Thursday, May 1, 2014

Would A Loving God Really Send People To HELL?

"In our culture, divine judgment is one of Christianity's most offensive doctrines."  So says Timothy Keller, pastor of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, a church with 6,000 regular attendees at five services each Sunday.  As a minister and preacher, he says, he often finds himself speaking on Biblical texts that teach the wrath of God, the final judgment, and the doctrine of Hell.

In Christianity, suggests Keller, God is both a God of love and of justice.  Many believe that a loving God can't be a judging God filled with wrath and anger, Keller continues. "If he is loving and perfect, he should forgive and accept everyone.  He shouldn't get angry."

Keller then points out that all loving persons are sometimes filled with wrath, not just despite but because of their love.  If you love a person, he says, and you see someone ruining them with unwise actions and relationships ---- even done by the loved person themselves ---- you get angry.

"Ah," says Keller, "fighting evil and injustice in the world is one thing, but sending people to Hell is quite another.  The Bible speaks of eternal punishment, but sending people to Hell as popularly envisioned is much more extreme.

I remember that as a college freshman I was required to take a Humanities course with a challenging reading list.  One of the requirements was to read Dante's Inferno and discuss in class the symbolism and fearful consequences of possibly going to Hell when we die. The instructor came prepared, with a selection of reproduction pictures of a flaming landscape rendered by famous Renaissance painters.  His portfolio showed in excruciating detail each of the layers of Hell, as Dante visualized them, and to this day I can recall these dreadful scenes.

Keller's analysis continues:  "Modern people inevitably think Hell works like this:  God gives us time, but if we haven't made the right choices by the end of our lives, he casts our souls into Hell for all eternity.  As the poor souls fall through space, they cry out for mercy, but God says "Too late!  You had your chance!  Now you will suffer!"  But, says Keller, this caricature misunderstands the very nature of evil.

The Biblical picture, according to Keller, is that sin is our separation from the presence of God, which is the source of all joy and indeed of all love, wisdom, and good things of any sort.  Since we were originally created for God's immediate presence, only before his face will we thrive, flourish, and achieve our highest potential.  If we were to lose his presence totally, that would be Hell ---- the loss of our capability for giving or receiving love or joy.

A traditional image of Hell, Keller tells us, is that of fire.  Fire disintegrates.  Even in this life we can see the kind of soul disintegration that self-centeredness creates.  We know how selfishness and self-absorption leads to bitterness, envy, anxiety, paranoid thoughts, and the mental denials and distortions that accompany them.

Now ask the question:  "What if when we die we don't end, but spiritually our life extends on into eternity?"  Hell, then, is the trajectory of a soul, living a self-absorbed, self-centered life, going on and on forever.

Keller concludes that Hell is simply one's freely chosen identity to be separated from God on a trajectory that goes on for a billion years.  We see small examples of this process in addictions to drugs, alcohol, gambling and pornography.  First, there is some kind of dependency (but not on God), says Keller, and as time goes on one needs more and more of the addictive substance to get an equal kick, which leads to less and less satisfaction. Second, there is isolation increasingly, by one's blame of others and circumstances, in order to justify one's own behavior.  When we build our lives on anything but God, says Keller, that thing ---- though perhaps a "good" thing in a sense (for example, wealth) ---- becomes an enslaving addiction, something we must have to be happy.  Keller believes that this personal dependency can go on forever, with increasing isolation, denial, delusion and self-absorption.  

People go to Heaven, Keller says, because they love God and want to submit to him. People go to Hell because they want to be away from God, because they do not want somebody telling them how to live their lives.  They want to be their own savior, their own lord.  They want to live their lives their own way.  That's Hell.  Keller believes that Hell is eternal, but it is not inevitable.  God gives you what you want.  He says that Heaven and Hell essentially are our freely chosen identities, going on forever.  And, says Keller, you stay wanting it; you cannot suddenly change your mind.

So, Keller leaves us with this thought:  It is not a question of God "sending" us to Hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE Hell unless we nip it in the bud.
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal growth this year at CPC.
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