BSR 14: A Loving God Wouldn’t Send People to Hell

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Most teachers pass a higher fraction of students than God allows into heaven. For those people who don’t deserve heaven, don’t blame them—blame their Maker.

Summary of reply: Christians need to rethink the entrance requirements for heaven, since Jesus made clear that most of us won’t make it in. And why should someone be punished for failing to seek the Christian god instead of any other?

(These Bite-Size Replies are responses to “Quick Shots,” brief Christian responses to atheist challenges. The introduction to this series is here.)

Challenge to the Christian: A loving God would not send people to hell.

Christian response #1: You can’t expect everyone, good and bad, to get the same treatment in the afterlife. “A loving God must also be just or His love is little more than an empty expression.”

Does that apply to Grandma as well? Is her unconditional love an “empty expression” since it’s not tied to justice? Uh, no—this lockstep connection between love and justice is imaginary.

The apologist wants to explore different entry requirements for the afterlife. How fair would it be if the same afterlife were given to Jeffrey Dahmer (sentenced to 16 life sentences for many murders) and Anne Frank (died at age 15 in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp just weeks before liberation by the Allies)?

But if you think that’s unfair, consider the Christian view: Dahmer, who became a born-again Christian in prison, is now in heaven, while Anne Frank, a Jew who never accepted Jesus as her savior, is in hell. How fair is that?

And the Bible is inconsistent about how one gets into heaven. If God is offended by our sin, he could just forgive, like we do. In fact, he does forgive. In one instance, God says about Israel, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” The parable of the sheep and the goats says that good works get you in. And anyway, everyone already has a ticket to heaven. Paul in Romans 5:18–19 says that no one had to opt in to get Adam’s sin, so no one needs to opt in to get Jesus’s salvation.

You get into heaven if you’ve accepted Jesus, not if you’re a good person? Christians need to work on that story. [Click to tweet]

Christian response #2: God doesn’t send people to hell, and he won’t force people to live with him in heaven.

Jesus said about the afterlife, “Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” This is God’s perfect plan? Most teachers pass a higher fraction of students than God allows into heaven. God made hell knowing that most people would end up there, and yet somehow he gets no blame for creating this catastrophe. Nope—if people are imperfect, blame their Maker.

A popular Christian rationalization is that God wants us in heaven, but he’s not going to force us there. And yet in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, where the rich man is sent to hell after death, it’s clear that he really doesn’t want to be there. No, you wouldn’t have to drag him to the Good Place.

Sending people to hell isn’t the loving thing to do. This “God is a gentleman and won’t force himself on anyone” argument is ridiculous. God should know how relationships work, and this isn’t it. If God wants people to love him, he can be worthy of love. Being indistinguishable from nonexistent isn’t the way to get there.

Most teachers pass a higher fraction of students than God allows into heaven. For those people who don’t deserve heaven, don’t blame them—blame their Maker. [Click to tweet]

Christian response #3: People in hell aren’t tortured, though they will be tormented. Denying God’s offer of heaven becomes your choice to go to hell.

Tortured, tormented—whatever. Either one is bad, and God is to blame.

If heaven or hell is our choice, not God’s (charging God with sending us to hell is against the rules, apparently), why the secrecy? Why doesn’t God lay his cards on the table to let us make an informed decision?

“Just read the Bible” is no answer, because the Bible is unclear. God should make himself known, convince everyone that heaven and hell exist, and explain the entrance requirements. No one should be expected to believe the unbelievable.

Why elevate the Christian claim of heaven over the afterlife claims of any other religion? Alternatively, why should someone be punished for failing to seek God rather than failing to seek Allah, Xenu, Zeus, Quetzalcoatl, or any other god? See the questions as merely cultural—in the West, most believers are Christian—and Christianity dissolves into just a local custom.

Why the secrecy surrounding hell? God should make himself known, convince everyone that heaven and hell exist, and explain the entrance requirements. No one should believe the unbelievable. [Click to tweet]

(The Quick Shot I’m replying to is here.)

Continue to BSR 15: Jesus Didn’t Even Think He Was God

For further reading:

If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse.
— Woody Allen

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Image from Jaroslav Devia, CC license
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