Dwell On It: Why God?

Question: How can we reconcile the fact that God is good with the fact that He created us, as well as created people that will go to Hell. Could He have chosen not to create us at all? Wouldn’t it have been better to not have a reality where people turn away from Him? It sometimes seems unfair that we were created at all. If God wants what is best for us, then wouldn’t never existing be better than eternity away from Him?

Answer: This is a valid question with different places we could begin to give an answer. Let’s start with the “why”, as in why did God create us? Isaiah 43:7 says, “Bring all who claim me as their God, for I have made them for my glory. It was I who created them.” God created people to reflect and show His glory. Our purpose in life is to receive His goodness and reflect His glory. Pastor and theologian John Piper talks about Christian Hedonism saying, “Christian Hedonism is the conviction that God’s ultimate goal in the world (His glory) and our deepest desire (to be happy) are one and the same, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

God created people by His will and for His glory. Now we can talk about why He created so many people knowing that they wouldn’t choose to love and follow Him. Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “’My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.’” We can spend a lot of time trying to wrap our minds around why a good and loving God would create people whom would never love him back. It is similar to when a good and loving parent tells their toddler they cannot play in the street. The toddler may get very upset due to a lack of understanding of just how much their parent loves them and that their parent doesn’t want anything to cause them harm. That parent is simply making a decision that is best for them both, yet only one of them really understands it. It should break our hearts that we rub shoulders with people who may spend eternity separated from God, and that heartbreak hopefully causes us to do what we can as believers to make sure that doesn’t happen.

So, does God want what is best for us? Absolutely; He is a perfect and loving Father, therefore He chose to create us. And even though we will not understand everything He does, we must know that what He says in Isaiah 55 is true—that He has more knowledge than we do.