Contemplating God

In the previous discussion, we explored the Biblical character of God, the risk of granting free will, and the question of why God does not intervene in the horrendous evils of this life. Now we turn to another profound question: Is this world the will of God? Is what we are experiencing what God planned or wanted?

Answering this requires recognizing an important biblical distinction within God’s will and why God can be sovereign without being the author of evil. In other words, we must distinguish between what God desires and His response to the choices of a fallen world.

God created humanity for love. From the very beginning, this is evident: Adam was not complete without someone to love, and God provided Eve. We see the same intention in Jesus’ prayer: “That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us” (John 17:21). Scripture makes clear what God desires most from humanity: wholehearted love expressed freely.

• You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:37-40)
• For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings (Hosea 6:6)
• You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)
• If you love me, you will keep my commandments (John 14:15)
• And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord… (Deut 10:12-13)

This leads to an important distinction between God’s ideal will and His remedial will (Theodicy of Love). God’s ideal will is what He originally designed, where every creature would choose to love Him and follow His command. But when humans depart from that ideal, God acts within the world remedially. This is His remedial will which is His response in the most loving and redemptive way possible within the constraints that our free will creates. 

God’s ideal vs remedial will can be illustrated by thinking in terms of God’s control over outcomes. If humans fully followed His commands, God’s will would be accomplished exactly as He intended. But even when humans choose freely against Him, God works within those choices to bring about the best possible outcomes. He can anticipate the decisions creatures will freely make and incorporate them into His plan, accomplishing His purposes without overriding their freedom (Romans 8:29; Acts 2:23; Isa 46:10).

Understanding ideal and remedial will helps clarify difficult passages, such as the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Pharaoh freely chose to harden his own heart, yet God worked within those choices to bring about His purposes without overriding Pharaoh’s freedom. God is not passive. He is not watching events unfold but actively guides the moral landscape shaped by free creatures, bringing about outcomes that serve His redemptive plan.

Scripture portrays God whose heart is deeply grieved by sin and suffering.  A God whose immense sorrow over our evil demonstrates that this world is not the result of His ideal will, but a tragic consequence of the freedom He gave out of and for love.  

• “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred.” (Hosea 11:8-9)
• The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” Genesis 6:5-6
• How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert! Psalm 78:40
• O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 27:37)
• The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it. (Jeremiah 18:7-10)

Most significantly, Scripture says that it was God’s will to crush Jesus Christ: He was “pleased to crush Him” (Gen 3:15; Isa 53:10). And yet Scripture also states that God has “no pleasure” in the death of anyone (Ezek 18:23, 32) and does not afflict willingly (Lam 3:33). God did not ideally desire or sadistically take pleasure in the excruciating suffering of the Son, but it was God’s “pleasure” or remedial will (not ideal will!) in the wider context of the plan of salvation. Christ desired to avoid the cross, if it were possible, but He desired to save humans more and thus “for the joy set before Him endured the cross” (Heb 12:2). 
In this framework, the world as we see it today is not a pure expression of God’s ideal will, but rather the unfolding of God’s remedial will interacting with the free decisions of humans. God honors freedom because love demands it, and He works within the consequences of that freedom to bring healing, redemption, and ultimately the restoration of all things. While God does not always get what He ideally desires, He will ultimately accomplish His redemptive purpose without ever violating the freedom by which His love is expressed.