CLAIM: Peter writes, “They stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed” (1 Pet. 2:8). Does this passage teach that God creates people with the express purpose of sending them to hell?

RESPONSE: The Bible repeatedly teaches that God’s will is for people to come to him –not hell. In fact, Peter himself writes, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). Therefore, it would be contradictory to state that God wills certain people to go to hell.

Instead, when Peter writes that these people were “appointed” for this fate, he is referring to the principle that disobedient people will face judgment. He is not teaching that God fated them to be this way. Craig Blomberg writes, “The Greek uses a neuter relative pronoun for ‘which,’ suggesting the entire previous clause as its antecedent. In other words, unbelievers are not individually predestined to disobey God, but it is a prearranged principle that those who do disobey will stumble (i.e., spiritually fall).”^[1]