesome you are! Cons: You don’t get to show off your epic smiting skills.

(B) Create 50 people who, by exercising their free will, will end up in heaven, and 50 people who, by exercising their free will, will end up in hell. Pros: You get to scare the crap out of people and make them fear you! Cons: Those 50 people really annoy you sometimes by not believing in you.

(C) Create just a few people who will go to heaven; the rest will pick Buddhism or Taoism or really anything besides your special favorite religion. Pros: Heaven is like a super-exclusive country club! Cons: Watching all those other people be tortured loses its novelty after a few million years.


Which one would you pick?

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I feel like you are not earnestly "exploring Christianity" and that is what this sub-forum is for.

The way you have worded your question makes a lot of assumptions. Its also so hyperbolized that it's almost a satire.

I personally don't think "heaven" and "hell" is the point. And I think your understanding of heaven and hell is quite different than mine. The Kingdom of Heaven is Now.

Peregryne said:

Well, this quandary was the first thing to drive me away from Christianity, so I was just wondering how everyone else reconciled it. I mean, if we, as imperfect humans, would be kind enough to arrange that nobody is sent to hell, I would imagine a perfect god would be even more so.

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God also said that He doesn't wish anyone to go to hell. But logically someone will. Satan is one, those follow him are no better.

He sent people in a permanent separation because God clearly said that He's completely incompatible with sin. However as a promise to Noah, He bears with our sin here on earth but not outside. Once outside planet earth those with sin will have to be in such a permanent separation. He also demonstrated through Lucifer that once separated from God, even the once 'perfect' angel will turn to the devils to be burnt.

Humans are imperfect, that's why they are asked to listen to what God says instead of reasoning by themselves with their limited intelligence, especially in judging an unknown future. It is thus warned that those who rely on the Tree of Knowledge to judge good and evil instead of listening to the Word of God, "the day they eat of it, the same day they shall surely die".

Peregryne, your tone offends me to some extent. God will force no one to heaven. We have free agency so that we may choose.

In mortality we are unable to understand many things, I guess thats why God tells us he loves us so much.

Peregryne said:

Well, this quandary was the first thing to drive me away from Christianity, so I was just wondering how everyone else reconciled it. I mean, if we, as imperfect humans, would be kind enough to arrange that nobody is sent to hell, I would imagine a perfect god would be even more so.

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If a person is not happy in heaven why would God force him to be there?

Heaven is like one huge Love feast but the Love is only Godly type Love which is totally unselfish type of Love. Do most people like unselfish (caring for others first type Love) or do people like self gratifying type love?

People that have repeatedly refused God’s Charity (Love/grace/mercy/forgiveness) and would never accept charity, will not be happy in heaven.

It all goes back to the objective:

God’s Love forced God to make beings that could be like He is in that they would have the most powerful force in all universes (the Love that compels God to do all He does). This is all done for selfless reasons (not for God’s sake, but for the sake of those that would become as He is).

God cannot create being with this “Godly type Love” since that would make it a robotic type love and God cannot just force this Love on man since that would be like a shotgun wedding with God holding the shotgun, so this Love has to be obtained as a result of man’s free will choice (there will have to be some real alternatives to make it a choice and the perceived pleasures of sin provides those alternatives).
The world is thus arranged and allowed by God to help willing individuals to fulfill their objective.

Peregryne said:

Well, this quandary was the first thing to drive me away from Christianity, so I was just wondering how everyone else reconciled it. I mean, if we, as imperfect humans, would be kind enough to arrange that nobody is sent to hell, I would imagine a perfect god would be even more so.

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I understand exactly what you are saying; the problem is even an omnipotent being cannot do the logically impossible; he cannot "force" us to love him and and "make" it be real, sincere love. As I said in my first post, if God created us because he wanted to have a people who would love and worship him, but he wants real sincere love, he has to allow us to be free in order for that to happen. If we are free, then the possibility exists that some will reject him. What, then, to do with those people? That's where hell comes in. Not all Christians believe it involves physical punishment; some (admittedly the minority, although their numbers are growing even among the otherwise theologically orthodox) don't even believe it will be eternal. But "hell" simply refers to whatever God's plan is for those who have freely chosen to reject him; they have to go somewhere!

Peregryne said:

Well, this quandary was the first thing to drive me away from Christianity, so I was just wondering how everyone else reconciled it. I mean, if we, as imperfect humans, would be kind enough to arrange that nobody is sent to hell, I would imagine a perfect god would be even more so.

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Hi Peregryne, God arranged us a way to be saved: through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. God doesn't know who goes to heaven or hell. He just knows every possible outcome, and he knows your heart. Everybody makes the choice freely on their own. The problem is many do not want to seek out Christ, yet they get the attitude over time that they are "good enough" people that they deserve heaven instead of hell.

Peregryne said:

Hello there! My question is about the logic in God's creation of people. Now, I grew up Christian, so I don't need sermons or anything...just honest answers. With that in mind, here's a hypothetical scenario for you.

You are God, and you’ve just decided to create 100 people with free will. Since you are God, you already know all the choices they will make. With that in mind, do you:

(A) Create 100 people whom you know will use their free will to choose the right path and go to heaven. Pros: Yay! More people to love you and tell you how awesome you are! Cons: You don’t get to show off your epic smiting skills.

(B) Create 50 people who, by exercising their free will, will end up in heaven, and 50 people who, by exercising their free will, will end up in hell. Pros: You get to scare the crap out of people and make them fear you! Cons: Those 50 people really annoy you sometimes by not believing in you.

(C) Create just a few people who will go to heaven; the rest will pick Buddhism or Taoism or really anything besides your special favorite religion. Pros: Heaven is like a super-exclusive country club! Cons: Watching all those other people be tortured loses its novelty after a few million years.


Which one would you pick?

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Answer : None of the above !

God DID create people in his very likeness with enormous love by way of allowing them freewill to return his love back to him ... the same way that your Parents hoped you would do with them. One of the greatest examples of love, is to ALLOW a person to FREELY (uncoersed) choose love, or lack thereof ; God is a complete Respector of Persons and gives us enough evidence of his love and care toward us by the way he fashioned a Cosmos specifically for us to live on Earth (with over 150 essential Life Enabling Constants that stand on a razors edge in exact precision and all working in unision) , by supplying us with an incredible life changing set of written instructions portraying his nature, character, and person , and his incredible mercy and love by sending his Son, Christ, to a wicked Earth to die on our behalf as a loving plan to reconcile humanity back to himself.

God didnt do any of this for 'ego gratification' as the Critics often misconstrue , nor does he enjoy seeing people not choose him and instead make SELF their own god , nor does he pleasure in seeing the great harm and destructiion we bring on ourselves by following an out of control Cultures philosophies and ideologies for maximized immoral pleasure which always comes with a cost.

This site will be valueable to you if in fact you are a diligent sincere Seeker : Answers for Atheists and Agnostics

WE get to choose whether we want to move closer in relationship to our Creator who is knowable and personal...and He simply grants what we always wanted while on earth, for eternity, only forever without end : GreatER closeness or GreatER distance . Our freewill choice given us., so, may we choose wisely .Nothing could be of greater importance to us ...and, to him.

Maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that some people were created to be destroyed, and cannot be saved. They are "of their father the devil".

Peregryne said:

Hello there! My question is about the logic in God's creation of people. Now, I grew up Christian, so I don't need sermons or anything...just honest answers. With that in mind, here's a hypothetical scenario for you.

You are God, and you’ve just decided to create 100 people with free will. Since you are God, you already know all the choices they will make. With that in mind, do you:

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I think we can ask the same questions and get the same answers without hypothetically assuming we are God. That whole part seems a little unnecessary.

Peregryne said:

(A) Create 100 people whom you know will use their free will to choose the right path and go to heaven. Pros: Yay! More people to love you and tell you how awesome you are! Cons: You don’t get to show off your epic smiting skills.

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God doesn't need gratification. His existence without creation is gratifying enough. To the wrath of God, it is not something He wishes to show off. If this were actually the scenario we were in, He would have preferred it this way rather than the way things are now.

This option is the least likely out of any though, seems free will invokes the idea of rebellion or at the very least the possibility of it.

Peregryne said:

(B) Create 50 people who, by exercising their free will, will end up in heaven, and 50 people who, by exercising their free will, will end up in hell. Pros: You get to scare the crap out of people and make them fear you! Cons: Those 50 people really annoy you sometimes by not believing in you.

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God doesn't want to scare anyone. Fear Him, yes, but not "fear" as you would encounter a tiger and feel threatened, as one would usually define "fear." Neither would God be annoyed by the non believers but disappointed.

Peregryne said:

(C) Create just a few people who will go to heaven; the rest will pick Buddhism or Taoism or really anything besides your special favorite religion. Pros: Heaven is like a super-exclusive country club! Cons: Watching all those other people be tortured loses its novelty after a few million years.

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This seems basically the same as B, since those who would be Buddhist would not believe in God. Nor would this change the nature of Heaven, except under A, since it is after all exclusive to the elect. Also, this option assumes God favors that people go to Hell, which cannot be further from the truth as He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

Peregryne said:

Which one would you pick?

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Of course I would pick A, but like I said it is too unrealistic to even be considered a legitimate option, and all the others contain false assumptions, so really I couldn't pick any. I cannot imagine a world in which humans had free will, and not one of them would violate it. It is a logical impossibility in a my mind.