RFG: FIVE: How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?

“The Reason for God” (Keller) Book Discussion – Part 1: The Leap of Doubt
FIVE: How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?

Before I even begin I want to insert an idea I remembered from a philosophy chat room discussion while discussing chapter two with my mom: it is not that God punishes you for all the crap He knew you would do before you were even born – it is that God forgave you for it before you were even born – but He will not force love from you against your will.

Two questions from Penguin, found here:
http://download.redeemer.com/sermons/Penguin%20Reader%20Guide.pdf

“What about the Bible’s portrayal of a God of love who also judges his enemies? In chapter 5, Keller defends belief in a God of love who also is a God of wrath and judgment. If God loves his creation, it’s understandable that God would oppose anything that does harm to his creation (see p. 73). Do you agree that God is big enough to encompass mercy and love, as well as judgment and wrath? Discuss your responses.” – Penguin My thought on the matter is that anyone who claims to love good, but allows evil to go unchecked, is indifferent to evil, is lying. Loving good includes hating evil. Love and hate are not opposites (when the ‘object’ of that hate is ‘evil’ – not that ‘evil’ is an ‘object’ – I still agree with Becky Pippert on page 73). I also think God’s judgment is an expression of love – having experienced it myself. He disciplines those He loves, like any good, loving father should.

“On the question of a loving God sending people to hell, Keller writes that God gives people free choice in the matter. “In short, hell is simply one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity” (p. 78). In other words, those who end up in hell chose that destination by rejecting God. How do you respond to such an assertion?” – Penguin

What do you think of this quote: “The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only when it comes from God,” (74)? Does it seem like a double-standard to you? To me, it doesn’t, because I can see that humans can resort to violence for the wrong reasons, and that God will never resort to violence for the wrong reasons. Some consider a case of justified violence to be defense, for example, of one’s country or a country with which one’s country is allied. Is Keller implying we should not defend in any case whatsoever, but let God “eventually put all things right”? I don’t think so. I think the original quote may be referring to a particular type of violence. For example, I don’t think Keller would say “let’s do away with the justice system and let God ‘eventually put all things right.’” I do however think we should definitely slow down and check our motives and seek God’s guidance in every case that triggers a defensive impulse. What do you think about the thought that loss of belief in God’s judgment leads to less inhibition (an opiate) to violence?

What do you think about the fact that the Bible is the only source of a belief in a God of pure love, who forgives everyone and allows those who reject His love to choose hell?

“For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that Christianity is not the product of any one culture but is actually the transcultural truth of God. If that were the case we would expect that it would contradict and offend every human culture at some point, because human cultures are ever-changing and imperfect. If Christianity were the truth it would have to be offending and correcting your thinking at some place,” (72-73). What do you think?

I think that it is a shame that this subject doesn’t even entertain the possibility that the words “Hades”, “Gehenna”, “Sheol” are possibly figurative speech.

Shalom

See a need… meet a need…

You’ve got the floor. Let’s hear it.

In the references that are associated to Jesus to “Gehenna” or the valley of Hinnom, he is rhetorically addressing the fears installed into his listeners by those moral apostles amongst his people, the Scribes and the Pharisees.

For example, (Mat 5:22):
“… but I–I say to you, that every one who is angry at his brother without cause, shall be in danger of the judgment, and whoever may say to his brother, Empty fellow! shall be in danger of the sanhedrim, and whoever may say, Rebel! shall be in danger of the gehenna of the fire.”

In this quote he adopts the same course of punishment as the Pharisee for rhetorical reasons, but his list of offences ends where the moral apostle starts. Being angry or saying “Empty fellow!” was acceptable to the Pharisee during debate, however accusing someone of being absurd, insinuating that the person was a rebel or heretic, was where they drew the line. Jesus says that judgemental attitudes are altogether wrong (Mat 7:1).

Another example, (Mat 5:29-30):
“… but, if thy right eye doth cause thee to stumble, pluck it out and cast from thee, for it is good to thee that one of thy members may perish, and not thy whole body be cast to gehenna.
And, if thy right hand doth cause thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast from thee, for it is good to thee that one of thy members may perish, and not thy whole body be cast to gehenna.”

Again, Jesus is speaking figuratively, saying that it is better to avoid those aspects of our lives which are prone to cause us to stumble than to loose everything we had. To put his words in a modern sense, he would say, “It is better that you loose one of your members than for your whole body to end up on the rubbish tip!”

In a different case, Mat 23:33, Jesus does seem to go overboard and ruins all of the composure he has been promoting:
“Serpents! brood of vipers! how may ye escape from the judgment of the gehenna?”

However, what Jesus is doing here is to give the Pharisees a spoonful of their own medicine. He tries to show them how their judgemental hypocrisy will be their downfall, and gives them a lesson in folklore, whereby all of the prophets were killed by those in power, whether in the Temple or in the Palace. And, of course, we assume that Jesus knew that his death would make them “fill up the measure of [their] fathers” which perhaps explains his emotional outburst.

That should be enough to show what I mean.

On another note, if you believe in heaven or hell, your body does too and reacts accordingly. If you understand that we only have the present moment, but that moment is filled with some idea of reward or punishment, your body will react to that. This is what Jesus is talking about in Mat 11:28
“Come to Me, all those labouring and being burdened, and I will give you rest.” What does he suggest as a solution to the problem? A humble and modest heart. (Mat 11:29-30)
(29) Take My yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am meek and lowly in heart, “and you will find rest to your souls.”
(30) For My yoke gives ease and my burden is light.

Shalom

– Xunzian… misplaced in chapter two’s thread.

Xunzian, what was Ned’s solution (I don’t recall)? I’ll get back to you soon on the rest.

Good catch on that thread. I read the first section in one go, so some of the themes ran together.

Ned’s solution is a grammatical one, actually. “For God so loved the world . . .”, he treats that as a singular instance of God showing love for everyone. Otherwise, he is entirely particular, loving some and hating others.

This makes sense. While Keller does an admirable job on describing how anger is a part of love, I do think he went too far with it. It is my understanding that many Christian sects have work arounds for the totality of God’s anger, which would make sense. But it is my understanding that Protestants usually don’t. So while anger can indeed be an important part of a loving relationship, eternal anger is antithetical to love. “Hate the sin, love the sinner”, I believe is a Christian maxim?

Xunzian,

I don’t see where Ned’s deal and the “problem of eternal hell” even meet. But, that aside… something tells me that answering you (and Ned) involves a discussion of how God exists both within and beyond temporality and maintains simplicity, because the temporal is known (understatement, depending on your definition of ‘known’) to Him from beginning to end. That means that Ned’s interpretation is entirely false–no one holds that interpretation except Ned, as far as I’m aware–and I doubt it is even genuine. This was all discussed in his thread already (from a different angle). God is first and foremost love, happiness. One might say that if you can’t get angry in situations when anger would be appropriate (noble, if you like)–you must not be a happy person. To not feel anger would be more “base” than to feel it. Perhaps sometimes we inflate our anger, and that would be ‘base’. But in God’s case, His anger is always appropriate.

Bob, if you have a copy of the book, what did you think of footnote 10 for this chapter? I’ll be back.

Actually, Ned’s interpretation is largely based on predetermination, which it sounds like yours is as well. Some people receive grace, and this is already known to God. Other people don’t receive grace and, again, this is already known to God. I’m OK with a compatibalist notion of free will, as in people can freely make their decisions but God already knows what those decisions will be. Otherwise the whole notion of an all-knowing God outside of temporal reality becomes really problematic really quickly. There are other ways around this, like saying that God doesn’t fully know the future just the broad trends he, himself, plans on engaging in (so it is less foreknowledge and more a promise) but that doesn’t seem to be the angle you are taking.

[This is a recording, please stay on the line; do not hang up.] Thank you Bob and Xunzian for participating in this chapter of the book discussion. All are invited to continue discussion of the chapter, but this reply concludes my participation in this chapter, as I must now turn my attention to the remaining chapters of the discussion. Thanks again.

Bob:

Thankyou for sharing your perspective, Bob, and now I will share Keller’s and Bell’s for your examination…

Footnote 10 of chapter five: “All descriptions and depictions of heaven and hell in the Bible are symbolic and metaphorical. Each metaphor suggests one aspect of the experience of hell. (For example, ‘fire’ tells us of the disintegration, while ‘darkness’ tells us of the isolation.) Having said that does not at all imply that heaven or hell themselves are ‘metaphors’. They are very much realities. Jesus ascended (with his physical body, mind you) into heaven. The Bible clearly proposes that heaven and hell are actual realities, but also indicates that all language about them is allusive, metaphorical, and partial,” – Keller.

From Velvet Elvis: “The word hell is found fourteen times in the Bible, twelve of those occurrences being found in the teachings of Jesus. The word hell in English is the word gehenna in Greek. Gehenna is a reference to the Valley of Hinnom, a ravine on the south side of the city of Jerusalem. This valley was the site over the years of many violent and horrible deaths, and it came to be viewed as cursed. By Jesus’ day it had become the town dump. Garbage, trash, destruction. Some referred to it as the place with the gnashing of teeth where the fire never dies. So when Jesus uses gehenna, it is loaded with meaning and visual power—everybody knew what he was talking about. The translator is faced with a decision about how to translate the word. If he or she uses the word hell, later readers might miss the fact that Jesus is talking about a present reality. If the word gehenna is used, readers might understand the present, geographical meaning of the word but miss the bigger implications. Every translation, every version, every paraphrase of the Bible requires thousands of decisions about how to interpret what these words are saying to us today.

“Which leads to another observation: Binding and loosing demand an intricate balance of conviction and humility,” – Rob Bell.

Bob, you seem to be saying the questions asked in the original post are a non-issue for you, because you do not believe in hell. Do you believe in an afterlife? Do you believe those who reject God will be forced into heaven (that is a contradiction—love cannot be forced)?

Xunzian:

Ned’s belief (if genuine) in predetermination is why his interpretation that God’s love is limited to the single instance of the cross is wrong. If you are planning (in God’s case, ‘if it is predetermined that He will make’) an expression of love, that means that love is already present. In God’s case, since He is simple, it is always present. Let’s not talk about Ned’s false interpretation anymore—I already went into what the Bible has to say against it, in his thread (if he shows up to discuss it, I hope he shows up there and not here—though I’ve said what I had to say). God isn’t outside temporal reality–He is beyond it, but He is also within it. If God doesn’t fully know the future, then He isn’t all-knowing, isn’t sovereign—and fulfilled prophecy indicates otherwise. If people don’t receive grace (salvation), it is because they have rejected it freely (chosen hell freely). If there is no free will, hell is unjust, because people don’t choose it. Your thoughts are very disorganized. “Otherwise, he is entirely particular, loving some and hating others” – is that really the kind of God you consider worthy of respect?

[This is a recording, please stay on the line; do not hang up.] Thank you Bob and Xunzian for participating in this chapter of the book discussion. All are invited to continue discussion of the chapter, but this reply concludes my participation in this chapter, as I must now turn my attention to the remaining chapters of the discussion. Thanks again.

Hi Ichthus,

But the fact that “all language about them is allusive, metaphorical, and partial” is the very point. Heaven and hell are mentioned incidentally in relation to the subject at hand, which connects with those folklore titbits that remain in our memory without being more than synonymous with the memory or imagination of an experience. Once you have gone down that road, you have to then start asking why you need a physical heaven or hell. If you look, it is only one of those dots that you need to connect up for the picture you want, not something that is existentially important.

Exactly my point, and to know this is to realise that it is part of a powerful rhetoric, sometimes needed in the face of stubbornness, and especially needed when your adversaries are hypocritically threatening people with similar images and achieving anything else but spiritual maturity. You have to bring their threats into perspective when you point out their hypocrisy, and ask how they propose to escape their own purgatory.

What I am saying is that these are all perspectives of something for which I only have allusions, metaphors and allegories. What will be will be. I try to concentrate on what I know and what is now, and I believe that I do well to have that perspective. I answer the questions of the dying with the assurance that God will do all things with love, knowing that every human being is exposed and bare at the point of death, not at all the figure he played during his life.

Shalom