A question about Heaven and Hell?

Question

If God knows the decision of every individual, before they are born, regarding the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a savior, then why does he create one set of individuals destined for heaven and another set destined for eternal damnation? This seems unjust, perverse and particularly evil.

- I am Christian and I do not understand this.

Answer 1

I hope I can shed some light on this for you, as you ask an important question. To begin, we need to examine some of the attributes of God.

God exists outside the notion of time and the universe is contingent on God's expression for its existence. God is timeless, in that he sees the passage of temporal time as you or I see a range of mountains far in the distance. At this distance the range of mountains seems to be one continuous line, yet as we get closer we see then mountains separated by miles and miles. God sees everything in the "eternal now". Hence, time does not "pass" for God.

So, yes, God knows all that you will do while you live. But that does not mean you don't have Free Will. If I stand atop a building and watch two cars coming around opposite corners and know that they will hit one another; the fact that they do indeed crash, does not mean that I caused the accident or that the drivers did not act according to their own wills.

Like the observer of the auto crash above, God knows the choices you will ultimately make in a given circumstance.

God's foreknowledge of all that will happen must be reconciled with God's other attributes, especially His Righteousness and Omnipotence.

The philosophical rationale is that an omnipotent supreme being, God, cannot act in an illogical manner with respect to that being's divine and perfect attributes. Hence, God cannot make a rock so big that He could not move it, nor could God do anything that would be a logical contradiction to His divine nature.

Omnipotence means God can do everything **that is possible** within the boundaries of a supreme being. Omnipotence doesn’t mean that God can do anything. The concept of omnipotence has to do with power, not ability per se. In fact, there are many things God can’t do, for example,

- God can’t make square circles.

- God cannot lie.

- What God has created in His image, God cannot annihilate (to erase from existence, to destroy completely).

- God cannot create a morally free creature that couldn’t choose evil or the creature would not be morally free to choose.

None of these, though, have to do with power. Instead, they are logically contradictory, and therefore contrary to God’s rational nature.

So, at the instant moment God chose to create us, God also knew the choices we would make in life. And, since persons were morally free, some created by God would choose to sin.

Here we see that God has no choice in the matter. As I noted above,
1. God cannot create persons who cannot sin, and
2. God cannot annihilate those that do sin.

In that instant God spoke the world into existence, God also knew He would need to resolve the conflict between His omnipotence and His righteousness, implying that all sin must be punished.

So how is a perfect God's demand for justice for sin reconciled with our own imperfections?

Here we find that God came up with a perfect solution. He became flesh, lived a perfect life, and acted as our representative in God the Father's court of justice. There He was judged and crucified, carrying all the past and future world's sins with his crucifixion. This God the Son, Christ, became our sin bearer and person's need only acknowledge that sacrifice to be made "justified" in God's eyes and in God's demand for justice for sin.

Think of it this way. Your son does something like breaking a neighbor's window. Yet your son is too young to be made to pay for his crime. Society demands that the parent then act in the son's role and pay for these crimes. Likewise, God the Father allows God the Son to be humankind's representative. Christ paid the price for us all; it is deposited there in the justice bank of God. We need only claim our "share" of that account's balance and present ourselves to God.

In summary, once God decided to create us in His image, the potential for sin must also have been created. For if we are not morally free to choose, then we are robots. God could not have made us differently so that everything would just turn out fine. Fortunately, God saw all of the outcomes at the moment He spoke the universe into existence and provided a means for persons to be restored to God's original intentions of perfection.

Answer 2

That's why I chose to find my own spirituality apart from the church. I am probably still considered a christian in some ways, in that I believe the principles Christ lived by and attempted to instill in others were of the highest standards.
However I have come to an understanding that no soul can understand pure good without experiencing pure evil and vice versa, so therefore the reason God knows which place we are destined for is because we are all destined for heaven, via hell.

Answer 3

I used to wonder the same thing until about 10 years ago when I first started really reading the Bible, I realized that God will eventually save everyone. I think he revealed this secret to me back then. There is no way possible that he knowing what we were going to do in our lives would send us here to earth only for the majority of us to suffer in hell without any hope of escape. God sent Jesus to save the whole world and I know he is going to do just that. I Timothy 4:10 says Jesus is the savior of all men, especially those that believe. Jesus didn't come and suffer like he did just to save a few people, but he loves us all so much that he has a plan to save every human he made. There are some who are going to find Jesus Christ while they are alive on earth and the rest will find the truth later. I'm convinced that even in hell God is waiting for sinners to repent and he will rescue them when they call on Jesus's name.

Answer 4

Because hell and heaven are ideas designed the first to scare bad people from being bad, and the second, to encourage good people to be good. A loving God would never do such a thing, for He would love us as He himself made us. You have to consider that the bible was written by men, not by God, no matter how much God has inspired men, since, after all, He is supposed to have given us free will, and even the writers of the gospels could have made mistakes (they were human, after all). By the way, wasn't is Isaiah who claimed the schoolars of tha law (can't remember their title) changed the sacred scriptures as they saw fit, according to their schemes? What makes you think that, after more than two thousand years and tens of translations, the original meaning of each word is still the same? I am a professional translator and interpreter, and I KNOW how easy it is for a word to loos its proper meaning when translated.

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Answer 5

If you refer hell as something in the downside of spiritual realm that people are cast into for sins committed, then sorry to disappoint you such dimension doesn't exist. Nowhere in your scripture, particularly in Genesis that God created hell. Hell is sometimes referred to graveyard/earth. All your questions above are valid and only appear perplexed and impossible to answer if you won't consider other valid spiritual knowledge such as karma, rebirth or reincarnation and ego. It only take a small leap to think outside the biblical box to see the whole picture of truth.

Answer 6

Allah Knows the decision of every individual and this indicates that His Absolute Knowledge...He Knows what happened, what is happening and what will happen...and moreover what did not happen if happened what will happen...
Individual has the free choice to either walk in the Heaven Path or in the Hell Path..
Heaven Path is the Path of believing in Only One Tue God ((Allah)) with no son or partner...

Answer 7

I believe that God Gave his son, his baby to die for our sins. We make the choice of heaven and hell.. Free will--Just like we have the choice to love him or deny him. God dosnet want anyone to go to hell and he dosnet send you there. Its your choice. He created every individual in his imagine. Look at David, he was far from perfect, yet He was the only one God said was after his own heart. David made the choice to follow GOD. His free choice--free will. So when someone says Nothing in this world is free---Salvation is. John 3:16.

Answer 8

My child, evil is an important test to each of Father's children, they provide tests of courage and willpower. This is not unjust, perverse or evil, for when you reach Father's table your questions on this will be fed the answers, but for now, believe in Father's ways, believe in what he does. He is for you not against you.
Love, Jesus

Answer 9

I don't know. But, my seven year old son asked me why are we living if we are just going to die? Wouldn't that be a deep answer. He also asked that if the devil asked for forgiveness would he be able to go to heaven? How does a parent answer that? I do feel that everyone has a choice and a chance to do what is expected of them. I only pray that I am a good enough influence for my children.

Answer 10

We we all created with free will to believe in Him. John 3:16 Jesus would love it if we all choose to be like Him.