Apologetics: The Problem of Hell

Background: Hell, a unique evil

Most Apparently Egregious

What many people think of when they think of hell is a cavernous bunker full of demons, hot pokers, fire, and torment. Hell is known as the setting for much weeping and gnashing of teeth. Writers and painters over the millennia have depicted this forlorn place using the worst sights, sounds, and sensations their imaginations can conjur.

This is the picture both the churched and unchurched commonly have in their heads when contemplating hell. This gruesome image presents as a difficulty for the Christian whose obligated to submit to God’s will and be a voice of His truth. For those not already favorably inclined towards God because of a trusting relationship with him, the suggestion that such an ugly, terrifying place is real and where people whose names are not written in the book of life go for all eternity is revolting. Add to that warnings that such a place is their final destination, and you can see how hell can be a problem that apologetics needs to address.

When presented with a place like hell, many naturally wonder why God would create a place like it. To the nonChristian, hell presents as a particularly gratuitous, pointless evil because no further good can come from it. As Jonathan Kvanvig in his book The Problem of Hell put it, “the evil of hell leads nowhere.” The damned never learn their lesson. They never reform. The saved are in no way benefitted from the damned’s punishment. Hell seems to them wholly egregious. Hell on this account renders Christianity internally inconsistent and, therefore, false.

The Problem of Hell as it relates to the Problem of Evil

Being well-versed in the problem of evil is of limited usefulness for discussions of hell. The two problems do partially overlap. Both share common themes of suffering, evil, punishment, and justice. After all, hell is location of most intense suffering and damnation would be the most severe punishment.

A portion of the responses to the problem of evil can apply to conversations involving the problem of hell. In particular, we may justify hell on the grounds that infractions against God’s laws warrant this hell as punishment, despite the apparent excessiveness of the sentence. We may refer to the higher-order good of heaven as justifying the opposite alternative to heaven that is hell. We may also appeal to the natural consequences of denying God’s sovereignty over one’s life as resulting in an ultimate severance of that relationship in the form of hell.

The problem of hell is unique, however, and cannot be treated as another one of the many existing evils. The problem of hell and the problem of evil are different in one key area. The Bible is frequently silent about why specific evils befall us. Theodicies are needful because scripture has other emphases than codifying God’s complete rationale for suffering. For good or for ill, humans have endeavored to fill in the gaps between what we experience and what God has told us.

Hell differs from other forms of evil insofar as theistic traditions speak to it, what happens there (at least metaphorically), and why people suffer that end. This makes hell unique in discussions of evil. The revealed justification for hell is what makes it problematic, whereas the absence of justification (and suspicion that none could be adequate) is what makes evil generally problematic.

I need to make a short but important aside at this point. We can’t take the case too far, as though all afterlife issues are cut and dry. We are constrained by scripture. On this issue, however, we have greater leeway than we do on other topics such as the personhood of Christ. Although hell is referenced in both the Old and New Testament, it is not thoroughly explained. “Heaven” is written more than six times as frequently as “hell.” It follows that some theologians have developed a rationale strictly extrapolating from those passages. Others have taken the far more detailed descriptions and instructions regarding salvation and supposed them to be mirror images of the path to damnation. We’ll see theses varying interpretations when we review the models of hell later.

To conclude our analysis, some philosophers consider the problem of hell the most serious version of the problem of evil. Kvanvig asserts that hell is especially thorny for theists insofar as theodicies don’t square with isolated biblical verses. As you’ll recall, much of our time in dealing with the problem of evil was spent discussing possible rationales for why it is God would allow evil. Those theoretical justifications can conflict with God’s stated purposes.

The Offensiveness of Hell in our Post-Christian Society

We’ve seen that hell cannot be fully explained by retooling our rejoinders to evil in the world. Even if it could be, we would still need to defend the doctrine. Hell deserves special treatment in our culture because we Christians are labeled as judgmental. We’ve previously observed the background laissez faire sentiment at work around us where people believe we should live and let live. People want to be left alone, especially from negative pronouncements. If our culture agrees on any quality as a virtue, niceness would be one of them. Judging people is considered mean, even if they’re judged accurately. No one should be judgmental, not even God.

Even if some nonChristians would write us off without serious consideration, we should not reciprocate. Their accusations have merit. Misguided Christian judgment is often bandied about on picket signs and website comment boards. Many atheists and agnostics have been told they’re going to hell without the loving relationship or wider Gospel context necessary to communicate a potentially hard truth. Christians have hoped these warnings would be a part of “scared straight”-type intervention into strangers’ lives that would send them running to Christ’s welcoming arms. Their hopes have usually proven to be ill-founded.

Hell is on the short list of many of our contemporaries’ counts against Christianity. Understandably, nonChristians take these pronouncements personally and bristle at our glibness. Because they’re deemed merely sinners rather than children of God who also sin, they walk away thinking this final exile is because of a deficiency in them for which they can’t be blamed. Many of them conclude that Christians don’t think the damned are of the same dignity and worth as the saved, which is also something that warrants addressing.

It’s not just Christians who are criticized as judgmental. The Christian God is likewise criticized. Tim Keller points out that our culture takes umbridge with a God who would punish people for their sincerely held beliefs. Our culture, as we’ve discussed, assumes that sincere or authentic commitment is a substitute for truth. It seems cruel to condemn a person who was mistaken, especially given that he didn’t think he was mistaken and that humans have such a hard time arriving at the truth anyway. We need to speak to that and how ignorant we can really be of God’s existence.

One of things we can’t say to address the problem, tempting though it may be, is the hell isn’t real. Trying to minimize hell comes with a heavy cost. We can’t mitigate the reality of hell without mitigating the reason for the incarnation. Christianity needs to assert the reality and depravity of hell lest Christ’s work on the Cross be for naught. Christ came to save the world from the infernal fate of damnation. He descended into hell and defeated its legions. In order to save lost souls completely, we need to be saved from the real and terrible consequences of sin.  If we abandon the doctrine of hell because of cultural pressures, we lose an essential tenet of the Christian faith.

Since there’s no easy way out, let’s continue on into a more detailed discussion.

There are a few broad objections regarding hell, both its alleged injustice and its hatefulness. We’ll cover them briefly. Thereafter, we’ll mention varying conceptions of hell, that is different understandings of what hell is like. Then we’ll investigate models of hell, that is different understandings of why hell exists. At that time, we’ll discuss the specific objections regarding each model. Lastly, we’ll close with other responses to the problem of hell.

Hell is Unjust

Some people object to the Judeo-Christian God on the grounds that hell is an unjust punishment. The objection presumes incommensurability between the degree of the crime and the extent of the punishment. How can a person do enough harm in a human lifespan to warrant eternal torment? In our justice system, the most heinous criminals often receive sentences lasting hundreds of years. But, their punishment has a prescribed end. They would be released from prison if they lived that long. According to God’s justice, though, the sentence is everlasting.

As apologists, we’ll need to explain why God’s justice is so much more exacting than our own.

Hell is Unloving

Others claim there’s a contradiction between the doctrine of hell and the Christian view of God. The cruelty of hell seems incompatible with a loving God whose proclaimed his desire that all be saved and come to know the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). How can someone who loves us consign us to a permanently depraved state?

As apologists, we’ll need to explain how God’s love and wrath coexist and how they do so in a manner that is moral.

Conceptions of Hell

Before we get started addressing those objections, I want to say a word about what hell is like. Our idea of hell’s origin is the earliest Old Testament references that likened the place of the dead to a smoldering landfill outside the gates of Greek cities. Later scriptural references add to this base and culminate in the Book of Revelation’s lake of fire imagery.

The alternative models we’ll go over contain different conceptions of hell. The penalty model tends to take scriptural references to fire and brimstone literally. Physical torment, including being burnt, is considered the penalty for a sinful life.

The character model emphasizes the psychological/spiritual aspect of hell. The scriptural references to torture are interpreted metaphorically. They look instead to Jesus’ parable concerning Lazarus and the rich man. The torment on this model is a conscious awareness of what has been lost forever, specifically all of God and his gracious gifts.

The issuant model takes a completely divergent tact. Namely, it conceives of hell as nowhere. It is not a place in which people exist, consciously or otherwise. Hell is the antithesis of union with God, which Kvanvig considers to be nothingness.

While there is much to investigate along these lines, this is largely a side issue for apologists. We have another primary objective. Before we can debate what hell is like, we need to convince people that the doctrine of hell is not an abomination. If we can accomplish that much, we can review the scriptures in depth and consider what hell is like for those who are there.

Models of Hell

Let’s move on, then, to examining models of why Hell exists.

Kvanvig says there are four theses that make up what he calls the strong view of hell. The strong view of hell is the most  pervasive view, the one we would call orthodox. Those theses are: 1) Some people are consigned to hell. 2) Hell is a place where those who are consigned to hell exist. 3) Those consigned to hell cannot leave hell. And 4) hell exists as the place where God metes retributive punishment.

While none of those theses are universally agreed to by Christians, denying any of them moves one away from the vein of traditional theology. Leave out 1), and you assume all people go to heaven. Leave out 2) and you assume the damned are annihilated. Leave out 3) and you assume all people eventually go to heaven after serving a certain term. Leave out 4) and you assume that God’s goal in creating and maintaining hell is other than retribution.

Of all of them, the fourth thesis is the one that is most germane for answering the problem of hell. It is the one that posits hell’s justification. Let’s turn to three models of hell that offer varying justifications. One of which says, as Kvanvig’s account of the strong view describes, that hell exists as the ultimate penalty. Another says that hell exists as the outcome of human rebelliousness. Lastly, we’ll consider one that says hell exists as the manifestation of God’s love.

Also, keep in mind that, although I’ve grouped specific objections with each model, some of those objections and the responses to them may be applied to other models.

1) The Penalty Model

On the penalty model, God punishes people who have died without first making peace with him. Many of Jesus’ warnings in the gospels are that cost of sinful behavior is not worth the benefit. As the Apostle Paul makes clear, the wages of sin are death. Hell is a place where retributive justice is meted out.

Rehabilitation is not a goal here. There is no way a human can compensate through temporary suffering what he or she has done, thought, or said against God. God’s full wrath is poured out in judgment upon the person because of their serious offenses.

As a side note, it may be appropriate to introduce limited election at some point and acknowledge that God does not extend grace to everyone. It’s also important to discuss how no one is innocent insofar as we bear the genetic sin of our first ancestors. Prepare yourself to explain those theological points in the event related questions arise.

1a) Objections to the Penalty Model - How can a person warrant eternal punishment for limited wrongdoing? Michael J. Murray in his essay, “Heaven and Hell,” says there are two basic responses. One suggests that unrepented of sin is what first designates a person to hell and that the person, once in hell, continues to sin, thus extending their sentence perpetually. This is an original response, but I know of no scriptural support for it.

The other response is that even minor, finite infractions are made infinitely grievous by their enaction against an infinitely good being. Thus, whenever we sin, we don’t only hurt ourselves and potentially other people, we transgress God’s will as well.

This last point will take some further elaboration because the notion of offending God when not addressing him is foreign to many of our peers. We begin with referring to what ethicists call the status principle, which says that guilt is proportional to the status of the offended party. We recognize this with in our international tribunals where crimes against humanity are litigated. A dictator’s guilt is greater than a common murderer’s because the former has attacked all of us by targeting what makes us human.

We extend this insight when reflecting on divine matters. God is morally perfect, so he stands apart from the human spectrum of moral imperfection. Wrongs against a morally perfect being are a grievous class unto themselves.  God is justified in treating all persons who are sent to hell equally because they’ve all sinned against him, not that they all sinned the same amount.

How can people act against God unintentionally, as in when they don’t know him or don’t believe anything supernatural exists? Most would say that God’s act of creation and perpetual act of preservation obligates us to him in a foundational way. Our obligation to God is the spring from which all other obligations flow because he also creates and sustains every other being to whom we have obligations, including ourselves. Any time we break those obligations, we also break our obligations to God. (This is a picture of the moral richness of the Christian worldview we should count as a strength in our morally skeptical culture, not a weakness.)

Why should the greatness of the victim, God in this case, affect the severity of the punishment required? At first blush, this sounds like robbing Ghandi would be worse than robbing Timothy McVeigh. Importantly, though, we aren’t dealing with that sort of relationship when considering sin. God is a different type of being altogether. Transgressions against him have infinite weight. Wrongdoing against people is also wrongdoing against God because God is everyone’s creator and sustainer.

It’s unfair to treat all offenses equally, i.e., for any and all sins to warrant the same punishment. Most would respond to this objection by saying it's the sameness of the being who is harmed that gives cause for the equality of the punishment. Some have responded that the intensity of the pain in hell depends upon the degree of a person’s guilt. Dante’s Inferno dramatized this notion thoroughly, although biblical support for the various rings of hell is lacking.

Original sin is absurd. No one can inherit guilt. This brings us to one of the many distinguishing features of Christianity. Christians believe we, as a race, were lost by one man and are saved by another. Our position is in stark contrast to our individualistic culture that bristles at the notion of communal responsibility.

Our position is not solely negative, as though God only bestows blame through our ancestry. The possibility for vicarious atonement is derived from humanity’s familial bonds. Christ’s self-sacrifice is the penultimate example of this.

Christianity holds that humans are not atomistic individuals but are essentially related members of a family. God created us to be social and relational beings. We see this borne out in part by the benefits and costs we bear from the actions of others. At its deepest depths, this intimacy is mysterious. It’s the reason why the son can be guilty because of the father.

How can suffering ever make up for sin if sin is as grievous as you suppose? The penalty model doesn’t rely on a karmic definition of justice in which all infractions get their own, opposite punishment. God does not abide by, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Human suffering doesn’t “make up” for sin. It doesn’t make the victim whole or balance the scales. Rather, it’s what sin deserves. It's no different than a monetary fine being what you deserve when you park illegally.

It may be timely to add here a scriptural point that is consistent with the difference between God and man on which the retributive model relies. Jesus’ suffering is different than merely human suffering. His terrifically painful death on our behalf broke the scales on which we could never measure up.

2) The Natural Consequence or Character Model

The next model of hell prioritizes human action and God’s response. On the character model, people reject God by a misuse of their wills. As creatures given the ability to meaningfully choose between alternatives in order to make humans as much like God as possible, God allows people to obey or disobey his law. The natural consequences of these choices accumulate as people mature, a process often referred to as “soul-making” or “character-building.”

Over one’s life, through decisions and behavior, a person becomes either a God-lover or not. Some develop a character that claims God’s sovereignty for themselves through thinking and acting without regard to him. Even if their ideas of God are woefully inaccurate, they are culpably choosing to ignore the truth. Putting ourselves above God sets us against Him. (This would be in keeping with our naturally sinful bend, which is what makes it so difficult for us to do what we ought to do.)

Others, through grace, are empowered to chose repentance and seek reconciliation. As an important caveat, I should add we need to be careful and nuanced in our explanation, lest we suggest a person is saved by their works.

The end of life marks the end of people’s ability to choose. They are brought to the conclusion of their way of living. Eternal union with God (heaven) or separation from God (hell), on the character model, is a natural consequence of the lives people have lived.

C.S. Lewis is an advocate for the character model of hell. He speaks to this in his book The Great Divorce when he summarizes, “There are only two kinds 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.”

On Lewis’s version of the character model, hell is what happens when God’s love can extend no further without being accompanied by injustice. He cannot force a resistant person to reciprocate his love. A person who surrenders his will to his passions will never allow God to spare them. They draw the line which God’s love will not cross. On this point, you will frequently read that the gates of hell are locked from the inside.

2a) Objections to the Character Model - Why wouldn’t a loving God liberate the ignorant from their self-delusions? God respects the autonomy of his creatures and cannot coerce them to think clearly and make his purpose for us too obvious without violating their freedom. Although earthly consequences of evil like pain, dysfunctional relationships, and being ostracized can be clear, God limits the extent that people can know the consequences for their souls lest they be compelled to obey him out of fear or calculating selfishness.

Alternatively, Why wouldn’t a loving God stop people from hurting themselves? Although humans justifiably interfere with each others’ autonomy when someone else is going to do irreparably harm to themselves or others, God doesn’t. The must be a morally significant difference between the self-harm that can happen in the time of crisis and the self-harm of an unrepentant life.  We can say for certain that God doesn’t share our limited goals and time frames. He isn’t limited to the same sorts of reparability.

Why wouldn’t people choose to repent once they were in hell? Scripture makes clear the division between the elect and damned is irrevocable. There are no elevators between heaven and hell. As Murray explains, their characters have become fixed. In that way, they’ve become the sort of people who would never want to be relieved if it meant they had to humble themselves before God. Once in hell, they no longer are capable of repentance and are impervious to God’s truth and hardened to his love. They would never choose to reconcile with him because the time for learning and developing has ceased. They have so completely become who they wanted to be that their eternal separation is perversely agreeable to them. They do not wish to be taken out of their ignorance and self-imposed exile.

On the flipside, Christian orthodoxy recognizes our habit-forming tendencies through the doctrine of sanctification. That is the process of being perfected in open submission to God. By the work of the Holy Spirit, a person becomes the sort of person who is disposed to act as a God-lover.

What about people who die prematurely or who convert late in life? How can they be said to have characters at all? Most natural consequentialists suppose that God gives the souls of the unborn and infants the characters they would have chosen had they been able to. As to late or end of life converts, God could presumably speed the process of sanctification up. As Christ’s parable regarding the vineyard workers makes clear, this gift is not unfair. Those who went through the process for many years were not wronged because they would have been able to enjoy the reward of doing God’s work and having access to the Holy Spirit for for longer.

If people’s characters have become so hardened, can we say they are rational anymore? Not under the traditional conceptions of rationality required to make moral choices. They no longer take the options to do good or repent of their wickedness as viable. However, such may be the long-term effects of participating in evil.

This is not the full account, however. Even if they are too depraved at the end of their lives to be considered rational, they were sufficiently rational when they were younger and began choosing to be wayward. It’s not as though they never could have made a reasonable decision to obey or rebel.

3) The Issuant Model

People often find God’s love and God’s wrath incompatible. One of the two major objections we noted above draws upon this seeming incommensurability. Jonathan Kvanvig modifies the strong view to address the objections to it. Kvanvig agrees with critics who claim that an infinite punishment from a finite infraction is always unjust. Accordingly, he drops that retributive thesis that says hell exists as a place for punishment. Instead, he proposes the issuant model, one that says hell issues from God’s character.

Kvanvig reconciles the tension between God’s two dominant characteristics of love and justice by making love primary. What God wants is that all people would develop to the point where they can delight in his company in heaven. As a matter of fact, though, not all people develop in that manner.

Hell enters the picture in response to this fact. Kvanvig believes love alone can justify hell. Hell can be borne out of love insofar as it respects others’ autonomy. God loves us so much he respects the reprobate’s deep-seated desire to have nothing to do with God. He does not force them to accept his forgiveness, so he withdraws from them.

I should add Kvanvig’s solution to the love/justice dichotomy is not the only one, however. Other commentators have noted that love and wrath coincide when the loved one is ruining themselves or others. We should recognize that is a description of sin, an act of ruination. God’s anger with us can be a product of his immense love for us and desire to see us made whole. Whatever the case, the point is that the conflict is superficial, rather than essential.

The issuant model contrasts with the natural consequences model in its conception of hell. God’s complete withdrawal is existentially determinative. Kvanvig claims that the damned are annihilated. He argues the opposite of God’s company in heaven is nothingness, since independence from God is impossible. Importantly for his understanding of justice, the penalty of sin is not infinite. There is a fixed and certain time when the person’s punishment ends, namely, the person’s final moment before obliteration.

If people don’t exist in hell, why is hell referred to in the Bible as the place where the fire does not consume? The greatest difficulty for the issuant model of hell is likely to come from Biblically literate people. The issuant model requires extensive re-interpretation of scripture beyond what the text literally or anagogically supports. Kvanvig summarizes Biblical citations as making the case that hell is as bad as anything can be.

How is annihilation more loving than eternal unhappiness? Although annihilation is amenable to our sensibilities because unhappiness and suffering are disagreeable to us, a strong case can be made that existence is more valuable than the quality of that existence. If so, it’s hard to say that Kvanvig’s model is a more loving alternative. It would be better, then, to think of hell as a place where evil is quarantined from the blessed in heaven.

***

The models we’ve covered need not be exclusive nor are they exhaustive. In the essay I referenced earlier, Murray advocates for a hybrid model that says sin both hampers our character building and carries a penalty with it. Kvanvig’s model also says that hell has a penal aspect, but that it isn’t the reason why hell exists.

Other Responses

Imitating the Good Shepherd

I’ve heard it said we should not be able to speak of hell without a tear in our eye. That’s an excellent point I want to echo here. We need to grieve and mourn for the lost. This class, all the hours you’ve put into listening, taking notes, mulling over what we’ve said, and speaking into others’ lives, has been a protracted preparation do our feeble best at reclaiming them for Christ. The lost are why we’re here.

In that spirit, I urge you not be complacent about hell. Prior to my own conversion, I was bothered by more than the suggestion I was on the path to damnation. I thought it cruel that the Christians I knew thought my damnation was the way it should be. We ought not wish hell upon anyone, not even upon our enemies. Pray that everyone would be convicted by their malevolence before it’s too late. Pray that everyone would realize the inadequacy of limited things to fulfill our limitless longings before it’s too late.

With that said, our tears need not blind us, though. We have hope in Christ, and so we cannot speak of hell without also speaking of the Gospel. I don’t want us to address the one without addressing the other. Be clear that Jesus is patiently calling all of us and offering real forgiveness. This is true regardless of our antagonism towards him now.

Undermining Universalism

Oftentimes the conception we’re confronting behind these objections is universalism, a belief that everyone deserves to be saved, either because they’re not culpable for their own ignorance or they’re, as a whole, good and eternal ill should not befall good people. The essential goodness of mankind, which is a cornerstone of many secular humanist philosophies, renders it unfathomable that anyone could deserve final, everlasting punishment. We would need to make our understanding of human nature clear to contrast their position.

Some universalists would criticize the natural consequences model specifically by saying that God is so uniformly loving that he would do whatever is necessary to prevent those who are destined for hell from going there. We addressed such an objection briefly earlier.

To continue, the problem with God undoing or weakening the natural consequences of actions that He established is that it would make our responsibility meaningless. If we don’t have the option of selecting an alternative, even if that alternative is detrimental to us, we aren’t properly responsible. While annulling the necessity of hell and potentially most of the evil in the world, we trust that God judges creating humans without meaningful wills a price too great to pay. This also calls into question why Christ needed to die if everyone would go to heaven anyway.

Rejoining with Justice

The reality of hell is part and parcel of the reality of the afterlife. If good and evil are real, then heaven and hell are the consequences of allying with one and not the other. Additionally, heaven is where many of life’s hardships will be redressed. Heaven is also where God’s love for us is consummated, where the faithful are united with him and enjoy the greatest good for eternity.

Hell can be part of God’s justice as well. It can complete the punishment humans cannot and should not attempt. We may observe that, when confronted with a person committing horrific evil, we have a natural response that no amount of punishment available to humans could rectify the situation. Even the death penalty will not do. Hell is the theistic answer to that problem. (However, we would need to clarify that although only some evils rise to that level from a human perspective, more rise to that level from God’s perspective as revealed in the Bible.)

It may be appropriate at some point to ask the person who is taking issue with hell how they reconcile the actions and demeanors of people with the injustice of obliteration at the end of life that secular philosophies suppose. Ask which worldview harbors the greater injustice.

There’s a clear tie-in with the problem of evil here where unpunished evil would count as evidence against the existence of a benevolent, all powerful God. God’s justice, in the form of judgment and the quality of the afterlife, would be required if God allows evil to occur without immediate earthly punishment.

We need to stand up to the relativism that often manifests in our cultures hand’s off ethos, here as elsewhere in our apologizing. Recalling a previous strategy, we could reference our interlocutor’s moral convictions as evidence of moral truths. If they would condemn opponents of gay marriage, then they have judged others. Again, the point is about the accuracy of the judgment, not that judgment is by definition harmful.

Lastly, Tim Keller asked a woman who found the idea of a judging God offensive why she wasn’t offended by the idea of a forgiving God. Forgiveness is a judgment, despite what cultural sensibilities imply. It says you have done something wrong and you will not be held accountable for the consequences. Some of us would rather not be forgiven, at least not at first, because that’s a tacit admission of guilt. Most of us would come around, however, over time. Condemnation and forgiveness are the same sort of judgments. Both recognize a person has misbehaved; only one allows the person to avoid the penalty for it.

(return to Apologetics page)