What the Hell?

So the more I talk with people and students the reason they don’t want to believe in the God of Christianity – is because he sends people to Hell.  Many say things like this: I don’t think God can or should make a distinction between people by sending some to Hell and not others.  I don’t want to believe in a God who damns a huge amount of people for simply not living a good life.  Why or how can a loving God send people to Hell?  

1) Hell is a problem for secular westerners not the rest of the world.  This is true.  If you were to go to the middle east or even the center of Islam they would have no problem with a God who punishes those who refuse to submit to God and his standard.  In fact, many cultures in the world demand a God who does justice and has a consequence for the oppressors, warmongers, murderers, rapists, slave-traders, and just flat out evil.  To those who are oppressed in Darfur or Sudan ask them if they want a God who ignores oppression and the accumulation of wealth for the few and mass starvation for the rest.  None of us have a problem of demanding justice in this world, why then do we have a problem with justice carried into eternity?  If we are eternal beings and our moral spiritual sin affects our eternal lives, it makes sense that there are spiritual consequences for spiritual evil.  

2) The bible actually tells us that those who are going to Hell actually want it.  The bible is quite clear on this.  We don’t go to Hell kicking and screaming – against our will.  We actually have been living for, demanding, and desiring Hell.  Due to our overt desire for autonomy in life, to make our own decisions, and live out our desires, God gives us over to them.  If we don’t want God and want to determine our our lives apart from him – he gives us our desires, even if it contributes to our eternal separation from him.  The bible tells us that separation from God gave us spiritual and physical death.  This separation from God’s good designs has resulted in an exchange.  We have exchanged God for our own autonomy and we become more like “Gollum,” autonomy and selfish desires become the life in the end we crave more than God.  We don’t go into Hell kicking and screaming, we go into Hell demanding God out of our lives for eternity.  

3) A loving God must send people to Hell.  As I have somewhat mentioned already, a loving God that sort of ignores or overlooks evil such as murder and oppression is not loving, he is negligent.  You see it is a loving God who sees with hatred sin which can be compared to something cancerous, something if left alone would eat away and devour life.  This is how God reacts and moves against sin.  He reacts to the destructive and oppressive nature of sin that seeks to devour and destroy all that is good, and all that he loves and made.  Hell is justice to those who have made a life of living outside of God’s designs for life that was meant to flourish. With Hell we have a God of justice, a God who moves out of love to eradicate evil on an eternal scale.