Free Will: Blessing or Curse?
Why would God create angels and people He knew would rebel?
Here is one of the hardest questions anyone can ask about God.
Why did God create Lucifer, knowing he would rebel and lead other angels to follow him? Why create him, knowing he would tempt Adam and Eve, bring about the fall, and unleash all the chaos and death that followed? And why create a world in which there would have to be a hell, a place of eternal punishment for the fallen angels and for every person not written in the book of life?
Serious people, including many who call themselves Christians, struggle with this. Some conclude that an all-knowing, all-powerful God who allowed all this cannot be good. Others quietly set the question aside because it frightens them.
I don’t want to set it aside. I want to look at it honestly, with an open Bible, alongside some of the wisest teachers the church has ever had. We will not answer every question. But I believe Scripture gives us far more light than most people realize.
Four Things We Must Keep in View
Context is critical when we consider this subject. Four truths require our attention.
1. God created the world perfectly good, free of sin and its devastating effects. When He finished His work, “God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). There was no death, no disease, no cruelty, and no rebellion.
2. God did not cause Lucifer, or Adam and Eve, to rebel. God is not the author of sin. He commanded Adam plainly: “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17).
3. Both rebelled by their own will. God did not create robots programmed only to obey. Angels and humans were made with real wills, able to love and obey Him, and able to turn away.
4. Most people overlook God’s absolute holiness and justice. This is where most discussions go wrong. We tend to measure God by our standards rather than measuring ourselves by His. But the angels in heaven do not cry, “Love, love, love.” They cry, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts” (Isaiah 6:3). Any answer that forgets God’s holiness will never make sense of hell.
The Horror of the Fracture
In the beginning, a holy God and His good creation lived in harmony. After the fall, that harmony broke. Sin fractured our relationship with God, and with all of creation along with it. “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12). Even the creation itself was “subjected to futility” (Romans 8:20).
Just imagine the horror of it. Every grave, every war, every cancer ward, every broken home traces back to that rebellion. The fracture was complete.
But God was not caught off guard. He had a plan, and that plan did not begin after the fall. It existed before creation itself. God “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). His saving grace “He granted us in Christ Jesus before time began” (2 Timothy 1:9). Before Lucifer ever rebelled, before Adam ever ate, the cross was already in the heart of God.
What Do We Mean by “Free Will”?
At the center of this conflict is the will of angels and men. But we have to be careful with the phrase “free will,” because Christians use it in different ways.
Scripture and the historic Reformed confessions teach that our wills are free in this sense: we always choose what we most want. No one forces us. But what we want depends on the condition of our hearts. The Westminster Confession of Faith explains that Adam, before the fall, “had freedom, and power to will and to do that which was good and well pleasing to God; but yet, mutably, so that he might fall from it.” After the fall, mankind “hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation” [1].
The Scottish pastor Thomas Boston, building on Augustine, described four stages of the human will [2]:
- In innocence (Adam before the fall): able to sin, and able not to sin.
- In sin (all of us by nature): not able not to sin.
- In grace (believers now): able not to sin, though we still struggle.
- In glory (believers in heaven): not able to sin, ever again.
So we remain free to choose what we want. The problem is that, left to ourselves, our hearts want to go our own way. R. C. Sproul put it simply: we always choose according to our strongest inclination at the moment, and fallen hearts are inclined away from God [3]. That is why Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44).
The Elect Angels
Now consider the angels. Revelation 12 pictures the dragon sweeping “a third of the stars from the sky,” which many understand as the angels who followed Satan in his rebellion (Revelation 12:4). Jude tells us of “the angels who did not stay within their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling” (Jude 6).
But what about the angels who stayed faithful? Did they simply try harder? Scripture gives us a remarkable phrase. Paul charges Timothy “before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels” (1 Timothy 5:21). The faithful angels were chosen angels. They did not stand on their own strength. God, by His grace, upheld them.
No one forced the fallen angels to rebel. They exercised their own wills and gladly rebelled. And the same is true of human beings. The Westminster Confession states that “by the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death” [1].
Why Doesn’t God Save Everyone?
From the beginning, God knew His people, and He fortified them with His grace for His purposes. The rest, He left to their own wills, and they gladly went their own way in rebellion. God did not have to push anyone toward sin. He simply did not stop them from choosing what they already wanted.
That is a sobering truth. But notice what it means: no one in hell will be there unjustly. Every person who perishes will be condemned for sins they freely and gladly chose. John Calvin put it this way: man falls as God’s providence ordains, “but he falls by his own fault” [4].
C. S. Lewis captured this in one memorable line: “the doors of hell are locked on the inside” [11]. The lost are not dragged away from a God they long for. They are given, at last, what they have always wanted: life without Him.
And notice something else: everyone in heaven will be there by grace alone.“For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). No believer will ever be able to say, “I was wiser or better than those who were lost.”
“O Happy Fault”: The Greater Good
Before we answer the final question, consider an old and beautiful idea. For centuries, on the night before Easter, churches have sung an ancient hymn that dares to say of Adam’s sin: “O happy fault, that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer!”
That sounds shocking at first. Sin is never good. But think about what we would never have known if there had been no fall. We would have known God as Creator, but never as Redeemer. We would have known His goodness, but never His grace to the undeserving. We would never have seen the eternal Son become a man, take the punishment His enemies deserved, and rise again to make them His family. “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20).
The Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga has argued that a world containing the incarnation and the cross is a far greater world than any world without them, so great that no world without sin and redemption could compare [9]. In other words, God did not merely clean up after the fall. He permitted it in order to display a love far deeper than an unfallen world could ever have shown.
So Why Did God Create Both?
This brings us to the heart of the matter. Why would God create both peoples, His and the world’s?
Scripture’s deepest answer is this: for His own glory, so that the whole of who He is would be fully known. God is not only merciful. He is also perfectly just. A world with only mercy would never fully reveal His justice. A world with only justice would never reveal His mercy. In His wisdom, God chose to create a world in which both would shine.
Paul says it directly:
“What if God, intending to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction? What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the vessels of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory?” (Romans 9:22–23)
And Proverbs: “The LORD has made everything for His purpose — even the wicked for the day of disaster” (Proverbs 16:4).
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The church has long recognized this. The Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches that God’s decrees are “his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass” [5]. Jonathan Edwards, perhaps America’s greatest theologian, argued in The End for Which God Created the World that God created everything to display and share His glory, the fullness of His perfections [6].
Augustine, more than fifteen hundred years ago, saw the same truth from another angle: God “judged it better to bring good out of evil, than not to permit any evil to exist” [7]. The greatest example is the cross. Wicked men crucified Jesus, yet He “was delivered up by God’s set plan and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23). The worst sin ever committed became the means of the greatest good ever done. John Piper has written that God permits even spectacular sins so that the glory of Christ will shine all the more brightly [8].
Isn’t It Selfish for God to Seek His Own Glory?
Some people object: if a human being did everything for his own glory, we would call him proud. Why is it different for God? Because God is the one being in the universe for whom it is not pride. He truly is the greatest good, and pointing us to Himself is the most loving thing He could ever do. Edwards argued that God’s glory and His creatures’ happiness are not rivals but one and the same: God is glorified as His people know Him, love Him, and rejoice in Him [6]. John Piper puts it this way: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him” [10]. A God who seeks His glory is a God who seeks our deepest joy.
Three Truths That Keep Us Humble
God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. “As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live” (Ezekiel 33:11). The doctrine of God’s sovereignty never turns Him into a cold machine.
The invitation is real and open to all. Jesus promised, “the one who comes to Me I will never drive away” (John 6:37). No one who truly wants Christ will ever be turned away.
Some things belong to God alone. Even Paul, after explaining all this, stopped and said, “But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?” (Romans 9:20). And then he broke into worship: “O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways!” (Romans 11:33). Calvin himself called the decree “dreadful,” and he warned against prying beyond what Scripture reveals [4]. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever” (Deuteronomy 29:29).
Free Will: Blessing or Curse?
So we come back to our question. Is free will a blessing or a curse?
Left to ourselves, our wills lead us exactly where they led Lucifer, and exactly where they led Adam and Eve: away from God. On our own, free will is a path to ruin.
But God did not leave His people to themselves. Those He chose for His own purposes, He fortified by His grace. He opens their eyes, changes their hearts, and draws them to Christ, so that they freely and gladly turn back to Him in faith. That is grace upon grace.
And here is the most amazing part of the story. The holy God who could have left every rebel to the consequences of their choice did not stay far away. He stepped into His own broken creation. He suffered and died for His people, and He will one day restore all creation to perfect harmony with Himself. The answer to the problem of evil is not a theory. It is a Person, nailed to a cross, and risen from the grave.
If you are reading this and feel the pull of Christ on your heart, do not wait to settle every question first. Come to Him. He has promised never to turn you away.
Points to Ponder
1. Holiness first. Why do our questions about hell change when we begin with God’s holiness instead of our own sense of fairness?
2. The elect angels. If even the faithful angels stood by God’s grace, what does that tell us about our own standing before Him?
3. Grace that silences boasting. How should knowing we are saved by grace alone shape the way we treat people who don’t yet believe?
Around the Kitchen Table
For older children and teens: Read Romans 9:20–23 and Romans 11:33–36 together. Ask: Why do you think Paul ends a hard discussion with worship instead of an argument?
For families: Ask: What would the world be like if God had never shown mercy? What would it be like if He had never shown justice?
For grandparents: Share how understanding God’s grace has made you more thankful, and more humble, over the years.
Ready to talk about suffering with your family? Our free Academy family conversation Topic 28: Why Do We Suffer? is a gentle place to start.
Why Your Work at the Kitchen Table Matters
If you are reading this to prepare for a conversation with a child or grandchild, thank you. What you are doing matters more than it may feel on an ordinary evening.
God has always built His Kingdom through faithful families. When a mother, father, or grandparent teaches a child the truth of Scripture “when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way” (Deuteronomy 6:7, KJV), that faith strengthens the home, the church, the neighborhood, and in time the nation.
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Sources
[1] The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chapter 3 (“Of God’s Eternal Decree”), sections 1, 3, and 7; chapter 9 (“Of Free Will”), sections 2–3.
[2] Thomas Boston, Human Nature in Its Fourfold State (1720).
[3] R. C. Sproul, Chosen by God (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1986).
[4] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559), book 3, chapter 23, sections 7–8.
[5] The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647), Question 7.
[6] Jonathan Edwards, The End for Which God Created the World (1765). An accessible modern edition appears in John Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998).
[7] Augustine, Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, chapter 27.
[8] John Piper, Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008).
[9] Alvin Plantinga, “Supralapsarianism, or ‘O Felix Culpa,’” in Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil, ed. Peter van Inwagen (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004).
[10] John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1986).
[11] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1940), chapter 8.
Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), except Deuteronomy 6:7 in the closing note (KJV).
