Another difficult question needs to be answered as we grapple with the sad fact that God’s supreme creature has become so perverted as to displease his Creator: why didn’t God prevent the Fall from happening? Was it wise to allow the first man the freedom to sin?
Well, what was the alternative? To create a robot? God is perfectly capable of creating parts of the world that act mechanically; but he is personal, he is a lover. He created little persons in his image to be able to enjoy personal relationships. Human beings are not automatons: Professor of psychiatry Glynn Harrison informs us: “Human beings are fundamentally lovers”. We are so gloriously constituted that not only can we delight in relationships with other people – we can also have a personal relationship with God himself!
But here’s the basic issue: love relationships must allow freedom. It’s part of the deep pleasure that love is mutual and consented freely. So God made Adam and Eve in his image, as persons with intelligence, emotions like love and a free will – the capacity to choose. And this included the very real possibility that they could choose – as indeed they did – to disobey God’s will. Yes, our freedom is that real!
But our freedom is not autonomy; we are never independent of God. Autonomy would mean that we are a law unto ourselves – we would make our “law” which would replace God’s law. This was the essence of Adam and Eve’s sin. The law we would choose for ourselves is not the best – we are not as wise as God in our ethical choices. God as Creator has supreme authority in the universe: he remains in ultimate control and we remain answerable to him. He has the right to impose his wise and best will on us, demanding our obedience for our highest good. And he has the ultimate right to exercise just judgment and also to inflict final punishment where it is deserved.
So our human free will is grounded on the fact that we are true persons, made with a view to enjoying a loving, warm relationship with God.
But did not God foresee that mankind would rebel? Yes, he surely did. So why did he still go ahead with it? Here we are in the profound depths of God’s unfathomable infinite wisdom: God’s design was to reveal to humankind the most mind-boggling aspect of his glorious love for us. The technical word for this amazing love is “grace”, which has the meaning “God’s undeserved loving-kindness and favour” – shown not merely to the undeserving, but to the hell-deserving!
When Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that we should “love our enemies”, he said that if we did we would be like his heavenly Father who is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. What an amazing concept! In other words, God loves even his enemies. So the Bible encourages believers by telling us that “while we were God’s enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son”. And again, “God proves his love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5.8, 10). The immensity of God’s love is revealed in that he cares deeply even for those who live in rebellion against him; it is also revealed in the greatness of the sacrifice he made to show the fullness of his love. Before Jesus died, he said, “Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15.13).
It is as we take in the full wonder of His love revealed in the Cross, that we are overwhelmed by his amazing grace and can gladly accept his offer of pardon and reconciliation and begin to love him in return.
And thus we enter into the purpose for which we were created!
Clive Every-Clayton
Authentic Hope for Answers 
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