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Hi Peter (@crazywriter)

There must be a glitch in the system. It happens from time to time.
I know the billion dollars was a poor illustration, but perhaps I can come up with a better 2nd Draft, 😉

I am really just having a hard time accepting that God created some people just so that He could consign them to everlasting torment.  It doesn’t seek to comport will what He says about His desire that “none should perish”.  Why create His own anguish?  What is the joy that merits that?
Also, do Calvinists believe there is no point in evangelizing?

God gave us a clear charge, just as He gave His disciples before His ascension:
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. [Mark 16:15-16 KJV]

He does not hold us accountable for knowing who will respond or who won’t.  Our response should be to leave that in His wisdom and foreknowledge. Ezekial 3:18-19, 33:8-9.

When the Scriptures say God grieves over the lost, I truly believe He does.
I don’t think giving us a free will diminishes His authority, but it does carry with it a weight of justified consequences that would elicit His wrath.

Romans 2 speaks to this:
For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. [Romans 2:14-16 ESV]

There is a natural law written on the human heart.  C.S. Lewis expounds upon this concept in “Mere Christianity”.  And there is a written law that God gave the Jews to reveal His divine standard.

God sees the heart of man, both those He redeems and those who refuse Him, and He does give just consequences.

(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also [is] the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, [which is] by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. [Romans 5:13-15 KJV]

For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. [Isaiah 55:9 KJV]

There is no way either of us are going to be able to tease out the “higher ways” of God, so let me just concede that point right away.  God is just, and we must take Him at His word, rather than try to impose our limited understanding of “fairness” on Him.  But neither is God afraid of our questions to sincerely understand, unless we have motives that seek ways to challenge His character, and dare to make Him accountable to us.

The very first to infamously question the justice and nature of God was Satan himself, by positing it to Eve.  He did it to justify the temptation to sin.  The second most famous was Job, who was a righteous man, questioning God amidst great suffering.  He did it to try and understand what was happening to him.

When those hostile skeptics we speak to in our circles do it, they do so to justify their own sin, preferring their own standard of justice, by impugning the character of the God we serve.  When the honest skeptic asks us the question, they are puzzling over whether they can trust the God we serve.

Very different approaches to the same question: Is God just?

When Job asked this question, God reminded him of His higher perspective and ways.  Job saw into the immediacy of his present circumstances, but God saw both Job’s end and his beginning.  God saw detail Job would and could never see.  God saw an illustrative purpose in Job’s suffering that Job could not presently see, so God wanted to remind Him of that.

“Do you still want to argue with the Almighty? You are God’s critic, but do you have the answers?” [Job 40:2 NLT]

But God has put such fascinating mysteries in His Word that if we sincerely seek to understand Him we can be rewarded by some interesting finds in the treasure chest of Scripture.

Let’s think for a moment about what we do NOT know, and that is what information has God given the person who has never heard the gospel about Himself, that we are not privy to?

When we ponder the condition of a person in some remote land that has not heard the gospel, to our knowledge, do we truly know that God has not revealed Himself in any other way to them to give them an opportunity to seek Him by faith?  Of course not.  Only God sees the heart fully.

I the LORD search the heart, [I] try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, [and] according to the fruit of his doings. [Jeremiah 17:10 KJV]

Let’s look again at the passage in Romans:
What then? If some were unfaithful, will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? Absolutely not! Let God be true, even though everyone is a liar, as it is written: That you may be justified in your words and triumph when you judge.  But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what are we to say? I am using a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world? But if by my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not say, just as some people slanderously claim we say, “Let us do what is evil so that good may come”? Their condemnation is deserved!  What then? Are we any better off? Not at all! For we have already charged that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one.  There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.  All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.  Their throat is an open grave; they deceive with their tongues. Vipers’ venom is under their lips.  Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.  Their feet are swift to shed blood;  ruin and wretchedness are in their paths,  and the path of peace they have not known.  There is no fear of God before their eyes.  Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment. For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.  But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. [Romans 3:3-22 CSB]

Thoughts?