Why would God create if destined for hell?

[jmcrae]

You mean, Pharaoh had a choice?

Exodus 10:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them

Pharoah had already made his free choice. God simply withdrew from trying to make him change his mind (basically, God cut the puppet strings off of Pharoah and instead let him do whatever he wanted to do), in order to do something even greater, as a sign to the Israelites.

 

[elvisman]

Has God ever removed anyone’s “Free Will?”

You tell me.
You’re the one who rejets the doctrine.

 

[john_doran]

Then God should will both our happiness and our freedom as a necessary prerequisite. You will respond, He wills our happiness on the condition we properly use our freedom. And I will respond, He can also will that we properly use our freedom. This is the case both in Thomism and in Molinism.

not quite right: molinism involves god simply seeing what we’d do with our freedom in any given circumstance, and then actualizing one of many possible worlds with those features.

even thomism’s strong divine causality of free choices can be understood in this way: god can only cause logically consistent entities, and not all describable free choices are, in fact, logically consistent.

SeekingCatholic:

1. The free will defense is refuted, since in Catholicism there is no “transworld depravity”.

says who?

SeekingCatholic:

1. If God does NOT will our happiness, when He has the power to do so without injury to our freedom, then He is not omni-benevolent.

not true (and assuming *arguendo *that god does, in fact, have this power) - there could be any number of other values that god could instantiate only with the occurrence of freely chosen wrongdoing.

SeekingCatholic:

I can’t. God can. He can stop us from injuring ourselves, while still respecting our freedom. He can move our wills to will what is good for us.

A) how does god “move” our wills to do something while leaving them free?

B) not all injuries are bad. in fact, some personal development can only be achieved by injuring ourselves.

SeekingCatholic:

Yes, there must be the potential to choose not to love. There need not be the actuality of such.

maybe, maybe not.

 

[john_doran]

Ok, you used the phrase “logically possible,” which is why I asked this question. Thanks for clarifying, but you have to admit that “logically possible” sounds a lot like being bound by something.

sure - it may sound that way, but it’s not actually that way (which is precisely why i made that observation).

just call it “possible”, if you prefer. it’s just that logic defines the countours of the possible.

 

[SilentKnight]

This complaint merely picks on semantics. My point was that no one has any real choice if everyone who would choose Hell is not created, because then only one “choice” remains.

How can this be so if they only have one possible option?

Remember that they wouldn’t be created if they would have chosen Hell, so the “choice” of Hell isn’t a real possibility for anyone who exists. If it was, they wouldn’t exist.

I have to side with your “opponent” on this one, Leif.

The catch here is that those who choose Heaven over hell don’t know that, that hell, in the end, is not a real option. If they did, if God said to all “You have a choice. Heaven or Heaven”, then you would be correct. There is no choice there. Thus, as Seeking noted previously, the choice of each individual remains that individual’s choice, regardless of what happens to his compatriots.

God could well have foreseen all those that have chosen Heaven and all those that have chosen hell and could simply have not created those who would end up in hell. But He didn’t.

Why?

We don’t really know…although, something is dawning on me more and more as I write this. I’ll share it later, when I have more time, in my next post…

SK

 

[bilop]

:clapping:

God endowed us with free will. To believe otherwise is heresy.

---

God is neither a cosmic rapist, who forces his love on you, nor is he a monster, who wants to torture you for eternity.

---

**His infinite love demands **free will, and ultimately justice.

:clapping:

 

[SeekingCatholic]

not quite right: molinism involves god simply seeing what we’d do with our freedom in any given circumstance, and then actualizing one of many possible worlds with those features.

Right, and so He could actualize a world with features in which we choose rightly. There is something metaphysically prior and determining of our choices, which is in God’s power to alter.

even thomism’s strong divine causality of free choices can be understood in this way: god can only cause logically consistent entities, and not all describable free choices are, in fact, logically consistent.

You are saying that in certain situations it would be logically necessary for a creature to choose evil?

says who?

Says the catechism. The good angels never sinned. Hence Plantinga’s position that for all we know, it may be impossible for God to create a world in which no one sins due to transworld depravity, is falsified.

not true (and assuming *arguendo *that god does, in fact, have this power) - there could be any number of other values that god could instantiate only with the occurrence of freely chosen wrongdoing.

Well yes it is true. The syllogism goes as follows:

1. Under either Thomism or Molinism, our actions are pre-determined by metaphysical realities. Under Thomism, it’s the presence of self-efficacious grace. Under Molinism, it’s the specific set of circumstances and the brute fact of counterfactuals.
2. Under either Thomism or Molinism, God has the power over those metaphysical realities; He has the power to determine which world to actualize, or which graces to give.
3. Therefore, God has the power to pre-determine our actions.

There may indeed be some other values which can be instantiated with wrongdoing - but we are talking about eternal damnation here. Are you saying because eternal damnation gives God the opportunity to punish and show His justice this is a “value” greater than the evil?

A) how does god “move” our wills to do something while leaving them free?

With grace. Do you deny that efficacious grace moves our wills to choose good while still leaving them free?

B) not all injuries are bad. in fact, some personal development can only be achieved by injuring ourselves.

Yes, but not eternal damnation.

 

[SeekingCatholic]

I absolutely feel that he does use omnipotence and omniscience to some degree to predestine events on Earth- yet he does not predestine people to go to Hell. This is one place where he does not extend his predestining power. To teach that he does would be contradictory to both Thomism and Molinism. The Council of Trent explicitly condemned this.

So you agree He uses His omnipotence and omniscience to predestine people to Heaven? If He can do it for some, why not everyone?

This complaint merely picks on semantics. My point was that no one has any real choice if everyone who would choose Hell is not created, because then only one “choice” remains.

But as you yourself admit, Divine foreknowledge is consistent with a real choice and free will, even though no one has the “choice” to choose otherwise than what it is foreknown he will choose.

That’s not true, as God’s foreknowledge doesn’t determine behavior any more than the foreknowledge of humans about the behavior of other humans determines their behavior.

Not alone, but God’s foreknowledge together with the circumstances and grace (which He also determines) does determine behavior.

Being sure that a person will choose something doesn’t mean you’ve forced them to choose it at any time in human experience. This can easily be extended to God as well- just as any human foreknowing what another human to do doesn’t force that person to act by the foreknowing, so God doesn’t force anyone to act by his foreknowing. It is certain that what he foreknows will come to pass not because his foreknowledge makes that so, but because he is eternal and therefore can see the end from the beginning.

Exactly. So if God foreknew that everyone would choose heaven then it is still the case that no one was forced to do so, and they still had a free choice.

I’ve heard people say that, but it isn’t really true. Else they’d seek God, repent of their sins, and would receive truth, peace and joy in the Lord Emmanuel, “God with us.” The fact that they don’t implicitly declares that they prefer the unhappiness of sin and darkness to eternal life and joy. People don’t want to give up their sinful ways, and like to be their own masters…

And why don’t they? Could God cause them to prefer eternal life and joy to sin and darkness?

Please explain your point further. I’m not sure what you mean.

In the world you’ve proposed, “choosing” Hell is impossible, because all who would choose Hell are not created.

Yeah, but you’re making the error in modal logic of confusing necessary impossibility with contingent impossibility. They do not choose to avoid Hell necessarily, as though that would be the case in every possible world, but only contingently, in the particular world that actually exists.

So the choice of Hell is preemptively removed by God before it can become a real option, and everyone only chooses what God in his foreknowledge wants them to choose (he might, presumably, preemptively not create anyone who deviates from his will at all, by your reasoning). That is a puppet show, something absolutely under God’s control that has no possibility of opposing his will.

Not so. Again they adhere to God’s will, not necessarily, but only contingently.

To the extent that he removes real options from their grasp by choosing only to create those who will do what he wants, freedom is removed. Therefore this use of omniscience clearly contradicts the Catholic doctrine of Free Will.

No, it doesn’t.

 

[jmcrae]

Something I read once, but don’t understand very well - is it not true that if God thinks of something, it comes into being? That existence itself is the substance of God’s thoughts.

So, it would not be possible for God to know someone, and then not create him - since God’s very act of knowing him would bring him into existence. So, even knowing that someone would choose Hell, God’s very act of knowing that causes the person to exist, and then he freely chooses to go to Hell.

 

[Lief_Erikson]

I have to side with your “opponent” on this one, Leif.

The catch here is that those who choose Heaven over hell don’t know that, that hell, in the end, is not a real option. If they did, if God said to all “You have a choice. Heaven or Heaven”, then you would be correct. There is no choice there. Thus, as Seeking noted previously, the choice of each individual remains that individual’s choice, regardless of what happens to his compatriots.

No, because I’m saying that the “choice” of this individual who will choose Heaven is not really a choice, because God didn’t only foreknow it- he used his foreknowledge to actively determine it before the man’s conception. God, in Seeker’s scenario, takes all the possible people and says, “these people will choose Hell if given a choice, and these people will choose Heaven, so I’ll create those who will choose Heaven and not make those who choose Hell.” That’s God choosing everyone’s eternal destinies before conception, predestining everyone. No one therefore chooses his own fate. God chose it for each person before he or she was born (whether they know it or not)! That’s the logical, necessary consequence of omniscience being used as a control in the way that this topic’s question has been proposed.

In this scenario, there is only an illusion of the possibility of Hell. There is no real possibility of Hell, because God eliminated it. And if he lets people just think they have a real possibility of choosing Hell, then he’s a liar, but God is truth, so there are no lies in Him, so in this scenario he would be bound to say (if he said anything on the subject), “there really is no possibility that you choose Hell.”

God could well have foreseen all those that have chosen Heaven and all those that have chosen hell and could simply have not created those who would end up in hell. But He didn’t.

Why?

We don’t really know…although, something is dawning on me more and more as I write this. I’ll share it later, when I have more time, in my next post…

SK

I’ll look forward to it .

But I know that when I was a Calvinist, I believed that God used his omniscience to determine everyone’s fates in the way that has been proposed in this thread heading (one reason I didn’t believe in an eternal Hell back then). The use of omniscience to predestine everyone to Heaven is contradictory to Free Will, because it eliminates the reality of the possibility of rejecting God.

 

[ckempston]

Pharoah had already made his free choice. God simply withdrew from trying to make him change his mind (basically, God cut the puppet strings off of Pharoah and instead let him do whatever he wanted to do), in order to do something even greater, as a sign to the Israelites.

So, what you’re saying here is that Exodus 10:1 is not true. Got it.

 

[ckempston]

You tell me.
You’re the one who rejets the doctrine.

The doctrine of Free Will is demolished by plain passages of scripture. The example of Pharaoh is just one instance in which God clearly violates “free will.”

Acts 17:26 is another example of where God must suspend free will, if it exists, at least some of the time:

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.

He could not possibly accomplish this if man is completely free to make his own decisions.

 

[SeekingCatholic]

No, because I’m saying that the “choice” of this individual who will choose Heaven is not really a choice, because God didn’t only foreknow it- he used his foreknowledge to actively determine it before the man’s conception. God, in Seeker’s scenario, takes all the possible people and says, “these people will choose Hell if given a choice, and these people will choose Heaven, so I’ll create those who will choose Heaven and not make those who choose Hell.” That’s God choosing everyone’s eternal destinies before conception, predestining everyone.

No, in this case the eternal destinies are brute-fact counterfactuals (which is in fact the case according to Molinism). God doesn’t choose the eternal destinies themselves, which are brute facts which He has not power to change, but He does decide which people, and which external circumstances, to actualize.

No one therefore chooses his own fate. God chose it for each person before he or she was born (whether they know it or not)! That’s the logical, necessary consequence of omniscience being used as a control in the way that this topic’s question has been proposed.

Even God did not choose the fate, given the person and external circumstances. It was a brute fact.

In this scenario, there is only an illusion of the possibility of Hell. There is no real possibility of Hell, because God eliminated it.

Yes, but if God creates those who He knows will choose hell, there is also no real possibility of them choosing heaven, in your logic.

And if he lets people just think they have a real possibility of choosing Hell, then he’s a liar, but God is truth, so there are no lies in Him, so in this scenario he would be bound to say (if he said anything on the subject), “there really is no possibility that you choose Hell.”

Right, but He would also be lying to tell those bound for hell there was a real possibility they choose heaven.

But I know that when I was a Calvinist, I believed that God used his omniscience to determine everyone’s fates in the way that has been proposed in this thread heading (one reason I didn’t believe in an eternal Hell back then). The use of omniscience to predestine everyone to Heaven is contradictory to Free Will, because it eliminates the reality of the possibility of rejecting God.

Repeating the same disproven assertion doesn’t make it any more true. You are here using special pleading. You claim that the fact that we cannot choose otherwise than what God foreknows we will choose does not negate our free will, but if perchance God should foreknow we would all choose heaven then that would be contradictory to free will.

 

[allhers]

Sorry if this is a repeat, didn’t read thru the whole thread, as it is too long for me and I am feeling rushed.(I have things to do.)
But, one of the most compelling reasons that I have ever heard of is this:
Only God can bring good out of evil, and just as Judas did what he did, look what God was able to do with that!!!
So, even knowing what one will do, and that doesn’t mean God caused it to happen, knowing and causing are two different things, still God was able to bring good out of it, as only He can.

 

[Lief_Erikson]

SeekingCatholic:

So you agree He uses His omnipotence and omniscience to predestine people to Heaven? If He can do it for some, why not everyone?

I don’t know enough about the Catholic concept of predestination to respond to this.

SeekingCatholic:

Quote:
This complaint merely picks on semantics. My point was that no one has any real choice if everyone who would choose Hell is not created, because then only one “choice” remains.
But as you yourself admit, Divine foreknowledge is consistent with a real choice and free will, even though no one has the “choice” to choose otherwise than what it is foreknown he will choose.

Yes- that is foreknowing without taking action based on that foreknowledge to determine that people go one way or another. For instance, take the time travel scenario I posed in my other post. If someone goes forward in time a couple centuries from the US in the 1800s and researches Japanese civilian lives, learning Japanese history thoroughly, learning how lots of people lived, and then he goes back to the 19th century US and lives his normal life without acting on his knowledge or ever visiting Japan or talking about it, his knowledge of what is to come in no way contradicts the Free Will of those that choose to live their lives in the way he saw they would. He just saw what they’d choose- he didn’t make them choose it.

On the other hand, if he bounced backward in time not to 19th century America but to the time period he’d been studying and had seen the consequences of, and he used his power to preempt people from ever making bad decisions by killing their great great grandmothers and stopping them from ever existing or some such (never mind the immorality of killing the grandma- it’s irrelevant to my point), he would clearly be interfering with the Free Wills of the unmade people he’s blocking. He’d be using a godlike power to force people onto a path of his choosing. He’d be predestining in the most overpowering way.

If God uses his foreknowledge to not create people who make those bad decisions, he would be making the decisions for everyone he creates before he creates them, so none of their decisions would be truly theirs- all of them would spring from God alone.

SeekingCatholic:

Not alone, but God’s foreknowledge together with the circumstances and grace (which He also determines) does determine behavior.

No, God’s foreknowledge together with grace and circumstances do not determine behavior. That is absolutely contrary to Catholic teaching.

Besides, grace is available to every living human. So that’s within the human sphere to reject or accept. And some God permits but does not will. Humans have Free Will to decide what they want to do with their circumstances and with the grace God has given them. God does not control that.

SeekingCatholic:

Exactly. So if God foreknew that everyone would choose heaven then it is still the case that no one was forced to do so, and they still had a free choice.

Except that in your scenario, God uses his foreknowledge to force his will for every human life into being. He chooses only people who will choose Heaven, so because he chose prior to their choice, and used his foreknowledge to know that his choice would pan out, they don’t have any real choice of refusal. The God you’re envisioning is using his foreknowledge to predestine, rather than creating people who can make their own decisions.

SeekingCatholic:

And why don’t they? Could God cause them to prefer eternal life and joy to sin and darkness?

That’s predestination again.

There is darkness and no real satisfaction in lacking God, so people in that state keep searching for something more. Many choose to not find satisfaction in the only place it could be found because they prefer to rule their own lives. On the other hand, some do repent and turn to the true God. God’s voice and heart do call to everyone on Earth who is in this condition.

SeekingCatholic:

Yeah, but you’re making the error in modal logic of confusing necessary impossibility with contingent impossibility. They do not choose to avoid Hell necessarily, as though that would be the case in every possible world, but only contingently, in the particular world that actually exists.

It is necessary impossibility in this world though, because they could not have chosen it in any other world, as God would not have created them in any of those worlds, because he would not have willed for them to be damned. He determines the choice absolutely of his own will in your scenario, which is predestination, Calvinism plain and simple, and people only choose God’s will because he chose that they choose it before they were born. His use of foreknowledge to predestine in this world eliminates all possibility of freedom within it. Everything is exactly as God planned not because humans willed it but because God willed it. That is the reverse of Free Will. It is absolute predestination of all things, which is what Calvinists teach and what I used to believe back when I was a Calvinist.

I also used to believe back then that omniscience eliminates the possibility of Free Will, because God could choose one universe that goes exactly as he wants and not create all the other infinite possibilities, so even if Free Will existed, God would have absolute say over whatever occurs. I hadn’t taken into account that God might choose not to use his foreknowledge to determine. He might allow people to do horrible things that he foresaw they’d do but didn’t make them do, because he allowed them to exist and defy him so as not to contradict the Free Wills of humanity.

Omniscience used as a tool to achieve Heaven or Hell is a Calvinistic idea. I used to adhere to it, but it contradicts Free Will. Since becoming Catholic, I’ve rejected it, praise God.

 

[elvisman]

The doctrine of Free Will is demolished by plain passages of scripture. The example of Pharaoh is just one instance in which God clearly violates “free will.”

Acts 17:26 is another example of where God must suspend free will, if it exists, at least some of the time:

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.

He could not possibly accomplish this if man is completely free to make his own decisions.

Ahhh - I get you now.
**You take one translation of the bible and make all of your interpretations. **The NAB says of Acts 17:26:
**“He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions . . .” **

The "boundaries of their regions" is the entire surface of the earth - not Mars, not Venus, not the moon, but EARTH.
I don’t see anything having to do with limiting free will here.

As I indicated earlier - it’s heresy to deny the doctrine of free will. Tell me, ckempston, which Church do you belong to?
Which denomination?

 

[Lief_Erikson]

SeekingCatholic:

Repeating the same disproven assertion doesn’t make it any more true. You are here using special pleading. You claim that the fact that we cannot choose otherwise than what God foreknows we will choose does not negate our free will, but if perchance God should foreknow we would all choose heaven then that would be contradictory to free will.

Not so, for in your scenario, it is not “perchance” that God should foreknow everyone will choose Heaven. “Perchance” does not exist- perchance assumes that everyone chooses Heaven while having a real capability to choose Hell. In your scenario, God chooses everyone’s “choices” and destinies before they do- he doesn’t just foresee them- he CHOOSES them. In this way he completely controls their lives, making all their decisions, or at least the most important ones, before they were conceived, and then he allows them to act it all out afterward. Omniscience used to predestine comes out to practical Calvinism.

That is the absolute reverse of Free Will.

 

[cynic]

To make the elect look more ‘holy’ in his eyes, to provide contrast between good and evil, and more importantly, because it pleases him to do so.

 

[ckempston]

**Ahhh - I get **you now.
**You take one translation of the bible and make all of your interpretations. **The NAB says of Acts 17:26:
**“He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions . . .” **

The "boundaries of their regions" is the entire surface of the earth - not Mars, not Venus, not the moon, but EARTH.
I don’t see anything having to do with limiting free will here.

**As I indicated earlier - it’s heresy **to deny the doctrine of free will. Tell me, ckempston, which Church do you belong to?
Which denomination?

I happen to use 3 or 4 translations, including a Catholic Bible. The meaning of the verse does not change. God arranges things in such a way that men will be prompted to find him. That’s what the passage says no matter what version you use. He couldn’t possibly set up boundaries and regions without manipulating some men.

Here’s another one for you:

John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

The Greek word for draw is actually drag. It’s the same word that’s used when Peter draws his sword, when Paul is dragged from the city and stoned, and when James describes being dragged into court. The word appears 8 times in the NT. Every time it’s used it means drag. The Father drags us to him. Get over it. This requires, at the very least, the temporary suspension of free will. As I have already demonstrated quite clearly, and you ignored, there is at least one blatant example of God violating free will in the case of Pharaoh. There are others, but you can’t even deal with this one. Who’s the heretic? One who denies doctrines of man, or one who denies the Word of God?

Let me ask you a question. Did Adam have free will to choose not to eat the forbidden fruit? I say no, otherwise, Christ certainly could not have been slain from the foundation of the world. It was God’s will that Adam and Eve eat the fruit, and that’s why they did it.

For what it’s worth, I’m a member of a misnamed “non-denominational” church, but they’d consider me a heretic too, just like you do, but again, I’m not really that concerned with it.

 

[SilentKnight]

Leif,

I understand what you’re saying (in the posts to me - I didnt read everything you said to Seeker). I get where you’re coming from…And you’re not getting where Seeking and I are coming from.

If we all have a choice, we all have a choice. If God sees that choice in advance and then does not create those who “chose” (in the future) hell - and does not indicate that He is doing this to the others who are choosing heaven - then the choice for Heaven remains a very real choice.

An illustration: You get married and God reveals to you that you will have seven children and six of them will turn out well. The seventh will end up choosing to become and die as a drug addict. Knowing the future, you decide to use artificial birth control when the time comes to conceive your seventh child, to make sure they never come into existence (“They’re better off that way,” you reason.) Does this mean that children number 1 through 6 never had the chance or option of becoming drug addicts themselves? No, not at all. They were entirely free to do as they pleased and turned out the way they did because of a free choice to do so, not because they were not free. You, knowing that your seventh child would freely choose to go astray, decide out of “compassion” not to allow him to be born in the first place. Thus, the seventh child (Who now doesn’t even exist in the first place) may not have had the “free will” to choose in the end, but the other six certainly did.

Do you see now how this plays out?

SK