A couple things that bugs me about predestination: 1) what good is belief if it's by compulsion only? Without freewill to believe or not, how genuine is our belief? And 2) What purpose does it server to have people who were predestined to Hell? What benefit is it to have people who were made only to be tortured for all eternity without any way to change their fate?
Thanks for the question. These are actually common questions.
1) what good is belief if it’s by compulsion only? Without freewill to believe or not, how genuine is our belief?
I think a lot of people imagine predestination as God forcing people to believe and love Him. This isn’t entirely true. Before a person is saved they are described as being dead, dumb, deaf, blind, etc. They do not understand or accept the things of God, in fact they can’t! 1 Corinthians 2:14 says that the things of God can only be discerned through the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit indwelling them, they can not understand and they do not want to. If left to their free will, the Bible indicates that they would perish. They would not want or be able to attain the truth of God. John 3:19 talks about how the Light came into the world but people rejected it. Given free will, man will always choose sin because they love their sin more than their creator.
But God will not leave His elect to perish. Out of His abundant love, He sent Christ to die in our place and be raised for our justification. Rather than leaving us, He raises us from the dead, opens our eyes, gives us minds to understand His Word. He regenerates us and fills us with His Spirit. And what can we do? Can a deaf man refuse to hear when his hearing has been restored? Can a dead man refuse to be resuscitated? When we have been made alive in Christ, it is not only a command that we should love God, it is our desire to love Him.
2) What purpose does it server to have people who were predestined to Hell? What benefit is it to have people who were made only to be tortured for all eternity without any way to change their fate?
The only answer I can give to this one is the one found in Romans 9:13-24
As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
God chose to create some who were “prepared for destruction” so that He could “show his wrath”, “make his power known”, and “make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy”.
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