How Can A Loving God NOT Send People to Hell?

Fair warning, I'm going to talk about Nazis.

I say that, not because it's controversial, but because this is the Internet, and Reductio ad Hitlerum is a thing that I'd like not to be accused of.


"How can a loving God send people to Hell?" is a question that is often asked by Atheists, Agnostics, and let's face it, many Christians as well. It's not a bad question, but I do think it's the wrong question to ask.

I've been reading Eric Metaxas' excellent biography on Detrich Bonhoeffer. I've been engrossed by it for months. It's a great book and it paints the average German living in Nazi Germany in a completely new light, you should read it. One passage caught my attention tonight:

"On the positive side of things, Heydrich was dead. At the end of May, the albino stoat had been ambushed by Czech Resistance fighters while he was riding in his open-topped Mercedes. Eight days later, the architect of the Final Solution fell into the hands of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

The Heydrich he's referring to is Reinhard Heydrich, One of the cheif architects of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. This guy was about as evil as you can get. He's on par with Herr Hitler himself.

Which brings me to the question: "How can a loving God send people to Hell?" It's hard to answer that when talking about your Great Aunt Betty who may have been a lovely woman, but happened to be an Atheist, but easy to answer when talking about such overtly evil men like our friend Heydrich. On the one hand: "She lived a good life, raised good, law-abiding kids and would never hurt a fly. She's in a better place." on the other: "Um...Nazi inner circle...go to hell, go directly to hell, do not pass "Gehen" do not collect 200 "deutschmarks". I have yet to meet a reasonable person who thinks anyone involved in Nazi High command should be in Heaven because "God is love"


Why the disparity?

If God is too good and too loving to let Betty fall into Hell why does He suddenly draw a line at genocide? Is that where God draws the line? What about mass murder? A single murder? Manslaughter? Negligence causing death? Attempted murder? I could go on.

We have something in common, believe it or not. The "How can a loving God send people to Hell?" crowd and the "Hell is hot, forever is a long time, repent and turn to Jesus." crowd. We all believe, whether you admit it or not, that God has to draw a line somewhere; has to say: "You, welcome to my Kingdom!" and "YOU! OUT OF MY SIGHT!" Otherwise, when we get there, we'll see Heydrich and Golda Meir in the same room...

Awkward...

The difference comes in where we draw said line. Christians believe it to be anything short of prefection, that's why Jesus needed to be incarnated on Earth. To live that life, in our place, and give us the credit while He took the punishment. That's why we love Jesus.

Every sane, rational person believes that there are some people who deserve Hell. The difference between them and Christians, is we think that list includes us.

Thank God for Jesus.

Christopher Hitchens and the Glory of God's Mercy

 

     Christopher Hitchens is dead. He died yesterday (Dec 15 2011). He was an Atheist; a loud one. He was 62. He was an author, and a father and a husband; in that order it seems.

If the name and picture don't ring a bell, he's known for saying (with an English accent) things like:

"My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either."

and

“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.”

and

“Thus, though I dislike to differ with such a great man, Voltaire was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of god is the problem to begin with.”

    I respect the man for being vocal about his beliefs (though he wouldn't have called them that) and I can even admire him for the veracity with which he kept them, but there's a section of his Globe and Mail obituary that caught my attention:

"In response to Mr. Hitchens’s outspoken and steadfast atheism, the faithful clamoured to the heavens, organizing prayer groups and even going so far as to designate Sept. 20, 2010, as Pray for Hitchens Day.

Don’t bother, unless it makes you feel better, he told the devout, insisting that he wouldn’t recant his atheism so long as he was lucid and rational. And he issued a plea asking people to forgive him if he did make a deathbed conversion, arguing that if such a thing happened, it wouldn’t be him speaking but a “half-demented” entity racked by pain and riddled with drugs."

     It's his desire to be forgiven by his friends if he recants his Atheism, that gave me pause. It's almost as though he's leaving the possibility for such a conversion... open?  That can't be right, the man was one of the most fervent and outspoken of Atheists yet here he is making a theological statement?

     Hitchens saw the possibility of recanting Atheism and espousing God, if he were "half-demented", drugged up, and in incredible pain. He saw the possibility. What if the Holy Spirit was starting to get to him? Would such a conversion be valid? Could it be? Many would say that it would only be an attempt by Hitchens to "hedge his bets" perhaps as an extreme version of Pascal's wager. Theological misunderstandings of Blaise Pascal aside, what if Hitchens' (hypothetical) conversion was legitimate?

     I have said this many times: the question eternal destination for any person is out of my pay grade. I am not the Lord. I know though, that God gives Grace to the humble though he opposes the proud.

     What if that's really what it took to humble Christopher Hitchens, esophageal cancer, his own death, great pain? What if it happened?

      What if he believed?

     Then I'd have a new brother, that's what.

I hope I do.

Thankful for Grace
-Kevin

Muammar Gaddafi And The Image Of God.

"When we break down, it all breaks down. That's just how it works. You can bend it, and if you make it hot enough you can bend it in a circle, but you can't break it. When you break it, it all breaks down until there's nothing unbroken. It starts here and now."

                                                                                     -His Grace Sir Samuel Vimes
                                                                                                            "Night Watch"

     I don't have a lot of faith in the new Libya. It's a country that I have a certain affinity for. In high school, I was a Libyan representative in the security council of our Model UN. I learned all about Gaddafi; I was his representative. (I won second place) So when I heard that Libya was in an uprising during the recent Arab Spring I kept an eye on the news. Don't get me wrong, I sided with the Libyan freedom fighters (history is unlikley to remember them as rebels I think) like the rest of the world. Gaddafi WAS a despot, he WAS an autocrat. He called down air strikes on unarmed civillians; hard to root for a guy like that.

     There's another thing that Muammar Gaddafi was though; an image bearer of God. Gaddafi WAS a man, he WAS human, this means he was created by God and bore His image (albeit poorly) on this earth. That simple fact means that he was entitled to something he didn't receive at his death: dignity. The reports comming in of Gadaffi's death, or rather the way he died are sketchy at best. It'll be a while before we get the true story if ever. Stories vary wildly, but video that has surfaces on the internet show Gaddafi being manhandled, beaten, dragged, stripped, and stabbed. There is even a story floating around that he was sodomized with a combat knife. His last words were allegedly: "Don't shoot" then he was shot.

      Don't shoot...he had surrendered, he had lost. It's hard to write this post. It's hard to plead mercy for someone like Muammar Gaddafi, but Sir Samuel up there is right, when we break down, when we become the beast we are fighting, it all breaks down. The new Libya could have risen above Gaddafi, by giving him the dignity he didn't give others. Offering the mercy he didn't. Proven that they are not him by being better to him. They failed though, the new country must begin it's history with a black eye. I think it's sad, they're not in an insurmountable position, but they could have started better.

     This raises a new question, how ought we, as Christians, respond to the death of Muammar Gaddafi? Can we rejoice with the end of his regime and be saddened at his treatment? is that the only appropriate response? We all bear God's image in this world and not a single one of us deserves to. Is this the real problem of evil? Not "why does an omnipotent God allow evil" but How do Go's children respond to evil in the world?

     I read a story this week, about Henry Tandy. He spared a young German lance corporal's life in WWI. This is not uncommon, but that lance corporal grew up to become Adolf Hitler. I was conflicted about this story and wondered if his decision to save a nameless man's life ever ate at Tandey. My wife reminded me that mercy is always the better choice. 

     I don't have all the answers, I'm not even sure there are any, but it's times like these I really can pray "How long Oh Lord, will the wicked gloat? How long until You make all things new?"

-Kevin