Charles Ellicott Commentary Romans 3:6

"God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?" — Romans 3:6 (ASV)

For then how shall God judge the world?—St. Paul considers it a sufficient answer merely to propound this question. He and those to whom he was writing all assumed that there must be a future judgment.

The way in which Bishop Butler deals with the argument from necessity is very similar to this, substituting only present for future judgment. “It is a fact that God does govern even animals by the method of rewards and punishments in the natural course of things. And people are rewarded and punished for their actions—punished for actions harmful to society as such, punished for vicious actions as such—by the natural agency of one another under the present guidance of Providence,” and so on. Hence the necessitarian is in this dilemma: either his opinion is not true, or else it must be capable of being harmonised with these facts. The facts themselves are postulated.