(February 3, 2012 at 12:15 am)MysticKnight Wrote: It's usually argued that allowing evil was necessary to allow free-will.
A problem with this is that we know some people are not evil but good. God could have just created the good people and spared the evil people that would go to hell from being created.
God is believed to have knowledge of all potential souls. Even if it's 1 in a trillion souls that are good and would not do any serious evil, out of infinite potential souls, he could pick only those ones.
At the very least, he could have only created the people that would not earn hell.
The people he would chose to do good with same free-will could be created, so it would not negate free-will at all.
Thus evil is not necessary to allow free-will if God knows everything.
Your mistake is believing anyone is good compared to the perfect God. God is omniscient and understands what good is. Evil = sin so to speak, it is those who sin and are not believers in Christ who will spend eternity in hell. Sin = not doing the will of God, I do not know how anyone can possibly be perfect enough to do God's will every day. Forgiveness is the key, forgiveness comes through Christ. Everyone sins, it's those who accept Christ who attain forgiveness, those who do not accept Christ do not receive forgiveness and thus hell is their eternal destination.
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
