Why doesn't God just not create the bad people to keep them from going to hell

[oldcelt]

By the same knowledge of vision, God also foresees the future free acts of the rational creatures with infallible certainty. As taught by the Church, “All things are naked and open to His eyes, even those things that will happen through the free actions of creatures” (Denzinger 3003). The future free actions foreseen by God follow infallibly not because God substitutes his will for the free wills of his creatures but because he does not interfere with the freedom that he foresees creatures will exercise. (Etym. Latin omnis, all + scire, to know.)

catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=35262

The Christian God knows all, including those who will be condemned and still creates them. That is abundantly clear. This is totally inconsistent with an all-loving deity and no number of attempted explanations can make that fact go away.

 

[Tom_Baum]

I think the answer to this thread is that the beauty of giving someone a chance to get to heaven out ways the evil of him falling and the punishment that follows. This is VERY hard to understand however

As far as “VERY hard to understand however”.

If I understand what you are saying and you believe what I think/believe that you believe than if you went to hell for a nanosecond or less, you would realize that what you said is pure insanity.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Amandil

On one of your posts you wrote, “This must necessarily includes your thoughts on the reprobate in hell. Christ preached that hell exists, that it is eternal, and that “many” will wind up there.”

Would you say, as you said Jesus said, that hell is eternal?

Some say that hell is forever.

Do you think eternal and forever mean the same?

Eternity Is, God created time and forever could be God keeping time as part of the new heavens and the new earth but eternity is NOT time.

Will God uncreate time or will time eclipse eternity or will they somehow be side by side?

Could be that hell is eternal and that God is going to do away with eternity and somehow only have time.

God Is God and God can do things that we might not even have given any thought too.

Actually, I would think that God could do things that we are not even capable of conceiving much less given any thought too.

 

[Amandil]

If all God needed was a placeholder to pass along genetic information, he could have created a husk of a person without an eternal soul. No one would be the wiser, the person’s soul wouldn’t be damned, and all later people could still exist. In fact, it seems possible that this could be what God actually does. Perhaps no one goes to hell, we only think people do because we observe these “husks” doing damnable things.

A “husk of a person” is a contradiction in terms ,persons are necessarily by nature psycho-somatic(body-soul) entities. So you’ve just undercut your whole position.

JapaneseKappa:

Human free will did not cooperate in the creation of Adam and Eve, so it is certainly possible for God to create people without the cooperation of other people.

But at the same time He foresaw their fall. So you really don’t have a point here.

JapaneseKappa:

Also, remember that we are talking about God, the subject of the scripture which reads “nothing is impossible with God.”

Which does not imply meaningless self-contradictions as a “husk of a person”.

JapaneseKappa:

Were Adam and Eve subject to original sin prior to committing original sin? I contend that they were not. Therefore, if there only existed one single person with free will, he could not be subject to the sins of any other free will having person. In order for that one single person to be subject to the sins of another, there would have to be a second person to commit a sin. However, there is exactly one person.

In other words, you’re just sorely begging the question.

JapaneseKappa:

According to Catholics, Mary was sinless. All it took was for God to create her without original sin; so it certainly seems like it would be possible for God to create someone like Mary who would have free will and not go to hell. We would therefore have to conclude that free will does not necessarily result in some people going to hell.

And it necessarily results in some people going to hell.

Again, you’re spending a lot of time not really saying anything.

JapaneseKappa:

But on top of that, God’s act of creation is not timeless

Never said this.

JapaneseKappa:

Now, lets ask the question: was there a state where God was part way through creation?

From eternity, no.

JapaneseKappa:

If God’s creation was in time, then there certainly would be such a state. God could have created history right up until the present time, but not the rest, for example.

However this contradicts what was said earlier about all of creation existing simultaneously.

That’s not at all what I said. If you’re going to continue to ignore important distinctions and just go off on your own absurd tangents, this this conversation is pointless.

JapaneseKappa:

If God had only created history up until now, it would not be true that all our free will decisions already exist. Perhaps you will object that “exist in God’s mind” is different from “actually exist.” God is like a playwright, you might say, with an infallible script, and he creates us players in time according to the script. Just because a character hasn’t had their turn on the stage yet doesn’t mean they don’t exist in the script. However, this just kicks the can down the road one step. All we have to do is update the question to be: was there a state where God was part way through writing the script? If the script writing was timeless, when and how did we exercise our free will?

This is where your argument continually falls apart because you cannot disassociate yourself from your temporal notions of time.

You continue to think that God “remembers” some events as “past”, experiences other things as “present”, or anticipates other things as “future”. Or IOW, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis: “If (I) tried to explain to (you) that men’s prayers today are one of the innumerable coordinates with which the Enemy harmonizes the weather of tomorrow, he would reply that then the Enemy always knew men were going to make those prayers and, if so, they did not pray freely but were predestined to do so. And he would add that the weather on a given day can be traced back through its causes to the original creation of matter itself - so that the whole thing, both on the human and on the material side, is given “from the word go”. What (you) ought to say, of course, is obvious to (me); that the problem of adapting the particular weather to the particular prayers is merely the appearance, at two points in (your) temporal mode of perception, of the total problem of adapting the whole spiritual universe to the whole corporeal universe; that creation in its entirety operates at every point of space and time, or rather that their kind of consciousness forces them to encounter the whole, self-consistent creative act as a series of successive events…How it does so is no problem at all; for (God) does not foresee the humans making their free contributions in a future, but sees them doing so in His unbounded Now.”

So, to answer your first question: from eternity, no.

&

JapaneseKappa:

If the script writing was timeless, when and how did we exercise our free will?

In time.

JapaneseKappa:

If God’s creation was not in time, then my original objection holds: we cannot identify when or how we would have made our free will decisions. We perceive time as integral to our decision making process, **but an instantaneous creation event **means that we were somehow able to make all the decisions in our life in a single instant, the same instant God created us.

Well, given that this is an utter distortion of what I said, you really have no point because you’re again attacking a strawman.

 

[Amandil]

Amandil

On one of your posts you wrote, “This must necessarily includes your thoughts on the reprobate in hell. Christ preached that hell exists, that it is eternal, and that “many” will wind up there.”

Would you say, as you said Jesus said, that hell is eternal?

Matt 18:[8] And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.

Matt 25:
41] Then he will say to those at his left hand, `Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels
46] And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

John 3:
3.[36] He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.

2Thes 1:when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, [8] inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
[9] They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

In short, yes.

Some say that hell is forever.

Do you think eternal and forever mean the same?

It doesn’t matter what my opinion is.

Eternity Is, God created time and forever could be God keeping time as part of the new heavens and the new earth but eternity is NOT time.

Will God uncreate time or will time eclipse eternity or will they somehow be side by side?

Could be that hell is eternal and that God is going to do away with eternity and somehow only have time.

God Is God and God can do things that we might not even have given any thought too.

Actually, I would think that God could do things that we are not even capable of conceiving much less given any thought too.

In other words, you’re just arguing in a circle, beginning with what you’re trying to prove.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

A “husk of a person” is a contradiction in terms ,persons are necessarily by nature psycho-somatic(body-soul) entities. So you’ve just undercut your whole position.

But at the same time He foresaw their fall. So you really don’t have a point here.

Which does not imply meaningless self-contradictions as a “husk of a person”.

I think my position is perfectly clear: God could create a husk which has all the physical properties that a person has, but without a soul. I did not say the husk would be a person, I said it would be a placeholder that would allow genetic information to be passed on, thereby solving the problem of “God needs the hell-bound so that future people may exist.”

And it necessarily results in some people going to hell.

Again, you’re spending a lot of time not really saying anything.

Then answer my question: if exactly one person ever existed, would he necessarily go to hell?

That’s not at all what I said. If you’re going to continue to ignore important distinctions and just go off on your own absurd tangents, this this conversation is pointless.

This is where your argument continually falls apart because you cannot disassociate yourself from your temporal notions of time.

You continue to think that God “remembers” some events as “past”, experiences other things as “present”, or anticipates other things as “future”. Or IOW, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis: “If (I) tried to explain to (you) that men’s prayers today are one of the innumerable coordinates with which the Enemy harmonizes the weather of tomorrow, he would reply that then the Enemy always knew men were going to make those prayers and, if so, they did not pray freely but were predestined to do so. And he would add that the weather on a given day can be traced back through its causes to the original creation of matter itself - so that the whole thing, both on the human and on the material side, is given “from the word go”. What (you) ought to say, of course, is obvious to (me); that the problem of adapting the particular weather to the particular prayers is merely the appearance, at two points in (your) temporal mode of perception, of the total problem of adapting the whole spiritual universe to the whole corporeal universe; that creation in its entirety operates at every point of space and time, or rather that their kind of consciousness forces them to encounter the whole, self-consistent creative act as a series of successive events…How it does so is no problem at all; for (God) does not foresee the humans making their free contributions in a future, but sees them doing so in His unbounded Now.”

So, to answer your first question: from eternity, no.

C.S. Lewis is arguing for pretty much exactly my understanding of God’s relationship with time. God creates everything in a timeless fashion: “creation in its entirety operates at every point of space and time”

In such a view, our perception of time and change is an illusion. God perceives (and indeed creates) all things simultaneously in an “unbounded now.” A state where God is partway done with creation does not exist. We perceive a small sliver of creation because we are bound by time, and that limitation makes us think that changes are occurring. God, however, has the **correct **view of things: we are merely the 4 dimensional statue he carves all at once. There is no actual change and therefore no actual exercise of free will.

Lets talk about eternity for a second. I believe you mean that eternity is basically “God’s infinite timeline” and that it has the properties:
A. Nothing changes in the direction of eternity.
B. Eternity is orthogonal to our own time.
However, those two properties make eternity conceptually identical to an instantaneous event, so trying to draw some distinction between them is splitting hairs.

 

[Aloysium]

I think my position is perfectly clear: God could create a husk . . . if exactly one person ever existed, would he necessarily go to hell? . . . our perception of time and change is an illusion. . . we are bound by time, and that limitation makes us think that changes are occurring. God, however, has the **correct **view of things: we are merely the 4 dimensional statue he carves all at once. There is no actual change and therefore no actual exercise of free will. . . eternity conceptually identical to an instantaneous event, so trying to draw some distinction between them is splitting hairs.

When one has an active imagination, it is imperative to connect with reality. This is a pretzel of ideas.

Time and eternity exist. Neither is illusion. We do not just think things are changing; they are. God has the overview, given that He exists in all time as the one Being who creates all.

Free will exists, and determines through each choice, who we become.
This is basic and a consequence solely of how we were created by God, who can be said to have put aside His omnipotence that we might each have an individual will.

God who exists as One in all time, sees all moments (This moment is very real.) within His eternal Now.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

When one has an active imagination, it is imperative to connect with reality. This is a pretzel of ideas.

Time and eternity exist. Neither is illusion. We do not just think things are changing; they are. God has the overview, given that He exists in all time as the one Being who creates all.

Free will exists, and determines through each choice, who we become.
This is basic and a consequence solely of how we were created by God, who can be said to have put aside His omnipotence that we might each have an individual will.

God who exists as One in all time, sees all moments (This moment is very real.) within His eternal Now.

I would like nothing more than to be able to “connect my claims with reality” but as far as I can tell, you’ve offered no method to do so. You are simply offering counter-assertions that are no more “connected with reality” than mine are. What method did you use to determine that my ideas are incorrect, while yours are correct?

If you came to me with some claim about how the real world works, I could very easily give you the process for “connecting it to reality” (i.e. determining whether or not the world actually behaves that way.) That method would be to use your claim about the real world to make a prediction about how the real world would behave given certain controlled conditions. You would then create those conditions and observe the results. If the results matched the predictions, your claim would be “connected to reality.”

What does this process look like for theological claims?

 

[Tom_Baum]

When one has an active imagination, it is imperative to connect with reality. This is a pretzel of ideas.

Time and eternity exist. Neither is illusion. We do not just think things are changing; they are. God has the overview, given that He exists in all time as the one Being who creates all.

Free will exists, and determines through each choice, who we become.
This is basic and a consequence solely of how we were created by God, who can be said to have put aside His omnipotence that we might each have an individual will.

God who exists as One in all time, sees all moments (This moment is very real.) within His eternal Now.

I don’t look at it as God putting “aside His omnipotence” at all, just that God is not “the puppet master” in God’s creation.

I, also, do not believe that God put aside His Omniscience, I just happen to believe that God knowing everything that we do before we do it and us having free will in what we do, just happen to be beyond our ability to understand but, of course, I wouldn’t say that these are the only things about God that is beyond our ability to understand.

As far as “Time and eternity exist”, I might not understand eternity but I believe that it just is and not created and I believe that time is part of God’s creation therefore, time has been created.

By time being created, I don’t mean the “increments of time” such as hour, day, week, year and so forth, but the things of time being as the future becoming the present and then being the past.

It may not be theologically nor scientifically correct but I think it was Robin Williams, I could be wrong, who said that time is God’s Way of everything not happening at once, I guess that’s as good of a way as any to “ponder” what time is, but as I said I do believe that time was created.

Will time always be?

Will time be uncreated?

A lot of people speak of the end of time but as far as I know, the bible speaks of the “end of the age” as opposed to the end of time, do you or anyone you know or read of have an opinion, belief or knowledge, one way or the other?

 

[Aloysium]

. . . That method would be to use your claim about the real world to make a prediction about how the real world would behave given certain controlled conditions. You would then create those conditions and observe the results. If the results matched the predictions, your claim would be “connected to reality.” . . .

Does this work for understanding time and eternity given that these encompass all conditions and any manipulations?

Reality can be understood, but is actually lived.

Let’s see where introspection can lead us:
What is real is that, whatever this is, it is happening.
You (whoever you are) are reading (however it happens) stuff (whatever that is) on a monitor and it has meaning (Wow! How does that work?).
All this is happening now, in this moment.
It is still happening now, but this now is a little different.
Things are changing now. (Haven’t they always?)
I find I can effect changes in this moment.
I choose another playlist on my iTunes to create a more conducive mood for diving into reality.
The moment is fresh, creative, bursting forth.
Thinking back on many decades of meditation, each moment as fresh, as new, coming into being.
At the Centre of each moment, the eternal Flame, unconsumed, from which all light, all creation emerges.
Ever present in each now, in each and every here, bringing it into existence.
One Light, one Love, one Beauty, one Truth.

I am going to quote a post which appears on another thread, but addresses this OP:

Yep, I think it’s appropriate to cite the catechism again regarding this journey, which was begun for the human race with Adam & Eve.

**302 Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created “in a state of journeying” (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call “divine providence” the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection:

By his providence God protects and governs all things which he has made, "reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well". For "all are open and laid bare to his eyes", even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of creatures.

310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better. But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world “in a state of journeying” towards its ultimate perfection. In God’s plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.**

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Does this work for understanding time and eternity given that these encompass all conditions and any manipulations?

Reality can be understood, but is actually lived.

Let’s see where introspection can lead us:
What is real is that, whatever this is, it is happening.
You (whoever you are) are reading (however it happens) stuff (whatever that is) on a monitor and it has meaning (Wow! How does that work?).
All this is happening now, in this moment.
It is still happening now, but this now is a little different.
Things are changing now. (Haven’t they always?)
I find I can effect changes in this moment.
I choose another playlist on my iTunes to create a more conducive mood for diving into reality.
The moment is fresh, creative, bursting forth.
Thinking back on many decades of meditation, each moment as fresh, as new, coming into being.
At the Centre of each moment, the eternal Flame, unconsumed, from which all light, all creation emerges.
Ever present in each now, in each and every here, bringing it into existence.
One Light, one Love, one Beauty, one Truth.

I am going to quote a post which appears on another thread, but addresses this OP:

This is not a method for discerning true claims from false ones. You are simply invoking all sorts of preconceived notions and assumptions. If this is a recipe for anything, it is a recipe for making decisions based on emotions and subjective interpretations of events. That is precisely the opposite of “connecting my claims with reality.” Could an omnipotent God create an illusion of change without actual change? I think he could. In fact, I think it is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to reach given my understanding of God’s relationship with his creation (which seems to be the same as C.S. Lewis’s.)

I’m not even arguing that the Catholic position is somehow self-contradictory or invalid, simply that there are other theories and interpretations that are also self-consistent and that you have no method for selecting which is correct. No method for relating your actual belief to reality.

 

[oldcelt]

This is not a method for discerning true claims from false ones. You are simply invoking all sorts of preconceived notions and assumptions. If this is a recipe for anything, it is a recipe for making decisions based on emotions and subjective interpretations of events. That is precisely the opposite of “connecting my claims with reality.” Could an omnipotent God create an illusion of change without actual change? I think he could. In fact, I think it is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to reach given my understanding of God’s relationship with his creation (which seems to be the same as C.S. Lewis’s.)

I’m not even arguing that the Catholic position is somehow self-contradictory or invalid, simply that there are other theories and interpretations that are also self-consistent and that you have no method for selecting which is correct. No method for relating your actual belief to reality.

Truly spoken.

 

[oldcelt]

When one has an active imagination, it is imperative to connect with reality. This is a pretzel of ideas.

Time and eternity exist. Neither is illusion. We do not just think things are changing; they are. God has the overview, given that He exists in all time as the one Being who creates all.

Free will exists, and determines through each choice, who we become.
This is basic and a consequence solely of how we were created by God, who can be said to have put aside His omnipotence that we might each have an individual will.

God who exists as One in all time, sees all moments (This moment is very real.) within His eternal Now.

That does not in any way remove his complicity with what has occurred from His creations…If you believe in the Christian God that is.

 

[Amandil]

I think my position is perfectly clear: God could create a husk which has all the physical properties that a person has, but without a soul. I did not say the husk would be a person, I said it would be a placeholder that would allow genetic information to be passed on, thereby solving the problem of “God needs the hell-bound so that future people may exist.”

And your position is still an absurd self-contradiction. Every living being has a soul, souls are the “form” of a body and the animating principle of a body.

You make God into some sort of utilitarianist: cold, “pragmatic”, indifferent.

No matter what hypothetical scenario you try to contrive in order to make your idea “work” you essentially deny either the basic and fundamental nature of God, or the basic anthropology of man.

Then answer my question: if exactly one person ever existed, would he necessarily go to hell?

No, not necessarily.

Regardless, you’re still missing the point.

C.S. Lewis is arguing for pretty much exactly my understanding of God’s relationship with time. God creates everything in a timeless fashion: “creation in its entirety operates at every point of space and time”

In such a view, our perception of time and change is an illusion.

If that’s your conclusion then, again, you completely missed the point.

God perceives (and indeed creates) all things simultaneously in an “unbounded now.” A state where God is partway done with creation does not exist. We perceive a small sliver of creation because we are bound by time, and that limitation makes us think that changes are occurring. God, however, has the **correct **view of things: we are merely the 4 dimensional statue he carves all at once. There is no actual change and therefore no actual exercise of free will.

And you just perfectly demonstrated how you are the person Lewis is talking about: you commit the same fallacious reasoning as described by “Screwtape” in the passage.

Lets talk about eternity for a second. I believe you mean that eternity is basically “God’s infinite timeline” and that it has the properties:

An “infinite timeline” is another contradiction in terms.

And if the Kalam Argument is true, then an “infinite timeline” is an impossibility.

A. Nothing changes in the direction of eternity.

This “property”(or premise) is at best ambiguous. What exactly do you mean by “in the direction”.

B. Eternity is orthogonal to our own time.

If you’re going to say that “eternity is independent to our own time” just say it that way. There is no use in using polysyllabic jargon not even related to philosophy or common sense(orthogonal being specifically related to mathematics).

I would argue that eternity encompasses all time.

However, those two properties make eternity conceptually identical to an instantaneous event, so trying to draw some distinction between them is splitting hairs.

Again, this only makes sense if you perceive of eternity as “past”, “present” and “future”.

There is no “past” or “future” in an ever-present now.

 

[Aloysium]

This is not a method for discerning true claims from false ones. You are simply invoking all sorts of preconceived notions and assumptions. If this is a recipe for anything, it is a recipe for making decisions based on emotions and subjective interpretations of events. That is precisely the opposite of “connecting my claims with reality.” Could an omnipotent God create an illusion of change without actual change? I think he could. In fact, I think it is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to reach given my understanding of God’s relationship with his creation (which seems to be the same as C.S. Lewis’s.)

I’m not even arguing that the Catholic position is somehow self-contradictory or invalid, simply that there are other theories and interpretations that are also self-consistent and that you have no method for selecting which is correct. No method for relating your actual belief to reality.

I enjoyed the process, but I see that this posting business involves more than just expressing myself. I thought I might be most helpful by getting you to do the work. I don’t expect a reply.

Here are a bunch of questions related to your statements, but I don’t really have any sense of why you are here, so it’s a shot in the dark:

Is there anything wrong with a preconceived notion, if it is the truth?
Other than our relationship with reality, what else is the source of knowledge?
How does one think about and hence communicate what is real without use of the imagination (“subjective interpretation”)?
Is truth a matter of either-or, or can it also be a this-and-that?
What is it that leads you to believe, that is, what factors are you considering when you decide that my stated belief is not a description of reality?

 

[tommydude2112]

The way, I see it, God doesn’t make people good or bad. Rather, God makes people and gives them free will.
From there, environmental factors - such as the bringing up of a child, his surroundings and even, to an extent, daemonic influence - can alter how a person acts and whether he can be classed as a good or bad person.
So, if we turn away from God, we have chosen Hell and we chosen not to receive the grace of God.
God wants everyone to go to Heaven but Heaven is only for the pure of heart and it is not being NOT-omni-benevolent to let sinners go to Hell because it was there choice to not accept God in their lives

 

[Aloysium]

I was thinking about questions. They emerge from situations and understandings that don’t quite fit and they spur on thought. It seems to me that the OP is simply a bad question.

What I find is that once you are able to formulate a question, the answer soon appears.
Not here however; the question appears to come out of confusion, as they might all, but it reflects that confusion rather than pointing to the answer.

Now this is a good question if one’s intent is to muddy things up, or to argue, to annoy, to make a responder look stupid, stuff like that.

It is good for people like myself who dabble in metaphysics, with no idea of what they are doing, but having an opinion.
We can argue forcefully about what constitutes reality without having to appeal to anything but ourselves.
We don’t have to pay attention to logic, since after all, it is an assumption that things make sense. All this thinking may be no more than a fancy game of sudoku. And, we don’t even have to apply the rules since we can be creative - a sudoku game where we can put the numbers where we please.

I think we can see how this is a bad question by stating it in terms of what happens in the real world of people. How about:
Why does God create homosexuals knowing they will go to hell?

I can imagine the trolls: What an excellent question!
Everyone else, you see the problem?

 

[Amandil]

I think we can see how this is a bad question by stating it in terms of what happens in the real world of people. How about:
Why does God create homosexuals knowing they will go to hell?

I can imagine the trolls: What an excellent question!
Everyone else, you see the problem?

Or, since how we can truly never be absolutely sure of our destiny and any one of us could wind up in hell, the question is, “Why doesn’t God just not create me?”

Or “Why did God give me free will? I didn’t ask for it, and if I knew that it would cause me to sin, I’d never want it.”

As I said earlier, the question is them complaining to God because they have the freedom to choose to do good or to abuse that freedom by doing evil. This sort of lament is them blaming God for their sins, just as Adam did with Eve after he sinned. To not take responsibility for your actions but blame it on another is not a mark of maturity but immaturity.

There’s another idea for which this question is alluding to: “If God made started over 100 times, making 100 Edens with 100 Adams and 100 Eves, surely there would not be 100 falls; at least one time one of them would not sin?”

Surely the question commits the Gambler’s fallacy; odds of a chance for a successful outcome decrease, not increase, for every chance used. Not to mention the fact that Satan would in fact also attempt 100 temptations lying 100 times. And since every subsequent creation of Adam and Eve would have no knowledge of the previous outcome, they would be fooled into eating the fruit 100 times as well.

So the conclusion assumed in the question is most assuredly false.

The bottom line is that God created us from love for love. He does not force us to love, He’s not a tyrant or a spiritual rapist, but desires us to come to the realization that to love, and that means to love according to the truth, fully and completely, is our deepest heart’s desire. And that by accepting lesser loves as opposed to real Love is not merely just selling ourselves short, it is hell.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

And your position is still an absurd self-contradiction. Every living being has a soul, souls are the “form” of a body and the animating principle of a body.

You make God into some sort of utilitarianist: cold, “pragmatic”, indifferent.

No matter what hypothetical scenario you try to contrive in order to make your idea “work” you essentially deny either the basic and fundamental nature of God, or the basic anthropology of man.

Hardly, saving a soul from eternal suffering isn’t cold or indifferent. It would be the expression of a desire for souls to not end up in hell.

No, not necessarily.
Regardless, you’re still missing the point.
If that’s your conclusion then, again, you completely missed the point.

I’m not sure how I missed the point.

A. If some one, or some people have free will, we cannot make any conclusions about the population of hell (e.g. that it would be non-zero)
B. It is therefore perfectly reasonable to inquire “why wouldn’t God create a state where the population of hell was exactly zero?”
C. Not creating people who would end up in hell is a perfectly valid method by which God could have created a zero-population hell.

An “infinite timeline” is another contradiction in terms.

And if the Kalam Argument is true, then an “infinite timeline” is an impossibility.

So eternity is finite?

This “property”(or premise) is at best ambiguous. What exactly do you mean by “in the direction”.

If you’re going to say that “eternity is independent to our own time” just say it that way. There is no use in using polysyllabic jargon not even related to philosophy or common sense(orthogonal being specifically related to mathematics).
I would argue that eternity encompasses all time.
Again, this only makes sense if you perceive of eternity as “past”, “present” and “future”.
There is no “past” or “future” in an ever-present now.

I used the terms I did because they have specific meanings related to how I understand God and his relationship to our time. There are good reasons for using these concrete and precise terms; for example I could easily draw diagrams explaining my understanding of the relationship between God, eternity, and our timeline. I wonder if your understanding is concrete enough to do so.

 

[MacQ]

Wouldn’t that interfere with that “free will” thingy?