Frankly Answered Questions - FAQs

Why would a loving God make a man, knowing that the man would reject God, and that God would then have to send the man to eternal damnation?

Q: I've had a running email debate with a new age friend for most of a year now. Here is a question that I struggle with myself. Please give me your thoughts, but don't just say that "it's so because God is sovereign." That only works for us Christians.

"Why would a loving God make a man, knowing that the man would reject God, and that God would then have to send the man to eternal damnation?"

A tougher version for the Calvinist is "Why would God create a man with no intention of Electing/Calling the man, and then sentence the man to eternal damnation."

A: There are some questions that just cannot be answered except from a creature/Christian perspective. God is God (that's the definition of God) and He can do what He darn well pleases to do. The problem with new agers and pagans (and some Christians) is that they try to create a god that is manageable, predictable, controllable, or intellectually graspable. But the very nature of Godness is to be "un-" all of those things.

When Paul was asked this question he replied in the following manner:

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? -- Romans 9:20-24, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House) 1984.

Paul gives three answers to your question:

1. God is creator and can do what He wants with His creations just as a potter does what he wants with his creations.

2. Those who are not chosen have a purpose, i.e. to demonstrate God's wrath and make His power known (v. 22). -- It probably goes without saying that this will not sit well with humanists who see themselves as central to the universe.

3. Those who are not chosen were created to make the riches of God's glory known to those to whom He is merciful (i.e., those of us who are chosen to be saved by the mercy of God). Mercy is revealed by contrast.

I doubt if this will be acceptable to your friend. It is not acceptable to many Christians who are basically humanists in their orientation. But it is the truth affirmed over and over again throughout God's Word. [See Who's In Charge Here?]