Would a Loving God Put Anyone in Hell? Part 2

Why would a loving God send people to Hell? This is one of most difficult questions in the Bible. Yesterday, I hopefully established that for Bible believers, there is no doubt about it. Yes, there is a Hell and the reprobate will eventually spend eternity there. Today, I would like to explore several theories as to why God created creatures that will live in eternal separation from Him and how this is consistent with His other attributes, including His love.

First, as in yesterday's article, the fastest way to eliminate the seeming contradiction is to deny that Hell exists at all. The pastor from the 20/20 broadcast retreated to this position as his only way of handling the paradox. The horrible problem that he created for himself was to diminish the Scriptures, and relegate them to a collection of men's thoughts about God. Unwittingly, he took the very foundation of the Christianity that he supposedly espouses and shattered it. On what basis can he be certain that Jesus even existed? Which passages does he believe are true and which are merely ruminations of mortal men? Frankly, like many liberal theologians before him, he has set himself up as the final arbiter of truth. He and he alone has the wisdom to decide what is truth, based his current fancy at the biblical smorgasbord.

Another strategy to handle the seeming contradiction between God's love and his wrath is universalism. This is a common view among not only liberals, but with the general public. God will only send people like Adolph Hitler and Charles Manson to Hell. "Good" people like me, will obviously go to Heaven! Look at the popular song by the Verve Pipe entitled "The Freshman". "For the life of me I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins. We were merely freshmen." If you were to ask most folks where they thought that they would spend eternity, they would seldom say Hell. If asked why, they would justify their entry into Heaven based on personal righteousness. "I live a pretty good life", or "I'm a good person." (For you movie goers, in the most recent Harry Potter movie, Sirius Black told Harry, "You’re not a bad person. You’re a very good person, who bad things have happened to.") This view, though sentimental and widely accepted is completely false. Romans 3:10-12 ". . .There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.”

Many who don't want to believe in the Biblical Hell embrace another final strategy, annihilationism. For those few people that actually deserve Hell, God simply wipes them out of existence. For the average schmo, there is little incentive to seek God or fear Him, because if I happen to really mess up in this life, I will simply stop being. This is another soothing and convenient idea. Unfortunately, there is no biblical rationale for annihilationism. Hebrews 9:27 "And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment." Also, as I mentioned yesterday, there are many passages that talk about ETERNAL PUNISHMENT, not eternal SLEEP!

Does all of this mean that God never loved the people that He is going to throw into Hell? Maybe. There are several very well respected theologians, like Arthur Pink, that believe that God's hatred of the reprobate is consistent with His character. They believe that God's hatred for them and His love are mutually exclusive concepts. There are others, like John F. MacArthur Jr. that believe that God has a love-hate relationship with His reprobate creatures. Men like R. C. Sproul believe that God possesses different WILLS. He has a will of disposition that is analogous to human emotion. He has a preceptive will that consists of his law, and he has a declarative will that is irresistible, mainly in regard to His choice of His children and the thoughts and affairs of humanity.

I would like to visit these possibilities more fully in a future blog.

His servant,

D. L. Culiver