Why didn't God only make people who would follow Him?

God knows everything, right? So God knew who would choose not to follow Him and therefore who would go to hell. So God could, clearly, have prevented a lot of suffering by simply not creating those people. But God didn't.

How does one respond to this issue?

What I would say is that if it was that easy for God to solve the problem, then God would do so, based on verses like these:

1 Tim 2:3-4: "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."

Ezekiel 33:11: "Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?'"

2 Peter 3:9: "The Lord is not slow in keeping his word, as he seems to some, but he is waiting in mercy for you, not desiring the destruction of any, but that all may be turned from their evil ways."

Matthew 23:37: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, putting to death the prophets, and stoning those who are sent to her! Again and again would I have taken your children to myself as a bird takes her young ones under her wings, and you would not!"

Turning to philosophy, what I might conjecture is that God can make us knowing everything we'll do, but not use that knowledge to make or not make certain people.

Creating a person could be a bit like flipping a coin that will come up 50/50 heads or tails. You can't make it go heads or tails. So just like I can't make a random coin toss always come up heads, God can't make people who will always choose a certain way.

However, unlike flipping the coin God *does* know everything about us before we are born. So in that respect what we have here is something very unlike flipping a coin. God knows but this knowledge is not 'actionable', God can't avoid making the people who will choose badly.

This is venturing further into speculation but it might be that once a soul exists God knows everything about it, including how it will choose in all possible situations. So once God guarantees that a soul will exist, God knows everything about it. However, without making the soul there is nothing can God know about it, because the knowing is based on that soul actually existing - not merely potentially existing. Because before it's created there is not a potential set of choices, there is actually no set of choices at all, because you need a real person to have a potential set of choices to look at, not a mere idea of a person.

(I found this answer interesting as well).

Where does sin come from?

An interesting theory on where sin ultimately comes from...

God is perfect, but why couldn't He make us perfect just like He is? Where does sin come from?

There's an answer that I find helpful on this issue: because of reason X, which is true in the same way that 2 + 2 = 4 is true, only God can be 100% perfect. That is, only God can be a completely perfect being.

Therefore God cannot make any other being equal to Himself in perfection. So God can make beings that are 99% perfect, or 99.999...% perfect, but only God can be 100% perfect. This is a fundamental limit on the nature of reality and God's power, because only the creator, only God, can be completely perfect.

Of course, in reply, it might be said that a computer program can be made to perfectly calculate someone's tax returns, and what about a perfect circle existing? So some types of perfection can be made outside of God, mainly relating, I guess, to something achieving a defined purpose. But only God can be completely perfect in every way. So a perfect circle cannot be completely perfect like God can be completely perfect. I think this makes sense.

So Adam and Eve could be created 99.9999...% perfect, but not perfect like God is. And neither can we.

And from that tiny, tiny amount of imperfection, after maybe billions and billions of years (it doesn't say how long they were in the Garden), Adam and Eve experienced the 'Fall'. And we would have done so in the same position, because we have a tiny, necessary amount of imperfection as well. The Garden was a good situation but, ultimately, it can't work forever.

The only way around it is for God to insert Himself into reality as a created being, with our vulnerabilities, and overcome our 'necessary imperfection' - our ability to be tempted by evil - by being God as well as human.

The way it works for God as a created being is that, for instance, Jesus would never sin in any possible situation because He is God although He was tempted because He is human (Heb 4:15).

Then God-as-a-created being absorbed all the effects of our necessary imperfection - our sin - into Himself on the cross, as a result of which everyone can "be found in [Jesus], not having a righteousness of [their] own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ" (Phil 3:9).

That solves the problem created by our necessary imperfection, which is the way it always led to sin - it's not a problem if you have a goodness which is not your own, but which is Christ's.

Ultimately, God found a way to forever sidestep our necessary imperfection through the cross, in a way that wasn't available in the 'Eden setup', although the Eden setup was 'very good' (Gen 1:31).

Two kinds of infinite

Is there something infinite?
Do you need an infinite to 'start everything off'? Does there need to be an infinite at the foundation of reality?

If the answer to these questions is 'yes', then is there anything that we can conclude about the nature of this infinite? Can we conclude, for example, that it must be a God? Or can it be something like the universe?

Thinking about the infinite, I want to make the case that there are actually two kinds of infinite, that are very different, that could have started everything off. God would be one kind of infinite and an infinitely old multiverse would be an example of the other kind.

The two kinds can be illustrated by a thought experiment. Imagine a chair. Now imagine an infinite number of chairs.

You can't, of course, really imagine an infinite number of chairs. But the idea makes sense on some level.

Anyway, if you could really imagine it, then have you imagined an infinite? Of course, yes, you've imagined an infinite; an infinite number of chairs.

Now, have you imagined something completely infinite?

No. Because although there are an infinite number of chairs, chairs are finite objects.

So there you have a concept that is partly finite and partly infinite. That is, an infinite quantity of a finite thing; chairs.

Can you imagine something completely infinite in every way? Without any finite aspects, unlike with the infinite number of chairs?

Well, just like really imagining an infinite number of chairs, no, you can't. But the idea of a completely infinite thing makes sense.

A completely infinite object would have to contain everything that an infinite should contain, which is, well, 'everything'. But, the thing is, it can't contain everything in a way that splits the infinite into pieces. Then there wouldn't be one completely infinite thing, but two, or three, or an infinite number of infinites, and how can there be more than one of something that contains everything there is? So you can only have one 'completely infinite' infinite and that cannot have divisions and differences within itself. So it has to be an indivisible unity, or continuum. Paradoxically, this means it has to contain everything, somehow, in a way that doesn't allow for differences or divisions. Try to imagine that!

So a completely infinite object has to contain everything in a singular, indivisible continuum, one that doesn't have any distinctions and yet somehow contains everything anyway (so it isn't some content-less 'grey blob').

(Note: presumably, we ourselves don't need to BE the infinite as long as you make an exception: if something within the continuum is caused to manifest real, actual distinctions/differences, then it will stand 'apart' from the infinite while also existing inside it.)

So those, apparently, are the two kinds of infinite you can have.

Now, what, if anything, can we conclude from this?

If the universe, or multiverse, is infinitely old, then the world comes from the first kind of infinite discussed.

If God exists, then the world comes from the second kind of infinite discussed (and somehow the indivisible continuum is a person!)

Okay. Now, do we have any reason to prefer one of these infinites as an explanation of the world to the other?

There isn't any knockdown argument favouring one, as far as I know. But I do think it's a bit neater if the world comes from something completely infinite, i.e. the second kind, rather than something where the infinite and the finite are combined. Because if the universe/multiverse has finite aspects, like a finite number of dimensions, or a finite number of superstring membranes, or suchlike, which it must have, it isn't a 'completely infinite' infinite, and that isn't as, sort of, 'simple' as an idea.

A visual argument on the nature of God and the infinite

The picture below is meant to visualise the difference between the infinite and the finite, and thus between God and creation.


Click on it to see it full size

This picture highlights one idea of what the 'finite' is: that the 'finite' is basically about differences/'distinctions' between things. Numbers keep increasing from an original point, let's say -1, 0, and 1. They do so forever. The original point could be thought of as the 'ability' to make distinctions/differences between things. If there are differences, then there can be a lot of numbers to represent those differences.

The same thing applies to finite objects like computers, tables, chairs etc. For example, a computer is made up of a number of parts and each part has a huge number of distinctions you could assign to it, e.g. small, light, electronic, and so on. The idea of a 'location' is essentially a finite concept, where you need to make a distinction between where you are and where you're not.

The infinite is surely different from what I've described above or it seems it would be finite. This picture visualises how the infinite might be different. If the finite is associated with distinctions, then maybe the infinite is associated with 'distinction-less' existence? Perhaps a finite world of distinctions can 'emerge' out of a distinction-less unity, as in the picture. This would imply (although it's hard to understand) an infinite unity that contains everything in a way that doesn't break up the unity into separate parts.

What could that infinite unity possibly be like? Without the finite, there is simply 'oneness', the eternal infinite that stretches from everlasting to everlasting. With no concept of time, place, cause, effect, before, after, and so on, as such are 'distinction concepts'. It is the ultimate 'I AM' - it 'just' exists, from eternity.

If there is such a 'distinction-less existence' underlying the finite, then an interesting conclusion arises. The fact that we are here would imply that this 'distinction-less infinite' is a mind. Otherwise, why would distinction-less existence ever give rise to existence with distinctions, if there was no mind involved anywhere? Because distinction-less existence is so totally unlike existence with distinctions, it makes no sense that it distinction-ful existence would emerge 'naturally' as a natural part of distinction-less existence.

Does this idea of the infinite fit with the Bible? It might. Suppose that the Christian God is this infinite, and that through being infinite God has all the qualities that the Bible gives Him in a way that finite reasoning cannot grasp. Suppose that in a way finite reasoning cannot understand, distinction-less existence has a mind, free will, love, and is a trinity of one person who is three persons. I think it's OK that we don't understand it, because finite reasoning seems very unlike whatever is going on in 'distinction-less existence'. This could be an interesting way of looking at God. But it's important to remember it's just speculation.

The relationship of God to creation

What is the relationship between God and creation, between the infinite and the finite? Sometimes a picture can be very helpful. The illustration below visualizes finite existence - which includes the universe - 'coming up out of' infinite reality. It also helps to show how infinity could be thought of as 'existence without distinctions' (rather than e.g. an infinite collection of things). Click to see full size:



You could say that infinity and finite existence are like a bookshelf that a book is resting on. Just like the book is completely supported by the bookshelf, so finite existence is supported by infinity. Existence with distinctions is completely dependent on existence without distinctions (see here for a look at this perspective and God).

This view also helps to explain how the universe is NOT God although 'In Him we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28) and 'In Him all things consist' (Col 1:17). Finite existence lives 'within' infinite reality (as the picture shows) but is not infinite reality. So panentheism (the idea that the universe is part of God) is wrong even though Acts 17:28 and Col 1:17 sort of make it sound like panentheism is right.

So the relationship between God and creation is the most dependent relationship that you could ever imagine. God not only sustains the universe (Matt 10:29), but also finite existence itself.