Would God Have Been More Loving Not to Create Anyone?
00:00:00.000 | Well, the Bible says a lot of bold things, and it raises all sorts of heavy topics and
00:00:08.740 | perplexing questions for us to consider.
00:00:10.940 | And one of the heaviest questions is this, "In comparison to eternal judgment on many,
00:00:16.540 | wouldn't it have been more loving for no one to have been created in the first place?"
00:00:22.240 | It's a question from a podcast listener named Jonathan, and certainly a question others
00:00:25.740 | have wondered about, too.
00:00:26.980 | "Hello, Pastor John, so grateful for your ministry and for this podcast.
00:00:30.180 | I know there are some questions we will not get answered on this side of eternity, and
00:00:33.900 | I believe my question may be one of them.
00:00:36.900 | But I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
00:00:38.340 | If God knew that the majority of humanity would reject him and end up in eternal torment,
00:00:45.620 | wouldn't it have been kinder or more merciful to not create them in the first place?"
00:00:51.500 | I suppose the Apostle Paul's response would be Romans 9.20, "But indeed, O man, who are
00:00:55.660 | you to reply against God?
00:00:57.660 | Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, 'Why have you made me like this?'"
00:01:02.200 | So I guess Paul is saying, in other words, God is not taking a vote on what he should
00:01:06.020 | or shouldn't do, and I guess that leaves us to simply trust and believe that his foreknowledge
00:01:09.900 | of most of humanity's future eternal damnation doesn't compromise his character in creating
00:01:15.580 | them anyway.
00:01:17.340 | Is there anything more to say here?
00:01:20.260 | I think where Jonathan ends up is where we will end up, namely, with our hands on our
00:01:28.220 | mouths and our knees on the ground and our heads bowed before the wisdom and holiness
00:01:36.380 | and righteousness and goodness of God in choosing to create a world in which he knew that millions
00:01:42.660 | of people would reject him and suffer eternally because of it.
00:01:47.700 | There are things hidden from us now, according to Deuteronomy 29.29.
00:01:53.340 | The secret things belong to the Lord.
00:01:56.740 | And 1 Corinthians 13 9-12 put us in our place where Paul says, "We know in part and we prophesy
00:02:07.460 | in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away, for now we see in a mirror
00:02:13.900 | dimly, then face to face.
00:02:16.620 | Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."
00:02:21.780 | And I think that this limitation that Paul's talking about refers not only to our knowledge
00:02:30.180 | of facts about God and his ways, but just as important, this limitation refers to our
00:02:39.280 | capacities to evaluate accurately and feel appropriately the kind of emotions that are
00:02:47.940 | suitable to the facts.
00:02:50.460 | That's a limitation also on us.
00:02:52.940 | In other words, we may see a truth more or less clearly, but not have the emotional wherewithal
00:03:00.140 | to feel what we ought to feel or to process the truth in relation to other truths so that
00:03:07.060 | it has the emotional effect on us that it ought to have.
00:03:12.060 | And when that's the case, then Jonathan's conclusion is, I think, exactly right.
00:03:17.780 | These instances of revelation that leave us emotionally off balance are occasions for
00:03:25.640 | trust in the fullness of divine wisdom, wisdom that we cannot fully see now.
00:03:33.860 | But Jonathan asks, "Is there anything more to say?"
00:03:37.860 | And the answer is yes, there's lots to say, more than we can say here that would inform
00:03:45.060 | how we think about such questions.
00:03:47.700 | So let me just say a few things.
00:03:50.340 | The first thing that probably we ought to say might be the most important thing in this
00:03:56.560 | APJ about this problem of why God would create a world that leads to so many people suffering
00:04:04.780 | in hell is that it is a problem shared by Calvinists and Arminians and even open theists
00:04:14.540 | who don't even believe that God has exhaustive foreknowledge of what will happen when he
00:04:20.540 | creates the world.
00:04:22.580 | Calvinists, of course, have the question because we believe that God has planned everything,
00:04:29.620 | all things that come to pass, and that includes eternal judgment.
00:04:33.960 | So we've got the question.
00:04:35.620 | Arminians have the same question because God foresees fully the effects of human self-determination
00:04:45.580 | as they believe it, namely, eternal judgment is going to happen, and God creates the world
00:04:52.160 | anyway evidently thinking that the cost of self-determination is worth the gain.
00:05:01.660 | Is it?
00:05:02.660 | So they have the same question.
00:05:04.340 | And open theists have the same question because on their view, even though God doesn't know
00:05:10.760 | how things are going to turn out, God considers it worth the risk to create the world anyway
00:05:18.240 | knowing all possible future worlds, and if it turns out that it wasn't worth the risk,
00:05:26.220 | that reflects pretty badly on God's wisdom and goodness in moving ahead with the risk.
00:05:32.860 | Now, of course, you can get rid of the problem entirely by being an atheist so that we have
00:05:40.700 | no God to reckon with at all, or you can be a universalist who believes that there is
00:05:47.100 | no judgment and everybody gets saved in the end, or you can be an annihilationist who
00:05:53.580 | believes that judgment consists in putting people out of existence who don't believe
00:05:58.960 | in Christ, or you can believe God is evil.
00:06:03.700 | Bang.
00:06:04.700 | Those seem to me to be the options in front of us.
00:06:10.620 | Now none of these is a very happy solution.
00:06:14.420 | If you go with atheism, you give up not only God, but the only ultimate ground of human
00:06:24.760 | personhood and dignity and truth and beauty and goodness, everything that makes life worth
00:06:31.980 | living and all you have left is matter and energy and time, a worldview of emptiness
00:06:39.840 | and futility and despair.
00:06:42.580 | If you go with universalism, you give up the deep seated human conviction that there is
00:06:50.900 | such a thing as impenitent evil that ought to be punished.
00:06:57.680 | If you go with annihilationism, you have to convince yourself that non-existence, being
00:07:04.140 | put out of existence, is a suitable punishment for such impenitent evil, when in fact it's
00:07:12.940 | the very thing that impenitent evil people want to happen.
00:07:17.260 | That's what they're hoping for, is to go out of existence.
00:07:20.980 | And if you go the route of believing that God is evil, then you embrace a worldview
00:07:26.980 | that is not only despairing and meaningless, but terrifying, since there is no such thing
00:07:33.700 | as grace or any foundation of goodness or hope or mercy for any of us.
00:07:41.620 | In the end, it comes down to whether you have seen the compelling, self-authenticating signs
00:07:49.980 | of God's glory and truth in the Scriptures and in its center, Jesus Christ winning you
00:07:59.080 | over to the trustworthiness of God's Word.
00:08:03.260 | All these worldviews stand or fall not finally by whether we can think up enough negative
00:08:13.020 | or positive consequences for each worldview to arbitrate between them, but rather which
00:08:20.380 | of them accords with the Word of God, the Bible.
00:08:25.860 | It's because of the Bible, because of Jesus in particular, that we believe in hell as
00:08:32.820 | everlasting torment.
00:08:34.740 | Jesus is the one who made this so clear in his teachings in the Gospels.
00:08:41.500 | It's because of Jesus and what he taught that we believe that God's judgment will be perfectly
00:08:48.300 | proportionate to a person's impenitent sinfulness.
00:08:53.700 | Jesus is the one who said there were degrees of punishment and everything will be impeccably,
00:09:00.100 | perfectly meted out.
00:09:02.180 | No injustices, no wrongs done.
00:09:05.460 | It's because of Jesus and his Word that we believe that the way that leads to destruction
00:09:12.260 | is broad and many there be that find it.
00:09:16.900 | We're not doing the math, we're just listening to Jesus.
00:09:20.640 | And it's because of Jesus that we believe not one dot, not one iota will fall to the
00:09:28.700 | ground of God's Word.
00:09:31.620 | The Word that teaches that God is righteous and good in all his ways and that the display
00:09:40.100 | of the fullness of his glory for the joy of his penitent people is the ultimate goal of
00:09:46.820 | creation.
00:09:48.860 | And according to Romans 9, 22 to 23, this glory includes his wrath and his power and
00:09:58.820 | his mercy in proportions that are just and right and good, even if we can't see it perfectly
00:10:08.020 | now.
00:10:09.020 | So it comes down to this, the truth and authority of God's Word and the supreme worth of God
00:10:19.260 | as the golden thread that runs through the scriptures.
00:10:25.220 | So Jonathan is right.
00:10:28.660 | We are not in a good position to pass judgment on the wisdom of God given the limits of our
00:10:34.340 | minds and the weakness of our hearts.
00:10:38.940 | We do well to humble ourselves with trembling and to be amazed that we are vessels of mercy
00:10:48.580 | and to bend every ounce of strength that we have while we have breath to bring others
00:10:57.440 | out of darkness into God's marvelous light.
00:11:01.220 | Amen.
00:11:02.220 | Listening to the very blunt words of Christ, trusting in his finished work and seeking
00:11:06.700 | by his power to reach as many centers as possible with the good news of the gospel.
00:11:11.860 | Thank you, Pastor John, for that balance, and thank you for listening.
00:11:15.100 | Well, how do we find freedom from our worries?
00:11:18.780 | One of my favorite answers to this question is from the Apostle Paul in Romans 8, verses
00:11:22.980 | 13 to 15.
00:11:24.380 | Here he writes this, "For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
00:11:28.620 | But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
00:11:32.580 | For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
00:11:36.200 | For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received
00:11:41.060 | the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, 'Abba, Father.'"
00:11:46.300 | We battle sin to be free from worry, and in that battle, we demonstrate our faith in Jesus
00:11:52.740 | Christ.
00:11:53.740 | And I'm sure Pastor John will explain this dynamic to us when we return on Wednesday,
00:11:58.940 | how we defeat our sin, glorify Christ, and find freedom from our worries.
00:12:06.180 | That's up next time on Wednesday.
00:12:07.420 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:12:08.420 | We'll see you then.
00:12:08.420 | We'll see you then.
00:12:09.720 | [BLANK_AUDIO]