One of the theological givens in describing what little we know about the unknowable God, is that He is omniscient. The word “omniscient” comes from two Latin words: omnis signifying all, and scientia signifying knowledge. When we say that God is omniscient it means that He has perfect knowledge of all things. He does not have to learn anything, and He has not forgotten anything.

Omniscience /ɒmˈnɪʃəns/, mainly in religion, is the capacity to know everything that there is to know. In particular, Hinduism and the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) believe that there is a divine being who is omniscient. An omniscient point-of-view, in writing, is to know everything that can be known about a character, including past history, thoughts, feelings, etc.

This, therefore, means that before anything was created, in the ages of ages of eternity past, God, existing in the perfection of trinitarian love, knew not only His existence, but all things that would come to pass upon the creation of our cosmos.  The fall of man did not catch Him by surprise. It was known before Adam and Eve were dust of the earth and rib of man. The wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah didn’t cause the Father to whip around on His heavenly throne and say in surprise, “What the hell is going on here???”  The immorality and defection of the Jews from His Law in their whorish love of paganism didn’t cause Jesus to do a facepalm and say, “Now what do I do?”

Yes, I am using hyperbole, but I am trying to make a point. The One who created all things knows all things, from beginning to end of our cosmos. Knowing everything, He created everything towards an end which was known from the beginning. As David Bentley Hart as posited in his book, THAT ALL SHALL BE SAVED, all things are created (protology) towards an end or goal (eschatology). Hart affirms that this is the understanding of the Universalist Fathers of the Christian faith.  Let’s look at the Creation for a moment and reflect, as best as my puny mind can reflect, on what was happening. When God created our world, He knew:

HE KNEW that Adam and Eve would fall to the lies of the serpent and thus separate themselves from Him.

HE KNEW that sin would enter the world and bring with it death upon all mankind.

HE KNEW that false teachers would arise, teaching horrendous lies about Him, such as Him being a God who demanded that babies be thrown into the fires of Moloch to appease His wrath and insure good crops.

HE KNEW that mankind would create from its own imagination a picture of Him as angry, bloodthirsty, and like unto human beings themselves. The mythos of the Greek and pagan gods testifies to the darkness of mankind’s imagination.

HE KNEW that the majority of mankind would live and die without even coming to hear of Jesus the Christ and the salvation of mankind from sin and death.

Now – let’s assume for one minute that it is true that an eternal, fiery, burning hell of indescribable torments awaits all who do not repent and come to Christ in this life for salvation.

HE KNEW all the above and yet – knowing that this burning torture, this fiery place of unending torment and anguish would be the end for billions of souls – He went ahead and created mankind anyway! If this is true – that is, if this eternal torment of hell is really true – and yet God decided that He would go ahead with the whole creation project, then I ask all hellists out there this simple question:

How is this in any way, shape, or form a God who is love?

Love only does the best for the object of its love.

An eternal hell of torment, created with full foreknowledge that billions would go there forever (thus being the whole purpose of creation, for all things are created unto an end) in no way meets any of the criteria of love as outlined in 1 Corinthians 13. Those who blithely say on one hand that God is love, while insisting that He has an eternal hell, purposed for sinners from the beginning of the world, have no idea what they are talking about. That is not love – PERIOD!!

1 Corinthians 13:4 Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 8 love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away

The members of the Trinity, the God who IS love (God doesn’t just “love” – GOD IS LOVE!) would have agreed among themselves before the creation “Well, there’s a problem here. If we create humanity, 95% of them will wind up in hell, and we simply cannot do that to any sentient being we are going to create, so let’s scotch that idea.”

Which leads to the second glorious truth about our loving heavenly Father – He is omnipotent. There is nothing – NOT ONE SINGLE THING – that can withstand His will or His love.  Being all knowing means that He has a wise plan for the salvation of all mankind, even the worst and most hard-hearted of sinners, and being all-powerful, means that He has the ability to bring this plan to successful completion. Anything less is not love.

Anything less is not God.