“Before the Stars Were Made . . . I Hated You”: A Meme Worth a Thousand Words

“. . . Before I made those stars, I already hated you."“. . . Before I made those stars, I already hated you."

-- Calvinist Jesus

Setting the Scene

I recently shared a meme that sparked a flurry of responses across social media. It was a simple graphic. A young boy standing with Jesus under the night sky, with Jesus saying: “Just think, before I made those stars I already hated you.” The image, though stark, was not meant to mock or misrepresent Calvinists. It was a theologically serious critique—compressed into a visual worth a thousand words.

Many, however, didn’t see it that way.

Some, like Amy, dismissed the meme with sarcasm:

“Then it’s a good thing we’re just using snarky, misleading memes since they’re so much more effective.”

Others, like Michael, deflected with a tu quoque:

“What about Molinism? Doesn’t God still actualize a world where people go to hell?”

But let’s ask the pertinent question:

Is this meme actually misleading—or does it reveal something deeply problematic about the Calvinistic view of exhaustive divine determinism (EDD)?

The Heart of the Matter

Here’s the uncomfortable truth the meme exposes: If EDD is true, then everything that happens—every thought, desire, action, and eternal outcome—is causally determined by God.

That includes:

• Who is created and who is not

• Who believes and who doesn’t

• Who ends up suffering in eternal hell and who doesn’t

Under EDD-Calvinism, it’s not merely that God foreknows these outcomes. It’s that God decrees them—every last detail. Before the foundation of the world, God determines who will be damned and who will not. He does not merely permit it—He determines it.

Now ask yourself: If a person is divinely determined to reject God, and therefore to suffer in hell for all eternity, was that decision ever truly up to them? No. They were created by a God who predetermined that they would suffer infinitely—with no ability to choose otherwise.

Call it what you want, but that's not love. And I communicated that in response to my good friend Jonathan, a Calvinist pastor who simply replied, “C’mon, Tim.”

“It’s about the most unloving thing I can think of to damn a person to suffer in hell into the infinite future before they even took one breath. There’s literally nothing worse than that.”

Exactly. If a human being hated me and wanted to harm me, they could never inflict anything worse than eternal conscious torment. And yet, on EDD-Calvinism, Jesus is said to have decreed and causally determined that very fate for the damned—before the stars were made.

If hatred is willing and causing the ultimate harm of another, then what could be more hateful than that?

But What About Molinism?

Michael offered a common counter:

“Isn’t it also true under Molinism and the A-Theory of time that God creates people who end up in hell before they take their first breath?”

Yes and no. Here’s the difference.

Under Molinism, God creates free creatures—beings who are not determined by God to choose X or Y, but who genuinely possess libertarian freedom. God knows what they would freely do in any given circumstance (middle knowledge), and He sovereignly chooses to actualize a world where their choices are made freely—even if tragically.

In that case, the responsibility for damnation is not grounded in the decree of God, but in the actual free decision of the creature.

In contrast, under EDD, God determines not just the outcome, but every thought, motive, and desire that leads to the outcome. The individual had no power to choose otherwise. Their rejection of God was not their own—it was the outworking of God’s eternal deterministic decree.

So the difference isn’t in whether God has foreknowledge—it’s in whether the creature had the ability to do otherwise. Only Molinism preserves that power. EDD removes it.

What About Romans 9?

Some critics appeal to Romans 9 and suggest that God literally hated Esau before he was born—and by extension, that the meme’s theology checks out.

But Romans 9 is a complex, often misunderstood chapter. It must be interpreted alongside the full witness of Scripture, including Romans 2:4, where Paul writes:

“Do you not know that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”

Yes, Romans 9 speaks of God's sovereign choice. But Paul’s point is not about arbitrary damnation. It’s about God's redemptive plan working through Israel’s history—even their failures—to bring salvation to the world (cf. Romans 11:32).

Paul affirms human responsibility within divine sovereignty—not its negation. So if your reading of Romans 9 leads to a God who hates a boy before the stars were made and causes his damnation without recourse, then you might be reading it wrong.

Does the Meme Misrepresent Calvinism?

Let’s return to Amy’s objection: “It’s a misleading meme.”

But what, precisely, does it mislead about?

• Does EDD teach that before the foundation of the world, God decreed everything? Yes.

• Does that include damnation? Yes.

• Does that decree ensure that a person will be damned regardless of anything they do? Yes, if EDD is true.

• Was the person causally determined to sin, disbelieve, and reject the gospel? Yes.

• Could they have done otherwise? No (God's decree deterministically prevents doing otherwise).

Therefore, the meme doesn’t misrepresent Calvinism—it reveals its logical consequences. And if those consequences seem horrifying, maybe it’s not the meme that’s the problem. Maybe it’s the theology of Calvinism.

The Real Question

This isn’t about who’s meaner on the internet. It’s about what kind of God we’re proclaiming to the world.

If God determines people to reject Him, and then punishes them eternally for it, then love has lost all meaning, and justice has collapsed into cruelty.

But if people truly have the freedom to embrace or reject God—and if God’s knowledge and sovereignty work through, not against, that freedom—then we have hope. Then we can look another person in the eye and confidently proclaim without hesitation:

 “God wants you. He really does.”“God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

And that’s why the meme matters. It forces people to pause and ask: “Is this really what we believe about God?”

If not, then it’s time to revise one's theology—not the meme.

Stay reasonable (Isaiah 1:18),

Dr. Tim Stratton