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Getting at the Bigger Questions, Part 2: God, Love and Hell

First Things First

Let me get a couple things out of the way off the top: (1) I don't claim to have all the answers. I am a fellow traveler on the journey. And (2) claiming an answer to this level of questions is kind of like the sports magazines listing the top ten anything. Someone is going to disagree. Someone is going to be very emotionally tied to their opinion, doctrine, denominational understanding, and so on. More than providing answers to the questions, I believe my job is to help you figure out what some of the key issues are within these questions and to know how to approach these types of questions later on.

With that, let's dig in. The first question we'll tackle: How could a loving Creator allow people, His creations, to go to hell?

Getting Down to Fundamentals

There are two fundamental places to start when looking at this question. The first is defining what we mean by love and how that definition compares to God's.

Second, we need a better understanding of certain aspects of the nature of God, namely, how His love and sovereignty interact. As a part of that discussion, we'll touch on the concepts we have of hell.

Love Me Tender vs. Tough Love

Unfortunately in our culture we are inundated with pictures of love as sappy romanticism. That view of love incorporates all the "good" and "soft" qualities of love; things like flirtatious glances, soft smiles, kind embraces, passionate kisses, and so on. This unrealistic view of how love operates is reinforced by our media, but not usually lived out in our own relationships. We all understand that with love and commitment can come hurt and pain.

C.S. Lewis gave us descriptions of love that fall into four categories.¹ He describes "affection," "friendship," "eros" and "charity." In Scripture all four are used to describe the types of love that are expressed by and toward God. They are all, thus, parts of His nature. However, there are some common themes that run throughout all of them. One in particular is the nature of choice.

Let me take you back to creation and let's look at how God created. In Genesis 1 and 2 we watch God develop a series of dichotomies in the universe. There is light and dark. Night and day. Water and land. Then all of a sudden we have man on the scene and God tells him not to eat of the one tree. Another dichotomy is born. The choice is to eat or not eat. In this act God reveals to us that in His perfect creation He has created perfect free will (don't freak out Calvinists; we'll get to this issue more deeply in later answers). He didn't create puppets or dolls or creatures who could not interact with Him and the creation. The Fall was a choice (both for Lucifer before the garden and Adam/Eve in the garden). It was a choice between good (the nature of God) and not good.

In short, because God loved us so much He was willing to give us the option to follow or not. This is a much greater understanding of love than the latest chick flick might perpetuate. It's the kind of love that demonstrates that God is so much bigger and more complex than we try to make Him. Does He want His creations to go to hell? Not at all (2 Peter 3:9). Is hell a reality for those who don't choose to follow Him? You bet!

Norm Geisler (with Ron Brooks) has put this concept of love in very stark but understandable terms: "Forced love is rape; and God is not a divine rapist. He will not do anything to coerce their decision. God will not save men at any cost. He respects their freedom and concurs with their choice. He is not a puppet master, but a lover wooing men to Himself."²

Remember back when you were a kid, and your parents punished you? Since most of you probably aren't parents, let me just tell you there's a certain gut wrenching that happens when you battle with the pain of hurting your son or daughter, and knowing that the lesson is for the best of the child in the long run. As the father of four sons, I think I have gotten a taste of how our heavenly Father feels when we turn away and He knows the logical consequence is separation from Him.

This happened recently when our 14-year-old did something wrong and my wife and I needed to discipline him. It did not go over well, and his response was to turn and go to his room and slam the door. My wife looked at me and said, "Did we do the right thing?" My response was, "It is not my job to be popular, but to do the hard thing when it needs to be done."

I believe our Heavenly Father deals with us in very similar ways. When we choose poorly there are consequences and that is part of His love for us.

God's Nature and Being in His Presence

The second issue has to do with that love being a part of His very nature. This is not the only attribute of God that comes into play here. In fact all of His attributes are "in play" all the time — that is who He is. So at the same time that God is loving, He is sovereign. He is the ruler of the universe who knows what is, was and is to come. Hard to fathom, I know, but there are attributes of God that I truly believe we cannot put our minds around clearly, but that doesn't change who God is. If God is Sovereign, that means He is just. A just God must punish sin (Habakkuk 1:13; Revelation 20:11-15).

Many of these questions we ask address the nature of God. But too often we oversimplify things by zeroing in on one of His attributes while ignoring the others. The further questions should be, "how can God be loving and just?" Or, "what does it mean for God to be both providential and a creator of free will?" All of these questions that we will address in this series will hopefully drive us back to the very nature of God. It is in that nature that we find answers and are pointed toward the Truth.

The question we're currently focusing on also assumes that God sends people to hell both by His own choice and against their will. But that simply isn't true. Jesus even cries out as he looks over Jerusalem (Matthew 23:37) and says He longs to bring all people to Himself, like a hen would her brood of chicks. However, he finishes with, "… but you were not willing." Those who choose not to follow God will not be saved. Sounds harsh in our tolerance-oriented society, but that is the reality of our human condition.

Some Thoughts on Hell

Finally, there are some assumptions that have gone around about what hell is like and what goes on there. A couple questions: (1) Does everyone have eternal life? Stop, think about that for a moment. Everyone will live forever, so the question becomes, "Where and with whom?" (2) What is hell? Hell is very simply defined as separation from God. Think about it this way: We know what will happen in Heaven (Revelation 4 and 5). This will be a place of ultimate worship. If someone hated being a part of that during their time on earth wouldn't it be pretty "hellish" to put them in that setting?

In Lewis' book, The Great Divorce, he writes,

There are only two types of people in the end; those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.³

Dig Deep

C O F F E E  S H O P

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How do you reconcile God's love and His sovereignty?

Join the discussion!

I hope you will take the opportunity to think more deeply about the questions we'll be addressing in this series. They are incredibly important questions, the answers to which become the bedrock of our faith. Seek out what others have to say, but most importantly seek out what God says about these issues. Don't expect easy answers or even answers that come to completion — but expect a journey into a deeper understanding of the God who truly does love us and wants us to know Him better.