No greater contradiction could be conceived than to say that the wickedness God hated then and hates now was, and is what He desired and presently desires for mankind.
Who would dare to say that the inevitable damnation and eternal torment of billions of His creatures in the Lake of Fire demanded by His holiness and justice is just the way God wanted it to be?!
Yet there are those Calvinists who say exactly that, declaring that God doesn't love all or want all to be saved, that Christ did not die for all, and that God predestined those billions to suffer eternally. Those who teach this are sincere people and mean well, But they are making God out to be less loving and merciful than we expect of one another.
How do they justify this doctrine? Its proponents earnestly believe they are defending God's sovereignty. Failing to understand that evil is something God allows but doesn't will. They mistakenly imagine that if anything could happen (good or evil) that God did not will it would mean that He was not sovereign. They refuse to consider the obvious fact (supported bv hundreds of Bible verses) that God sovereignly gave man the moral responsibility and power of obeying or disobeying Him, of loving or hating Him.
Unless this is true, obedience and reward, disobedience and punishment, love and hate—and much of the Bible itself—have no meaning. The fact that God is sovereign need not mean that nothing can happen that He doesn't will. If that were the case when we would have to conclude that God wills the very evil that He hates, an obvious contradiction not only in logic but in character.
Confusion at this point justifies the sneering complaint of the atheist who claims he cannot believe in God because of evil: "If your God can't stop all evil and suffering. He is too weak to be God. And if He can, and doesn't He is a monster not worthy of our trust!"
There is, of course, one obvious answer to this dilemma, and only one: that God in His sovereignty has given mankind the genuine power of free choice and will not take it back. God can pressure, persuade, or plead with man, but He cannot force him against his will or He would destroy the very creature He made.
Remember the exchange of letters over the Columbine massacre:
Dear God,
Why didn't you save the school children in Littleton, Colorado?
Sincerely. Concerned Student.
Dear Concerned Student:
I am not allowed in schools.
Sincerely, God.
This world of sin, suffering, and death is not God's doing; it is what morally responsible man has irresponsibly brought in opposition to God's will. Or else why would Jesus teach us to pray. "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" (Mt 6:l(Why would it be commendable to surrender to God with these words. "Not my will, but thine, be done" (Lk 22:42). if nothing except God's will can happen anyway?
By Dave Hunt.