HOW CAN GOD BE RIGHTEOUS AND GOOD IF HE CONDEMNS UNBELIEVERS TO AN ETERNAL HELL?

Atheist Robert Ingersoll (1833-99), reasoned that:

·       Eternal punishment must be eternal cruelty…and I do not see how any man, unless he has the brain of an idiot, or the heart of a wild beast, can believe in eternal punishment.

Is God a horrible monster? It is relatively easy to point out Ingersoll’s logical fallacy. He uses God to disprove God. In essence, he claims that the God fails to measure up to his moral standards of love and justice. However, if there is no God, then there are can exist no objective and absolute moral standards by which to judge Him.

Consequently, when the atheist claims that the God of the Bible is “unjust,” I merely retort:

·       How can you accuse our God of violating an absolute standard of justice? You are a moral relativist and deny that there are any absolute moral standards. Once you reject God, there can be no foundation for objective moral judgments.

Nevertheless, the Bible’s teachings on hell remain a problem for the Church. Even “Christians” condemn the Bible for it’s teachings of a God who judges and punishes. Christian evolutionist and former co-head of the Biologos Foundation, Karl Giberson, approvingly quotes the militant atheist, Richard Dawkins, that the:

·       [OT God is a] “tyrannical anthropomorphic deity” [and] “commanded the Jews to go on genocidal rampages”…But who believes in this [OT] deity any more, besides those same fundamentalists who think the earth is 10,000 years old? Modern theology has moved past this view of God.

How are we to answer?

As Christians, we want to have a coherent faith. We therefore want to understand how this concept of “hell” or “eternal judgment” fits together with the other doctrines we believe about God – His love, justice, omniscience and omnipotence.

However, hell is a notoriously difficult doctrine to defend. For one thing, in order to defend a doctrine, we first have to know what we are defending. However, no one here has ever seen or experienced hell. At least, there is no convincing proof of this.

More importantly, well-meaning Bible interpreters have honest disagreements about the nature of hell. For instance, do we interpret “the lake of fire” (Rev. 21:8; 20:10; Mat. 13:42) literally or figuratively? Does God literally stoke the fires of hell for all eternity, as some pejoratively suggest? If we take this description literally, what then do we do with the teachings that claim that the unrepentant will be cast into “outer darkness” (Mat. 22:13)? It is apparent that at least one of these descriptions must be taken figuratively.

Although the nature of hell or eternal judgment is somewhat unclear, it’s reality and existence is Biblically beyond dispute. So let’s try to lay out what we understand about eternal punishment in an attempt to reconcile hell with the Bible’s teachings about a loving, righteous, and omnipotent God.

I will use a common argument against the Biblical faith as a way to organize a defense:

·       Premise #1: The Bible’s concept of “Hell” or “eternal punishment” is neither just nor merciful.

·       Premise #2: The Bible portrays God as just and merciful.

·       Conclusion:  The Bible’s revelation is contradictory and therefore shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Against Premise #1:

First of all, God’s judgments are regarded as just throughout Scripture. The Book of Proverbs claims that God calls all through His revelations, which are there for the taking:

• Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech: "How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you. But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you. (Proverbs 1:20-26)

The knowledge of God is available to all, but we reject it. As in these verse, there are so many that reveal that God continues to implore us to accept Him, but we refuse. Why? We refuse to acknowledge our debt to Him. We want to go our own way, and refuse to tolerate the presence of a God who rebukes us. Therefore, we prefer to run from the light of light and to hide our misdeeds in the darkness (John 3:19-20).

He would plead with Israel to return to Him:

• “Go, proclaim this message toward the north: 'Return, faithless Israel,' declares the LORD, 'I will frown on you no longer, for I am merciful,' declares the LORD, 'I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt-- you have rebelled against the LORD your God, you have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every spreading tree, and have not obeyed me,'” (Jeremiah 3:12-13)

However, Israel would continue to rebel and refuse to acknowledge their guilt. Is God unjust for punishing? Certainly not if Israel deserved the punishment.

Besides, according to the Bible, the punishment fits the crime. Jesus taught that there are many degrees of punishment:

·       "Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.” (Matthew 11:21-22)

We do not know what form these varying degrees of punishment take. However, for those who have more evidence, judgment will be less bearable than for those who had less evidence:

·       But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. (Luke 12:48)

I would ask the atheist, “What is unjust about the penalty fitting the crime? Or how does this teaching about punishment contradict God’s character?” He might respond that no God worth His salt would punish. However, this fails to show that there is a contradiction in Biblical revelation – the very thing that the atheist must demonstrate.

We do not know enough about hell to indict our Lord for “injustice” or to prove that the Bible contradicts itself. There are too many interpretive uncertainties. While the atheists focus only the most egregious aspect of the teachings – eternal burning - this might be figurative and might only apply to the worst offenders. In fact, Jesus associated the “weeping…and gnashing of teeth” of hell with their own regrets in having eternally missed out on the blessings of the kingdom, rather than any proactive divine torture:

·       "There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.” (Luke 13:28)

I would ask the atheist how this represents a Bible contradiction. Perhaps also we have been too quick to dismiss annihilationism as one possible form of eternal punishment – perhaps even the worst one. There is not a verse that absolutely rules out annihilation as one possible punishment out of many others! (Some Christians argue that we have an eternal soul, and therefore, it is indestructible, precluding any possibility of annihilation. However, this notion seems to be contradicted by numerous verses – 1 Tim. 6:16; 2 Tim 1:9-10; 1 Cor. 15:50-54).

Therefore, when the atheist rails against the injustice of God in sentencing unbelievers to eternal punishment, I ask them if their judgment would be any different if I would show them verses pointing to annihilation, and there are many. For instance:

·       “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)

·       They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power. (2 Thes. 1:9)

Perhaps these (and numerous other verses) are not teaching annihilationism, but the atheist must now answer whether he would consider this too as evidence of contradiction.

Of course, the atheist will retort, “If God is truly merciful, He would destroy no one.” However, we can simply respond, “Where in the Bible does it suggest that God must continue to be merciful towards those who continue to harden their hearts against Him?” Of course, God’s mercy makes no such guarantee!

Against Premise #2:

We often assume that eternal punishment is not compatible with an all-living God, but what if the condemned have freely chosen their condemnation? Instead, what if God is not doing the judging? In fact, Even though the Father had committed judgment to the Son (John 5:22), Jesus denied that He would directly be involved in judgment:

·       "As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day. (John 12:47-48; 5:45; 8:15)

I am convinced that our Lord has been wrongly indicted. Instead, it is the word that we have implanted in our hearts that will judge us (Romans 2:15-16). This word is a source of guilt and shame when it is violated. These feelings cause us to flee from the Lord.

Although there will be a great and final judgment, it seems that the damned are already self-damned. They do not want to be in God’s presence and under His scrutiny and flee from Him:

• For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict [or “condemnation;” KJV; “judgment;” NASB, ESV]: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. (John 3:17-20)

Jesus taught that He will not “condemn the world.” Instead, the unbeliever is “condemned already.” How did this take place? He condemned himself through his love of the darkness and rejection of the truth (“light”).  He fled away from his one hope, Jesus.

Besides, if they reject the light in this world, how much more will they reject the searing and searching light of God in the next, where His light will beam even more intensely to expose their sins! They will continue to reject the light and run from it.

How does this represent the injustice of God? How does this contradict God’s revealed character? It doesn’t!

Indeed, there is a lot of Biblical evidence that when we embrace sin, we hate the light that exposes it. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, they hid from God, lied to Him and even blamed Him. Never once did they confess their sin and ask for another chance. And when they were promised death and expelled from the presence of God, they seemed to gladly accept the verdict (Gen. 3) in order to be free from God’s searing light.

In Jesus’ parable, when the unrepentant rich man cried out to God from his place of torment, he never once asked to be brought to where God is. Instead, he simply asked that he might be given some relief in hell (Luke 16:19-31). Such is the hatred of the light! Does this negate God’s love for His creation? Not at all. Instead, He seems to allow us to have what we desire.

There are many other verses that suggest that the unrepentant are self-condemned by their flight from the light (Isaiah 33:14-15; 2:20-22; Psalm 1:5; 15:1-2; 24:3; Deut 5:25; Deut. 5:25; Mal. 3:2).

What then should we make of the great judgment if humanity is already self-condemned (Rev. 20:11)? Perhaps the lovers of the dark will merely flee away, unable to stand before a righteous God in view of their unforgiven sins.

Indeed, for us, the great judgment will merely confirm what we have already chosen (1 Thess. 4:14-17; 1 John 3:2; John 3:21). Perhaps, also for the unbeliever, the judgment will merely rubber-stamp what has already become quite obvious and what they had chosen for themselves.

Where then is the injustice? And how does this contradict the Bible’s claims about God? The atheist might attempt to accuse God of lacking in mercy:

• “If God is all-powerful, then He could have changed everyone’s heart to love the light!”

This represents a common misconception about God’s omnipotence. While God can do anything He wants to do, He cannot do it in any way we might desire. There are things that God cannot do. He cannot sin or break His promises. He cannot save in any way that we might wish. He is constrained by His holy nature, as strange as this might seem. Jesus had prayed that, if there was some other way for the Father to accomplish His purpose in salvation, He should not require Jesus to suffer the crucifixion. However, there was no other way.

We also assume that there might have been a less painful or punitive way for God to accomplish His purposes, but perhaps there wasn’t. There is a lot that we do not understand about our Redeemer. Therefore, we shouldn’t be hasty to bring indictments against Him, as Job had.

In addition to this, the atheists’ understanding of mercy isn’t the Bible’s understanding of mercy. Unlike justice, mercy can discriminate. God is free to choose the objects of his mercy as we can choose who to invite to our party. There is nothing illegitimate about this. The Bible never claims that God will be merciful to all. Therefore, there is no contradiction between hell and what the Bible claims about God.

Nevertheless, it does seem that, in the end, God will pour out His Spirit upon all the people who remain, and there will be a great salvation (Joel 2:28; Romans 11:15; Rev. 1:7; Mat. 24:30; Isaiah 66:22-23; Zech. 14:16-18)! Our God is indeed merciful!

Nevertheless, there is a hell and the prospect of landing there is a terror, as it should be:

• The study, appearing in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE, found that criminal activity is lower in societies where people's religious beliefs contain a strong punitive component than in places where religious beliefs are more benevolent. A country where many more people believe in heaven than in hell, for example, is likely to have a much higher crime rate than one where these beliefs are about equal. The finding surfaced from a comprehensive analysis of 26 years of data involving 143,197 people in 67 countries. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4971023/

Perhaps we need a greater dose of hell. Perhaps we need to revisit Jonathan Edwards and his sermon – Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God – which had reportedly brought many to repent of their sins. Nevertheless, this essay will certainly not relieve all of our confusion on the subject. However, for some of us, it is sufficient to know that our Savior suffers along with us (Isaiah 63:9; Hebrews 4:15). Others are comforted in knowing that, in the end, He will explain and justify all of the confusing elements. Indeed, our God has many secrets (Deut. 29:29), which He purposely keeps close to His breast. Consequently, we see only shadows (1 Cor. 13:9, 12).

Abraham saw only the mysterious shadows when God asked him to go against everything he understood and to offer his promised son Isaac as a sacrifice. Our Lord also thrusts us into situations where understanding fails us, and we are forced to walk only by the light available in the “valley of the shadow of death.” However, we are able to find comfort knowing that He is at our side, and that, one day, we will see Him as He truly is.

NATURALISM OF THE GAPS

In Shadow of Oz Theistic Evolution and the Absent God, Wayne D. Rossiter argues that theistic evolution (TE) compromises the Biblical faith in many ways. He uses the example of Karl Giberson, the co-founder of The Biologos Foundation whose vision is to convert the Church to TE:

* Giberson warns, “As soon as we start highlighting specific places where we think we glimpse God’s handiwork, we open ourselves to the old ‘God of the gaps’ problem.” This is telling. Giberson admits here that theistic evolutionists are not open to the possibility that any phenomenon is the direct work of God.

"The old ‘God of the gaps’ problem" is the false accusation that the God explanation exists only in the remaining gaps left by naturalistic science. However, as science continues to fill in the gaps of our knowledge, God will become increasingly more irrelevant.

However, such reasoning is illogical. It wrongly assumes that God is opposed to science. Instead, God - His creation and His elegant, universal, and immutable laws - serves as the foundation of science. Consequently, every finding of science should give credit to its Creator!

Likewise, Rossiter rips into the TE formulation:

* The claim is that, if there is a natural explanation for a phenomenon, God didn’t (directly) do it. At the same time, we’re not allowed to invoke God where explanations are lacking (i.e., the “gaps”). Said another way, if we can explain it, God is unnecessary, and if we can’t explain it today, we still shouldn’t invoke God, on the off chance an explanation emerges in the future. This is somewhat like betting on a coin flip where the rules are heads–I win, and tails–you lose. Both the explained and unexplained phenomena are off limits. That is, there is no situation where the agency of God can be invoked.

Hence, God has been eliminated by TE fiat. However, since the evolutionist cannot offer any evidence that anything is caused naturally and unintelligently, we can just as easily indict the TE position with the charge of "naturalism of the gaps."

MY RESPONSE TO A THEISTIC EVOLUTIONIST (TE)

I usually don’t answer personal attacks, but I feel led to make an exception in your case. You attack me as unloving. While it is true that I am not here to “make nice,” I think that the biblical concept of love is broader than that. Just look at Jesus’ denunciations of the Pharisees and even His own disciples, calling Peter “Satan.”

Although love is primarily focused on what the other person needs most, it can take many different forms.

• My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20) 

I wish that this could always be done by “making nice,” but it often requires more than that. Sometimes – and there are many examples of this in the NT – it requires direct speaking, even when it might be painful.

You smear me by calling me “a modern biblical literalist.” No one is a literalist. I certainly don’t follow Jesus literally when He taught to “pluck your eye out,” nor does anyone else. We are not such idiots, as the TE would have us, that we cannot discern between literal and figurative language.

Meanwhile you claim that the TE has a high view of Scripture. However, the TE clearly does not have a high view of Scripture when he dismisses the historicity of Adam, even though he is found in genealogies, and dismiss the many NT references to the first several chapters of Genesis as historical.

“Well, so what,” you might say. This is serious! If you are unwilling to accept what the Bible so unimpeachably and historically teaches about the physical world, how can you take seriously what the Bible teaches about the spiritual world? You can’t, as Jesus explained to Nicodemus:

• "You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things?  I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of HEAVENLY THINGS? (John 3:10-12)

If the Bible is errant in what it teaches about the physical world, there is absolutely no reason to trust in what it says about the spiritual. Consequently, I have found that TEs’ views on ethical questions are almost indistinguishable from those of the educated elite. I wish it were otherwise.

You defend your faith in the Bible by what you have personally experienced, and that is good, but it clearly isn’t enough. One of your own, Karl Giberson, wrote:

• “Acid is an appropriate metaphor for the erosion of my fundamentalism, as I slowly lost confidence in the Genesis story of creation and the scientific creationism that placed this ancient story within the framework of modern science….[Darwin’s] acid dissolved Adam and Eve; it ate through the Garden of Eden; it destroyed the historicity of the events of creation week. It etched holes in those parts of Christianity connected to the stories—the fall, “Christ as the second Adam,” the origins of sin, and nearly everything else that I counted sacred.” (Saving Darwin, 9-10)

Although he then insisted that this was as far as the acid would go, he later called the God of the OT a “genocidal maniac.” Should we not be concerned about this acid?

The Most Lethal Weapon of Mass Destruction: The Secular Variety

A speaker at one secular humanism meeting strenuously advocated for the promotion of evolution. According to him, evolution is the best tool available to dismantle the Christian faith, and, for good reason.

Theistic evolutionist and former co-head of the Biologos Foundation, Karl Giberson, had written that evolution had undermined much of his biblical faith:

• “Acid is an appropriate metaphor for the erosion of my fundamentalism, as I slowly lost confidence in the Genesis story of creation and the scientific creationism that placed this ancient story within the framework of modern science. Dennett’s universal acid dissolved Adam and Eve; it ate through the Garden of Eden; it destroyed the historicity of the events of creation week. It etched holes in those parts of Christianity connected to the stories—the fall, “Christ as the second Adam,” the origins of sin, and nearly everything else that I counted sacred.” (Saving Darwin, 9-10)

However, I think that events have proven that secular humanism has a far more lethal weapon: free sex! How has modern secularism succeeded with this weapon? It has promoted free sex from all of its many and powerful pulpits – the schools, the media, the universities, Hollywood, and the courts. Its sermon is simple and persuasive:

• If you fear to follow your sexual passions, you are puritanical, imprisoned by ancient taboos, and missing out on life! 

And we all have sexual passions. Especially for the youth, these passions are a consuming fire looking for an outlet. They are an open vat of gasoline awaiting a spark or the right encouragement, and secularists are more than ready to provide this encouragement.

Why? For one thing, those who engage in deviant sexual practices know that it is wrong. The one who masturbates before computer porn or commits adultery knows it’s wrong. Therefore, when anyone points an accusing finger, he reacts angrily. Instead, if his wife accuses him of always wearing blue shirts, he will laugh, because he does not feel the slightest degree of guilt for this.

Meanwhile, Jesus was hated for speaking the truth. Why?

• “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.” (John 7:7)

Whenever we live for Christ, we are a reminder to the world that its sexual conduct is evil:

• But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. (2 Corinthians 2:14-16)

To a world that has violated its own conscience and sexual mores, we are a smell of death, a reminder of their guilt. This is the way we were as teens. When we violated our moral standards and those of our parents, we became distant from them. The presence of our parents was like a light revealing our sins and shame. We, therefore, resented them and tried to distance ourselves, feeling “their disapproval.”

But was it their disapproval, or were we merely projecting our own feelings of guilt? We felt guilty and defensive and became convinced that they were the source of our guilt. We therefore ran from their light and preferred the darkness of those who lived and believed as we did.

This is what Jesus taught:

• This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light.” (John 3:19-21)

If we hate the light because it exposes our sins, we also hate the church, “the pillar of truth,” for the same reason. We complain that the church is judgmental, even though it is our own conscience that judges us and eventually separates us from the church.

If we live like Jesus, we will be drawn to Him, as He stated:

• “If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” (John 7:17)

If we live in opposition to Jesus, we will be drawn away from Him. And the secularist is not ignorant to this fact. If free sex and the allure of exploring one’s sexuality entice our youth, they will then be repelled by the church, no matter how loving the parents or the pastor. I have known numerous such parents who have been rejected by their children who demanded clear and unambiguous affirmations for their sexual lifestyle. In order to “keep” their children, some parents and pastors have tragically acquiesced.

However, they have not acquiesced in accordance with reason but in opposition. It seems that nothing will destroy us quicker than sexual sins. We don’t even have to look at the stats. Scripture tells us all that we need to know:

• Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and RECEIVED IN THEMSELVES THE DUE PENALTY FOR THEIR PERVERSION. (Romans 1:26-27)

• Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins SEXUALLY SINS AGAINST HIS OWN BODY. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)

While sexuality was given to us as a blessing from God, blessings, wrongly used, can also become agents of self-destruction, also impacting others.