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I’m continuing my series on responses that I got to my post, Ideas in Christianity Putting Some People’s Minds in a Tailspin!.
I said the following: “I’ve heard different people who get their heads in a spin as they try to accept such issues as hell and God’s foreknowledge. I remember a young man calling into Focus on the Family’s Life on the Edge radio program, and he was disturbed by hell. One of the hosts was giving him the usual evangelical ‘You send yourself to hell’ spiel, but that did not satisfy the caller. He felt that God’s foreknowledge of all events took away people’s free-will, for God’s foreknowledge implies that the future is set in stone. When you add hell into the mix, there are people who can arrive at pretty disturbing conclusions, the kinds that can put some people’s minds into a tailspin.”
An evangelical friend of mine responded as follows: “…the thing that never seems to enter into the arguments about hell is that God has made a way of escaping it, and if we follow that way, we don’t have to go there. Hell is another example of consequence, the natural consequence of sin and rebellion. God is rescuing us from the consequences of our sin.”
I think that many people know the problems some have with that answer: What about those who have never heard the Gospel, or people who have heard the Gospel and yet there’s no proof that Christianity is the only true religion, so why should God expect people to accept that and not (say) Islam to escape hell? Regarding sin being a natural consequence, I can somewhat understand where my friend is coming from, for many evangelicals view hell as a post-mortem continuation of sinners’ choices on earth: on earth, sinners choose to do their own thing in independence from God, and they’ll continue doing that for all eternity in hell. I’m not sure how biblical that is, however, for, when I read the Bible, hell does not strike me as a natural consequence of sin, as if hell naturally flows from sin as an effect from a cause, but rather hell appears to me to be a punishment that God imposes on sinners. God created hell as a place where sinners could be punished. That doesn’t sound to me like a natural consequence of sin, but rather as something that’s a result of God’s intervention.
Regarding the whole issue of who has a chance for salvation, I was watching a Christian movie yesterday called The Encounter, in which a group of people come to a diner and meet Jesus Christ. Jesus essentially tells them that everyone on the face of the earth has a chance to be saved: that everyone encounters God in some manner, and is judged after death on how he or she responded to that call. Then, Jesus says that those who don’t encounter Jesus probably wouldn’t have accepted him anyway, which I consider to be ludicrous. But I liked what Jesus said about everyone having a chance to respond to God’s call—and, presumably, he means even those who never heard the Gospel. But what is responding to the call? Is it accepting God’s unconditional love? One of the characters told Jesus that he should know that she responded to the call a while back, and Jesus responded that he knew that she came forward at an altar call, but that Christianity was about more than walking down an aisle, for it entailed having a new heart and embarking on a new way of life. Jesus was essentially saying that she wasn’t saved, even though she made some formal, outward commitment.
I can somewhat see where Jesus in this movie is coming from, for what good is Christianity if it doesn’t somehow touch our lives and make us better (or new) people? I suppose that Christianity can still have some value to a person who does no good works, for that person can comfort herself that she is loved by God. But, in my opinion, part of faith is putting some things into practice, almost like a “use it or lose it” sort of deal. I have a hard time making that a requirement for salvation, however, for that seems to compromise salvation as a free gift from God. And yet, if God truly did hate sin, why would he allow a bunch of carnal Christians into heaven simply because they said some prayer, while eternally burning those who did similar deeds but did not say the magic words?
Certain strands of Christian universalism would say that many sinners may need to be cleansed after their death before they can enter God’s presence. Catholicism has a similar concept, purgatory, but it holds that purgatory only applies to Christians, not to everyone. Strands of Christian universalism, however, maintain that even non-Christians may go to a purgatory and be cleansed before entering heaven, or the new Jerusalem. I think that the movie The Encounter would respond, however, that some people are lost causes. There was one character who was once a football player and became a successful fast-food mogul, and he simply did not want to accept Jesus. He was proud of his accomplishments, which allowed him to rise above his blue-collar background, of which he was ashamed. He did not feel that he needed Jesus. What should God do with him? Let him into heaven, where he would be miserable in God’s presence? Burn him until he cries “uncle”? For many evangelicals, the best solution is for God to send him to hell.
But I guess my problem is with the eternity of hell. Sure, this guy may not be open to God’s love right now, but who’s to say that he will never, ever be open to it? Why foreclose on that possibility?
