Why did God create people, knowing all the bad things, and isn't He all-knowing?
By CopticBot.ai (Coptic Space Inc.) · Last reviewed 2026-10-10
This is one of the most profound questions in theology. To understand why an all-knowing (omniscient) and all-good God would create humanity, despite knowing they would fall into sin and cause suffering, we must look to the teachings of the Holy Fathers and the nature of God's love.
1. God is Love, Not a Dictator
God did not create humanity because He needed anything, but out of His overflowing love. For love to be real, it must be shared with a being that has the capacity to love Him back. However, true love cannot be forced; it requires Free Will.
If God had created us as "robots" who could only do good, we would not be capable of true love or virtue. By giving us free will, God gave us the greatest gift possible—the ability to be like Him—but this gift inherently included the possibility that we might choose to turn away from Him. As we see in the writings of St. John of Damascus, God makes all things good, but each person "becomes good or evil by his own choice." The evil we see in the world is not created by God; it is the result of the "rashness of the human will" that makes the Creator's gifts useless to the individual.
2. Foreknowledge is Not Predestination
It is vital to distinguish between God knowing what will happen and God causing it to happen. Because God exists outside of time, He sees the past, present, and future as one. He knew Adam would fall, and He knew the sins of the generations before the Flood.
However, His knowledge did not force them to sin. St. Ephraim the Syrian explains that when the Scriptures say God was "sorry" or felt "remorse" (as in the time of Noah), it does not mean God was surprised or lacked knowledge. Rather, it is a way to describe how much human wickedness grieves the Divine Nature. God allowed humanity to proceed so that their "great wickedness might be manifest," defending His justice and showing that He does not punish without reason.
3. The Remedy was Prepared Before the Wound
God did not create us just to watch us fail. Because He is all-knowing, He prepared the solution for our fall before He even created the world. The Coptic Liturgy of St. Gregory the Theologian beautifully expresses this: "You, as a lover of mankind, have created me, a man. You had no need of my servitude, but rather I had need of Your lordship."
Even before Adam was formed, God knew the Incarnation would take place. He knew that the Word would become flesh to redeem us. God deemed it better to bring us into existence—knowing we would fall but knowing He would save us—than to never create us at all. The joy of eternal life and the union between God and man in Christ far outweighs the temporary suffering caused by human sin.
4. The Rejection of the "Cruel Judge" Image
We must be careful not to view God through a lens of fear, as if He is a "cruel judge and a vengeful inquisitor." As noted in the writings of The River of Fire, the devil tries to make us believe God only loves us if we behave, and that He created eternal torture just to punish insubordination.
In reality, God is the Almighty Physician. He created us to be partakers of His divine nature. He permits the consequences of our free will (bad things) to happen because to stop them by force would be to destroy our humanity. He uses even the "bad things" to call us back to repentance, working all things together for the salvation of those who love Him.
Summary:
God created us because He is good. He gave us free will because He wanted children, not slaves. Though He knew we would sin, He also knew that His love was strong enough to descend into our death, take our nature, and bring us back to Him through Jesus Christ.