God, being all knowing, creates everyone with apparent free will. However, he creates us knowing everything that we will do, and creating us any differently would change the people we are. 

God knew that Adam would eat from the tree. Jesus knew Judas would betray him. However, God created Judas and Adam exactly as they were, knowing all that they would do, so are they to blame? 

The other possibility could only be that in creating us, God bestows upon us a freedom from himself (free will) making even God blind to our future actions (though this seems highly unlikely.) God creates us all in a specific way, being omniscient he knows what all of our future actions will be the moment, or even before, we are created. 

Why then would God create us in such a way where the end result is eternal damnation? Why would God not create us differently so as to avoid such a fate? If it is within God's power, and God is loving, why create an entity that would be eternally damned?

Please Comment,

Fay Tacomplee

I have a couple of problems with your reasoning. First you say “God created.” Even though the Holy Scriptures say that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” this is said for our benefit. It does not encompass God’s nature. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. (Heb 13:8) Jesus points out that “He is the God of the living. (Matthew 22:23-33) implying that, to Him, all are alive. To say that “He created” embraces only part of the wonder of His nature. God is eternally present and to Him all things are now. God did not know that Adam and Judas would sin. He KNOWS (note the present tense) that Adam and Judas make the wrong choice. You can’t really talk about the past and the future in speaking of Heaven. Imagine that you are driving down a forest road. You see a little of what lies ahead and a little of what lies behind. Imagine that there is a helicopter pilot above you, who sees the whole road beginning and end, and the whole wide forest as well. I think this poor analogy speaks to the question. If the perspective of the helicopter pilot is so much greater than that of the driver of the car, how much greater is the perspective of the almighty and infinite eye of Heaven? For God, there is no time and no distance. To say that he knew before does not embrace the fullness of his knowing. In the infinite physics of heaven, opposites meet and the impossible becomes easy. I cannot reconcile justice and mercy, but in God, mercy and justice are the same.

You say that God creates us in a specific way. I think you are mistaken. Free will is much more amazing than we can grasp. It means that we participate in the very freedom of God. That does not means that I can arbitrarily want this and not want something else. God is not arbitrary. To echo Albert Einstein, “He does not play dice with the universe.” The verb “barah” in Hebrew refers uniquely to God’s power to create. It is the verb used in the text, “In the beginning, God created...” It seems, however, that God shares His power to create with us in a way that He does not with any of His other creatures. You say that God created us as we are. In some matters, I suppose He does. But in some things we create ourselves with His permission.  Using the freedom God gives me, I create myself by moral decisions and actions for good or ill. Certainly I can’t change the color of my hair. Oh, I guess I can. You know what I mean, but there are many things I can and do change every moment of my life.

A very dear friend of mine was in an advanced religious school as a little girl she was asked the classic question, “Can God make a rock so big that He Himself cannot move it?” She answered that He can and did when He made the human heart.” She was expelled from the school for that answer. Muslims and Calvinists say that God can do what He wants. If He wanted to make such a rock, certainly He could.  Catholics and Jews say that the very nature of things flows from God Himself and thus creation is an echo of the Divine. God would not make such a rock. We moderns think that freedom is the ability to make arbitrary and even capricious decisions and to have or do what we want. We mistake license and liberty. Contrast that with Jesus saying in the garden, “Father, not as I will but as You will.” My friend’s answer goes much deeper than most of us understand. God withholds his sovereignty when making us for the sake of freedom. And why is freedom so important? It is the necessary foundation of Love. God hopes for more from us than he does from all other creatures. He wants us to be like him, as his sons and daughters, so his gift to us is real freedom that our gift to him might be real Love. Haven’t you read that God is Love?

Yours, if not freely, at least inexpensively,

Rev. Know-It-All