Even some Christians don’t like God’s purpose for creating us, having questions such as:
- Why didn’t God make Humans only do good?
- If God is all-powerful why did He allow evil?
- What was God’s purpose for creating the world?
- Why do I owe Jesus if I never asked to exist?
- Do we have free will if god determined everything?
Sometimes the questions are asked with curiosity, but sometimes the questions are a little bit more accusatory. But they all essentially say the same thing, “I don’t like how God created the World, and I think there is a better way to do it.”
Can we find answers?
So let’s dive into some of these questions and see what answers we can come up with.
Anytime we have a question, the first thing we can do is see what the Bible has to say about it, because the bible is the official word of God.
What does the Bible say?
Luckily for us, the Bible gives us very direct answers to our questions, but Unluckily for us pretty much everyone doesn’t the answer it gives, including many Christians.
In the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul first sets up the question of free will, saying “God chooses to show mercy to some, and he chooses to harden the hearts of others so they refuse to listen.” (Romans 9:18 NLT).
Earlier in the chapter, Paul says “God chooses people according to his own purposes; he calls people, but not according to their good or bad works.”.
Paul then gives Jacob and Esau as an example “before they were born”, “I loved Jacob, but I rejected Esau.” (Romans 9:11-13 NLT). So God decided which one would be his people which is Jacob, and which one would be rejected being Esau.
This then must state that weather or not we following God’s calling, is therefore up to God, not because what we had done before is anything good or any sort of Intelligence on our part, but because God simply chooses to show mercy and he calls people before they are even born.
Is it fair that it’s not up to us?
Maybe you are thinking that this sounds absurd, well Paul predicted you would think that. He says “Are we saying, then, that God was unfair? Of course not! For God said to Moses”.
Quoting God himself, “I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.”.
“So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it.” (Romans 9:14-16 NLT). This confirms that God is in control of our Salvation.
If you think this is completely unfair, well it gets worse.
Paul continues “Well then, you might say, ‘Why does God blame people for not responding? Haven’t they simply done what he makes them do?'”.
The reason the bible gives is simply “Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God?” (Romans 9:19 NLT)
Again, the Bible gives an example for its reasoning, it says “When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into?” (Romans 9:20-21 NLT).
In the same way, God can use some Humans to be saved, and some to be thrown into a metaphorical Eternal garbage can.
Why does God do this?
What is the purpose of all of this? Well in the Bible it says “He does this to make the riches of his glory shine even brighter on those to whom he shows mercy, who were prepared in advance for glory.” (Romans 9:22-23 NLT).
So that must mean the purpose of the entire World is to show how great, how powerful, how loving and how amazing God is, because of how merciful he’s been to human, because he’s willing to love and save us.
Even despite us bringing so much evil into the World, and completely rejecting the Saviour he sent for us.
In summary
So to the question “Why did God create humans knowing that some would end up in Hell?”,
It is because it makes God’s glory shine brighter.
“How is it our fault for sinning if God was the one who made us this way?”.
The answer is: Don’t say that. God can do whatever he wants.
and to the question: “If God will make everything perfect in Heaven with no evil and suffering, then why couldn’t He have done that from the start?”.
The answer is: Because God’s glory wouldn’t be highlighted as much through the people who are shown mercy.
So “Why did God make the World the way it is?”.
Ultimately so that the depths and heights of God’s glory would be known, and we don’t have any choice whether we get saved or not.
How can it be this way?
I know what you are thinking, so God creates us, forces us to reject him, then throws them into Hell just to show off how powerful and “loving” he is.
How could you possibly make this sound like a good thing?
Let’s look at four core ways:
- This objection is really weak
- We secretly agree with God
- Alternative Worlds are worse
- God really, truly loves us
So let’s get into it.
This objection is really weak
First of all, why is this objection really weak? Well any subjection technically boils down to “I don’t like His answers.”.
But just because we don’t like them, doesn’t prove that they are wrong. In-fact it doesn’t even prove that they are not true.
This means that this is just letting the World know how we feel. It’s perfectly possible for a God to exist and make the purpose of life to highlight himself.
Not liking that, doesn’t magically make it go away.
But also God is the one who makes things right or wrong in the first place.
If you don’t believe in God, you can’t prove that something is evil, at best you can say that “Most people believe that this is evil.”
That said, I honestly do understand why people do not like the idea of God controlling everything, because I myself even struggled with this for a long time.
Ultimately it is important to like what God has done, as even Demons know that God is the ruler of the Universe. But that doesn’t make them want to repent and follow him.
Because I struggled with this, I ended up praying, researching and thinking about this topic a lot.
Now I have a strong list of ideas that might help to change your mind, and give you peace, the same way God has given me peace about this.
We secretly agree with God
The first thing I want you to consider is, do you think it is okay to have children?
Because every time someone chooses to have a child, they are not only knowingly bringing in a being who will experience pain, suffering, and hurt.
But they also know that the child will add to all the evil, sin and pain in the world.
That child is going to be selfish, they are going to hurt others and they are going to lie and steal things. No child comes out perfect.
If you bring Children into this World, knowing that they will do these things, then we can ask “How can you possibly discipline them, and get upset at them for doing those things?”. They didn’t ask to be brought into this world, and they did not know what they was getting themselves into.
So if we transfer the way we question God, into the way we question ourselves, it should clearly be unfair for you to be upset at children for doing things you knew they would do.
But we all know that having children is a good and beautiful Endeavor, it is a blessing and we celebrate children for that precise reason.
We even know that is good to discipline them and teach them, so that when they grow up they are good human beings.
If we can imagine that having children brings enough good for it to be worth all the evil you are adding to the World, and all the evil that you’re inevitably subjecting them to, then we can also imagine that God has good reasons to bring us into the World. Despite us adding evil to the World and being subjected to evil ourselves.
“It’s not the same.”
I know what you are going to say, it is not the same thing.
Because God purposely creates some people who he knows will be tortured in hell for entirety.
Whereas we don’t bring our kids into the World knowing they’re going to have a terrible 70 years of life.
For this, I want you to imagine how you feel when you kill a mosquito.
Do you think it’s evil to kill a mosquito? Should humans be allowed to kill a mosquito?
They are living, breathing and thinking creatures that actually do have brains, believe it or not.
All they do is try their best to survive and multiply their species just like us.
But in-fact, most people will be happy when you kill a mosquito.
The Bible even agrees it is okay to kill them, as we are not on the same level as animals.
“You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority-” (Psalm 8:4-8 NLT)
We are allowed to use them for labour, we are allowed to kill and eat them and we can herd them however we want.
If that is the case for all animals, it’s even more true for a lowly mosquito.
In the same way, God is allowed to do whatever He wants with us, because he has Authority over us.
God isn’t a human, he is on a different level.
“God is not a man, so he does not lie.”. “He is not human, so he does not change his mind.” (Numbers 23:19 NLT)
Not only that, we are a lot worse than the small inconvenience that mosquitoes are to us.
Alternative Worlds are worse
Whenever these topics come up, someone always has to add “Why didn’t God make humans only able to do good?”, or “Why didn’t he put us in heaven to begin with?”, or “Why did God let Satan into the Garden of Eden?”.
We did mention the answer already: It is so that God’s glory and mercy for us can shine through.
But if you are wondering how this is actually a good thing, think of it like this:
Do you think that it is bad for athletes to go through pain and suffering on their road to winning the championship?
Or do you think that every player should be born the best, always win every game and never face any difficulties?
Loosing feels horrible, which means it must be bad.
Having a tough childhood and living in a poor neighbourhood must be evil as well, because it is so difficult to go through that.
Of course, it is not fun to loose, and no one wants to grow up in a dangerous neighbourhood.
That said, there are tons of examples of people looking back on difficult times in their lives. Saying “I’m glad I went through that because it made me who I am today.”.
In the same way pain and suffering can highlight our triumphs, in a way that it actually makes all those difficulties worth it.
that is why people love a good underdog story. There is something truly powerful about watching someone who is lost, hopeless, and looked down upon rise from the ashes as a new creation.
That is why God says “My power works best in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NLT)
He knows that some amazing things can only happen when in the face of adversity.
But let’s say you still do not like the idea of God being the one who chooses. In that case, how do you think it should be done?
If we want to have a way to earn and deserve our salvation, that would still be a worse World.
For one, we would be doing good things only to get saved, not out of thankfulness to God, who showed us love and mercy first.
That would also mean that God would have to love certain people more, if they have done more good things.
That seems like a much worse version of love than the unconditional, sacrificial love that Jesus offered us.
We do not think it is right to only love their child who get’s better grades, and likewise we shouldn’t want God to only love those who study the Bible for three hours a day instead of one hour a day.
That and your wish is actually granted, you can earn it, but you would have to be absolutely perfection.
Not even the smallest instance of pain, or even the tiny white lie can enter Heaven or it will ruin the entire place.
Another solution is have Salvation be completely random
If you wanted God out of the picture entirely, well first of all nothing would exist.
But secondly this removes all purpose and meaning of life.
I’m assuming that most you don’t actually think that salvation being completely random and arbitrary and meaningless is better, that makes sense.
The Bible says that “God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.” (1 Corinthians 1:27 NLT).
That is something that humanity inherently agrees with. After all it is satisfying to see someone who thinks they are the best, to get properly humbled.
If things are not chosen randomly, then we need a higher authority to decide who goes to heaven.
Back to where we started
In the end, we end up where we are now. Where God decides who gets saved out of the goodness of his heart, and produces the best possible result out of all of us.
It also allows the depths of all his love and mercy to be properly known.
In fact, the God of the Bible, is the only god who is willing to sacrifice his life for us to lower himself to our level.
Just to be tortured, beaten, spat on, betrayed and abandoned, just so we can be redeemed from our own sinful ways.
He did this, not just for those who were nice to him, but people who hated him. Including his enemies who got him that worst possible punishment up on the cross.
There is just no reason that someone would go through all that pain and suffering if they didn’t care about us at all.
Christians don’t follow God because he forces us to meet a certain bar or standard.
we follow him because he was a perfectly innocent person.
“I know these people deserve a life sentence in prison, but I’ll die in place of them so they can go free.”.
We are so moved and thankful for that incredible act of love that we will do everything we can to honour him.
Jesus sets the ultimate example for us to follow, and without sin and evil. We could never love as fully and as deeply as we can right now.
That is how we know God isn’t just toying with us, but he really truly cares about our well-being.
Read more about Jesus Christ
If you want to read more about Jesus Christ, and his life you can read about him in our other article here.
Do we really have free will?
That leaves only really one big question that we haven’t covered, If God determined everything, do we really have free will?
The key thing about free will, is no matter which stance you take, no matter what angle you come at this from, God’s actions are perfectly defensible.
There are three main options we have here.
- We have total free will
- We have partial free will
- We have no free will
We have total free will
Now I believe the Bible has already addressed the first one.
God can take control of anyone he chooses, and therefore we cannot truly have complete free-will.
We have partial free will
The second one, is the one I fully believe. That is also what seems to be said in the Bible, it is also confirmed in our day-to-day lives.
Biblically speaking, God urges us to do good and turn from our ways showing that we’re able to disobey him.
He says thing’s like “I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt. But the more I called to him, the farther he moved from me” Hosea 11:1-4 NLT
God says: “What more could I have done for my vineyard that I have not already done? When I expected sweet grapes, why did my vineyard give me bitter grapes?” (Isaiah 5:1-4 NLT)
The vineyard being us in this metaphor.
But on the other hand, God’s ultimate plan always prevails.
“You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.” (Proverbs 19:21 NLT)
“We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” (Proverbs 16:9 NLT)
“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:19-20 NLT)
Which suggests we can do things of our own free will, but in the end God’s plan is inevitably going to happen.
All of the Ephesians Chapters 1 and 2 Double Down on the message in Romans we went over earlier.
“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.
God decided in advance to adopt us into his family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 1:4-5 NLT)
God even says that things can’t happen, unless he allows it.
Day-to-day proves this
Yes, our day-to-day life confirms what the Bible teaches.
For example, we wouldn’t need a Court system, if we didn’t think people weren’t responsible for their own crimes.
In-fact, we wouldn’t even need to get upset at people for anything, no matter what they did, because they are just programmed to do what they do.
But deep down, we know this isn’t true. Even when people are ordered to do something evil by their superiors, we still make them take responsibility for their actions.
We have no free will
Let’s say you still think that we didn’t have any free will.
This option is actually the easiest to defend, because it’s impossible for god to do anything wrong. We would not really be independent thinking living creatures. We would just be robots.
If that is the case, then there is nothing wrong with creating them (us) to do menial tasks or to act out a play, or even have them fight with each other.
Robots can either die or be killed, they’re not even alive in the first place. So then there is just no problem with it at all.
Conclusion
Understanding the complexities of God’s purpose for creation and the dynamics of free will and divine sovereignty is not an easy journey. The Bible offers insights that challenge our human perspectives, calling us to trust in God’s ultimate plan, even when it feels difficult or counterintuitive.
At its core, God’s purpose revolves around revealing His glory, love, and mercy in ways that transcend our understanding. While we may struggle with questions about fairness, suffering, or why the world is the way it is, these challenges offer an opportunity for deeper faith, reflection, and connection with God.
Ultimately, God’s actions are rooted in profound love—a love so immense that He willingly sacrificed Himself through Jesus Christ to offer us redemption. This unparalleled act of grace invites us to trust in Him, follow His teachings, and live lives that reflect His glory.
As we wrestle with these questions, let us remember that God’s ways are higher than ours. By seeking Him through prayer, reflection, and study, we can find peace in knowing that His purpose, though sometimes beyond our grasp, is always good.
What are your thoughts?
Do you agree with the answers provided here, or do you have your own perspective on these profound questions? We’d love to hear your thoughts and reflections in the comments section below. Your insights could spark meaningful discussion and help others on their journey of understanding. Let’s grow together in faith and knowledge!
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