A Friendly Response to Philosophically Minded Latter-day Saints: On Creation, Hell, and the Limits of the “Creation Dilemma”

While leading a recent MAVEN immersive experience in Utah, I had the pleasure of meeting a few philosophically inclined young men from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To be candid, that was a breath of fresh air.

This is because far too often, conversations between Christians and Latter-day Saints remain at a surface level—talking past one another rather than reasoning together (Isaiah 1:18). But these young men were different. They were thoughtful, sharp, and eager to engage at a deeper philosophical level.

They recommended a video advancing what is sometimes called the “creation dilemma”—an argument aimed at undermining classical Christian theism, especially the doctrine of creation ex nihilo often defended by the Kalam Cosmological Argument. The argument attempts to show that if God creates the universe from nothing, knowing that some will be eternally lost, then God cannot be perfectly good.

Let me say this up front: I was impressed.

This argument is creative. It raises real pressure points. And in my estimation, it poses serious challenges for several versions of Christianity—particularly certain forms of Calvinism and even some Catholic and other frameworks that affirm the libertarian freedom of humanity.

So I gladly give credit where it is due.

However, after watching the entire presentation and reflecting carefully, I also realized something important:

I have already addressed every major component of this argument in my previous published work. More specifically, when one adopts a Molinist framework combined with a robust form of Perfect Being Theology, the so-called “creation dilemma” ultimately fails.

In what follows, I will first clarify my view of hell (since much of the argument depends on it), and then respond directly to the key questions raised in the cross-examination.

What About Hell? Let’s Grant the Worst-Case Scenario

Before responding directly to the argument, I want to be clear: I do not affirm the most extreme version of hell often assumed in these discussions—namely, eternal conscious torment (ECT) in the sense of unending torture (literal darkness, fire, brimstone, pitch forks, and torture racks). See my survey of several views of hell that are advanced by evangelical Christian philosophers and theologians (click here).

In fact, I am open to several alternative views:

• Eternal conscious separation from God (without caricatures of torture or torment)

• Annihilationism, where those who freely choose to be damned ultimately cease to exist (consciousness is annihilated)

• A view similar to The Great Divorce (by CS Lewis), where the lost freely move away from the fullness of reality and joy, but the gates of hell are only "locked from the inside"

• More speculative models in which suffering is finite and the damned ultimately lose the capacity for higher-order suffering, but they exist forever (e.g., Chad McIntosh’s “monster” view)

• And even a form of hopeful universalism, in which God creates the best feasible freedom-permitting world where evil is ultimately defeated and all are eventually saved (even if many endure extended postmortem suffering for billions of years). The hope here is that a feasible world exists where all are ultimately saved. If such a world is feasible, a maximally great being would create it no matter how much finite suffering is included.

So there are multiple live options of hell already on the table—each compatible with a maximally great being creating the physical/material universe (and everything else) (Colossians 1:15-20)—from nothing.

But let’s grant the strongest possible version of the objection.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume:

• Eternal conscious torment is real

• Some persons will freely experience it forever

• God knows this prior to creation

Even if we grant every one of these assumptions—the conclusion still does not follow.

Why?

Because the argument depends on a crucial but mistaken assumption:

That foreknowing an outcome is equivalent to intending that outcome as an end.

This is the central mistake—and it's never actually defended. It is simply assumed.

To be sure, on Molinism, God’s decision to create a particular world includes knowledge of what free creatures would freely do. In that sense, God knowingly permits certain outcomes and ensures that they occur within the world He actualizes.

But it does not follow that those outcomes are intended as ends rather than permitted as part of a broader, freedom-permitting plan aimed at the best feasible good (the best eternal endgame).

The argument only works if foreknowledge—even in the context of divine world selection—entails endorsement of every outcome as an intended end. But that stronger inference is neither obvious nor defended.

The Creation Dilemma — Stated as Strongly as Possible

Before responding, let’s be fair.

If we’re going to critique an argument, we should present it in its strongest form—not a caricature. Stripped of rhetoric and intuition pumps, the “creation dilemma” can be expressed as a tight deductive argument:

1. If God creates a person ex nihilo, then that person’s entire existence depends wholly on God’s free creative act.

2. If a person’s entire existence depends wholly on God’s free creative act, and God knows that person would/will suffer irreversible ruin, then God is morally responsible for initiating the existence of one whose final end is ruin.

3. A perfectly good being is not morally justified in initiating the existence of a person whose final end is irreversible ruin, if that being could refrain from creating that person.

4. God creates persons ex nihilo.

5. God knows prior to creation which persons would/will suffer irreversible ruin.

6. God is free to refrain from creating any such person.

7. Therefore, God initiates the existence of persons whose final end is irreversible ruin, even though He could refrain.

8. Therefore, God is not perfectly good.

That is the argument at its strongest (or so it seems to me). If sound, the argument is meant to show that the traditional Christian view of God is false, and that Mormonism is a better explanation. This is the case because according to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), all minds—which they refer to as “intelligences”—exist necessarily without beginning (and we can all become gods of our own universes). Moreover, Mormons also hold a view similar, although not identical with, universalism. Accordingly, they argue that they do not have the problem exposed in the argument that God creates persons for the purpose of eternal ruin—they just exist necessarily (not created by a god or anything else).

And to make the argument even sharper, we can grant their most forceful assumptions:

• The “irreversible ruin” in view is eternal conscious torment (or something comparably severe)

• God has exhaustive foreknowledge of the future

• God is not constrained by anything outside Himself

Even granting all of that, the conclusion still does not follow.

Why?

Because the argument hinges on a small number of controversial premises—and one crucial hidden assumption.

Where the Argument Actually Stands or Falls

Once the argument is stated clearly, we can see exactly where the pressure points lie:

• Premise (3): Does perfect goodness really require God to refrain from creating any person He knows will be lost?

• Premise (6): Is God truly free to omit any individual without affecting the best feasible world?

• The hidden assumption: Does foreknowing an outcome entail willing or intending that outcome?

That last assumption is doing most of the work.

But it is never defended—it is simply assumed.

And once that assumption is exposed, the entire dilemma begins to unravel.

With that clarified, we are now in a position to revisit the original cross-examination questions previously asked by a Mormon philosopher in a live debate with a Catholic theologian. This article allows us to respond with the philosophical precision these questions require.

A Crucial Insight: The Argument’s Real Origin

While revisiting the video recommended to me, I noticed something important that adds further clarity to the discussion.

The proponents of the “creation dilemma” explicitly acknowledge that the argument is not original to them. Rather, they trace it—at least in part—to the work of David Bentley Hart, an Eastern Orthodox theologian who has famously argued that if God creates the world ex nihilo, then universalism must be true.

In other words, the core intuition behind the argument is this:

If a perfectly good God creates all things from nothing, then the final destiny of every creature must ultimately be good—otherwise, God would be responsible for bringing about a less-than-perfect outcome.

But this is crucial:

Hart’s conclusion, if his argument is sound (and I don't believe it is), is not Mormonism—it is universalism. Indeed, the argument—if successful—does not uniquely support the Latter-day Saint view of reality. Rather, it functions as an internal critique of non-universalist forms of Christianity.

Interestingly, the presenters themselves concede a key point. They acknowledge that the argument has “very little wiggle room unless you take a radically different conception of hell.”

But that is precisely the move I have already made.

As shown above, there are multiple philosophically and biblically viable accounts of hell compatible with evangelical Christianity—annihilationism, separation models, the McIntosh "monster model," and even Molinistic hopeful universalism—that significantly undercut the force of the dilemma.

So at this point, we are faced with an important realization: The argument either pushes toward universalism, or it loses much of its force.

And if that's the case, then the “creation dilemma” does not uniquely support Mormonism over classical Christianity whatsoever. At best, it motivates a debate within Christian theology regarding the nature and duration of hell (and that debate is alive and well among evangelical Christian philosophers and theologians).

Responding to the Cross-Examination

The argument is presented most clearly in a series of rapid-fire questions designed to build a dilemma. However, as is often the case in cross-examination, important distinctions are compressed or assumed rather than defended.

So let’s slow things down and examine each question carefully.

1. Does God Will the Bad of Any Person?

That depends on what one means by “will.”

Does God desire the bad for any person? Absolutely not. God is love (1 John 4:8), and Scripture is clear that He desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4).

However, on a Molinist view, God may actualize a world in which He knows some will freely choose what is bad. That is not the same as willing or desiring their bad—it is permitting it within a broader plan aimed at the greatest feasible good.

2. If God Doesn’t Will Your Bad, Why Create You Knowing You’ll Go to Hell?

At this point, the argument makes a crucial assumption:

That foreknowing an outcome is equivalent to intending or willing that outcome as an end. This assumption is false.

On Molinism, God does not determine who is damned. Rather, He actualizes a feasible world—a world in which free creatures act according to their libertarian freedom.

In that world:

• Salvation is genuinely possible for all

• Nothing that actually exists deterministically prevents anyone from being saved

• God provides sufficient grace for every person

If someone is ultimately lost, it is not because God willed or desired their damnation, but because they freely rejected the greatest good available to them.

Moreover, God’s decision to create is based on the best feasible freedom-permitting endgame—a world in which the maximal number of persons are saved and evil is ultimately defeated. As I make clear in Faith Examined: New Arguments for Persistent Questions Essays in Honor of Dr. Frank Turek, I contend that God created the best feasible freedom-permitting world in which evil is ultimately defeated and everyone [who is not Transworld damned] is saved (the bracketed words leave room for hopeful universalism).

3. Does God Only Will Good for People?

God loves all people and desires the best for all people (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9).

But willing the good does not entail determining—or necessitating—outcomes. It entails making flourishing genuinely possible and providing what is necessary for that flourishing.

God does exactly that according to my view.

4–5. Does God Know the Future, Including Who Will Be Saved?

Yes. A necessarily omniscient being cannot fail to know all truth (He can't help it).

God possesses natural knowledge, middle knowledge, and free knowledge. He knows with certainty what every free creature could, would, and will do in any given set of circumstances.

But knowledge does not stand in a causal relation. Knowing what you will do does not make you do it. You remain the source of your choices, and since nothing deterministically prevents you from doing otherwise, you could have chosen otherwise.

Thus, libertarian freedom is perfectly compatible with God's perfect middle and foreknowledge.

6–7. Is God All-Powerful and Without Equal?

Yes.

God can do all things that are logically possible. He cannot do what is logically incoherent (e.g., create a square circle or a married bachelor).

Likewise, God cannot actualize a world that is not feasible given the truths about what free creatures would freely choose to do.

8. Is God Free to Create or Not Create Individuals?

God is free to create or refrain from creating. There were not any antecedent conditions sufficient to necessitate God creating the universe and all of its contents. All things are contingent upon God. The Apostle Paul makes it clear that Jesus Himself is the creator of ALL things visible and invisible (Colossians 1:15-20).

However, once God chooses to actualize a particular world aimed at the best feasible endgame, certain constraints follow. Given the web of creaturely freedom, some individuals may be necessary for the realization of that feasible world and endgame.

In other words, not all logically possible worlds are feasible worlds.

For example, I have a friend—call him Sam—who was born and raised in an atheist household. He initially attended my apologetics class to challenge my arguments and attempt to persuade others toward atheism. Ironically, within a few weeks, Sam became a Christian—to the dismay of his atheist parents.

Now consider the question: Why would God create Sam’s parents, who freely reject Christ?

The Molinist answer is not that God prefers their rejection and damnation. Rather, it is this: It may be that there is no feasible world in which Sam freely comes to Christ without being born into precisely those circumstances.

And we can press this point even further.

On a traducian view of the soul, Sam’s very identity is directly tied to his parents. Just as his unique biological identity depends upon them, so too does his existence as that very person. Remove those parents, and you do not get the same individual—you get someone else.

Even setting traducianism aside, however, the broader point remains:

The identity and history of persons are deeply interconnected in ways that place real constraints on which worlds are feasible.

Thus, if God desires to actualize a world in which Sam is freely saved, it may be necessary—given the web of libertarian freedom and personal identity—that Sam’s parents exist and freely make the choices they in fact make.

This illustrates a crucial point:

God cannot simply “remove” certain individuals from the world without potentially eliminating the very conditions under which others would freely come to salvation—or even eliminating those very persons altogether.

Therefore, the assumption that God could refrain from creating any particular individual without loss is unwarranted.

9–10. Will Some Go to Hell, and Is It Eternal?

As noted above, I do not personally affirm eternal conscious torment, and I remain open to several alternative views including Molinsitic Hopeful Universalism (as I discuss in this academic journal article).

But again—even if we grant eternal conscious torment for the sake of argument—the dilemma still fails.

11. Is Hell Worse Than Heaven?

Yes.

But recognizing that does not entail that God is morally obligated to prevent all possible bad outcomes—especially when doing so would undermine the greater goods of freedom, the best kind of love, and genuine relationship.

With this in mind, consider a parallel issue.

Many Latter-day Saints affirm that libertarian freedom continues into the afterlife. That is a point of agreement between us—and an important one (we both disagree with Calvinists who affirm exhaustive divine determination). But it raises a pressing question:

If libertarian freedom persists into eternity, what guarantees that all agents will always choose the good?

To see the tension, consider a thought experiment.

Suppose an individual who lived a deeply immoral life—someone like Hitler—enters the lowest “kingdom of glory.” It is often said that even the lowest of these states is far better than anything experienced on earth.

But now ask:

If this individual retains libertarian freedom, is it guaranteed that he will never again choose hatred, resentment, or harm?

If the answer is no, then the possibility of ongoing moral evil remains—even in a supposedly elevated postmortem state. And if that possibility remains, it is not clear how such a realm could be described as a true paradise for all—especially for those who would be the objects of such hostility.

But if the answer is yes—if it is guaranteed that all agents will eventually and permanently choose the good—then a deeper question arises:

What grounds that guarantee?

If the outcome cannot fail, then it is not clear that agents retain robust libertarian freedom in the relevant sense. After all, if no future deviation from the good is genuinely possible, then we are faced with a state of affairs in which no genuine alternative possibilities remain available to the agent—raising serious questions about whether libertarian freedom is being preserved in the relevant sense.

If, on the other hand, the outcome can fail, then the possibility of ongoing moral evil remains—even in the afterlife.

And if the guarantee is grounded in the idea that God knows how agents would freely develop under certain conditions and ensures those conditions obtain, then the view begins to resemble a form of middle-knowledge reasoning (Molinism)—precisely the kind of framework often rejected in the original “creation dilemma.”

At this point, one might respond that God ensures (without determining) eventual moral transformation under ideal conditions in the afterlife. But this raises a further question:

If there are “ideal conditions” under which agents freely—but reliably—choose the good, then why were those conditions not actualized from the beginning? And if those conditions do not undermine libertarian freedom in the afterlife, it is not obvious why they would undermine it in this life.

If, on the other hand, such conditions are not universally feasible, then the original objection loses its force—for it assumes that God can actualize any logically possible outcome.

So the deeper issue is this:

Any view that affirms libertarian freedom must also account for the continued possibility of moral failure—unless that freedom is somehow constrained or rendered infallibly good.

And once that is acknowledged, the original objection against classical Christian theism loses much of its force.

12. Does Omnibenevolence Mean Ensuring the Best Outcome for All?

No.

An omnibenevolent being creates persons with libertarian freedom (otherwise love—the greatest good—is impossible), provides genuine access to salvation, and desires the flourishing of all.

But that does not require overriding free choices.

13. Final Question: How Is Creating Someone—Knowing Their Fate—Willing Their Good?

Because willing someone’s good does not entail necessitating their response.

God wills the good of every person by creating a world in which their salvation is genuinely possible, fully resourced, and not deterministically prevented by anything external to the agent.

If a person is ultimately lost, it is not because God willed, desired, or determined their damnation, but because they freely rejected the greatest good actually available to them within the best feasible world.

Conclusion

The “creation dilemma” is a clever and rhetorically powerful argument. It rightly exposes tensions within certain theological systems.

But ultimately, the argument fails.

It depends on a series of conflations:

• Foreknowledge with causation

• Permission with intention

• Logical possibility with feasible reality

Once these distinctions are properly understood, the dilemma dissolves.

Therefore, the so-called “creation dilemma” fails because it equivocates on the concept of divine willing and ignores the constraints of feasible worlds under libertarian freedom.

That said, I want to end where I began.

I am genuinely encouraged to see thoughtful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints engaging in serious philosophical reflection. These are the kinds of conversations we need more of—not fewer.

And if this is any indication of what’s coming next, I look forward to many more discussions like it.

Let’s keep reasoning together (Isaiah 1:18)—with clarity, charity, and a shared commitment to truth.

—Dr. Tim Stratton

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PS: A Final Word for the Philosophically Inclined

For those who wish to examine the “creation dilemma” more carefully, it is worth analyzing the argument at the level of its individual premises.

Recall the argument in its strongest form:

Premise (1)

If God creates a person ex nihilo, then that person’s entire existence depends wholly on God’s free creative act.

This premise may apply to certain versions of soul creationism (Dr. Joshua Ryan Farris is a creationist who I'm sure has something to say about this), but it does not apply universally. On a traducian view, however, God creates the substance of human nature ex nihilo, but individual souls are not directly created in isolation. Rather, they arise through a divinely ordained process involving human generation.

Thus, the premise is not generally true—it targets only one specific model of the soul.

Premise (2)

If a person’s entire existence depends wholly on God’s free creative act, and God knows that person will suffer irreversible ruin, then God is morally responsible for initiating the existence of one whose final end is ruin.

This premise assumes that divine initiation entails moral responsibility for the final outcome in a way that ignores human libertarian freedom.

On a Molinist and libertarian framework, God’s creative decree is a necessary condition for a person’s existence—but not a sufficient condition for their final destiny. That destiny depends on the agent’s free choices, and nothing that actually exists deterministically prevents their flourishing.

Premise (3)

A perfectly good being is not morally justified in initiating the existence of a person whose final end is irreversible ruin, if that being could refrain from creating that person.

This premise is far from obvious.

If God actualizes the best feasible freedom-permitting world—one in which all who are not transworld damned are saved—then creating such a world is not only permissible, but good, loving, and wise.

The alternative—refraining from creation altogether—would eliminate the existence of all those who would freely enter into eternal communion with God.

Premise (4)

God creates persons ex nihilo.

Again, this is not universally affirmed. On traducianism (as defended, for example, by JP Moreland), individual persons are not created ex nihilo in the same direct sense assumed by the argument.

Premise (5)

This premise—that God knows prior to creation which persons will ultimately be saved or lost—is affirmed on Molinism. I agree with this premise.

Premise (6)

God is free to refrain from creating any such person.

This is highly questionable once we consider feasibility constraints.

If God chooses to actualize the best feasible world based on the endgame (similar to what Doctor Strange did in Avengers: Infinity War), then it may not be possible to include certain individuals (e.g., those who are saved) without also including others whose existence is entangled within the same web of free decisions and causal history.

Thus, while God is free to refrain from creating altogether, it does not follow that He can selectively omit individuals without loss.

And importantly:

Those who freely reject God's love and grace do not have veto power over the existence of those who would freely love Him into the infinite future.

Conclusion

Given the problems with multiple premises—particularly (1), (2), (3), and (6)—the conclusion of the Mormon's Cration Dilemma" simply does not follow.

At best, the argument raises questions for certain theological models. In that sense, the argument is a success, but it falls far short of demonstrating that the triune God of classical Christian theism is not perfectly good or that Mormonism is a better explanation.