is hell incompatable with a god of love?   
Answering a tough question in a pluralistic world* 

The Biblical teaching about hell [1] creates a significant stumbling block for unbelievers.  Making matter worse, the traditional doctrine of hell has come under significant attack contemporary evangelicalism.  If the idea hell is becoming increasingly difficult for Christians to accept, [2] how much more will it be difficult to defend against non-believers? In a world of increasing pluralism and relativism, the question “how can a loving God sends people to hell?” rudely exposes the Bible’s “scandal of particularity.”    Christians must be able to response with a thoughtful, and careful answer.   The purpose of his essay is to show how the doctrine of hell presents a formidable problem for the unbeliever, then to show why this is increasingly the case in contemporary society, and finally to demonstrate that the doctrine if hell is not incompatible with a God of love. 

  John Hick writes that the doctrine of hell “has the implied premise either that God...is only limitedly good, ..or only limitedly sovereign.  I therefore believe that the needs of a Christian theodicy compel us to repudiate the idea of eternal punishment.” [3] Peter Kreeft calls the doctrine “probably the most difficult to defend,” [4] and the French philosopher Peirre Bayle commented that hell was “the greatest scandal of our theology for philosophical minds.” [5]   John Sanders observes that “according to some estimates this is the most asked apologetic question of our day.” [6]    Dr. Bradley, in a debate with William Lane Craig, argued that for Christians who accept Jesus’ teaching on hell “are faced with a devastating trilemma.” [7]

                Some scholars argue that the problem of hell is a particularly acute expression of the problem of evil,  especially as it exemplified the existence of gratuitous evil.  Jonathan Kvanvig writes that, “Hell is apparently paradigmatic as an example of truly pointless, gratuitous evil.  Thus arises the problem of hell.” [8]   This pointless and endless suffering in hell, coupled with the idea the God knows that future often rephrases the simpler question: “why did God create people whom He knew would suffer forever in hell?”   Such a question nearly makes God out as a sadistic terrorist, a creator of pointless and eternal suffering.   When faced with such question, a Christian must clarify the difference between the problem of hell and the problem of evil. They are not the same.   According to the Bible, the problem of hell is not an inexplicable problem [9] but the just punishment for sin. [10]   Evil may go unexplained, hell does not.  Hell is always the exercise of God's righteous justice.   Although logical, this introduces another problem that may confound unbelievers: the problem of guilt.     

                There are two main reasons the contemporary world ignores and repudiates the biblical teaching on guilt.  The first reason is the rise of secular humanism.  Mankind, according to the average citizen in the post-enlightenment society, is basically good.  J.I. Packer notes that hell seems unthinkable “for Western Evangelicals living in a post-Christian, human-centered, self-absorbed, feel-good, secular culture which reduces all religion to a private hobby.” [11] If most people are basically good, God's stance towards his creation should be fundamentally one of acceptance and not justice.  As the idea of sin erodes more and more from our culture, so will the concept of guilt, and without guilt, the idea of hell will become nothing more than abrasive rhetoric.   

The second reason stems from the way popular Christianity has increasingly defined God in terms of His love to the exclusion of His holiness. David Wells laments that “in a pyschologized culture such as ours, there is a deep affinity for what is relational but a dis-ease with what is moral.  This carries over into the church as an infatuation with the love of God and an embarrassment at his holiness.” [12]  D. A. Carson points out that this was not always the case, and in past times of church history preaching on the love of God brought great hope.  “Nowadays,” he writes, “if you tell people that God loves them, they are unlikely to be surprised.  Of course God loves me; he's like that, isn't he?” [13]     In light of this disappearance of guilt and sin how should Christians approach the topic of hell that is biblically faithful, logically consistent, and personally sensitive?  I offer five observations:

First, Scripture must define all the terms when discussing apologetic questions with non-believers. Modern culture has re-defined biblical words.    A humanist definition of mankind coupled with a biblical teaching of hell can indeed wreak havoc, leaving the unbeliever with an tyrannical understanding of God.  What is needed is a return to the holiness of God, not in spite of the emphasis on his love, nor merely to balance out the rhetoric of his love, but to make his love appear as ravishing and as demanding as it is in scripture.  The concept of “evil,” for example, has gained popularity in public discourse, especially post 9-11.  What needs to be reinforced is that the evil on the TV screens is all too often the same evil that lies in every human heart.   Remarkably, this is an observation made by those who have seen the darkest shades of evil.  Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Laureate and survivor of Stalin's Gulags saw the true origin of evil during his experience in prison. “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts.” [14]   What the world so often leaves out, however, is that the greatest of all evils is not what man does to man, but what man does to God. God is always the most offended party. [15]   Sadly, in many churches the demanding holiness of God is minimized, the category “judge” is replaced with “friend,”  making doctrine of hell becomes less and less believable.  Let the church be warned: the task of apologetics is hurt, not helped, when the awe-ful majesty of God is cloaked beneath the façade of a cheerful accepting grandfather-deity. 

Secondly, Christians must emphasize that believing in hell does not means Christians enjoy the idea of hell or find any pleasure in sinners suffering their just punishment.   Nothing could be worse than caricaturing [16] or giving the impression that Christians find gratification in the doctrine of hell.  N.T. Wright points out that one of the greatest dangers in believing in hell is allowing that belief to turn into the desire to see others punished. [17]   Robert M’Cheyne’s first  question he asked after his friend had spoken on hell was, “did you preach it with tears?” [18]  May apologist mingle tears with their logic, never giving unbelievers the impression that hell is a pleasure to defend.           

                Thirdly, it must be underscored that hell is an expression of the perfect justice of God.  Hell is fair because God is fair.  The punishment is fitting for the crime, and the Bible is very clear to show who goes to hell.  Unlike in Islam, where Allah's mercy is somewhat arbitrary, God's gives clear teaching about who deserves punishment.  C.S. Lewis begins his famous apologetic for Christianity by pointing out that in nearly all cultures there is some concept of a moral standard, a “Law of Nature or decent behavior” that gives shape to the concept of fairness. [19]   N.T. Wright argues something very similar in his defense of the Christian faith, noting that “a sense of justice comes with the kit of being human.” [20]   Fairness means justice.  And, as Kreeft and Tachelli note, “justice demands punishment for evil.” [21] Humans are in quite a dilemma:  a hunger for justice is woven deeply into the human psyche.  Yet it is this very justice that condemns us before God. [22] Much of the modern repulsion of hell is simply inconsistence:  “God should be just, but not with me.”   For this very reason nearly all of the major religions teach some form of hell.  If there is any perception of a higher power, it is always linked with a form of justice.  With justice comes injustice, with injustice, hell. 

                Fourthly, many Christians thinkers have argued that hell is essentially self-induced.  Hell is not for the “unlucky” person who happens to get on God’s bad side.  Hell, rather, is the culmination of the deprivation of good which sin always brings. [23]   This parallels what can be known of sin in everyday life.  Dark movies are not happy movies, and wicked men are rarely models of joy and bliss.  Hell is the infinite exaggeration of this principal.  The selfish man is never knows the joys of contentment, the angry man never knows the joys of love, the bitter man never knows the joys of forgiveness.  As Lewis remarked, hell is “locked from the inside” [24] and mankind’s rebellions again what is their greatest good (God) necessarily dictates their own torment.  In this sense, heaven, with all its joys, would only be torment (i.e. hell) to those whose hearts have been twisted by bitterness, self-centeredness, and sin. 

Fifthly, Christians give a defense of the faith not because Christianity is therapeutic, but because it is true.  This may seem obvious, but many evangelistic situations in contemporary American culture there is the implicit message that Christianity should be accepted more because it is helpful than because it is true.  Again, C.S. Lewis says it best:

“One of the greatest difficulties is to keep before the audience’s mind the question of Truth.  They always think you are recommending Christianity not because it is true but because it is good.  And in the discussion they will at every moment try to escape from the issue “True--  or False” into stuff about a good society, or morals, … the Spanish Inquisition, or France.. or anything whatever.” [25]

                Christ warns his disciples that to become his witnesses will mean that they will be hated by the world.  Again and again Christ was confronted by others, and hated by others because of his unrelenting condemnation of human sin.  “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”  Because their deeds are evil they reject the light, because their deeds are evil they are deserving of hell, and because their deeds are evil they recoil at its very idea.   

                In American today, where the cheerful attitude, “let's all get along” seems to pervade so many religion discussions, hell is not popular and never will be.  But as Kierkegaard warned, Christians are not geniuses; they are apostles. [26]   Even the apologists.  Christians are not called to make perfect sense of all that God says, warns, and demands in scripture.  But they are called to  give a faithful and logical account of it.  The question of a loving God sending people to hell is not comfortable or easy, but neither is it illogical or a contradiction in terms.  And to this,  whether “in season or out of season” Christians must be faithful.