Cheryl Schatz

Hi Gazza, and thanks for joining the discussion again.
You said:

Yet in Post 244 you expressed sadness that people believe “that God deliberately and unconditionally creates people to go to hell.”
I struggle to put these together. If God indeed had no doubt about who or how many will be saved then at the point he creates those who will rejet Him is He not knowingly creating someone who will go to hell?

Yes, God is knowingly creating people who will reject Him and go to hell. However this is far different than God creating people who unconditionally are created to go to hell.

The difference is that in the first instance these people may have put their faith in Him and in the second instance they may not. If God unconditionally creates them to go to hell, then it is God who desires them to go there without any conditions including their sin. Their election to reprobation before they ever sinned and before they were created demanded their destruction. If we did this, we would be considered unfair and may I dare say monstrous? It would be like a judge who arbitrarily pre-decides cases brought before him without even looking at the case history or evidence. He could say that cases 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9 will be sentenced with the death penalty and cases 2, 4, and 8 will set set free. His decision is made of his own will and without any conditions on the person or the crime. We would want that judge fired.

But God bringing people into the world that have been given a free-will choice that He knows will exercise that choice to reject Him is not even in the same category. Everyday Christians bring children into the world who they know will be sinners, yet we still give birth to them. We know that they have a purpose and can bring glory even if in the end they reject Him.

David didn’t create himself God created Him. So even though the faith is Davids own faith, it is also and expression of who God created David to be. This is different to the blessings of growing up in a Christian family etc – three are plenty of examples where brothers and sisters grow up in a Christian home some reject Christ while some accept. Their different responses are due to the fact that God created them as different people. Each makes up their own mind but it will always be a mind that God created for them.

If that was the case then God really didn’t make us in His image. It would mean that we did not have a will as God has but a programmed response. And if we all have a programmed response, then it is nothing more than a game and God is not the good God that He claims to be since He purposely programs people to sin against Him and then delights to judge them for what He has programmed them to do.

The only way that any of this makes any sense is for God to have made a creation like Him with a will and choices and an ability to love without coercion or pre-programming. It is this kind of creation that gives God glory. A pre-programmed variety would only say speak about a God that was a master manipulator and who was afraid to create anyone in His image with a real will and a real choice. It would speak of fear more than Sovereignty. In fact that is what the serpent hinted at in the garden. That humans could be like God but God was fearful and jealous that they might be like Him so He deliberately limited their choices.

But the God of the Bible reveals Himself as one is prepared for every choice we make so that our decisions are intimately known. He sent the merchants to the area where Joseph’s brothers were long before the brothers arrived on the scene. Nothing is out of God’s ability to bring glory and honor to His name – even our free will choices.

What do you see is the difference between believers and non believers? To phrase it another way why do you believe some have faith while others do not?

That’s an excellent question and I believe the Bible gives us the answer.

John 3:19 (NASB)
19 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.

There are those people who love their sin so much that they refuse to allow God to shine a light on that sin and they reject God rather than give up their sin and their idols.

I have witnessed to a man for several years concerning coming to faith in Christ. He loves to be around Christians and he attends Christian functions but he refuses to become a Christian. He told me that he has no love for Jesus and can’t see that he needs a savior. The real struggle that he has is that he is a homosexual and he knows that he would have to give up this love of his to come to God. He is unwilling to do that.

So I believe that it is a love of sin that causes people to turn away from God. I also believe that fear stops people from coming to Christ. These people are more afraid of man than they are of God so they don’t come to Jesus because of the stigma that being a Christian would give them.

The book of Revelation talks about those who go to hell are “cowardly”.

Revelation 21:8 (NASB)
8 “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

I believe that cowardly refers to choosing he fear of man rather than the fear of God.

Thanks for your comments about the environment here. I have been to blogs where they shut down comments and either discouraged dialog or berated people for having a belief that is not the same as the blog host and thus challenges were not allowed. I believe that the healthy way is to allow challenges and to encourage questions. All of us can learn including me. And I am so happy that the people who come here are willing to challenge, question and learn.