Why does God create souls he know will wind up in hell?

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Gorgias said:
“Does God create people whom He knows will go to hell?” In other words, does He create knowing He’s going to condemn them? That seems to posit a god who is not omnibenevolent.
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I believe that the same response to the question, “why would God send an unrepentant sinner to hell for eternal punishment, rather than put him out of his misery with annihilation” can satisfy this one as well.

 
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The simple answer: God loves everyone, even sinners. God hates sin! Thus no one ends up in hell unless that person elects to go to hell on their own.
 
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God’s divine providence does mean he knows the outcome of our salvation, BUT he give us the choice to decide whether we want to go to Heaven or Hell. How that is done? Is a mystery.
 
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Again, I stated there’s a ‘simple answer’. We are in agreement.
 
So why make them? Does He not defeat His goal by creating them?
 
Because He limits Himself to allow for the free choice of Man, something He chooses to not prevent and something there is no opportunity to prevent without inhibiting free will.
Julius_Caesar said:
To show His forbearance.
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I don’t see anything in Catholic doctrine saying God damns people as a means to an end.
 
Hey, you said God uses those he creates knowing they’d be damned to show His forbearance, not me. You said God creates the damned to use them.
 
Nowhere did I say God guarentees damnation. You seem not to be able to comprehend the difference between knowing what will happen and making someone for destruction.
 
He could just not create them and that solves the dilemma. Then He both has everyone be saved and allows for free will. You don’t have free will unless you exist, though, so this doesn’t interfere with free will.
 
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oliver109 said:
Some are more full of grace than others, Mary for instance or any of the saints. They had the option to reject God but did not. St Augustine did teach on the fact that God does give some people such efficacious grace that it could be called irresistible though was unable to explain why that is and called it one of the many mysteries of the faith.
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What you are saying has nothing to do with the topic under discussion here
 
oliver109 said:
God can get any result he wants without using force.
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Wrong. God wants to save all souls; if what you are saying was true, nobody would go to Hell.
The truth is that God has chosen to create men with a free will. God has chosen not to save men agaisnt their free will, because if He did, he would destroy the essence of the human being.
Therefore, God has chosen to limit His omnipotence. This is explained by Jesus Himself to Saint Faustina; in her diary she reports the following Jesus’ words:

Pag. 326 verse 580 There are souls who despise My graces as well as all the proofs of My love. They do not wish to hear My call, but proceed into the abyss of hell. The loss of these souls plunges Me into deadly sorrow. God though I am, I cannot help such a soul because it scorns Me; having a free will, it can spurn Me or love Me.

You can find the diary here: Diary | Mercy - Saint Faustina - Diary - Jesus, I trust in You - Congregation
 
Gorgias said:
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Mmarco:
Wrong, totally inconsistent explanation; in fact, according to your line of reasoning, God shuold have created also the possibility for a soul to freely choose to stop existing, and avoinding eternal punishment.
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No, not at all. My assertion doesn’t imply that at all.
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You are just avoiding my arguments because you are unable to raise valid counter arguments.
Let’s follow your logics: You have written that in my view " it’s God who actualizes the person whom He knows will be condemned. That’s precisely the claim against God’s omnibenevolence that unbelievers attempt against us." And in the following post you have written that such claim is a valid one.
It follows that in your view, non existence should be better than the state of eternal punishment in Hell, and an omnibenevolent God would not create a soul, knowing that such soul will go to Hell.
According to your superficial concept of omnibenevolence, God should give the soul the possibility to choose non-existence instead of eternal punishment in Hell.
Ths clearly proves that you are contradicting yourself, since the (wrong) argument you are using against my view can be applied also to your view.
Your absurd idea that God is totally unable to choose to create only souls who will go to heaven falls under your own objection against my view.
 
Julius_Caesar said:
How does God knowing the fate of everyone according to the foundation of the world equal guarenteeing their damnation? God wants all to be saved ON HIS TERMS.
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Yet God creates people knowing they would be damned. Does He even love those people?

I am not saying it isn’t their fault or free choice. But if God is omnibenevolent, it must mean that their damnation is preferable to their non-existence. Yet for everyone God didn’t create their non-existence is preferable to their damnation or even salvation (if indeed their salvation was possible).

At the same time, by creating those people and knowing their effects God technically wills consequences of their actions to be in the world. They are not His actions, but they are introduced by Him with His full knowledge. It’s somewhat like giving someone a gun knowing they would shoot someone.

I myself am probably leaning towards Molinism and middle knowledge (God knowing everything even things that didn’t happen and their consequences, which was declared to also be legitimate view by the Church).
 
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