by Edyta Tehrani

Created on: March 10, 2008

God punishes evil because He has given free will. If people didn't have a free will then it would be unjust for God to punish them for something they were unable to decide about. Furthermore, without free will it would be impossible for anyone to commit any evil deed, but it would also make the relationship with God impossible.

In the same way that we cannot have relationship with robots, God cannot have a relationship with anyone who doesn't have a free will because relationship is a choice, just as love itself is a choice.

God is love and He would never be satisfied with less than that. He has created us with free will, so that we would be able to love Him out of our own free will. Sure, He knew about the risk. He knew we would be also able to reject Him, but He still took that risk. Love itself is always a risk.

So, we have the free will to choose Him or reject Him. Every single decision that we make has its consequences. When we reject life, we automatically choose death. God is life and to reject Him, means death. God doesn't punish us out of evil will because He doesn't have an evil will within Him. The consequences of our wrong choices is our punishment, just as the consequence of good choices is our reward. And the ultimate reward is the relationship with God that He Himself made possible.

He has made for us a way of salvation through Jesus Christ, but He cannot make the choice for us, otherwise it wouldn't be a choice at all. Don't we do the same with our children?

Why do we allow them to suffer consequences of their actions? Yes, it is because we love them and want to teach them to become responsible adults. A parent who doesn't do this is not a good parent. What will become of a child who is not taught that every decision he makes will have its consequences?

No parent is able to shelter a child forever from consequences of bad actions and bad decisions and his child will sooner or later fail in life. This is not a good parenting.God is a good parent. He allows us to suffer consequences, so that we will learn from our mistakes. It is totally up to us what we choose. God's will is that we choose life, that we choose to love Him.

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