The supposed cruelty of God is often raised as the number one argument against His existence. Atheists and skeptics point to the Scriptures where God is said to damn the unbelievers, to cast them into Hell, and to punish the disobedient. Yet such readings fail to grasp how the almightiness of God truly operates.
Here lies the secret: everything that seems cruel must first be turned upside down — or rather, inside out — to reveal the true face of divine power. The Scriptures often speak in human language, describing God as “pushing” people away, or “casting” them into Hell. But this is an accommodation to our way of speaking, an adaptation to our limited understanding of authority and causation. In reality, it is not God who pushes anyone away; it is people themselves who withdraw from Him. They reject light and willingly march toward darkness. The “pushing” is only the reflection of their own motion against the divine embrace.
Yet because God is the ultimate cause of all that exists, we cannot say that He is uninvolved. His almightiness encompasses both the good choice and the evil consequence, though He Himself remains pure. Everything unfolds under His sovereignty — even the misuse of freedom. The sinner who walks into Hell does so with his own feet, yet those feet were created by God. The inner flame that burns him was also created by God. Thus the responsibility is dual: human in choice, divine in ordination.
To illustrate: imagine I stand before a fire. I can freely choose whether to put my finger into it or not. No one forces me. Yet I also know that my freedom, my finger, and even the law by which fire burns — all come from God. If I foolishly choose to test the flame and get burned, can I then blame God for the burn? I can — but only in the superficial sense that He created the order of things in which such consequences exist. In truth, the fault lies in my own will that chose pain over wisdom.
So it is with the human soul. We are free to walk toward God or away from Him, yet in either direction we walk within His decree. The tragedy of Hell, therefore, is not God’s cruelty but humanity’s stubborn march into self-chosen separation. And even then, the Almighty remains blameless — for He never willed our destruction, only our freedom.