Why is God not more obvious?

This is a speculative theology article that should be taken with a grain of salt, as it stands outside what the Bible says, but I think it raises a couple of interesting questions...

If you believe that those who die outside the age and state of accountability (e.g. children, mentally disabled people, etc) go straight to heaven (which is quite a popular view), then you reach the interesting conclusion that possibly half of all people who have ever lived will go to heaven. Why? Because somewhere approaching half of all people who have ever lived have died before reaching adulthood throughout history (source), as children and babies (more if you include before birth). Before modern times, the infant mortality rate was very high. Say that those who never hear the gospel have a chance to go to heaven and that figure increases a lot.

Moreover, in the thousand year reign after Christ returns, mentioned by the Old Testament prophets and in the Revelation of St John, almost everyone will come to know Christ (e.g. Isa 11, Isa 65:17-25). That includes potentially quite a lot of people going to heaven, perhaps billions, given no war, very little suffering, no disease, very long life spans (Isaiah 65:20), and presumably no involuntary infertility.

Combine this with the 'age of accountability' theory and you end up with a lot of people going to heaven, perhaps 2/3rds or more of all people who will live, given a third to half of all people in this age plus almost everyone in the age to come.

An interesting aspect to this train of thought is that on this view most people who go to heaven get there without much, if any, testing or trial of their faith, as CS Lewis suggests in the Screwtape Letters. Thus, God only allows a small proportion of the people who will go to heaven to be tempted and/or to suffer for a long time.

If so, then heaven isn't such a narrow gate. It's a pretty wide gate, seemingly contradicting Matthew 7:14.

But perhaps it is both a narrow and a wide gate. The key thing is, it's a narrow gate for us, for us who are in this present age, who have reached the age and state of accountability. For people in other ages, or in certain states, it is not narrow at all.

So why are we here then? Why are we, this minority, tested so much when most of the saved aren't? Isn't that unfair? What is going on?

One possible reason is that the vast majority of people that God creates accept God's gift of eternal life without much reflection or struggle, but there's a small minority of people who only respond to the gospel in a less-than-perfect situation. Most souls don't need to be led to accept Christ through negative reasons such as e.g. perceiving a lack of meaning in their life, etc, negative reasons which are common in testimonies among Christians today. But for others, maybe God knows that they are like the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), wherein experience of life without God is the key factor that leads them to accept God.

So what does God do? God puts those people into this world, where God pretty much lets people do their own thing.

Perhaps, in this theory, if we, the 'problem cases', had started off in the happy world, then we would, for some reason, have wanted to be our own masters and rule our own fate, in a place of our own apart from God. But in this world we have learned such things as to reject sin although we do sin, how much we need God, that God is rightfully ruler as well as helper, that life can lack meaning without God, and so on. We perhaps wouldn't have ever realised this stuff if we had started out in the 'happy world'.

Thus, God, in His infinite wisdom, saw that being in this world was key and that's perhaps part of the reason why this stage of history exists.

In conclusion, I suggest that this speculation could help to explain why God chose to make two stages of history, and why God has given so much free reign to people in this world and decided not to broadcast His presence in a 'fireworks-like' display.

Secondly, I suggest that, with some assumptions, one can find that altogether most of the humans that God creates might make it to heaven although heaven is a narrow gate for people in this world in an accountable age/state.

Why is it so hard to describe heaven?

Why can't Christians come up with a really fantastic description of heaven (or rather the new heavens and new earth)? Here is my attempt to explain a large part of the reason.

Something interesting about our happiness in this life is that it is very, you could say, 'temporal'. That is, people's happiness experiences a huge issue with boredom. Some people would be happy to live forever as long as they could keep experiencing new things forever, but in polls a lot of people say that they wouldn't want to live forever even if they could do so.

I believe this is because human happiness is not naturally hardwired for eternity. Our ability to be happy cannot sustain us for that long. E.g. it's a relatively common motif in horror stories that someone is condemned to live forever even though they can do whatever they want.

But it's interesting to note that God is probably not at all like this, if any God exists, because otherwise God would have gone completely insane with boredom. In most theologies God is eternal and outside time, and thus God has already lived for an infinite length of time. If God's happiness can't handle eternity, then God would be mad with depression (Isaac Asimov actually wrote a short story based on this premise called "The Last Answer").

And this leads to the conclusion that, because God is naturally eternal or for some other reason, God's happiness is a kind of happiness we have no experience of in this world - apart from through the Holy Spirit's sense of peace, if Christianity is to be believed. This can be indicated, if any God exists, from the reasoning above (unless Isaac Asimov's short story is right!)

Thus I conclude that part of why heaven is such a great place is because we have access to this divine kind of happiness that allows someone to be at peace and contented forever without being insane or something like that.

See Rom 14:17: "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,"

1 Cor 2:9: "However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him""

Psalm 16:11: "You will make clear to me the way of life; where you are joy is complete; in your right hand there are pleasures for ever and ever."

Psalm 36:7-8: "How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings. You feed them from the abundance of your own house, letting them drink from your river of delights. For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see."

Rom 8:18: "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us."

We get this happiness through being connected to God through His Holy Spirit. And this is made possible by Jesus Christ removing our sins when He took them into himself on the cross (1 Pe 2:24).

I believe this is a significant part of the reason why heaven is so hard to describe in a really fantastic way.

Why would God allow Satan to do stuff?

One of the reasons why belief in a devil - a malevolent being who tempts people into doing more bad things than they would otherwise do - is criticised is that it is hard to imagine why God would allow such a being to tempt humanity (another problem of a mind without a body is not as difficult because it's possible there can be bodies that aren't physical in the sense we're accustomed to). Let's re-examine this 'absurdity' from a philosophical point-of-view.

There was a debate on Nightline a while ago (YouTube link) which discussed the existence of the Biblical character Satan. One of the persons in favour of an actual Satan said that she became a Christian because such a character existed, or in a skeptical explanation because she experienced a negative force that acted like Satan (i.e. self-destructive urges in human nature).

I find this statement interesting because it seems that many, many people become Christians because there is a sort of self-destructive or selfish force within people. What sometimes happens is that people's lives are falling apart and they need to make a choice between giving in to the self-destructiveness, and falling into an 'abyss', or giving their life to the Jesus of the gospels. In this way many people decide to do a complete turnaround and commit their lives to Jesus.

I see hence a reason why God might allow humanity to be tempted beyond what would 'normally' occur. A Satan character could magnify and make more extreme the self-destructive impulses within us. A lot of the time this would just be bad. But sometimes, through being forced to make a stark choice between life/death, becoming like Jesus/self-destruction, 'Satan' would actually accomplish the opposite of what is intended (something like, 'Hey, this is what will turn my life around and give my life meaning and purpose').

This seems like a reason for God to allow a 'Satan' to tempt humanity, if that's what it would accomplish. But I think two conditions need to be satisfied from a secular moral point of view:

1. The first condition would have to be that people are being saved from an ultimate separation from God in the process, which is, in reality, a really horrible fate.
2. The second is that this process is the ONLY thing that will cause some people to change their mind and choose to live forever with God rather than apart from God.

Presumably, if there was another way to save someone, then God should employ that way instead.

Looking at the second condition, what's a list of things that often make people want to be with God rather than be apart from Him? Often people are drawn to Christianity by feeling some sort of emptiness, lack of fulfillment, a feeling of hopelessness or pointlessness to life without God, discontent with the whole idea of serving oneself rather than God after seeing the 'bad side' of sin, the idea of perfect relationships in the afterlife rather than messed up ones now, a hope for 'another kind of happiness' that is eternally fulfilling and great, as well as other reasons.

These thoughts are negative thoughts that Satan could easily magnify (i.e. in Satan's desire to make life harder for people). They are also thoughts that tend to encourage a lot of people to follow Jesus and be with God forever (note: one reason why I associate 'follow Jesus' and 'be with God forever' is that it makes sense to me that you could only ever go to heaven as a free gift and I don't know any religion that teaches this apart from Christianity).

So if Satan can magnify these thoughts, and having these thoughts sometimes makes the difference between someone choosing to be with God forever rather than be apart from Him, then does Satan have a useful role? Can God use Satan? It seems so.

So allowing a 'Satan' to do stuff under these two conditions and only if these two conditions are satisfied could make allowing Satan to do stuff an overall good thing, and these conditions make some sense.

Would a loving God never judge or condemn someone?

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" - 1 Cor 13:4-7

1 Corinthians 13 gives a great definition of love. Surely any loving God would fit this description.

And in this description Paul says that love 'keeps no record of wrongs'. So how can Christians say that there is a perfectly loving God who will judge humanity? Surely no one has anything to worry about. A lot of people think that a loving God will never judge anyone.

But what about 'love always protects'?

Consider someone who commits a murder. 'Love always protects', and so the loving thing to do is to protect everyone in the community from future murders by putting the murderer in prison.

Surely many people throughout history have refrained from doing evil because God has said that evil acts will receive punishment, which has protected vulnerable people. If you believe there's a God who will judge you for hurting someone, then you will definitely not hurt them, even if you won't do so for moral reasons.

What if significantly less evil has occurred throughout history because of God's promise to judge? This can't be proved, but it would be a good reason for God to make and carry out that promise.

This judgement is not hell (which is a separate issue). It's a proportionate 'payback' for whatever evils someone has done (Rev 20:12-15). Hell is not the result of a specific wrong act that we do so much as a consequence of choosing not to be with God forever, which means separation from God who is the source of true happiness (a happiness that will never get tedious).

This judgement does not apply in the same way to Christians (Rom 8:1), because Jesus took our moral failures onto Himself on the cross. "We know that the person we used to be was crucified with him to put an end to sin in our bodies" (Rom 6:6), which is fully manifested after we die. But we still have to give an account to Jesus about our life (2 Cor 5:10).

One way of interpreting hell

Hell is described in pretty awful terms in Revelation, but we must remember that it is described in other places as simply not being with God. 2 Thes 1:9 "Whose reward will be eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his strength".

I've noticed on forums that it's easier to criticise Christianity if you accept the 'Revelation' view of hell but it's not as easy if you accept the '2 Thessalonians' view.

Maybe Revelation talks about hell in such a terrifying way because doing so will ultimately get more people into eternal life? Proverbs 14:27: "The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death".

But if hell isn't all that bad then the Bible is being a bit deceitful about how awful it is. And if hell is awful, then why would anyone would choose to go there?

I think a good illustration of how people could choose to go to hell, and yet hell involves an eternity of suffering, was given in a Twilight episode called 'A Nice Place to Visit' (quoted from here):

"A two-bit thug, shot to death by the police, wakes up on the far side. Given his life of crime, he is puzzled to find himself in what he takes to be heaven: a penthouse of Pascalian divertissement has been provided for him in which he can sate his every sensuous appetite. The supply of booze and broads is endless, and he can't lose at the gaming tables. But soon enough our man tires of the 'good life' and heads for the door — which is locked. Turning to his host, the thug complains that he'd rather be in the other place. "This is the other place!" the host demonically laughs."

I think if we were forced to live with the happiness we have now for let's say... a trillion to the power of a trillion years, then eventually we would be weeping and gnashing our teeth in pain. The happiness we have now cannot sustain us for that long.

There is another interesting take on this in a quote from the science fiction novel 'Permutation City'. In it Greg Egan tries to imagine life as an eternal being:

"The workshop abutted a warehouse full of table legs – one hundred and sixty-two thousand, three hundred and twenty-nine, so far.  Peer could imagine nothing more satisfying than reaching the two hundred thousand mark – although he knew it was likely that he'd change his mind and abandon the workshop before that happened; new vocations were imposed by his exoself at random intervals, but statistically, the next one was overdue.  Immediately before taking up woodwork, he'd passionately devoured all the higher mathematics texts in the central library, run all the tutorial software, and then personally contributed several important new results to group theory – untroubled by the fact that none of the Elysian mathematicians would ever be aware of his work.  Before that, he'd written over three hundred comic operas, with librettos in Italian, French and English – and staged most of them, with puppet performers and audience.  Before that, he'd patiently studied the structure and biochemistry of the human brain for sixty-seven years; towards the end he had fully grasped, to his own satisfaction, the nature of the process of consciousness.  Every one of these pursuits had been utterly engrossing, and satisfying, at the time.  He'd even been interested in the Elysians, once. No longer.  He preferred to think about table legs."

The eternal existence of 'Peer' in this quote indicates what our existence might be like if it lasted forever.

Is there another kind of happiness and way of being? According to the Bible there is, which everyone can find in God's presence. Talking about eternal life, Romans 14:17 says "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit". So the happiness of heaven actually involves people experiencing God's happiness. This joy will make us complete and fulfilled forever, in a way that we have never known and literally cannot imagine (1 Cor 2:9: "However, as it is written: 'No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him'").

The catch in experiencing God's happiness is that it requires someone to want to live under God's standards, because we get it through the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17) - who is Christ's spirit. Since we experience God's contentment through Christ's spirit, we need to be willing to be 'in' Christ. As Galatians 2:20 puts it: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me". This is how close we need to be to God to experience His happiness. In Christ we can express our personalities however we want minus actions that treat others in a way we wouldn't ideally like to be treated.

And yet people can and it seems would choose to go to the 'hells' described above rather than heaven, if heaven requires entering into a state where we love and serve God with all heart, soul, strength and mind, and love and serve our neighbour as we would ideally like to be loved, which is God's standard (through trusting in Jesus' death on the cross for us).

My Theology in 60 Seconds

How are humans made in the image of God?


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How are humans made in the image of God? We may also ask: how can something finite have anything in common with an infinite God? Here's what I think is going on: before God made any of us, He decided to take on finite aspects and put Himself into finite reality. This would someday allow the creation of people apart from God. Because this process involved God taking on finite aspects, the resulting person who came from it - Jesus - is said to be the 'image of God' (Col 1:15). Through Jesus, God made other people who share in the image of God (John 1:9). God gives brains and bodies a share in the image of God by somehow giving us access to the infinite qualities in Jesus, although we're not God like Jesus is. It's through the image of God found in Jesus that we gain access to qualities like consciousness/mind, free will, love, morality and so on, which make us human and in God's image. Those qualities involve stuff that only the infinite can have, which is why we need to get them through God in the flesh (Jesus) to have them at all.

Free will


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How do we get free will? Free will doesn't seem to make sense in a lot of ways. We get free will through the image of God provided for us in Jesus. Jesus is God, and He gives us access to infinite qualities through Him. So free will is a phenomenon of infinity, borrowed from Jesus/God. We can't understand it very well because we use a finite brain to think, and that means we can only understand finite things. That's why we know that we have free will but have no idea how to explain it. It's the same with consciousness, which also comes through what we get from Jesus/God.

Suffering


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Suffering comes to us through such things as earthquakes, diseases, and evil people, but suffering *also* comes to us through the image of God (our soul), because the image of God makes us conscious rather than a robot.  So having the image of God enables us to suffer. This implies that we need to understand the image of God to have a 'full account' of why we suffer. But finite reasoning can never understand the image of God because the image of God is infinite, given to us by and through Jesus. So the 'problem of evil' must always leave relevant knowledge unexplored. That's why it's such a mystery (see Romans 5:12-14 for how the things of infinity affect the image of God.)

Where does morality and God's goodness come from?

If anyone saw infinity as it really is (i.e. with infinite reasoning) then they will love the person that they see with all their 'heart, mind, soul and strength'.  God loves us and never sins because He sees us as we really are, i.e. He sees our infinite image of God with infinite reasoning (1 John 3:2).  We have a moral sense because our image of God tells us that other people have the (infinite) image of God as well.  To love that which is infinite is to act according to the '2 + 2 = 4' of infinite reasoning.

Why does God value faith?

It's difficult to save people (Matt 19:25) because people will always have free will and finite reasoning in heaven. Why does this present a problem? Well, because our finite reasoning cannot know what infinite reasoning knows. So our finite reasoning constantly creates temptations in us to sin against God and other humans, because we cannot see God and other humans as they really are (i.e. their image of God) - 1 Peter 2:11 (see above). This is why all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God develops our faith and trains us to rely on His word in this life because that trains us to place infinite reasoning above finite reasoning. Why is this important? Because you can only go to heaven if you are willing to accept God's grace for an eternity, and any temptation not to do that is always going to come from our finite reasoning. So it's important for God to help us prioritise infinite reasoning over finite reasoning, because that develops Christians so that they don't reject grace (from a finite reasoning temptation) over an eternity in heaven.

Why does God send people to hell?

God creates a soul by allowing the brain to access the image of God in Jesus. This makes our soul exist in God's infinite 'world', even though it's marred by sin. Now, it makes sense that if a soul (which ought to be like God) does something genuinely wrong, with no excuse, that this could sever or cut-off the soul's connection to God in God's 'world'. A holy and perfect God cannot allow sin in His/Her/Its presence. That's really, really bad for us because our soul gives us consciousness (see above). So having our soul cut-off from God in the 'world of God' infects all of our experiences with some degree of suffering and imperfection. It doesn't matter what's going on outside your head, no matter where you are, a soul cut-off from God's presence will always suffer. Either in a hell in earth (which is where we are), or in another hell. The only way out is to become morally perfect, like Jesus, because then your soul can connect to God, making you as happy as God. There is no 'other option'. Given these kinds of reasons, the only way for anyone to avoid hell forever (interpreted above) is to become morally perfect forever (which is only possible through the work of Jesus, John 14:6).

Informative links:
How are finite things different to an infinite God?
What's the deal with the atonement?
How is this theology - 'infinite God theology' - meant to succeed as an answer to tough questions?
My interpretation of original sin.
Why God lets Christians experience doubt and severe testing.
We can identify four paradoxes to finite reasoning in free will.
What is consciousness, how does it work and why does it love?

How can a loving God send someone to hell?

This picture illustrates the ideas in this article (click to enlarge):



I think that Christianity offers what you could call a really bipolar-like view of reality (speaking as a Christian). A lot of religions will say that when you die you dwell at some kind of distance to God depending on how bad you were. So good people are closer to God and happier, and more evil people live further away from God and are less happy... or something like that. Christianity is bipolar-like in saying that either you're absolutely perfect, flawless in your moral behaviour, and happy, or you're imperfect to the slightest degree and suffering in some sense (either in a hell on earth, Rom 5:12-14, or in some other kind of hell).

I think the reason for this philosophically has to do with our soul. I think that humans have in a sense one foot on the land and one foot in the sea. The foot on land is our physical body and brain, which is what we see. The foot we have in the sea is our soul, which is something that I would say we get from God and exists in God's world. The soul I believe is responsible for generating consciousness, free will, and a moral sense, exactly like what God has.

Because our soul is the same kind of 'thing' as God and exists in His world then it's actually connected to Him in a very fundamental sense. This is what creates the notion of hell. Since God is perfect then if our soul sins God has to sever His connection to our soul, because He cannot be connected to a sinful soul. If God did stay connected to a sinful soul, then that evil would become a part of God, which He will, of course, not allow (remember the old canard, 'God will not allow sin in His presence, being a righteous God'?) This is responsible for what causes hell, because not being perfect = your soul being excluded from God = suffering (either in a hell on earth or another kind of hell). I believe this is why the Christian view of salvation is so bipolar-like.

So when Christians say 'If you remain a sinner for eternity then you will go to hell' they're really saying something like 'Don't walk in front of cars or you will be hit and potentially killed'. It's a legitimate comment because it's a warning to us of something that God cannot change - He simply cannot be connected to a soul that sins, and that equals being in hell (although I should note that the hell in this world is unjust - e.g. good people suffer but evildoers get away with evil - and that the hell in the next world will somehow be just). Souls can't be destroyed because they're made out of stuff that necessarily lives forever because the soul is made in God's image and God necessarily lives forever (Ecc 3:11).

So either we become morally perfect at some point over eternity (only having perfect intentions towards others and God) or we will always suffer.

Universalism: everyone will choose this.
Liberal exclusivism: only good people (by the world's standards) will choose this.
Orthodox Christian exclusivism: only people who accept Christ and do God's will shall choose this (and maybe some people who never got to hear about Christ).

That's the core difference between these radically opposed views (in my reading). They have to work with the basic, unchangeable fact that being a sinner for an eternity = suffering for an eternity.

Why didn't God only make people who would follow Him?

I think if we understood it really well then we'd know that free will is *like* a random process in a couple of ways. Creating a person is kind of like flipping a coin that will come up 50/50 heads or tails. This is important because if a process is random then you can't make it go heads or tails. So God making a person is kind of like flipping the coin in the sense that God can't make someone on the basis of how they're going to choose, just like I can't make a random coin toss go the way I want. But unlike flipping the coin God *can* predict how we'll turn out - He just can't make only the people who will choose the way He wants.

So in some ways free will is *like* randomness, but it's not really random because randomness is a terrible thing in people. It's somehow a 'third option' out of cause and effect that mimics randomness in this aspect, but is overall a genuine, great thing to have.

In Matt 13:24-29 God says that there's some kind of ratio of people who'll choose the way He wants and people who won't. Salvation is kind of like a statistical generalisation of e.g. X:Y ratio that becomes meaningless on an individual level because individually everyone has the power to choose the way God wants. It's just that on a generalised statistical level God knows X:Y ratio will be saved. It's like individually most philosophy students can choose to study metaphysics but statistically only a certain proportion will. Individually every Internet user can visit Apple.com but statistically only a certain proportion will.

Suffering, Hell, and the Atonement

This is a series of interesting theological conjectures that deal with suffering, hell, and the atonement.

I would say that the answer to why we suffer is that when God made us in His image, He put something in us exactly like what He has (Ecc 3:11; John 10:34). What God put in us we call our 'soul'.

I think that the way a soul works is that through a miracle performed by God, our brain is made to somehow 'draw on' or 'make use of' the divine to a small extent. From that we get a soul, which is what we borrow from God, and yet we're distinct persons to God.

This 'soul' of ours gives us free will, consciousness, and a moral sense. You can't get those things from a physical body (in the sense of a person rather than a machine).

In other words, personhood, free will, consciousness, and morality are things that only God has, and we get to have them since we 'draw on' God to a small extent through a miracle performed by God.

Because our soul is borrowed from God, it is always 'hanging around' God, even though our bodies are here on earth. So while half of us is on earth, half of us is always 'up there' with God, in a sense. It's like we have one foot in the sea (our physical body) and one foot on shore (our soul that is with God, connected to the brain through a miracle).

When we sin we sin with our soul. Why? Because you need personhood, free will, and a moral sense to sin, and we get those things by borrowing from God... without those things you cannot sin, so without being a 'god' (in the sense of John 10:34) it is impossible to sin.

It's because we sin with our soul that leads to all our problems. When we sin we essentially 'corrupt' our soul. We corrupt what we've borrowed from God by doing evil which is totally against God's nature. This is a problem because God is normally connected to our soul, because our soul is borrowed from Him. But if we sin and do evil, then God has no choice but to separate the sinful soul from Himself, otherwise the soul's evil choices would transfer to God by remaining connected to God, and thereby corrupt God (another way of viewing it would be that God's holiness cannot tolerate the presence of sin).

This process causes a lot of pain - actually all the pain in human existence - because we feel through our soul and our soul is only free from pain when it is connected to God. But God is right to do it, even though it causes unimaginable suffering, because He has the right to take what steps are needed to protect Himself from our sin.

This results in a buildup of pain every second for the soul of a sinner according to a 'constant' of how much it hurts our soul not to be connected to God. This might be about 50/50 good experiences to bad experiences. People in our world who have unhappy lives have this constant 'front-loaded' so they suffer more in this life, which is then made up for in the eternity to come. Some people have it the other way around. But the constant always stays the same and is the same for every person. So every sinner who remains a sinner will ultimately end up suffering the same, necessary amount as long as they remain sinful (souls cannot be destroyed because they're made in the image of God and God is eternal).

These bad experiences don't have to be accompanied by any physical stuff, but God chooses to make them go along with physical stuff (like e.g. diseases, earthquakes, and so on) because He wants a visible cause of suffering, rather than have people suffer for no apparent reason.

The only solution is to become sinless, which allows God to keep with Him what we've borrowed from Him. This makes the person who is sinless happy in a kind of happiness that we can't imagine and have never known (1 Cor 2:9).

God enabled this to happen through the atonement, where Christ died for all possible sins that we have, or could ever have, committed. The sins were put on Christ, and through Christ's Spirit we have access to a sinless person who has the happiness of God.

Everyone who accepts Christ could be free from all suffering in the moment that they do that. God wants to accomplish something with suffering, however, which is why people who have accepted Christ still suffer (Zec 13:8-9).

Why Did God Create Hell?

A lot of Christian thinkers say that God is infinite. Here's an interesting thought: what if God IS infinity in a way that we don't or can't understand? What if infinity and God are the same thing observed from different vantage points?

An interesting fact about infinity is that it is always a whole that cannot be divided into parts (infinity - 10 = infinity, infinity + a billion = infinity.) So you can't separate some of infinity from infinity.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has placed infinity in the human heart, which makes us in His image as He is an infinite God. I think what this means is that through His power God allows our brain to 'draw on' infinity somehow, which gives us a 'soul'. We're creatures because we're also finite - our brain contributes to who we are, and the brain is finite. We have to be partly finite because there can only be one infinity/one God.

Somehow, we get our *own* personality when our brain draws on infinity. So we aren't God, even though our soul is one with God. How this can be is a mystery.

So we sin through what is, ultimately, one with God - a soul.

Picture that helps illustrate this [click to enlarge]



This means that when a soul sins God can't disconnect Himself from that soul, because souls are infinite and infinity is always one (it cannot be divided). Therefore, to protect Himself from the sinful soul God has to 'cast' that soul into 'outer darkness' (in a sense), to the very periphery of God. Otherwise, because infinity is always together, the soul's choice to sin would spread to God and make God sin as well. This causes the sinner to suffer because they ARE that soul, and being 'pushed' away from God is very painful (Romans 5:12-14). That's why we suffer: it's a side-effect of God shielding Himself from our soul's choice to sin, which He has to do because our soul (being infinite) is one with God.

Having said that, I don't know why we suffer in the way that we do (i.e. from earthquakes, diseases and so on). That's a mystery.

This also explains why hell exists: if a person never becomes sinless then they must live at the very 'edge' of God forever. A soul, being taken from God, must have an eternally living nature (I think this accounts for the strong Biblical link between suffering and hell - "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him" Rev 6:8)

The Problem of Hell

The Problem of Hell
Will G

Summary. This is intended to be a shorter article explaining my views on hell, offering a coherent solution to many of its problems. Basically, I argue that hell is based on a choice, the choice to accept or reject Jesus. But this choice must follow an important principle: it has to be made knowing the consequences. And no atheist finds it plausible that a person could knowingly choose to go to hell. My solution is to redefine heaven and hell so that heaven involves joining part of ourselves to God in order to do perfect good over an eternity, and hell involves either just exclusion from God or a finite amount of pain (finite despite it lasting forever.) I also argue that people's choice to go to such a heaven or hell defines whether or not they are a Christian in this life.

A good view of how this theology fits in with a greater picture is provided here.

Edited 12/17/07
12/19/07

Introduction

The problem of hell is regarded by those skeptical of Christianity as a very significant difficulty in Christian views on salvation. Rather than go on about the difficulties in Christian views on salvation, I will simply state a revised philosophical perspective on the issue that I think is conceptually clarifying and makes a great deal of sense.

Why Hell is a Choice

Christian views on salvation have always maintained that hell is a result of judgement. That is true. However since everyone allegedly has the ability to accept Jesus Christ and from then on face no judgement whatsoever, it is not just about judgement. It is about judgement, but there is something more to it than that. It is a specific judgement, relating not just to someone's sins, but to someone's refusal to do anything about those sins. In other words, it is not just about sin, it is also about accepting Jesus Christ. It is also about choice.

Two Key Principles of Choice

Since we are about to discuss choice, it is important to discuss two principles of choice that are involved in the choice to go to hell. The first principle is the principle that if you choose something, you are responsible for that choice. This principle supports the idea that people can be condemned for rejecting Jesus Christ. The second principle is that for a choice to be a real choice, it has to be made knowing the consequences. This is the area which atheists object makes the idea of choice regarding hell nonsensical.

The first principle of choice is that if you genuinely choose something, then the results of that choice cannot, really, be laid on someone else. If I choose to shoot myself, then who has the blame? Unless I was forced into it, I do, because I chose to do it. Similarly, if I go and join the army, and I get sent into a combat zone because there is a war on, then whose fault is it that I am in danger? It is mine, because I knew when I joined the army that I could be sent into danger. So if I go to hell, then whose fault is it, if I freely and fully chose to go there? Granted, hell is terrible. But the principle of choice has overriding power. Even though hell is really, really bad, if I freely choose to go there, it is all my fault, not God's. Hence if hell cannot be freely chosen, then hell can never be justified. But if hell can be freely chosen, then hell can be completely justified. That is how powerful the principle of choice is; properly employed it can justify hell. So if people freely choose to reject Jesus, then they deserve to be punished and to go to hell. If that choice is freely and fully made, then, logically, there is no problem with hell.

Now it is important to note the second principle that needs to be followed for a choice to be genuinely made. This principle needs to be followed for the above principle to work, and is the principle atheists say has been violated in the choice to go to hell (and that, hence, hell is unjustified). This principle is, that if I freely choose to do something, then it can only be genuinely be called a choice if I know what the consequences of my choice are. For example, suppose I give a tropical islander who has never seen a gun before a firearm. Suppose they then point it at another islander and pull the trigger, killing them. Did that person freely choose to shoot his fellow islander? Obviously not, because he did not know if he pulled the trigger, the person would die. So, the doctrine of hell makes no sense if people who go to hell do not choose to go there, and they can only freely choose to go there if they choose to go to hell knowing the consequences. So our doctrine of hell must show how people who go to hell freely choose to go there knowing the consequences of their choice.

Because atheists don't believe they reject Jesus because they want to go to hell, rather, they choose to reject Jesus because they see no evidence of Christianity, no atheist would agree that the concept of choice makes sense when applied to hell. To be sure, the concept of choice COULD theoretically justify hell, but it doesn't, as non-Christians would say, because non-Christians don't knowingly choose to go to hell.

How Hell Can Be a Choice

So does the Christian view of hell make sense given the atheist's objection? Christians have always maintained that when a person goes to hell, it is of their own free choice. But why would anyone choose to go to hell, really? Would a perfectly sane and healthy man, suffering no depression at all, leave his loving wife and kids and choose to jump off a cliff for no reason? It doesn't make sense. And, sad to say, many an atheist would say that the standard doctrine of hell makes about as much sense as that. Atheists may dislike God, or hate God, but why on earth would they choose to go to hell if they will get tortured there forever?

My modification to this position is to modify what heaven and hell actually are, from a Christian perspective, so that it is possible for some people to knowingly choose to go to hell.

On hell, it is true that hell will consist of suffering, but that suffering has been considerably over-emphasised. It is not necessary for an idea of an eternity of pain for that pain to be infinite. Let's say one day I break my leg. Let's say that every second I suffer 10 units of pain, hence over a minute I suffer 600 units of pain. That is why I do not wish to break my leg. But let's say time was stopped the moment my leg was broken. If so, then I would suffer 10 units of pain forever. That kind of thing is what hell could be. Or perhaps, as some argue (see here) it consists of no suffering at all, just the pain and shame from exclusion from God. This means if heaven involved a sufficient cost, some people could freely choose to go to hell.

And I argue that heaven also involves a large cost, one big enough to make an eternity of limbo a reasonable option for some people. While our souls and bodies will remain separate, our spirit will become one with God's Holy Spirit, as part of the perfection process where we will do good over an eternity. This means that we partly become part of God, and lose some of our 'self'. Of course, one may object this is not such a large cost. But what this choice is, what it really involves, is something we cannot really imagine. This may involve a considerable loss of self, to become partly part of God and/or lose a significant amount of autonomy and individuality. I find it difficult to conceptualise this, but I think that the extent to which we lose autonomy and individuality is the extent to which we would have to in order to have a lot of people choose willingly to go to hell/limbo. So some people will freely choose to go to hell.

Why do I think you have to join with God to go to heaven? In another area of my theology I have outlined (see here) I believe the only way to be completely morally perfect, or perfect in any respect, is to be God, because only God can, by definition, by perfect. Everything that is perfect is God, everything that is not God is not perfect, although it may be incredibly good. Total perfection is something only God can have. To be sure, God can create things outside of himself that are very good, extremely good, but not 100% perfect. So when God creates beings outside of himself, in order to create and love something apart from himself, the creatures he creates are extremely good, but not completely perfect. This is why the Fall occurred, because any being outside of God cannot do perfect good over an eternity, only God has that power. This explains why God did not create everyone perfect, and how everyone will be perfect in heaven. The way God will make everyone perfect in heaven is by joining our spirits with His Holy Spirit, so we will be able to do only perfect good over an eternity, using God's Holy Spirit to do so (I feel this is a good position to adopt because it also explains why there must be moral evil in the universe.) God has to do this otherwise we get eternally cut off from him due to our (necessary) imperfection.

How this Choice Can Show the World we See

Alright, so some people can freely choose to go to heaven, and some people can freely choose to go to hell. But that doesn't explain the world we see. It still doesn't defeat the problem that atheists don't knowingly choose to go to hell. Because even if it is a choice that can be rationally made in favour of hell, atheists and those who reject Christianity don't get to make it in this life, because no atheists and non-Christians know about the Christian hell in this life.

But as I argue, God is omniscient, and since he knows everything, he doesn't have to offer us this choice in this life. Instead, God knows which among us will choose to go to heaven, and who will choose to go to hell, if faced with that choice. So God doesn't have to offer us this choice right now in order to determine who will reject Jesus Christ. He knows who will reject Jesus already. So God is free to work as though atheists have already made a knowing choice to go to hell, even though they haven't. Because presumably God knows what they would choose if they were offered such a choice. And I believe we all get to face such a choice in the afterlife, but it won't contradict what God knew we would choose.

But that still doesn't explain why every Christian is a person who will choose to go to heaven and why every rejecting non-Christian will choose to go to hell if faced with the choice. After all, there are many kinds of Christians, and many kinds of non-Christians.

But I argue this objection is actually putting the cart before the horse, or rather, looking at a puddle and then remarking how lucky it is that the puddle is shaped around the hole (as Douglas Adams said in another context). God has omniscient knowledge, so he knows who would choose to go to hell or heaven if given a knowledgeable choice in the afterlife. Even though everyone who goes to hell currently lacks knowledge that hell exists, God knows what they would choose if they did make that choice freely, and thus ensures that they go to a place that honours that choice if they did make it (as they someday will.) And based on this knowledge, God makes people Christian or does not make someone Christian. So it is not surprising that all people God has made Christians go to heaven, and all those who would rather not make the choice for heaven go to hell: God has selected us, we haven't selected to accept or reject Christianity ourselves.

Of course, one objection following from this, is that there are many non-Christians who think they would actually make the choice to join with God, but don't presently have a Christian belief. But I would say this is a deep, internal choice, that we can only really fully make when faced with it in the afterlife, being shown the complete consequences of joining with God with His help. And it may not relate obviously to what we consciously think we would choose. We may think that we would choose to go to join with God, but we don't really know, for it is only with God's help that we can consciously and fully choose such a thing. I can't really explain what it would be like to consciously make such a choice, neither can any human. What would it be like to have one's spirit completely joined with and made subservient to God's Spirit, possessing some individuality but not all of that which you had before? I don't know, but I can guess it involves a cost to some people more than others.

Finally I will touch on one last objection, which is that it seems somewhat incongruous that there are clumps of Christians and atheists in the world, and the children of Christians tend to be Christian, but not the children of atheists. Another mechanism I think needs to be brought in to explain the distribution of Christians and non-Christians. That is that God actually allocates souls into this world, and that in some way souls must 'pre-exist', with God knowing their choices. So, hence, the makeup of Christians/non-Christians is the way it is to in some way to serve his mysterious will. On this point, I personally would like to think those who die before the age of accountability go to heaven, because they would have made the choice to go to heaven if they had gotten older, and those who never hear of Christianity do have some chance of being saved.

Conclusion

To summarize: hell can theoretically be justified if it can be explained how everyone who goes to hell chooses to go there fully knowing the consequences of their choice. But since no sane person would choose to do this, atheists argue, hell makes no sense. However, as I reply, some people could choose to freely go to hell if heaven involves a cost to one's self, and hell involves no pain or finite pain over an eternity. But why would people's choices in this matter be divided along Christian/rejected Christianity lines? Because God has made only those people Christian who would make the choice to become part of Him, and has caused those who reject Christianity to reject Christianity who would not make this choice to join with him in the afterlife. And God knows that we all would make that choice in a certain way because he is omniscient and can foretell what we would choose if we made that choice in the afterlife (which we do get to make in the afterlife, probably, but it's redundant.)

The discussion is continued here.

Will G
First written: 2/10/07