I recently watched a movie on TV called “Tear Drops from the Sun.” It was a great movie about Navy Seals who were sent to extract an American doctor from an anti-Christian rebel uprising in Nigeria. The doctor refused to leave without about seventy of those she was treating who were mobile enough to go with her. The story is about the Seal leader’s struggle to just obey narrow orders versus being distracted to help natives being tortured. The scenes of torture and murder of men, women, and children evoked in me the need to apologize to God for my human race – the degree of evil to which man can stoop.

This then raised the question as to why a sovereign God of love could have created a world where this was allowed to happen. Could He have prevented it by creating a different type of world, a different type of man who only did good? Yes, He could have (Nothing is too hard for God). He could have made man to always choose right over wrong (As we will be in heaven where God’s laws will be written in our hearts, and we will not need to be taught).

This led to the realization (again) that the aspect of human nature that God created which leads to all of man’s evil choices is that God gave man the right, the requirement to choose what we do – free will. Why can’t God intervene and stop atrocities like genocide? Because it would violate free will.

Think about it – God could foresee all the evil through the ages resulting from man’s free will, yet He gave it to us anyway. Why? What is so valuable about our free will in God’s sight? It will cost countless people to suffer in hell. It cost God/Christ the cross. Why was it worth it? Can we even know the answer to this question? God could have avoided all sin by (1) not making us at all, or (2) not giving us free will.

What is inherently valuable about free will? One thing is that it made it possible for man to voluntarily respond to God in good ways: in awe and reverence, in submission, in love, in gratitude, in prayer, and in fellowship. It also enabled mankind to genuinely (man doing it, not God making us do it) love one another, be creative, be courageous, be generous, be kind, etc. But all these are marred, are spoiled by our sins. Are these reasons enough to explain it? I think there is still more, but it may be beyond our ability to know. As Paul said, “We know in part”, we see in part down here on earth. I will keep trying to understand, but I may never know, or I may not know until heaven.

One attempt to explain is to compare God’s choice to create us or not with our choice to have a child or not. So, the question to us is, “Given all the potentially bad outcomes if we choose to have a child (the child could hurt others, could cause us much pain and grief by ending up rebellious, mean, and godless, and end up spending an eternity in hell), what makes it worth the risk? Does the potential good justify the potential bad? But God let us “off the hook” when He commanded us to be fruitful and multiply. Because we know it is God’s will, to believers the question of “Is it worth it?” is not applicable.

But what if God had not commanded us to have children and left it up to us? What would be our reason(s) to make it worth it to have a child? Like us toward God, the child will have free will. Despite our best efforts, we have no guarantee the child will not result in all the bad outcomes mentioned above. As we decide as humans to have a child or not, does the potential for heaven justify the potential for hell? This is above our pay grade, and fortunately, God did not force us to make this choice. Again, as in the initial question, it is God who knows why creating man or having a child is worth it – while remaining for us to contemplate.

Another thought: can there be good without the potential for evil? For God Himself, yes. For created beings – intelligent beings – the only two types we know of – humans and angels – we cannot say yes. What if God created a woman first and then impregnated her with the Holy Spirit so that the offspring would be sinless like Jesus? Well, this is a non-starter because Christ was not a fully autonomous being.

He was God Himself. So, a race of humans created that way would just be God creating more of Himself. The beings would all be God. It seems clear that that would not be interesting to God. It wouldn’t give the created being the freedom, the free will to have a relationship with Him or not. The “voluntary” aspect of mankind is what God desired. But this opens up the possibility of sin and rebellion, and our question remains why was it worth it to God?

After thinking about it more and going to Romans 1-3 for answers, I have finally drawn some conclusions. First, look again at the three types of pain/suffering. The first is all the evil man does to others and perhaps throw in all the suffering that is natural to being in and surviving in a physical world. This is a temporary, normal part of the human experience. God is more concerned about our eternal well-being, and the joy and blessings of heaven will far exceed earth’s temporary pains.

The second type of pain/evil was God Himself having to rescue us through the suffering He endured on the cross. But that allowed God to demonstrate His great love and mercy toward us. That was not an issue or obstacle to God. What is left is the third type of pain/evil – that very many people will end up suffering in hell. So, what justified that? Why is our existence worth that?

Paul addresses this in Romans 3:3-6 and within these verses a reference to Psalms 51:4.

Paul is saying in these verses that people end up in hell because of God’s wrath and judgment due them. It was due them because of their sin combined with their refusal to accept God’s gracious forgiveness available to all through faith. Paul is asking the same question (in a sense) as we are. He is asking if God is unrighteous in punishing sin/unbelief. In verse 4 Paul is saying that He is righteous when we evaluate or judge Him. But we have already conceded that in the understanding that everything God does is righteous. Our question is not is He righteous in condemning the lost to hell, but why is that extent of suffering worth creating mankind? Looking at Romans 1:20, one can conclude that because God created man “without excuse”, and accountable himself for his sin, God need not have a “worth it” reason to go forward with man’s creation with one of the outcomes being that many would end up in hell. God is “off the hook” so to speak because it is man who has no excuse. Those who incur the wrath of God in hell brought it upon themselves.

These verses also point out some good things from God that He could not do if He didn’t follow through and create man. In Romans 2:4,10 Paul says God has riches He wants to give us. In verse 4 they are kindness, forbearance, and patience. In verse 10 they are glory, honor, and peace. God couldn’t do all these for us if we didn’t exist. Yet, these riches don’t have to be put on scales to balance out the bad of very many people going to hell. As we noted earlier, people end up in hell because of their own choices – they are without excuse. They can’t blame God! The relevant scales are those that measure mankind’s sins versus God’s mercy and grace. For every human, no matter how much sin is piled up on one side of the scale, there are more mercy and grace from God to outweigh it on the other side.

Because God made us, He was able to show us these particular riches – grace, mercy, forbearance, and forgiveness, but He would have preferred not to have had to give these. He would have been delighted to give us just the glory, honor, and peace in Romans 2:10 and the joy in Psalms 51:12.

We exist at God’s pleasure. God knew when He created us as physical beings with free will all the pain and suffering that would result – including His own to save us. Yet, it was worth it to Him. He made us in His image with intelligence, emotions, and a free will. What made man’s creation worth it, what man’s great value is to God is when we freely choose to respond to Him in love and gratitude, when we voluntarily come to Him and have a relationship once we realize the extent of God’s love toward us.