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Q. You know how people say “Even if you were the only person to become a Christian God loves you so much that he would have still sent Jesus to die for you” I sometimes wonder if God really loved us so much wouldn’t you think that he would be willing to give up all of creation if even one person was going to go to hell? Imagine you wanted to have children but there was a 75% chance that they would not know about you or not choose you and if they were in that 75% they would have long miserable lives spent being tortured and alone. Wouldn’t the selfless thing to do be to not have sex, not have kids, and not have anyone tortured? Hell seems like that times infinity. I don’t understand how God can love people so much and yet keep creating creatures who will end up being subjected to eternal torture.
Defining the Dilemma
The dilemma expressed in the statement above represents probably one of the most common objections brought against the Christian worldview: that “a loving God would not send people (people who He created) to Hell.” However, embedded in this objection is a problem with the definition of the word “love” as it is here being applied to God. Certainly, God is loving (Psalm 36:7, 1 John 4:16), but He is loving in every sense of the word, not simply in a sense which ensures our uninterrupted pleasure.
We seem ever-ready to accept the image of a God who is loving toward us in a romantic, Utopian way, yet unwilling to accept the notion of a God who loves us enough to meddle in our business, or correct us on our errant courses. The only source of the idea that God is perfectly loving is contained in the Bible itself. Ironically, this is the same source which informs us that God is perfectly just as well.
God’s Love and God’s Justice
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. [Hebrews 12:5-10]
If we are ready to accept the idea of God as a God of love, we cannot patronize Him as a lover who wills only our continuous comfort. To do so would be to shape and worship a therapeutic yet useless god, made in our image, and “loving” towards us on our own terms. To ask God for His love without His guidance and discipline is to ask Him not to love us more, but less.
Probability vs. Providence
The questioner asks, “if God really loved us, wouldn’t He be willing to not have created anything in order that no one would go to Hell?”
First, if God had not created us, there would be none of us to love. This is a nonsensical, backwards scenario, and nonsense is still nonsense even when you try to apply it to God.
Second, God does not work with probabilities. He did not have to calculate the percentages of people who would accept Him, versus those who would reject Him. He knew what would result from the creation, and that a great deal of people would reject Him. Yet, because God’s glorification is all that matters from beginning to end, He deemed it proper to create a world in which some people would have the opportunity to love Him of their own volition. Any sort of objection that this makes God an ego-centric tyrant misses the point: He is God; all honor, glory and praise is His alone. He is incapable of selfishness because there is nothing else which deserves honor and glory more than Himself.
Third, the fall of mankind (of which Hell was a result) was the doing of man, not of God. Some would object that God could have done things another way, which might have avoided Hell altogether. C. S. Lewis speaks to this idea directly: “Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you will find that you have excluded life itself.”*
The Greatest Mystery
The fact of the matter is that you cannot dissect the character of God, elevating that which you approve, and indicting that which you do not. The correct reaction to encountering God is not to feel emotionally satisfied by His love; it is to fall on our faces in reverent fear of His holiness. Nor can we question his extent of His justness simply because he grants some people their greatest wish: not to be bothered by Him. When you understand this, you will realize the real mystery is not that a loving God could allow the possibility of Hell, but how that magnificent God could allow any of us to enter Heaven.
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*Lewis, C. S. The Problem of Pain (HarperCollins: New York, 1940) p.25
March 10, 2010 at 1:51 pm
My thought, is that we don’t play God. We don’t know why He does what He does, but we have faith. He created humans to give us the opportunity to love the way He loves us. He wants us to be happy and join him in paradise, but it has to be our choice. Those who go to Hell, choose to do so through their actions. I find it no different than choosing to have a child versus an abortion. It is giving that child the opportunity to have life. You would also be missing such incredible amounts of joy, without that child. God has trillions of children which is why He is so joyful and merciful. It hurts Him to send people to Hell, but again it’s their choice.
May 27, 2010 at 1:09 am
In the whole article you have not really answered the question. A good parent would not give up on a child and send them to hell. If a parent saw there children were suffering they wouldd intervene and help.Why is it that some people get to see the full glory of god and others never see any god anywhere in there life. Its easy to love god when your blessed with food. but god has not shared the same love with all of his children. You call the devil evil but hes not the one sending us to eternal damnation, hes not the one that created hell. Free will is not giving us an option between submission or torment, we are forced to fear him or pay the consequences. thats not free will or love.
June 13, 2010 at 11:15 pm
It is the pain we have caused and have been afflicted by, that drives us to a heart of selfishness. When those who come against God with Hate and malice, they speak of this God who would throw children in fire and strip us of our free will and force us to choose between fire or submission. But. When The God of Love, The God of promise, The True triune God of Abraham through Christ is revealed and known, especially in intimate love, the true heart of his care comes through, in us. Questions such as these are mute to one who submits their will unto the God of eternality and power. The answerer must try and go in the mind of the questioner. For the attributes and truths of the True God reveal the mystery of theology and questioning in the beauty of a whisper and the majesty of the simple moments of this creation engaging all the more creation. So how then shall we answer the questioner who ask about this uncaring, ludicrous, hateful God, who even we as humans can be more “moral” than He. Without the apprehension nor the accepting of the true sinful state of man and his necessary destruction and expulsion from perfect purity, one will never see all the glory through beauty, displayed to force the knowledge of true Love and redemption which was the dead God on a piece of wood. Exempt we stand for our sin, a True Father which showed us His care and power by dying in a foolish rebels place. Satan is the perpetrator of the lies that lead the world away from this redemption reality. As God is sovereign in his Love to save us, He is also sovereign in His plan and role towards the perpetrator and those who follow. So true knowledge of the God of Truth is this, that he provides every good thing to all, even those who don’t follow Him, in fact He flows good harvest and crops to nations who fight against Him(acts 14:17). As we think and ask questions in the temporal we will never fully understanding anything in full view for outburst such as, “if i were in His shoes”, Our temporal, finite apprehension of reality falls on its knees to that of full apprehension and knowledge. We have peace as we read the revelation, “My ways are higher than your ways”(isa 55:9). His words for those who question the Work He does is this, “ Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth”(Job 38:4), not a means to not allow us to not think but a True gust of reality to remind us that if God answers us, then it is He, God, who answers us. He is worthy of praise and in turn we ask that his understanding might be in us as we accept not a philosophy or culture picture of who God is, but the true triune all powerful God, our Father and good and loving Shepherd who says,” For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”(jer 29:11) This is our Abba, this is our friend and this is our great loving God who offers redemption to the world but the world is in rebellion towards Him and in the end He says, what more can i do, i have done everything, it is a free gift by grace, what more do you want. “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? said the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?” (Eze 18:23). We must admit we are rebels and accept the true God as he revealed Himself. We can curse Him and die, we can run and live for ourselves but living in the darkness is much easier, for the light reveals who we truly are. And as one would fight against God for his evils, the fight doesn’t lie between one and God but between one and themselves. I wrote simple and plain like a conversation, for i am not anything but a friend. Im no bigger or better, His love is big, and He is good. Amen.
July 5, 2010 at 1:14 pm
this didnt answer anything. the fact of the matter is that it is ultimately in GOD’s plan that some people end up in hell. he didnt have to create anything. he is complete in and of himself. yet for some reason he did and as a result some people are going to be in unspeakable agony for all eternity. this is what is troubling.
July 13, 2010 at 9:42 am
@Leia – Part of the problem is that we can never truly understand the mind of God. We know that he is clear in the bible that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord (repents and believes in Jesus) will be saved from Hell and our deserved punishment. So part of it is up to us to choose God.
But you’re also right in that God is completely sovereign and in control of everything. It is a mystery to me, but the POINT is that we are sinful people. God is perfect and loving. And he would NOT be loving if he just LET us all off the hook. That would mean no justice. Just as if in America we let rapists and pedophiles go free and clear with no punishment for what they do did. I doubt we would call that loving for a judge to “turn the other way”.