I used to think that God's foremost quality was Love. I still want to believe that, but it's come to my attention that the Christian God, at least, is equal parts of Love and Justice, and has a passion for each that it beyond the ken of humanity.
Love, of course, consists of relationships. It manifests in selflessness and sacrifice. This is the aspect of God that we tend to focus on today, the one that we like to hear about. Not the God of fire and brimstone, but Abba, Father. The God who sent Jesus to save us so he could spend eternity with us. And this is, indubitably, a part of God's nature. God does, in fact, love us more than we could ever imagine.
But the other part is Justice, and Justice is just as integral to God as Love is. It's a part of who he is. Now, Justice deals with the law (a law that has its soul in Love). It also deals with punishment and reward according to what we deserve according to that law. God's Justice says that the wages of sin is death--or, more on point, the punishment of sin is everlasting torment with Satan. He also says that the reward for righteousness (a righteousness that can only be attained through accepting Jesus' sacrifice, not by works) is eternal life with Him. Punishment and Reward, very simply. One is eternal bliss, the other eternal torment. There is no grey area.
This marriage of Love with Justice explains much of the tougher aspects of Christianity, particularly the institution of Hell. Why does sin merit such a harsh punishment? Because God's wrath at a violation of the law of Love is virtually unending. He loves the righteous with a burning, everlasting love -- and he despises the unrighteous with an equal degree of loathing. He cannot do otherwise, because he IS Justice, just as he IS Love. It is just as much out of character to release sinners from torment as it would be to reject one of his beloved sons or daughters.
According to this system, Christians have indeed been saved from death by Jesus' sacrifice, and it was a great act of Love -- the greatest, even, for it replaces infinite wrath with infinite love. Humans have all broken the Law of Love, and according to God's Justice, we all deserve the eternal wrath of an infinite being. Because Jesus took that punishment on himself, God now sees those that follow Christ as perfect beings worthy of heaven. So there are only two options for humanity: repent or perish. And according to Love and Justice, this all makes sense, and it is both loving and just.
My issue, though, is that it seems to me that Justice and Love are two logically incommensurate values--that God cannot claim both of these to the utmost degree. In other words, to be completely Just, God must sacrifice being Loving. And to be completely Loving, God must sacrifice Justice. This is because while an action like sending people to hell to be tormented for eternity may indeed be Just, it certainly has no Love in it. It doesn't lead to a relationship, and it isn't selfless or sacrificial. It's just the law, and a terrible, painful, and hard law. Likewise, if God made exception to people who refused to bow the knee to him -- if he refused to punish them eternally because of his magnanimous Love -- then he would be denying his own Justice.
So it seems to me that the two aspects of God that are the strongest and most lauded character traits are logically unable to exist in the same God at the same time. And I think that many people realize this, and that's why we get books trying to explain how hell isn't what we think it is. In this age, people want a God whose Love is more powerful than his Justice, who would never dream of shutting himself away from his creation for any reason; who would never create a place where everlasting torment has its way with frail humanity. The other end of that spectrum is preaching Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God -- a concept rebuffed by some, but equally as valid according to Scripture. It's a God whose Justice is to be feared and accepted, a God whose Love only extends to the cross and no further.
Logically, there seems to be no middle ground. Either God's Justice or his Love must triumph, and hell indicates the triumph of Justice over Love.
Great blog post. I'm still reading about this topic and forming my thoughts, but here are some initial comments:
ReplyDelete1) God wants all to be in heaven. “Do you think that I like to see wicked people die? says the Sovereign Lord. Of course not! I want them to turn from their wicked ways and live." (Ezekiel 18:23 NLT)
2) But He allows each of us the freedom to choose. C.S. Lewis says “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those TO WHOM God says, in the end, ‘THY will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it.”
3) The unrepentant would not want to be in God’s presence. Sartre said “The last thing I want is to be subject to the unremitting gaze of a holy God.” Dallas Willard observes: “But their orientation toward self leads them to become the kind of person for whom away-from-God is the only place for which they are suited. It is a place they would, in the end, choose for themselves, rather than come to humble themselves before God.”
4) Hell exists, in part, for the benefit of the redeemed. God's love for the redeemed requires that he ensure that hell's occupants will not harm or pollute the redeemed. In addition, the occupants of hell serve as an eternal reminder to the redeemed of the horror of sin.
5) Finally, the Bible is inconclusive regarding whether hell is a place of eventual annihilation or never-ending punishment. Different passages can be interpreted to support both views, and scholars are not in total agreement. Either way, hell is a horrifying place characterized by suffering, fire, darkness, and lamentation.
I completely accept that not everyone wants a life with God; heaven is not for everyone. What I can't accept is that people WOULD enjoy being tortured by God in their only alternative. People choose life without God; no one, however, willingly chooses the torment he inflicts on them when they refuse him.
ReplyDeleteIf God's love extended to the afterlife, I would expect to find a place without any involvement from God at all--a place without his love and joy, to be sure, but also a place without his deliberate torment. If God said to someone, "THY will be done," you can be certain that their will would not include misery and torment. That quote is from The Great Divorce, in which Lewis illustrates a hell of people's own making--a theological concept I would readily embrace, but not the Biblical version. Not a hell formed by and for the wrath and vengeance of God.
It seems, then, that people are faced with a choice between two lives--one formed by God's love, and one by God's wrath, and both regulated by God's passions. For someone who would choose a life without God, neither of these choices are in the least desirable.