Why did God bother?

So this question came up recently in a sermon I was listening to in church on Sunday. The pastor did not directly ask this question, but something he said triggered this thought in my head, "If God knew who was going to accept Him and who would not, why did He even create those who would not accept Him? Why not spare them the torment of Hell?"

I admit, I do not have an answer to this question, but I would like to put my thoughts here, if that's okay with you. (Considering this is my blog, I don't foresee any problems ;))

So, I think I've talked about God's plan and His purpose in creating us before (or I have at least touched on the topic of free will in one of my previous posts), which is the ultimate and complete glorification of God. I believe that God deserves to be glorified in all His power, knowledge, and love. And I believe that He needs to be glorified in every aspect of His being (meaning every attribute that defines Him). He needs to be glorified in everything. I also believe that our purpose here on Earth is to give Him at least a part of that glory. As we are finite beings, naturally we couldn't offer Him all the glory He deserves, Him being infinite. We could not possibly grasp His whole being in the century or less that we have to live here. So if that is indeed our purpose, then it would follow that God would seek to reveal Himself to us in ways that we could understand, and then glorify Him in response. We can see much of His power, complexity, intelligence, wisdom, and understanding as we perceive and continue to learn more about the universe which He created. We can also see much of His love, justice, grace, wrath, mercy, and jealousy as well as His power, complexity, intelligence, wisdom, and understanding as it has been revealed throughout history and specifically in His Word, the Bible. And now, as Christians, we can experience first-hand His presence, His holiness, His peace, His understanding, His compassion, His comfort, and His grace in our personal lives as we walk with Him in faith. It is as we come to better understand who He is that we can more confidently and accurately glorify Him in all His Being. I see this as our prominent purpose in life.

Something else I've talked about in previous posts is God's goodness, and the problem of evil in relation to God as the Creator of all things. My conclusion there was that in order to better understand God's Goodness, evil was required. It is not a created thing, not in the sense that we think of the sun, or people, or rain. Evil is more accurately described as a lack of good. Just as darkness is a lack of light. It is an emptiness which needs filling. We can better understand the usefulness of light and the joy of being able to see when we have experienced a time without light, a time of darkness or blindness. In the same way, we come to more fully understand God's goodness when we have experienced a lack of it, or rather, what we call evil. Make sense? If not, just spend some time reading nonsense and you will have a better appreciation for logic and sentences which are actually thought out and structured. (Even if they do sometimes run on and on.)

Now, back to the question at hand, "Why did God bother?" It can be argued that God, being all-knowing (Omniscient), already knows exactly who will accept Him and who will not. Even if you do not believe in God, and treat the Bible as a fictional collection of stories concerning some deity, you can still perceive that this deity as portrayed in the stories claims to be all-knowing. If in fact He already knows who is going to accept Him and who is not, then why did He bother creating all of the billions (trillions?) of people who would not accept Him? Why did He bother creating the Philistines or the Amorites (enemies of Israel), or the Buddhas or Muhammeds (creators of other religions), or the Bill Nyes or Richard Dawkins (atheists strictly opposed to Christianity)? If what the Bible says is true, and those people mentioned who have rejected God are going to Hell for eternity, why didn't God just spare them the torment (since He claims to love us all) and not even create them?

This is a similar argument that some mothers-to-be make before getting an abortion. "I don't want to raise this child into a life of poverty, or hardship, or suffering, so I'll just deny them their existence." In case you couldn't tell, I am not a fan of this argument.

Free will is all about choice. We have the choice to love God. And He wants us to choose Him. Love is not love if it is a forced thing. We must choose it. We must choose God. However, if God gives us the power, the authority, and the responsibility to choose, then obviously there is a risk. We could choose something or someone other than God. We can choose to reject Him. We can use the same power, authority, and responsibility that He gifted to us to turn our backs on Him and walk away. But that doesn't quite answer the question, does it? The argument continues that God already knows what choice we will make, so why not save time and effort and remove those who will not choose Him?

I choose to believe that it is because that would deny them their choice. If you have ever seen the movie Watchmen, then you know Dr. Manhattan constantly abused his knowledge of future. He knew what decisions people would make, so he made the decisions for them. No need to consult, no need to have a relationship, he just knew. You would also know that he was not exactly personable, or intimate, with anyone. This is not who God is. He actively pursues a relationship with each of us, a loving, intimate relationship which allows us to come into His Presence and experience His fullness and glory. It is due to this pursuit, I believe, that God refuses to deny people their choice in choosing Him. Scripture tells us that it pains Him when people turn away and reject Him, but that is their choice. God will not deny someone their existence purely because of the decisions they will make.

My final thought here is this: just as darkness helps us to better understand the light, so Hell helps us to better understand Heaven. I've talked before about what I believe about Heaven and Hell. Heaven is essentially the Presence of God, and Hell is God's absence. Hell is absolute aloneness. No friends, no family, no God. We are each born into this world separated from God, we have a void in our soul which can only be filled by God. And it is our experience of this lack of God which allows us to more fully understand the glory and peace of His presence. God "bothered" with those who would not choose Him because 1. He wanted them to have the choice and 2. it allows us to more fully comprehend His sense of justice, His mercy, and the joy that can be found in His presence.

I must admit, I often suppress thoughts about how many people have rejected God over the past few millenia. Its horrifying to think about. But every now and then, in moments of clarity, God reminds me that I have a second purpose here on Earth. Its really an extension of the main purpose, but it is to make disciples of all nations. God has called me to go out and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations. This means that part of my job is to spread the good news of salvation, the message of God, to all the world so that everyone has an opportunity to at least make the choice.

Let me end by asking you this: What choice have you made? And what are you going to do about it?