For follow-up discussion and general commentary on the topic. Comments are sorted chronologically.
Bruce Morgan
If God created us with the will to choose Him or not, then surely He will honour our choice to have nothing to do with Him (a definition of sin)?
So, there has to be a place "without God".
Even when we talk of a place or circumstance as "hell on earth", God is still present.
Our problem is, our finite minds and limited experience cannot begin to comprehend what such a place would be like, totally and utterly without God, or we would be highly motivated to avoid it!
Jesus called it "outside, in darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth" in Matthew 8:12 and a number of other verses in Matthew.
Becky H
And what about predestination? I like Michael S. Houdmann's answer but only because I'm not fully satisfied by the absolute idea of predestination. Only does his answer and all others like it bring comfort & understanding if free-will were absolutely true, and not predestination.
Gene Coleman
Hopefully we can agree with the predestination of mankind in general does not necessarily conflict with the free will of an individual.
Jennifer Rothnie
It does not conflict.
Predestination (proorizo) deals with God’s omnipotence. The word itself means to “to mark out beforehand’; to pre-establish limits and boundaries, to pre-horizon. Specifically, this word references how God set limits/boundaries/laws upon everything before creation. He set the laws of physics, placed the boundaries of the sea, determined the eternal plan by which mankind would be saved, set the judgement for sin, etc.
None of these prevent man from acting freely, within the limits of physics and opportunity. Man can obey or disobey. Isaiah 65:12 shows how man's free will to obey/disobey does indeed affect his destiny (Is 65:12) [The whole chapter is great]. This is not because God does not know 'the end from the beginning', but because our choice (disobedience vs. faith) determines our place in eternity, according to the plan predestined by God that Christ alone would save.
For more in-depth discussion there are several related topics that discuss freewill and predestination:
https://ebible.com/questions/3273-how-are-predestination-and-election-connected-with-foreknowledge
https://ebible.com/questions/3317-how-does-god-s-sovereignty-work-together-with-free-will#y6WgcjLuL0oozsor.99
https://ebible.com/questions/265-what-is-predestination-is-predestination-biblical#answer-15328
https://ebible.com/questions/3181-is-god-sovereign-or-do-we-have-a-free-will#answer-14667
https://ebible.com/questions/2097-how-can-i-know-if-i-am-one-of-the-elect#answer-9176
Becky H
In Del Tackett's study "The Truth Project" he states something that might be of use here: "Many theologians believe that Satan, before he was cast down from Heaven, was 2nd in power, as made so by God, and as such had authority over a multitude of the angels. So when God created man, it is thought that the conversation between God and Satan when something like this:
S- "What is it?"
G- "Man."
S- "Are they mine?"
G- "No. They are mine and will worship and be in direct communion with me."
S- "Let's see who they choose."
And then the fall came for Satan as he chose greed and desired to be above God. But first he took a visit to the Garden to make his first move."
I ask God the same question a lot. I don't know the answer but I know, just as it was then when God created man, and as it has shown itself with Jesus' life, it is all apart of God's great plan. It's hard to watch people refuse the narrow road, my heart breaks but I can only imagine how much moreso God must feel.
But He won't force us to love and worship Him, that's not love and God created everything else to point to His glory in itself. Man was created to respond.
Andy Mangus
Jennifer has it correct! There is not a conflict!
GOD is omniscient and therefore knows who(m) will respond and 'come unto ME as like a child'. Adam and Eve had free will...we all have free will to choose what is obedient, good, Holy and righteous. God "desires that all men might be saved"! But, because many are led astray, they will "choose the path that leads to destruction"
"Jesus came to save that was lost."
"Praise God that He provided a Savior! And, His name is Jesus Christ"!
--Andy--
Barbara Wallace
Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve YEHOVAH, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the elohim which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the elohim of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve YEHOVAH.
YEHOVAH ELOHIM Or the LORD GOD give us a free will to choose heaven or hell it is up to us to make the right choice.
Ben Jones
There is an erroneous belief that everyone who has ever walked the face of the earth is a child of God, because God created them. The only two people God directly created was Adam and Eve. The rest of mankind have been procreated via sexual intercourse. Gen 4:1 "Now Adam had sexual relations with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When she gave birth to Cain, she said, “With the LORD’s help, I have produced a man!”
The Lord Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son is the only exception to this.
Every person on earth since Adam and Eve has been procreated. Yes God helped but He didn't directly create any more people. So who are God's children? Only those that God chooses to adopt into His family, the others are His enemies and children of the devil, John 8:44 "You are of your father the Devil..." Jesus said this to the most religious people of His day the Pharisees, and Romans 5:10 says that before we were reconciled to God we were His enemies.
While it is God's DESIRE that all come to a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, God is only going to save a remnant. According to Barna Research 90% of those who profess to be "a Christian" are not a Christian by a biblical definition. You ask, "God is sovereign and He gets everything He desires, right? Well, did He desire that Adam and Eve sin? Did he desire that Judas betray His beloved Son? Did He desire that Israel abandon Him and worship idols? Obviously no.
Jennifer Rothnie
I agree fully with you that God does not desire individuals to sin! I think one of the most unfortunate trends in theology right now is how many people have willingly redefined Sovereignty from its normal definition of authority/domain to a strange to a different meaning of meticulous, deterministic control without basis in scripture or language. Sovereignty doesn't mean, "God does whatever He wants." It means He has the right/power to set the laws & boundaries, punish wrongdoing, etc.
On humans, we are all in a sense the children of God, believer or not, which scripture does mention:
"From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ b As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill." Acts 17:26-29
The way I like to distinguish this is that all humans are sons by sreation, but only believers are sons/heirs by the new birth/regeneration. And not regenerated so they can become believers, as some believe, but regenerated *after* they believe by God as Rom 6 details the passage of the believer from death to new life
Kenneth Brant Brant
I really like Ben Jones' answer. I think it is the closest one to answering the question. I didn't think about it like that before.....however it doesn't quite answer WHY God would even let that person be conceived in the first place. If He knows the future then He knows that that person will be going to hell, right? If conception is a miraculous gift from God then why let it create people that He already knows will be in hell one day?
Ben Jones
I believe everything in creation will bring glory to God one way or another, even God haters like Pharaoh. Exodus 14:4, “‘And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.’ And they did so.” Exodus 14:17, “And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen.” How does God get this glory? Through the telling and retelling of this account about how God brought His children out of bondage in Egypt and led them into the promised land demonstrating that God is all powerful and in control of absolutely everything.
Danny Hickman
Okay Ben Jones, I think I got it. You say God only created Adam and Eve, He only "helped" on everybody else, except Jesus. I think that's how you put it.
Then David got it wrong, I guess. He wrote that God "formed my inward parts. You wove me in my mother's womb." He says he was "skillfully and wonderfully made." (Psalm 139:13,14).
I don't think David meant that his dad Jesse and his mother skillfully and wonderfully made him. He meant that he was put together by God. He says, 'My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret...' (vs15).
David is saying that God supervised and oversaw him being made, to the point of ordaining all the days of his life, before he even started living.
I think I want to believe that God did for me that which David wrote that He did for him.
Also, according to Jeremiah, God made him. He writes that God said to him, "before I formed you in the womb I knew you..." (Jer 1:5).
I believe the bible. It makes me think better about myself when I consider that God made me, and I'm not just the result of a sexual encounter. I hope someone else will consider the truth of the bible, and discover how much God loves us.
I think we should all know, believers and otherwise, that we're more than just the outcome of two people having sex!!
Ben Jones
Adam and Eve were equally and wonderfully made in the divine image of God. God gave them (and us) a spirit that lives inside of a human body. We are a spirit that just happens to have a body. We are not a body that just happens to have a spirit. But we see in Gen 5:3 "And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth..." God didn't directly create Seth as He did Adam and Eve, no they procreated a son (with God's help) that he and Eve named Seth. Seth was created in Adam's image and likeness.
Adam and Eve were not conceived in sin like we were. Psa 51:5-6, "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me". Adam and Eve were created "very good" (Gen 1:31) by a direct action of God.
Now here is where it gets sticky. If everyone is created by a direct action of God, why did God tell Adam and Eve to populate the earth via sexual intercourse? God created Adam and Eve by Himself so He could very easily create billions of others in the same way!
Now this is a big problem. If God directly creates every human being, but God has ordained that every human being must also be procreated by two human beings, that means that God is present every time two God fearing married people make love that produces a child, but also God is present in every rape that produces a child. I can't see my God being a willing participant in this at all. There is something missing.
Danny Hickman
Okay Mr Jones. We can simply talk about Adam, Eve, Seth, etc, and not concern ourselves with what David wrote? We can avoid considering what Jeremiah said?
Adam didn't write that he was skillfully and wonderfully made, and neither did Moses, who is reputed to have written about Adam's life.
I wanted you to testify in agreement with David, or explain away what he meant by saying how he was formed. Did he mean his parents had sex and the process of him being skillfully formed was due to their actions? That's what I want someone, anyone, to explain away.
Then there's Jeremiah; he wrote that God told him He knew him before He formed him in his mother's womb. Again, I will consider scripture that says I'm understanding what Jeremiah wrote, wrongly. And I'll admit that I overlooked something and spoke wrongly. Other than that, I think the bible plainly suggests that God skillfully made me.
I know He made my wife Faye! There's NO WAY a mere human could put anything together like that!!!!
Danny Hickman
Also Mr Jones,
You seem to say a rape that produces a child produces something vile or not good. You as much as said that God dosen't have anything to do with the life of the child produced by such a heinous act, that He's not "a willing participant" in it.
I sort of understand what you're saying. The sexual act isn't something of which some of us want God "to be a willing participant." I don't mean rape, but consensual sex. And certainly we don't want to think of Him first allowing a woman to be raped, and then forming a child in the raped mother's womb... (His ways are indeed unfathomable. That's why He's greatly to be praised!!)
That, in my opinion, is a view of God as simply an earthly being.
God isn't a gynecologist that must be present to help a lady with her pregnancy. God formed me in my mother's womb BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. That's who God is Mr Jones. He did the same for the child born of rape.
The bible says more times than I can count that the people "Did evil in the sight of the Lord" (Jdg 3:7, Jdg 10:6, 1 Kg 16:25, 2 Kg 8:18, 1 Sam 15:19, 2 Kg 15:18, 1 Kg 14:22, and on and on.
It doesn't mean God stood watching while they did evil.
God doesn't need to witness rape or murder. He knew the rapist and murderer before He formed them in their mother's womb. He knew Adam before He formed him from the dust of the ground. That's why the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. (Rev 13:8)
Such is the life we live Mr Jones.