c l a s s i c a l
From their book Is God Just a Human Invention? And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists, Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow respond to some of the most emotionally-driven critics of Christianity among the New Atheists and address their questions and arguments.
This post is edited from their chapter "Is Hell a Divine Torture Chamber?" Some atheists ridicule the notion of God judging human beings, especially for eternity, insinuating that He even takes delight in such. McDowell and Morrow, briefly edited here, engage the subject of hell in the following.
This post is edited from their chapter "Is Hell a Divine Torture Chamber?" Some atheists ridicule the notion of God judging human beings, especially for eternity, insinuating that He even takes delight in such. McDowell and Morrow, briefly edited here, engage the subject of hell in the following.
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Is hell a fiery torture chamber? Will people be endlessly burning alive? We'll return to the issue of divine torture below, but for now let's [address] the fire. In order to do this, we need to remember a fundamental principle of communication: every medium of communication has rules and must be understood within the context of those rules if the message is going to be accurately interpreted.
We don't read the sports page and conclude that the Tennessee Titans actually killed the Dallas Cowboys -- they just scored a lot more points. Nor when someone says, "You're driving me crazy!" do we infer that the person is actually having a mental breakdown at that very moment. Because we are familiar with the ways people communicate in our culture, we understand these to be examples of figurative language or figures of speech.
Unfortunately, the New Atheists don't bring this same level of cultural understanding to the Bible and seem to forget [i.e. intentionally neglect] that their interpretations should be governed by the normal rules of literature. . . .
You may wonder why we are making you have flashbacks of your college English class. Our point is simply this: we can take the Bible seriously without having to read it in an overly rigid or hyperliteral way and still be faithful to the text. You may disagree with the teaching of the Bible at the end of the day (you are certainly free to do so), but intellectual honesty and the principle of charity compel us to play by the rules of language [a missing ingredient among the New Atheists]. For whatever else the Bible may be, it is at least great literature.
So what about the fire? George Ladd is representative of contemporary New Testament scholarship when he concludes that images like "fire" and "darkness" are "metaphors used to represent the indescribable." It is important to see that this is not a cop out, but that it flows from the normal use of language.
It would be tempting, then, to think that hell may not be that bad after all since actual fire isn't there, but that would be a mistake because the reality is far worse than the symbol. Fire speaks to the eternal, spiritual decomposition of a person. So, if heaven is where people become fully human, then hell is the ultimate disintegration of what it means to be human.
The darkness refers to the complete absence of relationship in hell. Because we have been so bombarded with images of flames and devils with pitchforks, we fail to see that the essence of hell is relational.
The apostle Paul, who was well tutored in the Hebrew Scriptures and a careful student of Jesus' teachings, taught that hell is a place where people "pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power." The source of anguish is the awareness that floods in from the absence of this fundamental relationship.
Tim Keller observes that thinking of hell in relational terms is foreign to most people:
Modern people inevitably think hell works like this: God gives us time, but if we haven't made the right choices by the end of our lives, he casts our souls into hell for all eternity. As the poor souls fall through space, they cry out for mercy, but God says "Too late! You had your chance! Now you will suffer!" This caricature misunderstands the very nature of evil.Getting past the caricatures helps us put hell into a context that begins to make sense to us. But more can be said because Jesus taught on hell not just to inform, but also to deter his audience from a certain way of life.
The Biblical picture is that sin separates us from the presence of God, which is the source of all joy and indeed of all love, wisdom, or good things of any sort. Since we were originally created for God's immediate presence, only before his face will we thrive, flourish, and achieve our highest potential. . . . To lose his presence totally, that would be hell -- the loss of our capability for giving or receiving love or joy.
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Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow, Is God Just a Human Invention? And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2010), 160-63.
The concept of hell is an especially nasty and unpleasant image. So horrific that it continues to generate all sorts of arguments and suggestions. Yes there are unbiblical caricatures; however there are many exegetical dilutions which even render the concept as untrustworthy. Regardless of the particulars there are two immutable teachings within the New Testament. First, those who come to faith in Christ before they die will be eternally ushered into a “place” of indescribable bliss. And second those who die in their sins with eventually find themselves in an indescribably bad place and one that should be avoided at all costs.
ReplyDeleteSo linguistic gymnastics aside, two places post mortem are available for all souls. One very, very good, and one very, very bad. The seriousness of that situation cannot be overstated. So serious and horrific was that situation that God had to die. That must reveal an eternal seriousness.
Pastor Rick,
DeleteThat was very well put. As an aside: have you read the book 23 Minutes in Hell by Bill Wiese? I read it about two years ago, gave it to a philosophy professor for his reaction, and he didn't quite know what to say (I didn't either). Just wondering.
WWB - Loving this series :-)
ReplyDeleteOh, good, I'm glad I'm not alone, haha.
DeleteI have not read the book but I have read about his vision. I am usually skeptical about such visions but since it seems to be within accepted Biblicparameters, and since he uses it for leading souls to Christ (some save with fear), I tend to accept along the same lines as I tend to believe in some of the Jesus dreams some Muslims are having.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good evaluation.
DeleteWWB:
ReplyDeleteI do take hell rather literally. Any attempt to allegorize its descriptions falls, it seems to me, on the rocks of the resurrection. Everyone is resurrected for judgment according to the Word, so everyone is back in some kind of physical state for judgment. If the cross is any picture of what suffering for sin looks like, then it is both physical anguish and the utter darkness of separation. Hence, when the multitudes of descriptions of hell in the Bible paint it as a dark place of fire and torment I see no reason to soften the blow.
The issue, I think, is what that says about God's character. People tend to judge God by human standards and think that hell is barbaric. Yet God displays his wrath against unrighteous from heaven everyday and people refuse to see the message. What about life, death and history could ever convince anyone that God takes sin lightly or that judgment from him is not overwhelming and unavoidable? It is a fearful thing to fall into the hand of the living God.
I see hell as a necessary means for an omniscient and omnipresent God to deal with evil and sin. Since life was given his [eternal] breath it would seem that it is indestructible; therefore, to stop such life from intending evil with every thought, the agony and torment of hell will reduce such to a benign white noise. It is a gift to live, but it is an assault on God to live in opposition to him. God is good, but what would he be if he allowed that which wasn't to continue unabated? For the sake of good, beauty, love, joy all in the presence of God, hell must be what the scriptures describe it to be.
Pastor Steve,
DeleteI, too, take hell in a literal, physical sense. I agree with and very much like your comments.
Mr. Birch, you mentioned Bill Wiese's book. I have read selections from it and synopses of it, and my humble evaluation is that it is likely just a dream that he misinterpreted as a genuine vision and embellished, perhaps subconsciously. His "vision" in many ways accords better with lurid pop culture depictions of hell than with the Scriptural evidence. For example, he says he saw the demons in hell acting as tormentors of the damned, when Scripturally hell is for the punishment of the demons as well as people. He also claims the souls of the damned are tortured by having their FLESH ripped off and regrown - souls in the intermediate state have flesh? And his descriptions of giant spiders and train-sized snakes crawling around hell suggests to me that this "vision" owes more to Mr. Wiese's imagination than to any inspiration of the Spirit.
ReplyDeleteDave,
DeleteYes, there were sections of the book that had me very perplexed as well as to its scriptural warrant of the actual reality of hell and what happens there.
Let us also put something in perspective here. Although this man’s vision seemed to take some Dante-esque license, there is so little mention of hell, to say nothing of strong warning, within evangelicalism that any attention given to its reality must be welcomed on some level. Additionally, who is to say that some of the particulars of his vision are not metaphorical in nature? I remember a preacher once told me that there is so little spiritual fire of any kind that a little wild fire is sometimes used of God to provoke the church. Who knows for sure the divine veracity of his vision? But one thing is for sure the doctrine, to say nothing of the life changing reality, of hell as all but disappeared from the evangelical church. I do not count a cold and placid cameo appearance in a statement of faith to be anything but that.
ReplyDeletePastor Rick,
DeleteThat is yet another great observation -- one I had not considered.
This was inspired by this post.
ReplyDeletehttp://judahslion.blogspot.com/2013/03/and-whosoever-was-not-found-written-in.html