“If an infinite God created us all, he knew exactly what we would do. If he gave us free will it does not change the result, because he knew how we would use the free will. Now, if he knew that billions upon billions would refuse to take the remedy, and consequently would suffer eternal pain, why create them? There would have been much less misery in the world had he left them dust. What right has a God to make a failure? Why should he change dust into a sentient being, knowing that that being was to be the heir of endless agony?”

A Christmas Sermon (1890)

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Robert G. Ingersoll439

Union United States Army officer 1833–1899

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“But yet, since He knew that it would be good, He created both angels and men free to do that which is righteous, and He appointed periods of time during which He knew it would be good for them to have the exercise of free-will; and because He likewise knew it would be good, He made general and particular judgments; each one’s freedom of will, however, being guarded.”

Justin Martyr book Dialogue with Trypho

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“If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him?
If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future?
If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers?
If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him?
If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses?
If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them?
If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him?
If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable?
If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees?
If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him?
If he has spoken, why is the universe not convinced?
If the knowledge of a God is the most necessary, why is it not the most evident and the clearest?”

Percy Bysshe Shelley book The Necessity of Atheism

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“What good does it do to pray about anything if the outcome is not affected? I would say when God chooses which world to actualize, he takes into account the prayers that would be offered in that world. We shouldn't think prayer is about changing the mind of God. He's omniscient; he already knows the future, but prayer makes a difference in that it can affect what world God has chosen to create.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

2014-01-31
William Lane Craig: God Hears Your Super Bowl Prayers
Kate Shellnutt
Christianity Today
0009-5753
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/january-web-only/god-watches-big-game-william-lane-craig.html
Posed question: "What’s the value in praying for God's will to be done for the outcome of a game if God's will will be done whether we pray or not?"

“God has given to every one of us more than fourteen billion cells and connections in our brain. Now why would God give us such a complex organ system unless He expects us to use it?”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big (1996), p. 154

“Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Mere Christianity

Book II, Chapter 3, "The Shocking Alternative"
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“But what this deed should be was kept secret from me.
And in this I saw that He willeth not that we dread to know the things that He sheweth: He sheweth them because He would have us know them; by which knowing He would have us love Him and have pleasure and endlessly enjoy in Him. For the great love that He hath to us He sheweth us all that is worshipful and profitable for the time.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

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“The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

citation needed <br class="br">The earliest quotations of this give it as anonymous or unknown author. https://books.google.com/books?id=hPIsAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA321&dq=%22what+he+would+do+if+he+knew+it+would+never+be+found+out%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAGoVChMIlvi0prz_xwIVTwaSCh0hVwX5#v=onepage&q=%22what%20he%20would%20do%20if%20he%20knew%20it%20would%20never%20be%20found%20out%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=i2MPAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA16-IA71&dq=%22what+he+would+do+if+he+knew+it+would+never+be+found+out%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIkMmp8rz_xwIV1BGSCh25lAO0#v=onepage&q=%22what%20he%20would%20do%20if%20he%20knew%20it%20would%20never%20be%20found%20out%22&f=false <br class="br">Attributed

“Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.”

James Baldwin book Sonny's Blues

Source: Sonny's Blues

“He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Age of Reason

L'âge de raison (The Age of Reason) (1945)

“If the devil was really the master of the world, we would be dead before we knew it. He is also a citizen of the world, just like us.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

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Robert G. Ingersoll439

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