Board index ‹ Heaven and Hell

[Shellica]

Most if not all denominations of christianity accept that there is some kind of hell, which I have heard described as a place seperated from God. My devout friend describes it as being 'Eternal, unendurable, unimaginable torture,' and this seems to be a common consensus, although I'm not sure how specific scripture is about this. The point seems to be that it is the worst thing one can be subjected to. Surely by any reasonable human standard, allowing hell to exist at all is the most immoral act one can commit. The only being who has control over whether hell exists is God. Ergo, isn't God the most evil being that has ever existed?

I expect the argument of 'God is just,' in which case, if we are made in his image, what does that mean? Does it mean we share his moral values? If so, why do I and so many others find his idea of justice so repugnant and evil? Imagine a ten-year-old is jealous of his friend's pencil-case. Say he dies in some car accident on his way home from school. Is he then subjected to eternal agony beyond anything conceivable on earth? How is that acceptable? How is that consistent with normal human moral values?

I put this to my friend and he said it 'Wasn't his place' to question God's decisions. If you can't question his decisions, surely you are treating him like a tyrant. If he is good and moral, shouldn't he allow you to openly question everything he does? Surely he should not have anything to hide.

[jimwalton]

Not all Christians, you should know, believe in the traditional concept of hell. There are theories about reconcilationism, semi-restorationism, modified eternalism, and annihilationism, all with some kind of scriptural backing. Scripturally, the subject of hell is impossible to avoid. Let’s talk about it.

First let me make it crystal clear that hell was not created for people, and it was never God’s intent that people would go there. Hell was created for Satan and his angels (Matthew 25.41), period! Hell was not made for people; heaven was made for people. This is not to imply that God was somehow surprised by sin. His plan of redemption through Christ was set in place before the creation of the world.

Let’s look at the issue logically and legally, rather than emotionally. Any judge who is worth his salt vindicates good people and punishes bad people. That’s what the courts and justice are all about: the bad guys aren’t supposed to get away with it—they’re supposed to get caught and face the consequences.

There are different kinds of justice. Distributive justice basically deals with the decision of who gets it, and retributive justice deals with the decision of how much—the severity, leniency, or appropriateness of the sentence.

“Distributive justice” is the idea that each person gets his or her fair share. For example, if food were being distributed to victims of a disaster, one would make sure not that each person got the same amount of food, but that each person would get a fair amount. If the food were distributed fairly, a 200-pound man would get twice as much as a 100-pound man, or child. A family of six would get three times the amount of food as a family of two. Or perhaps a 150-pound teenager would get more than a 150-pound senior citizen, because their metabolic needs were different. For the system to be fair, the food would be distributed, not necessarily equally, but certainly fairly. The same would be the case with punishments for wrong-doing. And, for instance, in a company, if everyone gets the same pay raise no matter how hard they worked, what their level of success, how many sales they made, etc., this would be perceived as distributively unjust. Rewards and punishments should be allocated fairly to the appropriate people.
This is certainly a biblical concept. Numerous texts tell us that each one will receive a fair amount of punishment based on what they have actually done. 2 Corinthians 5.10, Ezekiel 18 & 33, and Revelation 20.13 are clear examples that rewards and punishments will be distributed fairly to the appropriate people.

Retributive justice deals with the question of how much. It’s the philosophy where “the punishment should fit the crime.” Greater infractions should yield more dire consequences.

Hell, then, is certainly portrayed as an exercise of justice. A wrong has been perpetrated, and for justice to be served, balance must be reinstated in a system now askew. If punishment and reward are issued to the correct people in appropriate amounts, we would consider the situation to be fair, and restored to equilibrium.

The first tier of justice is that the sentence should most appropriately be pronounced by someone with both the authority and the integrity to issue the verdict and pronounce the consequences. This person would be the holy and righteous God.

The second tier of justice: The rewards and punishments are delivered on the basis of personal decisions that cogent people intentionally made. Those who want to spend eternity with God get their desire, and those who don’t also get their desire.

What about those who never heard, or those too young or mentally incapacitated to decide? That will all be taken into account.

- Romans 5.13: People won’t be held accountable for what they didn’t know or could not have known.
- Deuteronomy 1.37-40; Numbers 14.29; Isaiah 7.15: People won’t be held accountable for decisions they were mentally incapable of making.

The third tier of justice: The rewards and punishments will fit the infraction. Hell is not a “One Fire Tortures All.” (I don’t even think hell is fire. That’s just a metaphor to describe the awfulness of separation from God.) We have strong hints that there are different degrees of punishment in hell (totally unlike the different levels of hell as in Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is not Scripture).

- Matthew 11.22-24 & Luke 10.12: Jesus says it will be “more tolerable” for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah than for the people of Capernaum. That would indicate to me a more harsh punishment and a less harsh punishment.
- Matthew 23.14: Jesus tells the Pharisees they will be punished more severely for the way they are deceiving the people and living as hypocrites.
- Revelation 20.13: Each is going to be judged according to what he has done. Since that is the case, then the punishments and rewards can't be the same for everybody.
- and finally, Luke 12.47-48 (workers are punished with more or fewer blows). There are degrees of punishment, and even sins of ignorance are treated differently than sins of intention.

Why I bother to point this out is because often those who consider hell to be unfair are picturing the same punishment for all, which is most likely not the case, and infinite punishment for finite crimes, which may also not be the case. People will be punished according to the works they have done (2 Corinthians 5.10).
There seem to be only two possible scenarios: (1) God somehow takes a perverse pleasure about sending people to hell with a callous disregard and disengagement from any emotional bondage to the reality of what is happening, or (2) God somehow is filled with love and is crying as people are cast forth from his presence. Well, anyone who reads anything about the God of the Bible knows that the first choice is impossible (Ezk. 33.11), so somehow we must make sense of the second.

- God has both perfect love and perfect justice. We misunderstand if we think the two are competing values where one has to win out over the other. Any parent knows that love also involves punishment for wrong choices. To be truthful we must show how love and justice can both be present together to an infinite and noncontradictory extent.
- The picture of people screaming in agony, floating around alone in a lake of fire has to be dismissed. The biblical teaching of degrees of punishment cannot allow for this unrealistic portrayal. Despite many traditional evangelical beliefs, it shows a shallow and inaccurate reading of the “hell” texts. Don’t be mistaken, though: the metaphor of fire and brimstone is to point to an unspeakable horror—that of being truly separated from the presence of God.
- We have to grasp that people go to hell by their own choice, not by God’s, that no one in hell has been sent there apart from their will, and that they will agree with God’s casting them there, for it’s the desire of their hearts, as weird as that may sound. Hell is populated by the willing whose unrepentance has irreversibly warped their sensibilities. After all, the sin of Adam and Eve, and the root of sin in all of us, is self: pride, independence, and personal power. Each of us knows someone who chooses a self-destructive path in life despite all pleadings to the contrary. It’s much the same as people who choose God or self. If it’s self, then it’s self.

Allow me to explain each point in sufficient detail to lead you to understanding.

1. Love is an act of the will, not an emotion. It must be chosen, not forced, or it’s not love. We choose to act in the interest of someone else. God loves us, and both will not and cannot interfere with our free will. If I can only love God because I’m caused to do it and I have no choice, that’s not love at all. If God interferes with my free will so that he constrains me to love him, that is nothing more than a contradiction, and negating what love is. All of us have a choice in life: to align with God and become one with Him, or to choose not to align with God and be separated from Him. Like pregnancy, there’s no halfway. You either are or you aren’t. So to be consistent in His nature and not self-contradictory, He has to allow those who wish to be aligned with Him to come, and He has to allow those who wish to be separate from Him to do so. As it turns out, these are the definitions of heaven and hell. Everything with God is based in relationship—even eternity. So His great act of love is to allow us the freedom to choose (see also Romans 1.22-23). As it turns out, it is also perfectly just, for in eternity the Bible is clear that God’s judgment over us is not based on our works, but our relationship. Those who choose to have the nature of Jesus (not just those who are good) go to heaven, and those who choose not to have the nature of Jesus (not just those who are “bad”) are allowed to remain separate from Him. His justice aligns perfectly with His love in that everyone has the relationship with Him that they choose and spend eternity, in all fairness, in what they chose.

2. Hell is not, as I said, people floating in a sea of raging fire, screaming at the top of their lungs in sheer agony for eternity. I know I part ways with traditional evangelicalism at this point, but for a reason. As I’ve said, the Bible teaches degrees of punishment in hell: the FIRE part is what Satan and his angels will experience (Matthew 25.41). What is “hell” for people, then? It is death, or separation from Life, which is God (2 Thessalonians 1.7-9; Revelation 20.14); it is suffering and remorse (indubitably), it is punishment (Matthew 25.46; Rev. 14.11), and it is God’s judgment, symbolized by fire in some texts, by being cut to pieces in some, and by darkness in others. What does this “separation from God” (Matthew 7.23; 25.41; Daniel 12.3; Romans 2.5) mean? The only choice is a counterpart of what heaven is. It is the agony of unmitigated absence from God, emptiness, day in and day out meaninglessness, argumentation, insecurity, the pain of everything being wrong, dissatisfaction, and fear. That’s right: life as we know it now, but without any of the redeeming blessings of life that come from God. Heaven isn’t jewels and harps; hell isn’t screaming and fire. Heaven is daily glory (the essence of God’s being), and hell is daily death (the essence of sin). Jesus’ verbal images are his chosen expression to let everyone know hell is the worst of all possible worlds and is to be avoided at all costs.

3. They don’t WANT a relationship with God. They choose self instead of God. The only reason they would want to go to heaven is to avoid suffering, which is understandable. Here’s the truth: there are two choices: Be connected with God thoroughly and relationally, or not be connected. For those who choose not to be connected, God sends them from his presence. It’s an act of love, because love won’t override the other person’s will to get what he wants. As you read all the stories of Jesus, you will observe that the people who get sent to hell in the parables are the people who chose self over God. Hell is choice and self-preservation on the part of the people making the decision (see also Romans 1.22-23). God, in love and with a broken heart, lets them go away from him, even sends them. We see it many times in the Gospels: Jesus will not stay where he is not wanted.

C.S. Lewis makes some interesting observations about hell. I’ll reword them and summarize some of them here: You object to the doctrine of hell. What are you asking God to do? To wipe out past sins at all costs and to give anyone who wants it a fresh start, smoothing difficulties and offering help? But He has DONE that. That’s what his death and resurrection were all about. OK, then, are you asking God to forgive you? It’s a RELATIONSHIP. He will forgive anyone who wants it, and cannot forgive those who choose not to be forgiven. To leave you alone then? Well, I’m afraid that’s what hell is.

If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it. If there is a way that must be found by the will, and by love, then it must be possible to refuse it. If the happiness of a person is honestly the result of self-surrender, then no one can make that decision except himself, and he may refuse. I would love to say everyone will be saved. But then I’d have to ask, “Will they be saved against their will, or with it?” If I say “against their will,” I’m in the middle of a contradiction; how can self-surrender and love be involuntary? But if the answer is “With their will,” it begs the question: “What if they will not give in?”

The Bible speaks of two possible natures a person can have: a sin nature (born with it), where a person is separated from the life of God, or the nature of Jesus, where a person shares the life of God (requires a second birth). The Bible talks about it metaphorically as light and darkness, life and death, even sheep and goats.

Hell (and heaven for that matter) has nothing to do with good and bad. Those who love God and wish to share his life and spend eternity with him can. The invitation is open to anyone. Those who don’t love God, and don’t wish to share his life or spend eternity with him aren’t forced to. They can have what they will, and can be separated from God.

Does the existence of hell mean that God is not loving? Far from it. Hell is not where God throws people he doesn’t love anymore. Hell is where people choose to go who don’t want anything to do with a relationship with God. I can say with confidence that God doesn’t want anyone to go to hell. You misunderstand if you think that God somehow stops loving people and sends them to hell when they no longer please him. God opens the doors of heaven and invites everyone in, but many people simply refuse to come, despite his promises of blessing, his intent to reward, his desire for relationship, and his personal sacrifice to make it free for anyone to come. Hell (separation from God) is the only other choice for people who don’t wish to be united with God. It doesn’t make God evil to allow you to make your own choice, and not to 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.

So, with all that has been said, and with all the disagreements, even from Christians, about hell, I can conclude with confidence with this statement: 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.

[Doug's Village]

> it will be a horrible experience, and God will be fair about the form and duration of it.

Let's consider this for a moment. God has given me absolutely no reason to believe in Him: The Biblical miracles no longer occur, in any recognizable form, so I have no way to verify if the Bible is an accurate portrayal of the world. His followers are largely incompetent at defending His philosophy, often rehashing arguments that have been ridiculously debunked and relying on purely emotional arguments, usually terminating the argument with "you just don't want to believe". His priests seem to be molesting a lot of children.

So, what exactly would be the fair form and duration for being unable to find a god who seems to be the absolute master of hide-and-seek?

[jimwalton]

Interesting. Actually, the arguments for the existence of God are far stronger and more substantial than the arguments against his existence. The evidence for theism far outweighs the evidence against it. Theism is much more concordant with the world as we see it than scientific naturalism.

Miracles? Possibly the era of miracles is over. There are still ways to verify if the Bible is an accurate portrayal of the world by (1) its historical reliability, (2) its accurate portrayal of the human condition and human nature, (3) the evidence for the resurrection, and (4) the lives that have been substantially changed in miraculous ways with no other logical explanation. There are ways to verify if the Bible is an accurate portrayal of the world.

His followers? I guess you're talking with the wrong people. Certainly you can't expect every follower to be intellectually stellar. God's presence in our lives doesn't make us intelligent, just redeemed. If you want to talk about theology and philosophy, I'd be glad to converse.

Priestly molestation? Pure evil. Tragic and horrific. I won't even begin to defend them, and have no desire to. Don't judge God by idiots and abusers. We can all find politicians, educators, and businessmen who are also guilty of molesting children. That doesn't mean we have no reason to have governments, schools, or businesses.

> what exactly would be the fair form and duration?

I'm guessing you don't really want to talk about this as much as the second half of the sentence, but I'll address it anyway. Human courts assess crimes and "award" jail time according to established protocol, conditioned by the circumstances and the assessment of the judges. 15 years for one offense, 30 years for others, and multiple lifetime sentences for the worst offenders. If you think in this way, you'll be thinking in the right vein.

> for being unable to find a god who seems to be the absolute master of hide-and-seek?

But he has revealed himself. You have just made a decision not to see, and possibly not even to weigh the evidence. Lots of people know music, but they don't hear nearly what a music major does who has studied theory. An accomplished musician hears intervals, progressions, and harmonies that others don't hear, because they learn what to look for and what to listen for. And just because they have to learn how to see and hear doesn't mean it's a figment of their imagination. It's real, all right, and it's there for those who learn to find it. The same goes for a hunter in the field, an accountant doing an audit, or a detective. You learn what to look for. Now, in case you're just too anxious to dive into "confirmation bias," we wouldn't automatically accuse a hunter, accountant, or detective of those, so let's withhold on that prejudicial opinion until it's warranted by the discussion.

So, would you like to talk further?

[Planet Biter]

How can you choose yourself over God when everything in creation is not separate from this God? Everything in creation and non-creation is in oneness, so how can anything choose "themselves" over "God" when there is no "self" to choose? Not having a relationship with "God" is the same as not having a relationship with yourself, or your neighbor, or animals, and everything in creation... Or am I missing something?

Why do Christians believe that creation and non-creation is separate from God? In my view it's impossible to choose Man over God or God over Man because there is inherently no difference.

[jimwalton]

Christianity does not teach, nor believe in, pantheism. Implicit in pantheism is a denial of the existence of matter, a rejection of individual identity, and an endless cycle of karmic repayments until some abstract debt is paid. If all is one, there is ultimately no difference between good and evil. If everything in creation is not separate from God, then meaning is not found in our lives or in existence, but in escaping from our lives—but to where, if all is one?

The Christian worldview is more consistent with reality. Humankind had a personal beginning from a personal God. The universe is real and not an illusion. Humanity is alienated from God by man's own rebellion and evil—a very real entity. Redemption has been offered to us as a gift by a spiritual being who has both the authority and the mechanism to bring about real and meaningful change in man's condition, and human history is the working out of God's plan. The Christian worldview, over the pantheistic one, in internally consistent, coheres with human experience, and is able to be put into practice.

[Planet Biter]

> Implicit in pantheism is a denial of the existence of matter, a rejection of individual identity, and an endless cycle of karmic repayments until some abstract debt is paid. If all is one, there is ultimately no difference between good and evil.

Buddhism does not teach this. Oneness shouldn't be taken for a literal, concrete thing. The Hindu Brahman is more akin to this, where they believe everything in creation has a soul that belongs to the larger Brahman God.

Good and evil are just as apparent as night and day. That being said, even good and evil has lines blurred. Intention behind that act most of the time means much more than the act itself. Bombing ISIS terrorists, for example– is it seen as murder, or justified?

> If everything in creation is not separate from God, then meaning is not found in our lives or in existence, but in escaping from our lives—but to where, if all is one?

This is the problem that many people have when starting their path on the Way. They believe that they will escape from this life– that they can end suffering permanently and reach "another place" of peace. Escape is futile, as there is nothing to have you escape from yourself. Once you realize that nothing is inherently separate from another, you realize that there is a fundamental likeness as well. If you love yourself, you ultimately have to love everything in creation, even animals, due to the fact that we all possess a sense of unity in our transient nature.

Also, I wouldn't consider myself a "pantheist". When I say God I see something abstract, not an inherent being or an inherent soul, but a sense of unity and perfection in unity amongst all things in creation.

> The Christian worldview is more consistent with reality. Humankind had a personal beginning from a personal God. The universe is real and not an illusion. Humanity is alienated from God by man's own rebellion and evil—a very real entity. Redemption has been offered to us as a gift by a spiritual being who has both the authority and the mechanism to bring about real and meaningful change in man's condition, and human history is the working out of God's plan.

There are lots of assumptions here. Also why would one want redemption for their faults and imperfections? The human condition is frail but there is much beauty in this imperfect condition. In Zen this call this Wabi Sabi, where we honor the beauty of transience and imperfection. To me there is no greater beauty than that of the proverbial "fallen angel", as our fragile condition allows us room to improve ourselves based on our own willingness.

I don't see why we should aim for "perfection" in the afterlife when perfection and miracles are able to be witnessed every single moment that we are alive.

[jimwalton]

You say perfection can be witnessed every single moment we are alive, and yet the cycle of rebirths implies the exact opposite: a series of one imperfection after another, and a global inadequacy that requires multiple attempts to get it right.

You deny the reality of self, and therefore you deny personhood. Without subject-object relationship, there can be no foundation for knowledge, love, morality, or ethics.

Jesus didn't begin his mission by leaving more comfortable surrounding to gain enlightenment and find answers to life. Jesus said he IS the answer to life.

In Buddhism, there can be no absolute truth, all morality is relative, and purpose and meaning are vague and clouded. In practical terms, this cannot be the path to enlightenment. In other words, Buddhism denies the realities that we all know to be so: personality, knowledge, love, and good and evil.

Why would I want redemption for my faults in imperfections? Because my faults (and everyone else's) leads to personal depravity and societal demise.

[Zen Dude]

Does it seem fair to punish people for failing to be convinced of the existence and identity of invisible supernatural beings and miraculous events in history? What if it turned out that some other religion were true and you were misled, and you were punished because you were mistakenly convinced that Christianity was true. Would you feel like that was fair?

[jimwalton]

Suppose you were a student in school, and your refused to be convinced about any of the truth the teacher was teaching: science texts, history, math. You could come up with counter-arguments, reasons to think otherwise, and the weaknesses of the viewpoints posited. Does that make you smart or stupid, true or false?

Since science, etc. are actually true, it makes you merely argumentative, closed-minded, and lost in your own false intellect. Yet I'm sure such a person would consider themselves smarter than the teachers and all those other lemmings in the classroom.

Yet there would be every reason to do everything possible to get you to change your mind and show you the error of your ways, and I can guarantee you that you would not be rewarded, but punished for your foolishness.

Thus is becomes fair to punish people for failing to be convinced of what is true, especially if what is at stake is life and death and not just something mundane like passing or failing a course.

> What if it turned out that some other religion were true and you were misled

This is not possible. Christianity is the only system that meets the requirements of truth.