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[Jar Jar]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but no one I know can answer this question for me. Why would God create hell? Isn't ETERNAL punishment just cruel regardless of sin? I feel like god cannot love mankind and simultaneously make a way for us to burn forever. God knows all, past and future, why create a soul or consciousness if you are just going to torture it for all time. My only conclusion is that God is evil.

[jimwalton]

First, we know for certain that hell was not created for people, but for Satan and his minions (Matt. 25.41). Secondly, we know for certain that the people who go to hell choose it. The Bible is clear that people have a choice in life to recognize and align with God, or to separate from him and walk away. Every effort will be made to prevent people from walking away and to bring them into loving relationship, but He cannot stop those who insist on walking away.

What is hell? It most likely isn't fire. Fire is an image that the Bible often uses to express the horror of separation from God, but it's extremely unlikely that hell will be literal fire.

Those who turn away from God will be separated from the life of God. Though we can't be sure about the form or duration of that separation, this we can be sure of: it will be a horrible experience, and God will be fair about the form and duration of it. If you reject God, you take your chances.

It doesn't make God evil to allow you to make your own choice, and to not force you to love him (which isn't love at all). When all is said and done, you know about God, you know about the message of the Bible saying that he is love, that he is fair, and that he wants a relationship with you, you know the warnings about rebellion against him, and you know the consequences of your own decisions and actions. You make your choice, and you live with the results. Why does that make God evil?

[Jar Jar]

Thank you for your response, but I do have a few further questions. Why is sin possible in of itself? Not why do we have the choice to sin, but why did God say this is right, and this is wrong. In a mortal existence, right and wrong are important, I understand that, don't kill people etc. That brings up another point, however, why would God create us, then test us, then abandon some of us when we don't do what he wants? With no proof of his existence no less. Essentially, why give us amnesiac bodies when he can simply teach us and let us make choices as his spirit children?

[jimwalton]

Thanks for your questions. I'll do my best within the restraints of this forum.

> Why is sin possible in and of itself?

God is by definition uncreated. Therefore anything God creates is not God, by necessity. If it's not God, then it is capable of imperfection. It's not necessarily that God made it flawed, but because it's not God, it's at least capable of error. Add to that that God created us with free will, because love, for one, is only meaningful if it is freely chosen. But free will isn't worth much if I say, "You can choose any flavor you want as long as it's vanilla." Similarly, it's not a love relationship if God says, "You can choose any course in life that you want as long as it's obedience to me." Sin is possible because (1) we're not God, and (2) we get to choose.

> Why did God say "this is right and this is wrong"?

Christian believe that morality is based on the character of God. Things are good as they conform to God's nature; they are wrong if they go against God's nature. Morals aren't subject to the whims and preferences of people (whom can't necessarily be trusted to be seeking what is good), but are objective based in the unchanging and always good nature of God. That's what makes some things right and other things wrong.

> why would God create us, then test us, then abandon some of us when we don't do what he wants?

God created us to have a love relationship with him, but love must be voluntary to count as love. So there was always a choice to sin, but God wanted a relationship with us, and so he told us which way was the path to life and which was the path of death, encouraging us to choose the path to life. We chose instead to rebel against him, separate ourselves from him, and choose to go our own way and do our own thing, which God had warned us would lead to death. So God didn't abandon us, we abandoned Him. The Bible then says that God initiated a plan to get us back into relationship with him, to redeem us at great sacrifice to himself, and to pay the necessary price because we were unable to do it ourselves. So it's certainly not, "Do what I want or I'll abandon you." You make it sound like the immature rantings of a spoiled child, when the truth is actually quite different. He knew that to rebel against him would bring death, just like a mama who says to her child in the strongest of voices, "Don't go into the street!" Obedience was the only way to life.

[Live Turkey]

This is exactly what I was going to say. Hell isn't a punishment, and Heaven isn't a reward; they are just making good on the way you lived your life.

Think of it like this: This life is like an audition for the afterlife. God is giving you a brief trial period, during which time you can do whatever you want, to show him what you're made of. If it turns out you're a good guy, you get into the club. If you act like an a-hole, you don't, and you're stuck in the alley in the rain, but the key point is it was your choice to be a douchebag. You could have gotten right anytime you wanted to, even at the very end of your life, and as long as you really truly meant it you'd still get in. But if you act like a jackass your whole life and don't even make an effort, then God is like "Alright, you rejected me your whole life, have it your way, you get to be apart from me for all time," and since God is the source of all joy, that is hell. Not fire and sulfur--it's the permanent absence of hope or happiness.

[jimwalton]

Well, not necessarily bad, but my point of disagreement with you is that you make it sound like good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell, which is not the teaching of the Bible. The Bible says that people who have the nature of sin go to hell, and those who have the nature of Jesus go to heaven. It's not decided by behavior.

[Jar Jar]

I very much enjoyed your first point explaining the origin of sin. Very cool. I appreciate that and believe I understand it now.

As for your second point, morality being based on God's character, I have a slight problem. God can tell one to do absolutely anything, and it would be "good" and "righteous" even if it were against every law of man or even God's own laws. This creates a certain hypocrisy in my mind. God killed millions of people in the flood, but if I were to go out and kill millions of decidedly wicked people, I would likely still go to hell for it. Not to say I am comparable to God, but that our morality, or what is considered sin, is not God's morality. He can act without consequence. This may or may not be a problem depending on your point of view.

Your third point brings up another question. Why would God not allow sinners to be in his presence? I don't like the argument that sinners would refuse to be in God's presence because of guilt etc, because when the alternative is so horrible, anyone would be willing to repent and ask forgiveness, essentially taking away our "free will" after death. Why the time limit? And why the forced amnesia of the premortal life?

Thank you very much for this comment, it gave me a lot to think about.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for the reply.

As for the second point, you are bringing up a common objection called the Euthyphro Dilemma (you can look it up on Wikipedia to discover more about it, if you like). It comes from Socrates himself. The premise of it is this conundrum: Do things become right just because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right? The Biblical response is that it's a false dilemma because those aren't the only two options. It's not true that things become right just because God commands them. Nor is it true that God commands things because they are right. The argument fails on several points.

First of all, the Bible never affirms that there is an independent reality of good outside of God's character that God is following. The Bible also never affirms that anything is good just because God commanded it. The other alternative is that God's commands are good because they reflect his perfectly good nature. His commands aren't arbitrary, but they flow out of his perfect nature. For instance, God necessarily commands us to love our neighbor because God is by nature loving. It's God's nature that is the standard by which actions are judges as good, and God's nature, then, is the basis of morality (it's called the divine nature theory). So it's never true that God is hypocritical. He is always consistently perfect, good, and just.

> Why would God not allow sinners to be in his presence?

This answer has some nuances. In a sense, sin is always in his presence, since God is everywhere and there is sin on the earth. In another sense sin is always in his presence, since He is in my life, and I still sin. From a legal standpoint, however, I have been pronounced innocent (the Bible's word is "justified") so that forensically God doesn't "see" my sin because it's been declared as covered. In the last sense (the one you're talking about), sin can't remain in God's presence because the afterlife with God is spoken of as a place where sin has no hold and sin is of no effect. To allow sin in would be a contradiction. So if you insist on holding on to your sin, that's your choice, but don't expect to get into the place defined by "this is where people have disengaged from their sin".

> when the alternative is so horrible, anyone would be willing to repent and ask forgiveness, essentially taking away our "free will" after death.

Not at all. The Bible is filled with examples of people who saw the power of God, experienced the presence of God, heard the truth of God, and still said, "Nah, I don't want that." It's not taking away your free will, but allowing you to still exercise it.

[Angel]

You're acting like people look at a loving, beautiful God and say "No way, I'm not going to worship Him!". Most people on this planet want to be loved and want to be saved and want to go to Heaven. But the universe is so confusing and divided. There are so many different religions, cultures and mindsets that are harmful. There are so many concepts and ideas and beliefs and problems in the Bible that trusting in God or "finding" Him is not as easy as you make it sound. If you seek out to see how many those who are raised in Muslim cultures convert to Christianity, you'll see what I mean.
With all of that above logic, it's still unfair to assume that Hell is a fair concept. So yes, I find the common Christian view of Hell to be very evil.

[jimwalton]

That's exactly what I'm saying. The Bible teaches that God is love, holy, just, and desires relationship with us, that he's beautiful and filled with splendor, and that worship of him is a beautiful and fulfilling thing, and people say, "Nope. Not interested." Jesus went around healing people and teaching love, generosity, forgiveness, and peace, and people said, "Hm. How are we going to kill this guy?" I think that most people on the planet want to be saved and go to heaven on their own terms, not on God's, so they make up their own religion so it can be the way they want it to be.

I'm not trying to make it sound as is finding God is easy. It's not, for sure. For some it is, I guess, and for others not so much so. It's my experience that finding God is a difficult thing.

As far as hell is concerned, you'll remember that I said, "Those who turn away from God will be separated from the life of God. Though we can't be sure about the form or duration of that separation, this we can be sure of: it will be a horrible experience, and God will be fair about the form and duration of it. If you reject God, you take your chances." Perhaps you can explain what's so inherently evil about that.