No one likes the doctrine of hell. No Christian likes the doctrine of hell. If they do, they have issues. It is that simple.

I have often said that the doctrine of hell is simply the most disturbing doctrine thing known to man. If I could get rid of one of my beliefs, this would be it. Hands down. Better, I would just have God elect all people rather than some and kill two birds with one firecracker!

I have been talking to this guy whom I am pretty sure is not a believer. Let’s just say for the sake of argument he is not. He is a really great guy. While, like everyone, he has his rough edges, he is a very giving person. He has the temptation to horde, but I can see his heart break for people who are in need. He gives and gives consistently. It is hard for me to  believe that, according to my theology, he is going to spend eternity suffering in a place of unimaginable horror.

Eternal fire, outer darkness, lake of fire, bottomless pit, weeping and gnashing of teeth: These are all ways that the Bible describes this place we call hell. No matter how we might spin it, it is not good. R.C. Sproul put it this way:

“We have often heard statements such as ‘War is hell’ or ‘I went through hell.’ These expressions are, of course, not taken literally. Rather, they reflect our tendency to use the word hell as a descriptive term for the most ghastly human experience possible. Yet no human experience in this world is actually comparable to hell. If we try to imagine the worst of all possible suffering in the here and now we have not yet stretched our imaginations to reach the dreadful reality of hell.” (Essential Truths of the Christian Faith, 285).

Most people don’t realize this, but almost everything we know about Hell comes from the lips of Jesus.

Listen to the words of Christ here:

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. 43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. (Mark 9:42-48)

I don’t think it is necessary to take any of the descriptions of hell literally. It could be, but it is hard to see how darkness and fire exist together in a bottomless pit! I am not sure that the mere statement that hell is outside the presence of God does the biblical teaching any justice either. There is simply no place in all of creation that is outside of God’s presence. All of the teachings about hell are simply meant to describe a place that is worse than anything we can imagine, but probably unlike anything we have ever experienced.

While C.S. Lewis’ statement “The doors of hell are locked from the inside” does provide some valuable believers therapy in one respect (and I think it is true), it is what goes on behind those doors that is so troublesome.

It is not so much the pain that I have a problem with. As bad as the pain may be, the duration is the most terrifying. Hell is eternal. I don’t like this. I would be much more comfortable with the annihilation of all the ungodly, as some have opted for (conditional immortality). However, it takes too much doctrinal gymnastics for me to concede with the idea that hell is nothing more than the cessation of existence after a period of suffering. Again, I am well familiar with the alternative theories and I certainly understand why people bite the first chance they get when presented with an alternative, but, in the end, these amount to nothing more than “consulation heresies.”

If eternal life is everlasting, so is eternal death (Matt 25:46).

Therefore, as much as I would like to shed this doctrine and mark it up as some archaic vestige of a former and naive form of Christianity, I cannot. I live with the reality that many (perhaps most) people who have ever been created are going to an eternal place of pain and suffering.

How do I deal with it?

There are so many things that God has let us in on. There are quit a few that he has not. Sometimes he does not tell us things because we simply could not understand them. Sometimes they are yet to be revealed. Many times God withholds information that could help us to understand and be comforted. Take suffering for instance. We all go through times of trials and suffering. Most of the time we don’t know why and God is not going to tell us. Look to Job. God never told him why those terrible things happened to him. He could have. Had he, I am sure that Job would have been comforted. God simply let Job know that he knows what he is doing and he is in charge. That is it.

Concerning the doctrine of Hell, I simply must trust that God knows what he is doing. I am sure there is information and understanding that is withheld from us that might make such things more palatable, but he has obviously chosen not to reveal this to us. Belief is not always easy. Sometimes it is. Love, grace, forgiveness, hope, and the new earth are all easy to believe. Election, righteousness, judgment, and hell are not. That is why the latter is so difficult to accept and why, I believe, we have so many alternative answers continually being proposed. We simply want our faith to be more palatable rather than trust that God knows what he is doing. It is very hard to believe God sometimes.

However, I don’t have a vote in truth. My emotional disposition toward a doctrine has absolutely no effect on the truthfulness of the doctrine itself. As I have often said, the palatability of a doctrine does not determine its veracity. God is on the throne and he knows what he is doing. Whenever I begin to feel more righteous than him, I must remember who I am and who he is. “Will not the judge of the earth do what is right?”

  • God loves all people.
  • God is not willing that any should perish.
  • God is in control.
  • Those who don’t trust Christ will spend eternity in hell.

These seem paradoxical. Perhaps they are. But this does not mean that they are not true.

One passage of Scripture that I often think of when I begin to whine about hell is Rom. 3:4:

Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”

We all have our temptations to bring divine tribunals against our Maker. We all have our temptations to call him and his word into account. We all have those times when we want to judge God. However, being a believer does not mean that we believed him once. Neither does it mean that we selectively believe him. Being a believer is a characteristic mindset that trusts God always, even when it is hard or it seems unnatural—even when our belief is going to station people we love in hell. But above this, we must believe that God knows what he is doing and he will aways do what is right and good in accordance with his perfect character.

Having said all of this, I don’t believe that God does loves hell anymore than we do.


C Michael Patton
C Michael Patton

C. Michael Patton is the primary contributor to the Parchment and Pen/Credo House Blog. He has been in ministry for nearly twenty years as a pastor, author, speaker, and blogger. Th.M. Dallas Theological Seminary (2001), president of Credo House Ministries and Credo Courses, author of Now that I'm a Christian (Crossway, 2014) Increase My Faith (Credo House, 2011), and The Theology Program (Reclaiming the Mind Ministries, 2001-2006), host of Theology Unplugged, and primary blogger here at Parchment and Pen. But, most importantly, husband to a beautiful wife and father to four awesome children. Michael is available for speaking engagements. Find him everywhere: Find him everywhere

    181 replies to "A Word About Hell"

    • EricW

      Hodge:

      Have you seen the movie?

      How can you say that it deals with the question from an atheistic perpective when 1) the main character becomes and remains a believer (even at the end she’s still a believer in God’s existence) and 2) the movie takes the Bible, esp. the rapture, seriously and in fact literally? I can see how one could make the argument that it’s about man shaking his fist at God, but I don’t think it’s atheistic on the surface or in its content.

      The Rapture is one of those rare Hollywood movies that treats Christian faith, or at least some aspects of it, seriously and not mockingly, even if it does so in a negative way.

      I think people who watch this movie can come away with different impressions of it and what it’s intending to portray or criticize. Some will indeed hate it. But I hated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, as well as The Transporter.

      I’m not saying it’s a great film, and it may not even be a very good film, but it’s certainly a different film. Warning: nudity and sexual activity.

      YMMV

    • Lynn

      Hodge,

      I think I see what you are saying, and I will ponder on it awhile.

      What springs to mind, just to use as an example, is Christopher Hitchens. He seems very much FOR morality-the good-yet rejects God. He separates the two. So, where in my eyes, he’s a decent person, in God’s eyes, he’s not good because he rejects Christ.
      If he rejects Christ, he cannot be good and is going to hell. He’s failed God’s standard, but not my standard.

    • Hodge

      Eric, I could be wrong, since it’s been well over a decade since I’ve seen the movie, but doesn’t the main character hate God in the end? I don’t remember. I know she hates Him toward the end because she ends up killing her kid supposedly for Him. It takes the rapture literally, but the gospel is distorted in it from what I remember. It’s all about “having” to love God or be sent to hell. It’s not about God loving us by saving us from our rebellion through Christ’s death that gains a response with our love for Him.

    • Hodge

      Lynn,

      Thanks for your honesty and openness. I think Chris Hitchens is a good example. He defines good on his own terms, not God’s. And that is what we do. We remove the fact that good has to do with glorifying and connecting humans to God as the source of good. If humans aren’t really good, and they need God to save them through Christ, then testifying to the world by words or actions that one can be good apart from God, is leading people away from what would pardon them from sin. So their “good” deeds end up contributing toward the damnation of others. In the end, the universe is about God, and we, as rebels, don’t like that. We want to define good apart from Him and then even judge Him by our own finite and warped standards of good and evil. If you think of God as a life source from which good stems, for a moment, then all people need him, but have led others to believe that they’re able to breathe without the source of oxygen. All we get in the end is a bunch of dying people who convince themselves that they’re still alive and well.

    • EricW

      Hodge:

      You’re supposed to use “spoiler” tags/warnings if you’re going to tell those kinds of details about a movie, esp. to people who haven’t yet seen it. 😮 I was deliberately rather vague in my descriptions of the movie and chose not to go into detail so as not to give away too much to those who haven’t seen it, though I did make a point to warn people about the sexually graphic content.

      Your post violates a major tenet of Internet Etiquette. 😀

      Ann Landers would sentence you to the wet noodle punishment.

    • Hodge

      Oh, sorry, although I wouldn’t want people to see it anyway, as it distorts too much. But I was explaining why the movie is essentially an atheistic take on Christianity (i.e., I would rather go to hell if God does exist than be with the God Christianity describes, all you have to do is “say” that you love God to go to heaven, etc.).

    • EricW

      Hodge:

      I understand why the movie could be taken that way. And maybe it is an atheistic take on Christianity.

      Having been in a cult-like group and read about and known the fallout and negative after-effects of such, including complete rejection of the faith by many who leave or burn out or discover the lies they’ve been told, I found the movie interesting from that perspective – i.e., the story of a woman who became a “true believer.”

    • Truth Unites... and Divides

      Hodge: “The problem isn’t that you were once in submission to it. The problem is that you were always in rebellion toward it by thinking that you could attain something and then being told that you couldn’t. So you wouldn’t be going back to it, Lynn. You were never there.”

      Looks like Dr. House’s, oops I mean Dr. Hodge’s diagnosis is correct. At this moment in time.

      God willing, may it change later.

    • Lynn

      Hmm. Well, thanks for the diagnosis.

    • Truth Unites... and Divides

      EricW: “Having been in a cult-like group and read about and known the fallout and negative after-effects of such, including complete rejection of the faith by many who leave or burn out or discover the lies they’ve been told”

      By any chance, was it a cult of egalitarianism?

    • teleologist

      I’m also commanded to love this person who can kill me and throw me into hell.

      People can be made to fear, but they cannot be made to respect or love.

      Lynn, this is an excellent point. I agree with you and this might be the reason why hell is eternal.

    • EricW

      161. Truth Unites… and Divides on 20 May 2010 at 4:28 pm # wrote:

      By any chance, was it a cult of egalitarianism?

      TUaD:

      It’s funny (but not surprising) that you should say/ask that. Because one of the reasons it became (and still is) a cult was due to the non-egalitarian/patriarchal/male-leadership teachings and practices of the leadership and the way the leadership was able to use those teachings and practices to their advantage. Egalitarianism would have stopped the abuse dead in its tracks.

      But FWIW, I didn’t become egalitarian in reaction/response to the behavior of the cult. I left that place more than 11 years ago and spent more than the next 8 years in churches that also believed in and practiced male leadership.

      It was when I began studying the subject in earnest and reading the arguments of both sides, as well as the relevant/applicable Scriptures, that I realized I could no longer support the so-called “complementarian” interpretation and position.

      That’s a BINGO! 😀

    • Susan

      Lynn, what you share in common with Christopher Hitchens is pride. Anyone who stands before their Creator and declares that they will not submit to Him, nor accept what He has revealed about Himself in His word because it doesn’t feel right to them, is essentially full of pride.
      God has made it very clear that He is ‘opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble’. God is opposed to you in your current posture before Him. You’ve been exposed to much truth, but in your rejection you have become hardened before Him.

      I think that Hodge has indeed accurately diagnosed your situation. You were not a true convert. There are many false-converts in the church (even good evangelical churches). My husband was one for 21 years. He thought he was a Christian, after all he had gone forward to an alter call at an evangelistic event, and ‘prayed the sinners prayer’ many times after that (which I think is often the case with a false convert, because there tends to be that perpetual sense of doubt, which is often well-founded!). Finally, after much prayer, I confronted my husband with my suspicions that He might not be a true believer. He was surprised and said, “Why would you say that? I believe everything you believe! And I go to church every Sunday.”

      I told him that the reason I doubted his salvation is that there was not fruit evidencing that he was a child of God in his life. The fruit of the Spirit was absent. Instead, there was much bad fruit, not gross sin which would be obvious to the outside world. It was more the constant anger and very demeaning way that he treated me. It was like he lived to find fault with me. In retrospect I now understand that the reason he did this was that he was living in self-righteousness mode (as Hodge so well described it above). He was always comparing himself with select others and felt good about himself as long as he could tell himself that he was doing at least as well as those particular others.

    • Susan

      This is essentially why he constantly tried to find fault with me. He couldn’t stand for me to be more righteous than him. He would blame me for everything that ever went wrong and then argue me in circles and interrupt me constantly when I tried to set the record straight. Then, when I would finally get to the exasperated point he would glory in the fact that I was angry and say, “Now look at who’s angry! Seems to me that you’re the one with the problem.” He was constantly setting traps for me.

      So, what was missing? He said that he went forward at that service because he was scared to death to go to Hell. Sure, he knew he had sinned. He was sexually involved with his girlfriend at the time (this was a few years before I met him). But, what I believe was missing, which was keeping him from God’s forgiveness, was true repentance. I don’t think he slept with his girlfriend after that, but stopping a sin or two or three doesn’t necessarily mean that there is true repentance in a person’s heart. He had guilt and fear about his sin, but I think that he wasn’t really convicted about what a sinner he really was down to the core of his being. He wasn’t humbly submitting to God. He didn’t ever let Jesus be lord of his life. My husband was full of pride. I can say that with conviction because I lived with his arrogance for 21 years. It was incredibly painful for me and damaging for both myself and our children. He was a grace-less person. He thrived on blaming and shaming us…not on being gracious and forgiving. Life in our home was tense whenever he was around.

      The good news is, that God used what I said to him to finally get his attention. There was a process involved. It took time, and it took him going before God and questioning many things. My husband didn’t like it when I listened to Christian radio preachers, but one day during Christmas break, I risked turning on the radio with my husband present.

    • Susan

      Pastor James McDonald came on and spoke about false-conversion. He spoke to church goers who thought they were true believers. He talked to those who are maybe evan involved in ministry at their church. He said, it’s even possible that you have talked with nonbelievers about Jesus, but you are still not saved yourself. He left no rock unturned for my husband. By that time my husband was seriously wrestling with this whole subject so he was all ears, and even wanted to hear part two of the series the next day. That night he told me that he felt so convicted. (!) Conviction of this sort is a work of God’s Spirit in a person’s heart….it’s not just guilt BTW.

      It wasn’t until months later that my husband was very convicted by a sermon our pastor preached from Matt. 7, that he finally ‘gave his life to Jesus’. Jesus said that His disciples obey Him. My husband realized that he had not been obeying Jesus. God’s Spirit opened his eyes to this.

      Since that day, I have been a front-row witness to the Spirit’s transformation of my husband. I see things in him now that I never would have dreamed possible a few years ago. He will be coming up on his ‘second birthday’ this July. Thanks be to God.

      Lynn, I would not take the time to say all of this to you if I didn’t feel compelled to do so, which I might assume is because it is God’s Spirit which is compelling me! So, all I can say is that I hope you will humble yourself before Him. Your heart has become hardened, but He calls out to you once again in your rebellion and says, “Come to me”. He must really love you! And I don’t doubt that Hodge has been to responding to the Spirit’s urgings regarding you as well.

      Hodge, you are a blessing here. Thanks for your wisdom….and thank God for your wisdom, which often sheds much light in these conversations. Your pastoral heart comes through.

    • Truth Unites... and Divides

      Susan: “So, all I can say is that I hope you will humble yourself before Him.

      I hope the same thing.

      Hodge, you are a blessing here. Thanks for your wisdom….and thank God for your wisdom, which often sheds much light in these conversations. Your pastoral heart comes through.”

      I heartily agree!!

    • Lynn

      Wow. Well, I will take your thoughts under consideration and sincerely do thank you for them, as I do believe you are sincere and mean well.

      As I mentioned in my story, if I was never saved, I feel that’s on God, because I SINCERELY and in all HUMILITY asked and asked thru the years. If, after fifty years, I’m supposed to keep on asking-in all honesty, that doesn’t sound too appealing. I mean if God wanted me, surely he would have me at this point. He would have accepted me and given me that deep assurance, in spite of my personality type, that so many others seem to have.

      Could it be that you, Susan, are a nice person and very empathetic toward others, and that’s why you shared some of your life with me and asked me to submit to Christ? So, it could very well be that I am simply not of the elect, and that’s the reason it never felt like it worked for me.

      Part of me says it’s really nuts that I’m putting my “soul” out here for everybody to evaluate. But on the other hand, honesty is good, and what is, is.

      Can anyone even conceive of how I see things at this point? Other than saying I was never a Christian to begin with, can you see how I might conclude what I have concluded? Either I’m not of the elect, or it’s all hogwash and I’ve tortured myself over the years for nothing? Honestly, in my mind, it has to be one or the other. Because since I’m inside my head, and nobody else is, and I’ve lived my life, and nobody else has, I absolutely know–just as sure as you are that you are a Christian–of my deep sincerity in asking to be God’s child all these years in DEEP humility.

      If you tell me I’ve been delusional about that humility, then fine. But I don’t know how you could possibly truly know the intents of my heart.

    • Truth Unites... and Divides

      Lynn: “So, it could very well be that I am simply not of the elect,”

      Well, as much as it pains me to say so, as much as it doesn’t feel good or nice or kind to say so, and in the spirit of genuine honesty and clarity, …
      you may very well be right.

      Of course, I hope you’re wrong, and that you are indeed one of the elect, one of those who come around later in life (perhaps even kicking and screaming), but yeah, you could be right.

    • Lynn

      Truth unites,

      Thanks for your honesty and good wishes.

    • Truth Unites... and Divides

      Dear Lynn,

      Much thanks for the thanks.

      If we can’t agree (yet) that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, then the next best thing is clarity and honesty about the differences.

      I pray that it’s God’s Will that you are among the Elect.

      And even if not, that He bless you abundantly with His Common Grace.

    • Susan

      Lynn, you are right that I don’t know the true condition of your heart before God, but I do know that if you are a child of God….who possibly isn’t seeing things correctly now, that He will never leave you not forsake you. He doesn’t un-adopt His children.

      I wouldn’t get too hung up on the am-I-or-am-I-not one of the elect conundrum. I simply hope that you will again humble yourself before God and ask Him to help you in your unbelief. And you know, it never hurts to actually get down on your knees and ask Him to help you to submit to Him. I’ve had to do this a few times myself.

      As far as ‘putting my soul out there goes’ you should see some of what I wrote here before my husband came to Christ…when my life was entirely miserable and I was in much pain and very lonely. I bared my soul a time or two on these threads…because I often felt like I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. I think those threads were lost when Michael experienced the big hacker incident two years ago…but I sure do remember putting myself out there. God has a reason even for this…and for leading you to us.

      I prayed for you a few days ago, and I will continue to do so.

      The witness is this, that God has given us eternal life and this life is in His son. He who has the Son has life and he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe on the Son of God in order that you may know that you have eternal life. 1John 5:11-12 (from memory…so forgive if I missed a word or two)

      I pray that you will have that life….and know it!

    • Lynn

      Thank you, Susan.

    • mbaker

      Lynn,

      I agree with Susan. God is infinitely merciful to all those who humbly seek the truth.

      Many of us here have been exactly where you are. Susan said it so well when she said:

      “I wouldn’t get too hung up on the am-I-or-am-I-not one of the elect conundrum. ”

      Only God knows who His own really are. I hope no one here has convinced you that what others say, think, or do, that can ever stop the God who created you from loving you, and wanting you to come to Him in faith. If you never get anything else out of your time here, please know that.

      God bless.

    • I have written an article “The Biblical Doctrine of Hell – Why does God send some people to hell?” where I show that hell, as the place of eternal torment, is metaphysically possible in the universe of a morally perfect God who is full of love and goodness.

      The article is in two parts. The first part, Biblical reasons for the doctrine of hell as eternal torment, will examine all relevant biblical texts about hell and show that the Bible teaches that lost sinners, who died in their unrepentant sins, will be punished with everlasting torment. The second part, Apologetic defense of the doctrine of hell as eternal torment, is more philosophical in approach and endeavors to explain how eternal torment of lost souls is metaphysically possible in the universe of a benevolent God.

      The article is found at the following location:
      http://www.early-church.net/hell.html

    • Truth Unites... and Divides

      Dorothy Sayers, the Anglican writer, wrote an interesting piece, seeking to answer the issue of why God allowed evil to come into the world. Reformed theology speaks of “God ordaining all things” – and when it comes to evil entering the world, we understand “ordaining” as “deciding that it would happen” (Acts 2:22-23; 4:27-28; Ephesians 1:11; Romans 9:22-23, Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6; Lam. 3:37-38; Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28-29) while at the same time not being the one who does the evil. (I John 1:5; Hab. 1:13; Isaiah 6; Titus 1:2) As John Piper has written, “God is not a sinner.” While some of Sayer’s statement is not theologically precise, and some is not the best wording; I still think it captures a good apologetic truth for the skeptic and a strength for a young believer growing in theology:

      “For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is – limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death – He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation and defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worth while.” (Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos? New York: Harcourt, Brace and Col, 149, p. 4; cited in Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Answers to Tough Questions. Here’s Life Publishers, 1980, p. 153-154.

      Hi Lynn, Ken Pulliam, and other skeptics,

      I hope the above is helpful for you.

    • Michael T.

      CMP,

      I know you are probably not following this anymore, but I have a question. You wrote.

      “As I have often said, the palatability of a doctrine does not determine its veracity.”

      I have often agreed with this statement and even defended it. However, I have often wondered to what degree man’s natural senses come into play here (distorted as they may be)? For instance as far as justice is concerned is an act “just” simply because God says it is? Or are there acts which if committed would make even God an unjust sadist? Could God decree that all Anglo-Saxons be killed simply because of their skin color and be just?

      Now I realize this is hypothetical in many ways, but I think it is a legitimate questions as to how we approach things and interpret things. For instance I cannot in my head rationalize and harmonize omnicausation and omnicontrol on the part of God with God being just in sentencing human beings to Hell and hence I believe strongly in LFW. Personally I believe God created us with an innate sense of justice and right and wrong, and while this may be distorted, it seems to me that it can’t be so distorted that true justice is the complete opposite of what we term “justice”.

      What do you think?

    • […] and full embrace are knotty indeed.  I’ve been working through several of them.  The whole Hell thing is something I’m considering in ways I never have, for instance.  It’s not easy to look […]

    • Jeff Ayers

      While I am an IFB and still hold to the doctrine of a burning Hell for those who do not believe on Christ. These questions, some from the time of my childhood, some since the I was first saved in 1980, make me stop and take pause at the doctrine of God torturing a person for all of eternity:

      Why is there no mention of Hell for the first two thousand years + of the worlds existence? (The book of Job [1,800 BC +/-] speaking of the “pit”)

      Why is there no warning of an eternal burning torture chamber for the “lost” until the time of Christ? (Pit, wrath, hell etc. are found in the OT–but these passages never describe a place of a never-ending torture for those who do not trust Christ)

      Other than Jonah and a few other instances of a Jew going to the heathen to warn of God’s wrath, why is there never a single mention of anyone in the OT ever giving the gospel to the gentiles to keep them from Hell?

      Why does Paul never once teach about Hell, second death, the lake of fire or conscious torture for all eternity?

      Why does the Bible never teach that people are tortured in the lake of fire for ever? (Death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire- but those who were not found in the book of life were cast into the lake of fire for how long?)

      How can sin, no matter how grievous, heinous and wicked ever require a punishment where it requires torture, burning and separation from all that is good for ever and never ending?

      How can people who never heard the gospel (the majority of people- no doubt in the billions) be tortured and punished in a never ending Hell because they failed to believe on Jesus for eternal life?

      How can there be children burning for ever and ever in Hell? Most believe that babies don’t go to Hell, but few will say a 10 year old (or 13, or 15 etc.) is not accountable for their sin and responsible to believe the Gospel.

      How can there be babies burning in Hell… Some say all non elect babies go to Hell, some say unbaptized babies burn forever, some say that at least one parent must be saved, some say that babies must be baptized into a covenant relationship with God to avoid burning in Hell–how can ANY baby burn in HELL for ANY reason?

      If a never ending torture chamber is reality, then why is 90% of a churches budget spent on buildings and salary, while 10% (at best) is spent on missions?

      If Calvinism is true (double reprobation) then you now have the supralapsarianism horrible decree that God creates a person for the sole purpose of “passing over” the poor non-elect soul so that he lives forever in a burning fiery pit.

      Where does the Bible teach that the lost go to Hell immediately upon death (Luke 16 does not)?

      So many more questions…. so few answers

    • Mark

      ” God loves all people.
      God is not willing that any should perish.
      God is in control.
      Those who don’t trust Christ will spend eternity in hell.
      These seem paradoxical.”

      If you add a fifth statement, “There are some who will never bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” then they are not just paradoxical.

      They are absolutely contradictory in terms of human reason (the only kind I know much about). They “may” be true in some since that only God can understand but there is no point in talking about things that I can’t understand.

    • Mark

      Whoops, meant to say,
      “They may be true” in some sense . . .

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