THE DISQUIETING QUESTION OF HELL As Told by: Lee Strobel (Who's pastor @ Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago).
The Bible says that the Father is loving. The New Testament affirms the same about Jesus. But can they really be loving while at the same time sending people to hell? After all, Jesus teaches more about hell than anyone in the entire Bible. Doesn't that contradict his supposed gentle and compassionate character?
In posing this question to Donald A. Carson (Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School), I quoted the hard- edged words of agnostic Charles Templeton: "How could a loving Heavenly Father create an endless hell and, over the centuries, consign millions of people to it because they do not or cannot or will not accept certain religious beliefs?"
That question, though tweaked for maximum impact, didn't raise Carson's ire. He began with a clarification. "First of all," he said, "I'm not sure that God simply casts people into hell because they don't accept certain beliefs."
He thought for a moment, and then backed up to take a run at a more thorough answer by discussing a subject that many modern people consider a quaint anachronism: sin.
"Picture God in the beginning of creation with a man and woman made in his image," Carson said. "They wake up in the morning and think about God. They love him truly. They delight to do what he wants; it's their whole pleasure. They're rightly related to him and they're rightly related to each other.
"Then, with the entrance of sin and rebellion into the world, these image bearers began to think that they are at the center of the universe. Not literally, but that's the way they think. And that's the way we think. All things we call 'social pathologies- war, rape, bitterness, nurtured envies, secret jealousies, pride, inferiority complexes- are bound up in the first instance with the fact that we're not rightly related with God. The consequence is that people get hurt.
"From God's perspective, that is shockingly disgusting. So what should God do about it? If he says, 'Well, I don't give a rip,' he's saying that evil doesn't matter to him. It's a bit like saying, "Oh yeah, the Holocaust- I don't care." Wouldn't we be shocked if we thought God didn't have moral judgments on such matters?
"But in principle, if he's the sort of God who has moral judgments on these matters, he's got to have moral judgments on this huge matter of all these divine image bearers shaking their puny fists at his face and singing with Frank Sinatra, 'I did it my way.' That's the real nature of sin.
"Having said that, hell is not a place where people are consigned because they were pretty good blokes but just didn't believe the right stuff. They're consigned there, first and foremost, because they defy their Maker and want to be at the center of the universe. Hell is not filled with people who have already repented, only God isn't gentle enough or good enough to let them out. It's filled with people who, for all eternity, still want to be at the center of the universe and who persist in their God- defying rebellion.
"What is God to do? If he says it doesn't matter to him, God is no longer a God to be admired. He's either amoral or positively creepy. For him to act in any other way in the face of such blatant defiance would be to reduce God himself."
I interjected, "Yes, but what seems to bother people the most is the idea that God will torment people for eternity. That seems vicious, doesn't it?"
Replied Carson, "In the first place, the Bible says that there are different degrees of punishment, so I'm not sure that it's the same level of intensity for all people.
"In the second place, if God took his hands off this fallen world so that there was no restraint on human wickedness, we would make hell. Thus if you allow a whole lot of sinners to live somewhere in a confined place where they're not doing damage to anyone but themselves, what do you get but hell? There's a sense in which they're doing it to themselves, and it's what they want because they still don't repent."
I thought Carson was finished with his answer, because he hesitated for a moment. However, he had one more crucial point. "One of the things that the Bible does insist is that in the end not only will justice be done, but justice will be seen to be done, so that every mouth will be stopped."
I grabbed ahold of that last statement. "In other words," I said, "at the time of judgement there is nobody in the world who will walk away from that experience saying that they have been treated unfairly by God. Everyone will recognize the fundamental justice in the way God judges them and the world."
"That's right," Carson said firmly. "Justice is not always done in this world; we see that every day. But on the Last Day it will be done for all to see. And no one will be able to complain by saying, 'This isn't fair.'"
This piece was taken from Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus" - pages 164- 166
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