Notice how you speak here in Generalities. God is specific. He chose certain ones. The general fact of depravity and condemnation is not even all on an even level but each according to their works. You speak of "God "allowing" his creation to do..." What really is your problem with God 'causing', as you seemed to admit below is true concerning evil? And I am agreed. To cause that evil come to pass is not the same as to create evil. I do not say he creates evil, in the sense of sin or wrongdoing.
Salvation is contingent for all even as God foreknows the outcome, which is all election really amounts to:
“I stand at the door and knock. If you open it I will come in…” Rev 3:20
“He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Pet 3:9
The general fact of depravity and condemnation is not even all on an even level but each according to their works. You speak of "God "allowing" his creation to do..." What really is your problem with God 'causing', as you seemed to admit below is true concerning evil? And I am agreed. To cause that evil come to pass is not the same as to create evil. I do not say he creates evil, in the sense of sin or wrongdoing.
The fact that he caused that there be evil does not imply freewill. If libertarian free will, as I understand it, "uncaused choice", is what you mean by freewill, it is self-contradictory to say that God granted freewill. Not only that, but it is a construction you find necessary to explain choice, because you think choice is not real if it is not uncaused. Or do you have another narrative I have not heard from you?
Well, if someone else causes me to choose one way or the other it’s pretty hard to say that
I made the choice. As it is the typical human of the “age of accountability”, of sound mind and not under coercion or duress is sufficiently free to be accountable for his actions, which is why we
hold each other accountable for immoral or unjust behavior. We know that the person could do
otherwise. Saying that God is the cause of all human moral choices is saying that God caused the choices that resulted in the holocaust. Or that, because he invented the automobile Mr. Daimler is the cause of all car accidents, or the poor choices that caused them. Anyway, God didn’t cause moral evil/sin: He allowed it and uses it for His purposes. The church has consistently held this truth. Free will means that God grants to men and angels the ability to oppose even His will, for a time. Question: Having told Adam not to eat of the fruit, did God want/cause Adam to eat of the fruit?
I completely agree with your last statement, though I would add, that if you were to get an honest answer from Satan, God not only 'allowed' evil to have its way —he caused it to have its way, and that, for God's own purposes. Yeah, Satan isn't a happy camper. EVERY move that Satan does contrary [by way of hate and attempted obstruction] to God's purposes, serves God's purposes. And because of his hatred, Satan can't stop or change his ways. Gotta be frustrating!
Evil serves God’s purposes but only in the sense that He wants His creation to learn personally, the hard way, by experience, that evil, alienation from and opposition to Him and His goodness, is, well,
wrong: foolish, futile,
evil-so that we may choose the good instead. For Him to make the decision
for us renders this a very strange world, and creation a rather senseless, fruitless endeavor.
I don't know if you heard me describe one time, how a chess game one of my brothers told me about, resembles what happens with Satan. Satan's very nature is what causes him to do what he does, and, I believe, in every specific way and thing he does:
I hadn’t heard that but I’m not sure what makes either player more greedy than the other since each had the same objective- to win the game. In my mind satan shares the same limitation that all but God must endure: he’s not God. And with that limitation or imperfection he can easily enough, regardless of intelligence or relative perfection, fail, error, sin. In any case he needs to learn what Adam needed to know but preferred
not to believe: that he’s not God, that he’s
not the Best, and that only God can be the God of all in order for justice and peace and harmony to reign. Lucifer is just plain too obstinately proud to admit what he cannot help but know somewhere inside, that he won’t win. So he doesn’t stop-he believes in
himself.
