If an all-knowing God evil have already decided who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, then is there no free will? Did He then create hell, evil, and suffering? Does that mean that God is not good?

Brilliant question! I asked this question a long time ago and I’m more than happy to share the answers I got with you.

What you’re asking is the classic ‘problem of evil’. From how you deliver your question, I sense that you agree that a good God would be a God who allows free will, and you’re absolutely right. God loves us so much that He gives us free will, so if I were to love Him, it’s because of my free will and not because He forces me too. But if we are truly free to love Him, then we are also free to hate Him. This is evil and it is what causes pain and suffering. So, God did not create evil and pain, but they are ‘necessary possibilities’ of our free will. Ever heard the term ‘rules are meant to be broken’? That’s actually a very theological statement, because just by having a good God would mean that it creates the possibility to rebel against this good God and thus cause evil. God did not create the evil, it was I who freely choose to rebel against Him. This is evil, this is hell. Think of it like the statement ‘darkness is merely the absence of light’. And so, light can exist without darkness, but darkness cannot exist without light. Similarly, evil cannot exist without us having a good God. But do you know understand how this statement could make sense without the fact that God did not create evil? Btw, this is why the definition of hell is not just a hot oven / fiery furnace, but a place where God does not exist, where there’s not a single speck of goodness. This is the ultimate pain and suffering anyone could go through.

Now that we have solved the problem of evil. Let’s move on to your next classic question of predestination vs free will. Predestination means God having already decided His chosen ones because He’s an all-knowing God. God’s sovereignty over predestination is often collided with our free will, and it’s natural for us human to think of it as this either-or way. However, the answer is both: He is both predestines and He allows our free will to decide the course too. How can these two work together simultaneously?

First, God created me to be good. But because there’s goodness and free will, it’s possible for me to rebel against him and I did. So now, by default, my heart’s tendency and motive are all tainted by sin; it is now my ‘default phone setting’. Unless God interferes and saves me by His grace, I would just drown in hell because of my own action. Yet, God sincerely desires for us to ALL be saved. But He can’t just drag us all to love Him, because a forced love is just r*pe. So all God can do is to throw out the ladder of salvation to us, that is His begotten Son; whoever grabs the ladder lives, whoever chooses to not grab the ladder will perish. And God cries when another soul refuses His invitation of salvation and even crucify His begotten Son. He knew all of these are going to happen even before He created the world. He knew He was going to create us, allow us free will, and that we will break them, some would accept Him back and some not. He even knew then, that there are those who will question His actions like me, like you. But this is what breaks my heart: even then, He already prepared the antidote: ‘Himself’. And as a living sacrifice to save us, His begotten Son experienced hell (the absence of God the Father) for us, which is a state worse than death.

Now if I ask you, “are you saved?”, you may answer “I don’t know if God predestines me to be saved or not”. But if you decide to take hold onto the ladder, that is in His Son, Jesus Christ, then your answer would be “I don’t know what God knows, but what I know is I believe in Him, so my sins are all in His hands, my debt is paid, and I have a good God who promises me that I will be with Him through eternity”. God did His part, He threw the ladder to you. Now will you take the ladder?

Alice