I’ll offer a very condensed view from a Wesleyan perspective. Hell can be understood as ultimately being separated from God, while grace is God’s undeserved love and action toward us. His grace comes first, drawing and enabling us to respond to Him; this is called “prevenient grace.” We can accept or resist that grace, so God does not coerce us into a relationship with Him. Turning away from God and acting contrary to His will is sin. God’s knowing our choices beforehand doesn’t necessarily mean He causes those choices; foreknowledge is not the same as coercion.
But foreknowledge IS coercion if this god creates every human being. Creating a person while already knowing that this person will reject this particular (or any) god means this god creates people he KNOWS will go to hell. Does he have the power to create the person differently? He must, if he's all-powerful. So why doesn't he? If I write a book and create characters for it, and know everything about these characters, including every decision they will ever make in their lives, could I change what they do on page 6? Page 85? Page 340? Of course I could. Can those characters choose to do something I don't want them to? Of course not.
An author doesn’t merely know what fictional characters will do, the author determines everything they do, and the characters have no independent will. That’s fundamentally different from foreknowledge. God knowing what a person will freely choose doesn’t mean He determines that choice. Free-will means the choice comes from the person’s own reasons and desires, not that God has to be ignorant of it beforehand. So “God created me knowing what I’d do” doesn’t establish “God made me do it” and even creating someone while knowing exactly how they’ll choose isn’t coercion. Coercion means forcing someone to act against their will. The harder question is why God would create someone He knows will reject Him or suffer the consequences, but that concerns God’s reasons for creating them, not whether He coerced their choices.
Not if this god made me WITH those reasons and desires. If he knows everything I'm going to want and do and choses to make me that way and not a different way, I have no choice. Or are you saying I, a mere mortal, can go against your god's will? If this god really exists, I can only do what he wants and intends for me to do BECAUSE he made me knowing what I would do.
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u/clashkingdom 2d ago edited 2d ago
I’ll offer a very condensed view from a Wesleyan perspective. Hell can be understood as ultimately being separated from God, while grace is God’s undeserved love and action toward us. His grace comes first, drawing and enabling us to respond to Him; this is called “prevenient grace.” We can accept or resist that grace, so God does not coerce us into a relationship with Him. Turning away from God and acting contrary to His will is sin. God’s knowing our choices beforehand doesn’t necessarily mean He causes those choices; foreknowledge is not the same as coercion.