Why would God create people he knew would go to hell?

[johnjacob2004]

Isn’t there more than one level of goodness? There is a plethora of decisions to make that involve being a good person… feeding homeless, visiting those in prison, teaching children… are those not based on the freewill of those who choose to sacrifice their time to care for them?

 

[steve-b]

steve-b:

The fact He knows in advance what people will choose to do, doesn’t mean He caused them to choose / do evil.

But if God knows in advance what we will choose, then we have no alternative except to do what was known already in advance.

That’s false

God allows us to choose freely. Otherwise our will is not free.
AINg:

Free will implies the existence of different alternatives. But there are no alternatives for us since we have to do what was known beforehand that we would do.

That’s false. Just because He knows what we will choose doesn’t mean He forced it.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

But you have to understand that you’re developing a relationship with an idea, with a concept that exists solely in your own mind. Not with something that you can know to be objectively real.

Oh, is that so? Can you provide your objective proof that my relationship with God is just an idea or a concept in my own mind? Likewise, can you provide objective proof that the reality you experience is not solely in your own mind?

What makes something objectively real? Is it what you can touch, smell, see, and hear? What about things that the human body cannot detect or observe; things that require some external device to measure?

How can you trust that the information being conveyed by them is objectively real and accurate? Has humanity never observed and declared something “objective truth” that turned out to be incorrect? Has humanity reached such a zenith of perfection that our powers of observation have reached the point of infallibility?

You also have objective proof that everything that is observable is received and processed equally by all human observers and there is no differences in opinion or interpretation of the observed information?

 

[AveOTheotokos]

But if God knows what you will do in the future, then do you have any other alternative? Does free will imply the existence of possible alternatives?

Humans, with their imperfect knowledge can, with some degree of certainty, be said to “know” of future events.

A car speeding towards a brick wall can be reasonably be “known” to be about to crash into the wall. The human knowledge of this future event does not alter nor constrain the event, as some unforeseeable event could alter the car’s trajectory, destroy the car before it reaches the wall, etc…

God and His infinite, perfect knowledge possess no such limitations and can know with absolute certainty of all contingent and future events.

 

[johnjacob2004]

It’s too narrow of a definition of goodness to be a something that limits ones choice… the more one chooses goodness and love the more free one is actually…

 

[johnjacob2004]

As St. Augustine pointed out man’s free will and God’s foreknowledge are not mutually exclusive… that’s the way prayer works… God knows what we need before we ask Him… but He won’t violate our free will and wants us to humble ourselves and ask Him…

 

[AveOTheotokos]

Cannot… but it often is. I doubt it would be for most of the users of this forum, but for many people out there.

A poor choice of words on my part then.

A true, healthy, and loving relationship with God cannot be contingent on consolation, happiness, fear, feelings, etc…

Oh, is that what my wife does when she drags the kids to mass?.. inform.

Due to a lack of information, history, and authority, I am not in a position to assess nor pass judgement on your wife’s efforts at parenting or evangelization.

Banished? Banished from God’s garden? Banished from the presence of God?

Catholic tradition teaches that Adam and Eve repented and the Church celebrates the feasts of St. Adam and St. Eve on December 24th. You can find some clues to this in Genesis as well.

 

[mkoopman]

God made the option. This means no choice was made. God always was and still remains omniscient and omnipotent. As a community God wills love beyond our understanding and desires to share this with you. The free will of finite creatures is not relevant to the divine. He is the Creator. Associating the free will of creatures to God is the absurdity.
Jesus is proof of God’s will for our good. The human soul of Jesus made all perfectly loving choices. And, so did His earthly parents.

 

[benjamin1973]

Yeah, this doesn’t make sense to me. If God is all-knowing, including the future, then whatever you “freely” choose, you were destined to choose. You could not, in fact, have done otherwise, since for God to know every step of your future, there was only one decision you could have made at any given moment.

Is it wrong to say that God doesn’t know our future? Or maybe that God allows for a multiverse in which every possible decision plays out?

I am confused.

 

[mkoopman]

Primarily because you desire other than that God should be God. His Goodness is what we should find awesome and wish to partake of this, agape.
Our pride blinds us and leads us to believe He cheated us of something when He gave us everything. So, eat the fruit it does look good for food.

 

[vincentleo]

It is true that God is incapable of choosing evil, but this does not mean that He lacks free will. Free will is not defined as the ability to choose either good or evil, but rather free will exists where one is able to choose something that is not necessary. Necessity drives action, and so we say that animals do not have free will because they are driven by the necessity of instinct. The proof of free will is found when some action is taken that is not driven by necessity or instinct.

So, just because God cannot choose evil does not mean that there are not other things which He can choose but which are not necessary. For example, it was not necessary that God create anything…and yet, He did. That is free will.

Therefore, it is incorrect to say that God is incapable of love due to a lack of free will.

 

[benjamin1973]

I’m also confused, but I don’t have a desire that God should be other than God. I’m confused about the logic of having free will and determinism in the same causal system. If God knows something to be true, it must be eternally true, and cannot be other than it is. But it seems to me that free will is the capacity to choose from multiple options, i.e. to arrive at a destination which cannot be known, in any way or by anyone, before you arrive there.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm

 

[Kei]

Evil is defined as that which goes against God’s will, and good is defined as that which is in accord with God’s will…is this correct?
Therefore, based upon premise #1, whatever God wills to do is good by definition…is this correct?
Result…God is incapable of choosing to do that which is evil. He can only choose to do that which is good. It’s not just a matter of God being capable of choosing evil, but always choosing to do good instead. Rather, God is completely incapable of choosing to do evil. Because whatever God chooses to do is by definition…good.

Conclusion: God is incapable of choosing between good and evil. Therefore God lacks free will. And based upon the premise that in order to love one must have free will…God is incapable of love.

This sounded fairly Catholic until the end.
In Catholic theology freedom is the ability to choose between various goods. Hence God is the MOST free, untainted from evil choices. Do not forget He is self sufficient.

 

[Kei]

Imagine that George, your friend, lives in a world with free will. You also have free will.

Now.

Five years ago, George decided to build a house, and told you.

Flash forward to today.
You know that George chose to build a house five years ago.

Does that invalidate George’s choice?

 

[abucs]

I would tend to think about this as God creating mankind, some of whom separate themselves from God through their own choices. I think of ourselves as a creation from our ancestral lineage together with our own accumulated choices in how to live our lives.

I see God’s interaction as one of creating the underlying structure of existence and entering a person’s ‘soul’ to the extent that He is invited.

 

[benjamin1973]

In Disneyland, there was once (maybe still is?) a car that kids could drive around a little track. You could steer side to side a little (maybe a foot or so I guess), but you’d keep moving inevitably along the track no matter how you steered. You could not decide to drive, for example, to New York.

It seems to me that the doctrine of free will is much like that. Those on the path to Hell have a little wiggle room: they can struggle to do good one year, revel in their sinful pleasures or evil deeds the next year, and so on. But in the end-- Hell it is, and not Heaven. If Hell is the road they are on, at Hell they will arrive. This is because the final destination is already known to God, and God’s knowledge represents the Truth, perfect and immalleable.

Now, if I was designing a Disney ride, I wouldn’t make the car drop off at the end of the line into an eternal pit of fire, and blame the kid for not steering toward New York instead. That was never a real option, was it?

 

[abucs]

I believe choosing to come closer to God is always a viable option, at least in principle.

 

[benjamin1973]

Sure. But if you end up in Hell, that means that somewhere along the line, you’ve lost that closeness again-- and furthermore, that it was not going to turn out any other way. If anything, this is even crueler-- to feel close to God at some point, but to have some fatal flaw in your personality that takes you away from Him again, and that this entire struggle, failure, and punishment, was known to God at the beginning of Creation.

 

[Kei]

Then your concept of free will is flawed.

Say I knew you would chop down a tree three months ago? How? Because it’s 3 months in the future and you already decided.

God is timeless, our options are real, they’ve just already happened.