Why doesn't God destroy the Devil? Why would he allow people to go to Hell?

question Why doesn't God just wipe out the Devil? Is he powerless to do so? Or does he want him kicking around? Why does Hell exist? If you can believe that something as complicated as God can exist without being caused, then why can't you believe that something much simpler, the universe, could?

Answer
I don't know the technical answer to this, but here's an interesting thought- which actually addresses all of the questions above. (These questions were taken from the comments on previous posts.)

I believe the fact that God is existence makes sense of this. When asked His name, God said "I AM". Basically, He is existence. This is the problem with asking things like "Does God exist" and "How can God exist without being Created". Existence can't not exist, and existence can't be brought into existence by something else- that's just the nature of existence. People could argue that existence does not have the qualities otherwise attributed to God, but that would be a pretty convoluted debate. For the sake of moving forward, God is existence.

Now God is also love. Out of Love, God brings things into existence. Above all He brings immortal creatures into existence. Because He loves them, He creates them immortal- so they share in his nature and never die or cease to exist. This is unique in that it is only true of spiritual beings- humans and angels, essentially.

Once God creates them immortal, though, this becomes their nature. So for them to cease to exist would require a willfull act on His part. But He is existence, and He is love. So for them to cease to exist, He would have to stop loving them- which He cannot do! (When people say God is all powerful, He is still bound by His nature. He cannot cease existing, contradict himself, or stop loving.)

However, even while God creates us such that we exist forever, he does not force us to be in a relationship with Him. He only invites us to. Force would not be love. We may not realize when we reject Him what we are doing, but we effectively do choose Hell, because Hell is eternal existence apart from He that is everything good. Theoretically it is always possible for us to choose God- even after death, but our twisted nature prevents us from doing so. Like people who refuse to forgive or accept forgiveness- the one preventing them is themselves, not others, not God.

It would be more pleasant not to believe in Hell, but that's backwards reasoning. People often refute the idea of God by saying 'If there was a God, God would be thus. God is not thus, therefore there is no God.' I find the evidence for God too strong, so I go the other way. "God exists. God is not thus. Therefore, I must be worng about what I expect God to be."

One other note on this. We expect God to be like a really saintly human. We emphasize his Goodness and Mercy. These traits are real, and we humans only have them in so far as we participate in the nature of God. However, we should not forget fear of the Lord. This was emphasized hugely in both the Old and New Testament, and in the Early Church and throughout history. We have forgotten that God is Justice, and we must fear and respect Him. Muslims and Jews fault us for calling God Father, and overemphasizing his compassion, without recognizing that He is God.

We mustn't create God in our own images!