Psalm 105:25
Psalm 105:23-38 (see also Proverbs 21:1)
Israel also came into Egypt; thus Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. And He caused His people to be very fruitful, and made them stronger than their adversaries. He turned their heart to hate His people, to deal craftily with His servants. He sent Moses His servant, and Aaron, whom He had chosen. They performed His wondrous acts among them, and miracles in the land of Ham. He sent darkness and made it dark; and they did not rebel against His words. He turned their waters into blood and caused their fish to die. Their land swarmed with frogs even in the chambers of their kings. He spoke, and there came a swarm of flies and gnats in all their territory. He gave them hail for rain, and flaming fire in their land. He struck down their vines also and their fig trees, and shattered the trees of their territory. He spoke, and locusts came, and young locusts, even without number, and ate up all vegetation in their land, and ate up the fruit of their ground. He also struck down all the firstborn in their land, the first fruits of all their vigor. Then He brought them out with silver and gold, and among His tribes there was not one who stumbled. Egypt was glad when they departed, for the dread of them had fallen upon them.
There is a similar verse at Proverbs 21:1: “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.”
Question: What’s wrong with God manipulating evil
people, such as the Egyptians?
Answer: God is not the origin of their sin. They are
already evil, and God is simply making use of them.
It’s quite a different matter, however, to suggest that
God creates certain people for no other reason than
to perform some predetermined nefarious activity,
and then once completed, to just cast them into Hell
forever. That’s different. That takes things far beyond
just being a matter of God making use of evil people.
That takes things into the realm of God creating evil
for the purpose of good, and that’s simply inconsistent
with what Scripture reveals about the character and
nature of God. Genesis 1:31 states: “God saw all that
He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there
was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”
Calvinist, Vincent Cheung: “One who thinks that God’s glory is not worth the death and suffering of billions of people has too high an opinion of himself and humanity.” (The Problem of Evil, p.10, emphasis mine)
This is the kind of mindset which reflects a belief that God specifically creates billions of people for Hell, and which somehow glorifies God. What’s particularly strange, though, is that if God gets the most amount of glory by people worshiping Him, then how is He getting more glory by them going to Hell instead? Clearly, then, the “suffering of billions” is not for the glory of God.
One member of the Society of Evangelical Arminians: “One of the things that I think happens as people get into studying soteriology is that they become desensitized to notions such as the suggestion that God creates the vast majority of people so that he can torture them forever in Hell, and that this shows his glory, what he is really like and about, that people actually become desensitized by such claims....”
