I've argued that one of the most popular on-the-spot evangelism techniques (exemplified by Ray Comfort's "Way of the Master") presents a God who, upon reflection, doesn't seem very loving. This is a God who stands ready to judge someone as worthy of an eternity in unimaginable agony for even the slightest infraction of God's law, a set of standards which no human can possibly live up to perfectly. If the story stopped there, then all of theology and human science would be directed toward investigating ways to assassinate this almighty tyrant, just as the resistance in George Orwell's 1984 resents Big Brother. But, WotM evangelists will say, the story doesn't end there. See, God sent Jesus to pay the price for our sin. All we have to do is turn to Him, professing Jesus as Lord (again, a scene from 1984 about Big Brother's wonderful mercy comes to mind).
I've presented three counter-arguments, apologias for the WotM, from the point of view of a WotM evangelist. Today I respond to those apologias.
The first apologetic approach tackled the allegation that Hell as a punishment for breaking God's law is unjust. It argued that Hell is a natural consequence, like getting frostbite when you go barefoot in the Antarctic. It's not a petty bit of revenge on God's part. In other words, God's law is a natural property of the universe, not a random bunch of divine whims.
My response: On several levels, the God's-law-as-neutral-condition-of-existence fails to satisfy.
Objection One: Let's say God's law (and its consequences) are neutral properties of the universe, like gravity or the strong nuclear force that keeps atoms from flying apart. That just raises the question of why God would create the universe defined by a law no human can keep. God's God, right? All-powerful? Well, an all-powerful God could surely have created a universe where either 1) there aren't transcendent moral laws to break; or 2) the consequences for breaking those laws aren't unending pain with no hope of respite--ever. The idea that God would create a universe specifically crafted to doom humans to Hell--except, conveniently, for the Christ escape clause (which, conveniently, involves eternal devotion to God)--that's repugnant.
Objection Two: The "natural law, not divine pique" argument doesn't wash. Gravity doesn't get angry when you try to defy it. God (in the WotM narrative) does.
From a purely inerrant/infallible, "take the plain words of Scripture seriously" sense, the idea that God doesn't get irritated or angry (or jealous) when people break his law isn't supportable. God gets angry--infuriated, even--all the time. Some of the imprecatory Psalms (that is, Psalms that explicitly wish violence or harm to come to people or nations) speak of God as taking positive delight in the agony of those God punishes. Or consider the famous words of Jonathan Edwards: "The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and Justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood."
To their credit, I suppose, most WotM evangelists I've heard don't pretend that God isn't angered by sin. They argue instead that God's anger is just and right. "Lying, stealing, murdering, and the like are wrong. Of course God is right to be angered at us when we do such things."
This brings me to Objection Three: Even if we grant that God's law does provide a more or less useful of right and wrong, and even if we grant that our wrongdoing makes God angry, that it actually causes damage to our relationship with God, Hell is still over-the-top extreme.
As much as I've suggested that conservative evangelicals are hung up on the idea of Hell, I think that they largely fail to appreciate the philosophical magnitude of an eternity of unrelenting torment. Oh, hellfire and brimstone sermons (such as the "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" I linked above) mention Hell, even describe it in lovingly gruesome detail. But in such sermons Hell functions as a fear button (or a guilt button) to make people receptive to the real point, the gospel. You show them just enough Hell to get them to convert. You don't dwell on it.
But do dwell on it for a moment. What possible sin or collection of sins deserves an infinity of torture? A human lifetime is only so long--say 100 years or so for extremely rare individuals. Even if that 100 years were filled to the brim with wickedness, surely after a million years or so in Hell (10,000 years for every year of earthly sin) would be enough. No? How about a billion years for every year of earthly sin? No matter what kind of calculation you employ, no matter what kind of punishment you can imagine, Hell is worse and longer.
And, for the record, I reject categorically the accusation here that I'm just substituting a limp-wristed, postmodern "no one deserves punishment or judgment" sensibility. "Liberals don't like the idea of Hell because liberals don't believe in standards." Poppycock! This liberal doesn't like the idea of Hell because Hell transcends any sane configuration of standards or transgressions or punishment. Hell isn't mere punishment. It's eternity in unrelenting pain.
What possible sinner, no matter how vile, really deserves that? WotM evangelists will occasionally invoke Hitler or Stalin (illustrating the evangelism corollary to Godwin's Law): "You wouldn't want Hitler in Heaven, would you? You wouldn't want rapists and child molesters going to Heaven, would you?"
Maybe not (though Jesus had quite a few parables that turn the tables on expectations of who gets to go to Heaven). But we're not talking about who goes to Heaven. We're talking about who deserves Hell. I submit: no one. Not even a Hitler. And if Hitler shouldn't be there, how much less should the proverbial "good person who only told a couple of lies but didn't believe in Christ"?
Hell is so extreme, such a hyperbolic response even to the very darkest human evil, that it's no wonder that it's one of the first facets of conservative evangelicalism to fall away (or perhaps morph into a metaphorical "separation from God" like in C.S. Lewis's Great Divorce or into an annihilationist idea a la Clark Pinnock) for many Christians as they step away from strict inerrancy. It's just too horrible to reconcile with any possible idea of God as loving.
Is this a human standard, this judgment that Hell is too much? Yes, it is. But all of my ideas about God--God as righteous, God as loving, God as transcendent, God as personal--all of them are constrained by my human imagination. And my human imagination simply cannot contain the idea of eternal Hell condoned by a God who is in any way loving.
More tomorrow, as I move on to counter-argument two.
JF
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