We can’t have it both ways. We say that God knows all things.
“I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, 'My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” Isaiah 46:10
If He knew, before He created the world, that most people would choose not to receive Jesus- we still have a dilema. God’s divine nature is satisfied to endure the screams of masses of beings in torment forever. His plan took this into account - and He was satisfied with it. What an indifferent unfeeling God. And what an impotent, incompetent, demented plan. Especially in view of what God Himself says about “taking no pleasure in the punishment of the wicked”, and His desire to save all “who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”(1 Tim 2:4)
Since God empowers all that exists- we have to accept that throughout all eternity He is directly tormenting the damned. What a twisted God.
While we accept that men are responsible for their disobedience, and that the disobedience of some men is extreme in the uttermost and desrving of damnation(Hitler, pedophiles, etc.)…this God is also going to torment the larger portion of mankind- guilty simply of unbelief or wrong belief or existing in the wrong space in time - forever also. If God must punish a person forever for not believing in Jesus in this life, how is He just? Surely the punishment exceeds the crime, a worthy consideration since the Law of Moses, which came from God, grants commensurate punishment to all. Also being tormented forever- is being tormented forever. The idea that the extremely wicked will suffer “hotter flames”, does not represent punishment moderated to the offense, because the bottom line is- forever is forever. A vindictive autocratic God.
Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery. Yet, the doctrine eternal torment proposes that all the other adultresses, who were not fortunate enough to meet Jesus within the tiny spectrum of 3 years of ministry in a tiny little portion of the world, must suffer forever because God “cannot” forgive anyone past the boundaries of mortal life. If this is so then God is responsible to have made sure that everyone in life met with Jesus or a proper representative of His(a disciple of Christ)- but He did not. An arbitrary, unjust God.
If someone believes God chose the elect to believe- they must believe God chose the rest to be cursed forever- the lie of Calvinism. God becomes like the fickle gods of the Greeks and Romans and Egyptians.
If someone believes God created men with a totally free will, but placed them on the earth and allowed them to complete their lives without ensuring that they would receive sufficient input to make the correct choice, they must believe it is up to man to discover Jesus even when and where Jesus has never been proclaimed. The fallacy of Arminianism and an obvious indictment upon a God of purposeful injustice.
If God makes exceptions, at the judgment seat, for those who never heard the gospel, for children, for the severely mentally handi-capped, for infants, or for some vague “age of accountability”- then why can He not receive the repentance of a properly chastised soul who has finally bowed their knee in the lake of fire… If God is able to do that, and many scriptures indicate that He can and will, He has accomplished both. He has made man accountable for his actions and yet still fulfilled the words of His Son…
“If I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all men unto me”(Jn 12:32) and
“Behold, I am making all things new- Write, for these words are faithful and true!”(Rev 21:5)
Suddenly, “Every knee shall bow, whether in heaven or on earth or under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father”(Phil 2), begins to make sense.
“As in Adam all died, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”(1 Cor 15) begins to make sense.
“For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; 26 and so all Israel will be saved.”(Romans 11) begins to make sense!
32** For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all**.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?
35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.(Rom 11) Begins to make sense!
All of these verses and many more I could list here begin to make perfect sense when we realize that the judgment of God(punishment), brings men to the justice of God(repentence), because of the mercy of God(forgiveness) which has brought the healing of God(transformation).
From that point of view all these verses begin to make sense, and a just, wise and merciful God who would send His Son to save the world,
in such power and glory that eventually the whole creation will be restored(Acts 3:19-21; Rom 8:14-23)- not mostly left in agony forever.
“He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him 11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.” Eph. 1
Wow, all those verses make sense now! 