Why Would God Make the Damned?

Theological Letters

A dear friend of mine approached me with a question from his daughter, “Agatha,” who is in her early teens. She asked why God would create a person who he foreknows will be damned. Given the recipient’s age, I’ve tried to keep things rather basic and avoid overly technical talk. Readers may notice a difference in tone as a result.

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Dear “Agatha,”

Your dad shared with me your question, Why would God create a person who he knows will be damned? What an excellent question, and good for you for asking it!

Be warned, good questions often have complicated answers. So if you’re going to ask such questions, don’t expect simple replies. Your question may be simple, but its answer is not. Nonetheless, I promise to do my best to make the solution as clear as possible. I only ask in return that you do your best to follow along. Perhaps together we can journey from your very good question to an equally good answer.

Let’s begin with an assumption that often sits in the imaginations of those who ask such a question. We tend to imagine that God looks out over all the people he might create, and he sees who will be saved (if he creates them) and who will be damned (if he creates them). So, many imagine, if God creates a man — let’s call him William Hershel — who lives a life that ends with his damnation, then God must have known, before creating poor William, that if he creates William, William will be damned. And yet, for some strange reason, God chose to create William anyway. Such a picture, however, is not assumed by the Eastern Church fathers.

(Perhaps I should here offer an aside on the term “Eastern Church fathers,” in case you’re unfamiliar with its meaning. You, Agatha, are an Eastern Orthodox Christian. The Eastern refers to the Eastern half of the Roman Empire. Christianity first emerged in Rome, which was divided, East and West. The Western half spoke Latin, and the Eastern half spoke Greek and other languages. Roughly a thousand years ago, the Church split in two, and that split was between the East and the West. Eastern Orthodoxy is the Church of the East. Roman Catholicism is the church of the West. The Church fathers are those early Christians who received, preserved, and defended the faith handed down by Jesus and the Apostles. The Eastern Church fathers are those fathers of the East who the Orthodox Church looks to for guidance. With that, let’s return to the above assumption.)

The Eastern Church fathers do not assume that God knows which of his creatures will be saved and which will be damned before choosing to make them. John of Damascus, a rather important Church father, answers your very question by saying that God does not know the damned will be damned before choosing to make them.¹ But how can this be, you might ask? Doesn’t God know everything?

Yes, God knows everything. And yes, everything is traditionally thought to include future things. But consider this. Why do you or I exist? Did you have any choice in the matter? No, and nor did I. If God suddenly desired that you cease to exist, could you prevent it? Certainly not, and nor could I. We are what philosophers call contingent. We depend on things for our existence. Most obviously, we depend on food, water, and air; the start of our existence depends upon our parents. But even more basic than all of this, we depend upon God.

You see, Agatha, existence is not something that we have the power to take for ourselves nor to hold onto. Only one being exists in such a way that he cannot not exist, in a way where he never started to exist and can never cease to exist. That being is God. Every other being receives existence; he or she or it began to exist. Other things played a part in him or her or it coming to be. What this means is that none of us has existence in a way that is truly our own, in a way where it really belongs to us. It is always a gift. And the ultimate giver — to you and to me, to air and to food and to water, to your parents and to mine — is the one being who has existence to give: God.²

The reason this is so important is that the word “everything” refers to, well, things. When we talk about God looking out over beings he might create before ever choosing to create them, we fall into an odd mistake. We treat these beings as real before they are real. Consider our poor William. William is only real if God chooses to give William existence. Before such a choice, William is not real. So, William cannot be an object of God’s knowing until after God chooses to bring William into being. In other words, yes, God knows everything, but William is not a thing until and unless God chooses to make him a thing. This means there is an order to God’s knowing and God’s choosing. His choosing to make William comes first, and from this choice follows God’s knowledge of William.³

The same goes for the future. The traditional Christian belief is that God knows the future. The word future indicates beings and happenings that have not yet taken place, things that are not yet real. But the presumption is that the future is an extension of things that are real now, of things that God has chosen to make real and to allow to unfold. God has already chosen to create you and me, and to grant us free will to make choices that please us. So, the unfolding of our existence and choices into the future is amongst the things — the everything — that God knows. But notice that this knowledge of the future, like God’s knowledge of William, comes after God’s choice to make things. Or put in other words, God foreknows the future because it is the future. Had he not chosen to create us and our unfolding reality, there would be no future for him to know.

And here we can understand John of Damascus’ point about the damned. What we imagine — that God looks out over a host of possible creatures, knowing which will be saved and which will be damned, and chooses to create the damned anyway — has things precisely backwards. Our poor, damned William cannot be an object of God’s knowing before God chooses to make him, nor can William’s damnation. Only if God chooses to make William can William and his choice to be damned be known by God.

Now, perhaps a thought comes into your mind, which often comes into the minds of folks who hear this for the first time: Well, then, couldn’t God choose to not make William once he knows William will be damned? Such a question, should you ask it, raises a rather odd problem. Remember that God only knows William and his future damnation because God has chosen to make him; William and his damnation are only real and knowable because of God’s choice. But if God does not plan to follow through with this choice, then neither William nor his damnation are real, nor were they ever real, nor will they ever be real. In what sense, then, could they be objects of God’s knowing?

In other words, it seems that God cannot play the sort of game this question suggests. For the question imagines God choosing to make something real, knowing it because it is real, and then failing to make it real. If God knows the future because it is future, then it seems that God cannot play such games; his knowledge is of things he has resolved to make. And unless he carries through with this resolve, there is nothing there for him to know.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that God could play such a game. Let’s say that God could choose to make William just long enough to learn of his damnation and then change his mind about whether to make him. Even if this were possible (though I do not believe it is), there is good reason to think God would not do it.

One rather important thing to keep in mind about God and his choices is something else that John of Damascus points out: God always does things in the best possible way, such that nothing better could have been done.⁴ We can see the point rather easily when we consider why we fail to do things in the best possible way. When we make a poor choice, or a wrong choice, or a sinful choice, we do so either because we are ignorant of what is best or because, despite seeing what is best, we prefer something else — a preference that indicates that something is bent in our hearts, that we are sinful. I trust you know that neither is ever true of God. God always knows what is best, and being Good, he always wills the best.⁵ The point is extremely relevant when considering whether God might play the sort of game we imagine he should. Here’s why.

You and I tend to think in terms of outcomes. We often make choices based on what we want to happen, on our desired result. But this may not be the best way to make choices. When considering what is good for someone or something, the answer is found, not in outcomes, but in the nature of the thing itself. Consider your eye. What is its purpose? I trust you know the answer is to see. Tending to your eye — to its good — means caring for it in a way that moves it toward health, wholeness, and the fulfillment of that purpose. What is good is determined by present realities, by the nature and purpose of the thing in question. But we often misjudge the good as getting the results that we want. And here emerges a rather important difference between us and God. We are concerned with results. God is concerned with goodness.

Sometimes (oftentimes) the right choice — the choice that is in harmony with the order of nature, the laws of God, and our purpose as creatures — brings results that we do not like. This is precisely why we struggle to do the right thing when we can foresee an outcome that we find undesirable. But the result does not change what is right and good.

The point is exceedingly relevant when it comes to the game we wish God to play. We imagine that God should “use his foreknowledge” (as if it were a superpower) to figure out what choice will get the more desirable result and then choose accordingly. But God is Good. He acts on what is good — and indeed best. What is good does not cease to be good if the outcome does not suit our liking. When we suggest that God should revise his choice based on the outcome, we are really suggesting that God should do something other than the good. We are saying that, though his choice was good and even best, he should do otherwise to get a more desirable result. But God cannot. He is Good. And our impulse to want him to behave differently reflects neither wisdom nor goodness. It reflects a deep flaw in us, namely, our willingness to compromise what is good to get what we want.

One early Christian writer named Tertullian touched on this point when discussing the Old Testament story of King Saul. Perhaps you know the story. Saul was Israel’s first king. God chose him from amongst all the tribes and people of Israel. But after ruling over Israel for a time, Saul became proud and sinned against God. God regretted making Saul king and handed the kingship over to David.⁶

The talk of God’s regret often shocks readers.⁷ And the story raises a question: If God knew that Saul would become a bad king, why make him king? Tertullian answers that refusing to make Saul king on the basis of future sins would be unjust of God. Why? God chose Saul for a reason. He was, at the time of his anointing as king, a good choice for king. That Saul will eventually make bad choices does not change this fact. To refuse him the kingship on the basis of things he has not yet done is to punish Saul for sins he has not yet committed — and will never do if he is not anointed king. Such dealings are unjust and unworthy of God. So, instead, God chooses Saul as king; he allows Saul to rule and to freely make bad choices, and only upon making such choices does God punish Saul.⁸

The point is rather similar to a popular hypothetical. Imagine that you were approached by an angel who told you that a baby boy was born yesterday in a nearby hospital, and that baby will grow up to be the next Hitler, a wicked dictator who will wreak havoc upon the earth. Would you find and kill that baby? I hope the answer is No, and that would be the right answer. For the baby is presently just that, a baby. The child is wholly innocent, and to kill him would be to murder an innocent baby, plain and simple. The baby is not yet a Hitlerian villain guilty of anything. But the temptation to think murdering the infant would be good reflects our outcome-driven thinking. Yet, if we think only in terms of what is real now, of what is good and right in the present, there is no question that murdering the infant would be wrong, even if the result is desirable. Once again, the difference between us and God is obvious. We consider outcomes. God considers the good.

Such considerations illuminate a surprising conclusion. Though God knows the future, it seems that he does not deal with us on the basis of it. Rather, he deals with us according to what is true and real now. Just as God did not deal with Saul on the basis of sins not yet committed, so God does not deal with our William on the basis of damnation he has not yet chosen.

Another consideration that is rather important to your question is free will. God has given us this extraordinary power to assess the options before us and choose for ourselves the desired course of action. We must resist the idea that God makes our choices for us. Free will means that we determine our choices; God does not. In fact, it seems that God cannot make our choices for us.

This last statement may sound rather odd. After all, God is all-powerful. Can’t he do anything? Yes, Christians have traditionally said that God is all-powerful (or omnipotent, if you prefer the fancy term), and so, he can do anything. But much like our discussion of God’s knowledge, the point must be qualified. God can do anything. But not everything we imagine is in fact a thing.

Consider the matter this way. Try to imagine a unicorn. What do you see in your mind’s eye? I presume you see a horse with a single horn atop his head. Do you suppose that God is capable of making such a beast? Presumably so. He has made horses as well as one-horned animals. Surely a horse with a single horn is within his power.

Now imagine instead a square circle. Can you do it? No, I do not mean a square with a circle inside it, or circle with a square inside it, or a square that transforms into a circle. I mean a shape that is simultaneously all square and nothing else and all circle and nothing else. Can you imagine it? You cannot, and nor can I. But can God make a square circle? Many well-meaning folks answer, Yes, for they think it would be blasphemous to say, No. But does the affirmative reply mean anything? If you say that God can create a square circle, have you said anything at all? What is this “thing” you are saying God can make? You have put together a pair of words, but those words are utterly incompatible with one another, forming what logicians call a contradiction. A circle has a flowing circumference. A square does not. A square has four sides. A circle does not. And it is not merely that a square does not have a flowing circumference; it cannot because it has four sides. It’s not merely that a circle doesn’t have four sides; it cannot because of its flowing circumference. To pair the words square and circle is to make nonsense. And as C. S. Lewis once explained, “nonsense remains non-sense even when we talk it about God.”⁹

The point is this. Yes, God can do anything. But the word anything is about things. Meaningless word combinations are not things. They are nonsense. So there is nothing behind these words for God to do.¹⁰

The same is true for God choosing on behalf of free creatures. Free will means self-choosing. Were God to choose for us, we would not be free. Sometimes folks make the rather silly suggestion that God should create free creatures and make sure that they never do wrong — or in the case of poor William, that he does not choose damnation. But such sentiments are really no more meaningful than saying that God should make squares that are circles.¹¹

A second consideration about free will is closely related to the earlier point about God’s foreknowledge. Remember that we said there is an order to God’s knowing. He must choose to make things real and only then are they things to be known. Notice that our choices are determined by us. There is an order here as well. Choices that are made by us can only be real if we are real. And here, we again bump into John of Damascus’ suggestion: God cannot foreknow what we will choose before choosing to make us; he can only know our future choices if we are part of the future, for such choices are made by us.

We can see this in the story of Abraham and Isaac. I trust you know the story. God miraculously gave Abraham a son, Isaac, whom Abraham deeply loved. God, then, chose to test Abraham. He commanded him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. With a heavy heart, Abraham bound Isaac and prepared to sacrifice him to the LORD, but before Abraham could, God intervened and stopped him.¹² God’s words to Abraham are telling, now I know that you fear God, and for my sake you have not spared your beloved son.¹³ Many find these words strange. Much like your question about the damned, they wonder, Didn’t God already know that Abraham would pass the test? In a certain sense, yes. God has foreknowledge of the future, so he foreknew Abraham would not withhold his son. But this foreknowledge is about a real choice. Unless God tests Abraham, there is no choice for God to know. And so it is with William’s damnation. Unless God chooses to make William and allow him to freely determine his own fate, there is nothing for God to foreknow.

As you can see, many of our ideas about God, his foreknowledge, and his dealings with creatures are misguided. God does not know poor William’s fate before there is a William or a fate to know, so if he chooses to make William, he does so because it is good to make William, whatever may transpire in the future. God providentially cares for William and his world in the best possible way. But in the end, William is a free being. So, while God always does what is best, William does not. And the fact that William is free means that William may choose damnation.

This last point is extremely important whenever considering questions about damnation. We must always remember that damnation is something the creature chooses, not God. We retreat. God pursues, going to the greatest possible lengths to redeem us. The Incarnation is the clearest picture of this fact. God does not merely tell us to stand up straight and do better. God sends his Son to become one of us, to become a creature to redeem his creation. He endures the plights of fallen humanity and even death on a cross to rescue us, even descending into the darkness of Hades (the realm of the dead) to retrieve Adam and his children.¹⁴

We recently celebrated Pascha (Χριστός ἀνέστη), and in the homily of John Chrysostom, you heard about Christ liberating all from the bonds of Hades:

Let no one fear death, for the death of the Savior has set us free… He has led Hades captive, he who descended into Hades. He embittered it, when it tasted of his flesh. And foretelling this, Isaiah cried: “Hades,” he said, “was embittered when it encountered you below.” It was embittered, for it was abolished. It was embittered, for it was mocked. It was embittered, for it was slain. It was embittered, for it was overthrown. It was embittered, for it was fettered. It received a body and encountered God. It received earth, and met heaven. It received that which it saw, and fell to what it did not see. O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory? Christ is risen, and you are cast down. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life flourishes. Christ is risen, and there is none dead in the tombs.¹⁵

Hades was sometimes envisioned as a prison for the souls of the dead. Many of our Orthodox icons, hymns, and Church fathers speak about Christ destroying its gates and dispelling its darkness, liberating all within.¹⁶ Understand, Agatha, Jesus Christ has liberated all from Hades. If any remain inside, they do so by choice. There are no gates. Nothing holds them but their own choice. If any remain, they remain in a prison without bars, searching for a shadow to hide in, retreating from the light of God. But the fact remains, God has done all that is necessary to liberate humanity, and he perpetually calls to us to come out and live.

Damnation, then, is a state of equilibrium between God’s pursuit of the creature and the creature’s retreat. We might wish for God to end the creature, like putting down a sick animal. But here, what we learned about foreknowledge and God’s dealings is especially relevant.

We must remember that if God knows the creature will refuse him forever, this knowledge must be of something real. Unless God allows the creature to refuse him, the choice is neither real nor knowable. We must also remember what was said of Saul. If God were to “put down” the creature because of future unrepentance, then God would be punishing the creature for sins not yet committed and, worse, never committed due to its destruction. And finally, we must remember what was said about God’s dealings as contrasted with our own. God’s choices are based on Goodness, not outcomes. God, being Good, wills that we repent and become what we are made to be. He can will nothing else for us. So, in keeping with his Goodness, God pursues, never abandoning, always calling to repentance. When we wish for God to destroy the creature based on foreknowledge, we wish for God to give up on his creature. But this is entirely contrary to God’s nature.

Allow me one final thought before I close. One rather significant assumption in your question is that some people will be irretrievably damned. What I am about to say is controversial, but I think it is worth saying. Not all of the Church fathers believe this. Several believe that God’s pursuit of humanity, his efforts to redeem all things, will eventually succeed and all will be saved. Some believe that this teaching is contrary to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, and they point to a specific council held in 553 A.D. But I disagree with this reading of that council. And I believe it is acceptable to hope that all will be saved.¹⁷ Mind you, I do not believe this hope should ever be held as certain, and I believe we should live under the presumption that it is false, working out our own salvation in earnest and striving for the salvation of those around us. But I do believe that it is permissible to hope that God, who can never abandon his creatures, will one day succeed in rescuing all.

Yet, whether one believes this or not, in all things the Goodness of God must always be remembered. So long as redemption is possible, God will pursue it. For it is contrary to his nature to abandon any. Or as Elder Sophrony once said, You may be certain that as long as someone is in Hell, Christ will remain there with him. For he is Good and the Lover of mankind.

I hope that helps.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jacobs

—

Nathan A. Jacobs, Ph.D.
Scholar in Residence of Philosophy and Religion in the Religion in the Arts and Contemporary Culture Program (RACC)
Vanderbilt University, Divinity School
http://nathanajacobs.com
https://vanderbilt.academia.edu/NathanAJacobs

1. John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, 4.21 (PG 94:1197a-1201a).

2. I discuss the notion (and its rationale) that our existence is perpetually upheld by God in The Inevitability of Leibniz, chapter 5.

3. I recount the Latin medieval dispute on this topic in The Inevitability of Leibniz, chapter 3 and Leibniz’s own discussion of the matter in chapter 5. I am here presuming the Eastern patristic position, as articulated by John of Damascus.

4. John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, 2.29 (PG 94:963a-70b).

5. I offer a synopsis of the analytic case for the view in Leibniz in The Inevitability of Leibniz, chapter 1, and I explore the history of the view before Leibniz in pagan, Jewish, and Christian thought in chapter 3.

6. The story appears in 1 Samuel 8-16.

7. 1 Samuel 15:11.

8. Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, 2.23.

9. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (Samizdat University Press, 2016), 12.

10. I discuss the meaning and boundaries of omnipotence in my letter, “Reflections on the Ontological Argument,” and in The Inevitability of Leibniz, chapter 5.

11. I discuss free will more generally in my letter, “On Free Will.” I discuss the free will defense in overview fashion in my talk, “On the Problem of Evil.” I offer a more thorough treatment of the defense in early Christianity, in Leibniz, and in contemporary figures, such as Alvin Plantinga, in The Inevitability of Leibniz, chapter 3, chapter 4, and chapter 5.

12. The story appears in Genesis 22.

13. Genesis 22:12 LXX.

14. I am here presuming the Eastern doctrine of Christ’s descent into Hades, given that the reader is Orthodox. For a treatment of the Eastern doctrine and its contrast with the Western view, see my letters, “Hell, Hades, and Christ’s Descent (Part 1)” and “Hell, Hades, and Christ’s Descent (Part 2).”

15. John Chrysostom, Paschal Homily (PG 59.721-24).

16. Again, for a full treatment of the Eastern understanding of this doctrine, see my letter, “Hell, Hades, and Christ’s Descent (Part 1).”

17. I offer a full treatment of this topic in my letter, “On Apokatastasis and Universal Salvation.”