God's providence

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A skeptic friend posed to me a question recently which I didn’t know how to answer:

If God is omniscient, why would he, in his omniscience, create somebody like Hitler, knowing what he’d do? I know that Hitler had his own free will to make his choice, but if God knew he’d use his free will that way, why would he give Hitler life in the first place?
 
fhkjds said:
A skeptic friend posed to me a question recently which I didn’t know how to answer:

If God is omniscient, why would he, in his omniscience, create somebody like Hitler, knowing what he’d do? I know that Hitler had his own free will to make his choice, but if God knew he’d use his free will that way, why would he give Hitler life in the first place?
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It wouldn’t be very fair if God erased the existence of every person who made mistakes. They could legitimately argue “that wasn’t fair, I didn’t even have a chance to choose between good and evil!”. And they would be right.
 
Because God can turn every evil in this life into a greater good ultimately.

The evil is still evil, but the greater good is so far greater, it is like the difference between light and darkness. One is nothing, the other is everything.
 
Maybe because he wanted to usher in an era of relative peace and prosperity for the West, under the influence of the USA.

And speaking of which, why would God allow atheists … well, you know the drill…
 
God also uses human agents to chastise us and to wake us up from our spiritual sloth. I’m not going to dig up the scriptural verse right now but St. Paul mentions this. Right now we have Obama - the leader that we deserve. The OT is full of verses showing how a faithful people will receive a virtuous ruler and an unfaithful people will receive armies trampling over them and wicked leaders.
 
Jinny Akin was asked this question on Catholic Answers Q&A and this, to the best of my memory was his answer,

Any errors here are mine not Jimmy’s.

Before God brings someone into existence He doesn’t know what life choices that non existent being will make because he/she doesn’t exist. Once they are created He knows what life choices they will make and whether they will use their free will to choose heaven or hell. God gives everyone sufficient grace to enter heaven and He desires that all will enter heaven. Because He is out of time he sees the whole of a person’s life as a continuous present therefore He knows the end of the story but does not force the outcome.

I hope that that helps.
 
Before God brings someone into existence He doesn’t know what life choices that non existent being will make because he/she doesn’t exist
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Hmm, that first sentence is inaccurate, if that’s what you meant to say. 🙂
 
fhkjds said:
A skeptic friend posed to me a question recently which I didn’t know how to answer:

If God is omniscient, why would he, in his omniscience, create somebody like Hitler, knowing what he’d do? I know that Hitler had his own free will to make his choice, but if God knew he’d use his free will that way, why would he give Hitler life in the first place?
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Free will.

Love.
 
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