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Writer's pictureBible Brian

Our kids live, then die. God's kids die, then live.


One of the most desperate efforts atheists make to challenge Christianity is to point out that, even if God gave us free will, He still knew how we would use it, meaning He is ultimately responsible for death and Hell. Is this sound logic?

The first thing we have to remember is that it wouldn't matter if it was. God's sovereignty is very clear. He compares us to clay in His hands. How He shapes us is His prerogative. What's especially important is that even in this analogy (Jeremiah 18:1-11), God shows that He gives us a limited amount of control over how He shapes us. If we "become marred in His hand", so to speak, He can still make us into something different for His glory. But we have to consider that we choose whether to become marred or not. If we obey Him, we are vessels of honor. If we become marred, we become vessels of dishonor. The honorable purpose comes first, as a gift. The dishonorable purpose comes when we choose to become marred.


A simple way to state this is that yes, God knows what we will choose to do with our free will, but if we chose something different, God would have known that instead. Free will is always there, even if God knows the outcome. Thus, He is not responsible for that outcome. Any attempt to make Him responsible for your free choices is more of a reflection on you, showing an inability to take responsibility for your own actions.


What's even more telling is that, as usual, God is the only being atheists would use this logic against. Think of it this way: Every parent knows their child will one day die. This isn't even a case of "if they make this choice, they'll live, but if they make this choice, they'll die". There is a 100% chance that if you bring a child into this world, something will eventually take them out of it. Yet, what atheist would try to charge parents with murder? I have only heard of one very strange case of something like this happening. A man tried to sue his parents for giving him life without his consent. Clearly, that particular man is out of his mind. So also would any atheist be who tries to charge any parents with the murder of their own children just because they knew, when they conceived said child, that their life would eventually end.


How, then, can God be blamed for those who chose to be condemned when He knew full well that many would accept His gift of grace? If you go to Hell, that's your fault. If you go to Heaven, that is a perfect display of God's unfathomable grace. We don't deserve eternal life any more than we deserve this one, yet God, out of the goodness of His heart, offers it freely to the entire human race. Why did He choose to create the ones who would ultimately reject that grace? Simple answer: None of our business. You only need to worry about one person's relationship with God: yours. How will He treat you when He finally calls you into His courtroom and judges you according to your works? Will He find you impenitent and cast you into the fire as you deserve, or will He nail your sins to the cross and declare you righteous? The choice is yours, the consequences are yours. You can't blame God if you get it wrong.

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