Hello, my name is Kelcey and I am a Christian, however I have recently been experiencing some major doubts and questions about the Christian faith. This is only one of many questions that I have, but I think it is the question that is consuming my thoughts the majority of the time so I'll just ask this one.
It seems to me that God was incredibly unfair in His creation! God created Satan, and since he is omniscient, he knew that Satan would fall from grace and tempt man. Doesn't this seem like a bear trap to you? God puts all the elements for sin together, and then waits and gets the expected result: mankind's sinful nature. Following that logic, isn't it slightly irrational for God to demand punishment for creating us the way we are?
I would really really appreciate an answer to this question. It's been on my mind for quite some time and I can't find a reasonable explanation for it! Thank you very much.
Kelcey, nice question...
God didn't create us (or Satan) with the intent to sin – that would be unjust. But rather, he did give us a choice. So why did he give us choice? Because God didn't want to create robots. If we had no choice, we would be like plants and rocks. Plants and rocks can't love, because they have no choice to love or not to love - they just exist. If you program a computer to print out "I love you," the computer doesn't love you, you merely told it to do that. So since God wanted to create beings that could love, He gave them a choice - to love or not to love. These aren't the "elements for sin", these are the "elements for love". The possibility of sin is the byproduct of the elements for love. There is no trap. There simply is a way for us to love God. God created us perfect, without sin. God would be unjust only if he programmed us to sin and punished us anyway. But we were originally created without sin. So He is fair and just to punish us if we sin.
But you bring up God's foreknowledge of all of this.
Foreknowledge does not make one responsible for someone else's actions. Lawmakers know if they set the speed limit to 75 miles per hour on a section of road that people will break that law. Just because the lawmakers knew that the law would be broken doesn't make the lawmakers guilty in anyway. The speeder gets the ticket – not the lawmaker.
So even if God is not responsible for our sins in anyway - if He knew we would sin, how come He let it happen anyway? Because he had a plan to save sinners. And that plan is Christ. Through Christ, God's love is shown to the universe.
