Desiring a Mediocre Judgment: A Quick Look into the Age Old Question of “How can a Good God Send People to Hell?”

So lets talk about hell.  That’s what everyone wants to talk about, right? Yeah, maybe not, but most people can agree that it’s an important topic.  Either you believe in hell and it makes you slightly uncomfortable to really think about it, or you don’t believe in hell/don’t know if you believe and have that thought in the back of your mind: “What if there is a hell?  What if I’m going there? No..there isn’t one…surely not, right? A loving God wouldn’t…surely he couldn’t…But what if there is? (…and repeat thought process)”.  Yes, this is definitely a topic for concern.

I will make it clear up front.  I am a Christian.  I believe in the Bible and I believe in a literal Hell.  Constant burning and torture you ask? Maybe, maybe not, honestly I wouldn’t go as far as to be dogmatic on the exact nature of Hell, but I am strongly convinced that whatever Hell is, we will not want to be there.  Anything from fire and infinite torture to simply a permanent separation from God is enough to make me sure I do not want a part in it.  My main purpose here is not to pretend to know what Hell is, but to explain how I believe it is logical and rational to hold a belief in a loving God that sends people to Hell.

Can’t We all Just Go to Heaven?

This is based on the argument that you do not have to accept Christ as your personal Savior, but everyone will be in Heaven.  This doesn’t sound like Heaven to me, it sounds a lot like…Earth.  And it sure doesn’t seem like Heaven here now, so why would it be any better in Heaven if every single person on Earth went to live eternally in Heaven.  Yes, a “Heaven” complete with malicious murderers, child molesters, rapists, Hitler, etc. I’m sure most rational people would say that is no heaven.  God is good.  Justice is part of His Holy nature.  When somebody commits a horrible act, most people want justice, they want to see people like Hitler “get what they deserve”. Obviously anyone that considers themselves moral would not want to share space in Heaven with these people.  Ok, ok, but what about good people? That brings us to the next point…

How Can God Send Good People to Hell?

This must first be defined.  What is “good”?  Who determines who is “good”?  Usually when people argue that God can’t send good people to hell, they mean that God can’t send good people, judged by their own standard, to hell.  Who should be the judge of what good means? Who holds the standard of good in which we judge people?  I would argue that the most suitable one for this position of judgement is God. I think people are expecting a very mediocre judgement when they want to use their own finite standards to judge people’s salvation.

God’s standards according to the Bible are high.  Higher than we can achieve.  So therefore comes Christ’s dying for our sins and His atonement for our sin.  By God’s standards, nobody is suitable for entry to Heaven unless they are covered by the blood of Christ, which makes this the way, according to the Bible and my beliefs, to Heaven.  Yes, the only way.  People argue that Christians are exclusive and close minded because of this, but they don’t feel the same way in other areas.  If a horrible plague broke out and 10 doctors tried to find the cure, the one doctor that finds the cure would exclaim that he has done so. Would people scoff at him and say “that is just one cure, why would I use that, you are excluding the other doctors!”? Think of Christianity as the cure for death, because it brings eternal life.  If it really is true, and it is the only cure then Christians would be highly immoral to not share this cure.  But the purpose of this blog is to discuss hell, not just to convert you to Christianity, so I will continue my discussion…

Hell is Locked From the Inside

C.S. Lewis believed that Hell is a place that is locked from the inside.  The people aren’t happy there, but they wouldn’t be any happier in heaven.  They are self-absorbed to the point of total unhappiness, but they wouldn’t have it any other way.  I believe that if people in Hell had the choice to go to Heaven, it is likely that they would not take the offer.

I also somewhat hold to the view of Annihilationism.  This is the view that if someone totally rejects God over and over, no matter what they experience after death, they will ultimately and eventually be put out of existence.  This topic deserve a post to itself, but I am convinced that this view is worth looking at, though I do not hold this belief firmly.

Conclusion

Ultimately I believe that if anyone has the slightest amount of hope to be saved by God then God will not lose them.  The people that end up in hell, whatever hell may be, will have had all of the opportunity in the world to not be there.  At whatever point, they must have totally shut out God and are hopeless of being saved by their own choice.  Overall, as far as how a good God can send people to hell…a good God is a just God and God would not be just if He didn’t carry out justice by His judgement.  This was a very brief discussion on this topic.  Please comment on Facebook! Or you can comment on this site!  This would make a great discussion!