EVERLASTING HELL IS A SPITEFUL DOCTRINE
The Handbook of Christian Apologetics devotes
chapter 12 to defending the doctrine of Hell.
The Handbook says that it is unthinkable that Hell could not exist for that makes Jesus and the Christian Church liars. But not necessarily. They might be just mistaken. And considering the kind of dishonesty the Church is riddled with would it really be unthinkable for it to be lying? The handbook says that if we reject the doctrine of Hell because we cannot stand it what is to stop us getting rid of other doctrines we cannot stand? But so unprofessional is this book that it does not make a distinction between doctrines that we should stand though we don’t like them and ones that we shouldn’t endure. The adulterer would not be able to stand the ban on adultery but he should. It is sectarian to say it is unthinkable that the Church is lying for a member of any different religion could say the same about the people who set up his religion. Are the authors suggesting that the argument only applies to the Catholic Church for it is the only good religion? They have to be!
The Christians will believe that Hell must exist because Jesus said so. This is alarming. It is really no different to one saying her husband raped children but must have intended some good for the children when he did it for it is unthinkable that he was lying. Its disgusting. Jesus Christ and the Church are merely being allowed to pollute human decency.
No genuinely good person would say that we must be capable of hating everybody for all eternity just because we can't call Jesus and the Church liars. If the pope said that paedophiles want to become demons at death to possess children what would we think of somebody who argued that we must accept this for we must not call the pope mistaken or a liar? It shows plenty of concern for defending the doctrine-maker but none for the slander of the human race. It is no excuse to say that no specific person is being accused. To say any person could choose to be evil for all eternity insults us all for you could be speaking about anybody.
Christianity actually wants to believe in Hell. They don't look for evidence that people can be stubborn enough to go to Hell for all eternity. No. They decide people can be bad enough just because Jesus Christ or somebody said so. If they started with evidence from human nature their adopting the belief might not be motivated by vindictiveness. Indeed evidence itself wouldn't justify belief that human nature could go to Hell and stay there. Proof would be needed. The less evidence the more vindictiveness lurks there. It may be stronger subliminally than consciously.
If I decide you committed a crime just because I felt you were guilty then I am vindictive. If I decided it because of the evidence then it is completely different. And so it is with the idea of Hell.
Anybody staying in Hell for all eternity is suffering from stupidity not evil. Thus the doctrine that they deserve it is vindictive.
Then the book complains that if there is no everlasting punishment then our choices make no infinite difference. It means that we can make choices that can put us in infinite misery or infinite happiness. Infinite means it lasts forever with no end.
So they have a problem with the idea that our choices would make no infinite difference if there were no Hell. Who cares? Are we to say that Hell should exist so that we can feel that our choices make an infinite difference? That is spiteful.
Nearly all of our choices make no infinite difference. It is only the choice we make at death, according to the doctrine of Hell, that does that. Clearly the Handbook is making a spiteful and deceitful attempt to cover up the malice of their doctrine. It even resorts to contradicting the doctrine to defend it!
The book complains that Christians care
because without Hell life is bland and everybody will be okay in the end and
that the fight against evil will be seen as a less serious war than it can be –
again who cares as long as the battle is fought? This is a clear admission that those who say
such a thing want to believe in Hell.
That can only be out of spite for it involves wishing that people who
die in sin would go there forever. It is
rooted in unstable selfishness. Those
who want there to be a Hell for their own pleasure will be the ones most
entitled to end up in it. And it is only
the choice at death that makes the infinite difference. The rest don’t matter. One thing is for sure, they are right that if
Hell is justified this is one of the justifications as is free will which we
will come to next. They are the only
excuses for it for even justice is not enough.
This is admitted on page 290 which says that our choice is the
fundamental reason for the existence of Hell.
Thus we have proven that Hell is a vindictive doctrine.
It is ludicrous to
say that the prospect of everlasting evil is good for it makes us hate evil
more and even more eager to fight it. If
we are really good we will not need to believe in Hell to do this. Also, how could you want to fight evil hard
if it is going to win with many people forever and ever?
Also, the Church says
that Jesus only told us what we need to know to get meaning out of life. He told us about Hell which means that if you
believe in Christianity who have to believe in this malicious argument for
Hell.
Then the book objects that if there is no eternal damnation there is no free will. But that does not mean that anybody who dies in sin should be sent to Hell to be locked in sin forever. What about the free will of anybody who wants to go to Hell temporarily? Why is the permanent the only option? The damned should be allowed to change if they want to or to make themselves progressively worse and worse until they inflict everlasting torment on themselves which will never happen for we cannot chose such incredible misery. Even those who do seek pain, do so because they enjoy it. It is argued that if God did not let you send yourself to Hell for all eternity then he would be guilty of ignoring your free will and giving you further chances of repentance that you do not want or will. If that is true then we have no free will now. If I choose to go to Hell now and forever, God ignores me. He doesn’t strike me dead instantly to let me do it so to say there is no free will if there is no Hell is just to blame the damned and excuse the inexcusable God and is therefore vindictive. It is a strange kind of free will that gives you the power to lose free will for in Hell you cannot change. It denigrates the alleged value of free will. Hell destroys the love of God by saying he gave us evil free will instead of the will we really have. (The will we really have is the will not to choose good or evil but to choose good or lesser good.) If that is true the mortal sinner will go to Hell the second he sins. Interestingly, this objection is not answered in the section of the chapter that answers objections.
If you really choose Hell of your own free will and you really create it for yourself of your own free will, then how can you be expected to fear it? There is nothing to fear if you are in control. Here is a parallel. You can't fear making a choice to do a parachute jump. You can't be afraid of your own free will. Jesus commanded us to fear him who can get us into Hell. If you stay in jail of your own free will you are not being punished any more. Being punished means being forced to suffer. Jesus described Hell as eternal punishment. We don't understand how people could choose Hell and so it does not help to say people choose it freely. We might as well believe that people go there kicking and screaming because of some sin they committed and the reason is known only to God. The choosing Hell idea is especially upsetting to and beyond the understanding of children.
To say we freely
choose Hell is to say we choose to become pure sin and so God gives us what we
want. Let us study this.
We know that you cannot love the sinner and hate the sin for the sin reveals the sinner. The two cannot be treated as separate for to hurt the sin means to hurt the sinner.
The Catholic book, Ecumenical Jihad says that gay people
usually are the ones who reject this love sinner but hate sin stuff. It says they are identifying their sin with
all of their personality. In other
words, they are saying there is no distinction between their sin and their
entire selves (page 45). There is real
rancour in the book’s assertion that this is what Hell is, sinners admitting
they are their sin and preferring to suffer in Hell forever rather than turn to
the God who loves them and hates their sin for they see his hatred of sin as
hatred for them. This puts the gays in
the same boat as the damned. And
Christians can’t care much about the damned for they would go out of their
minds if they did. Terrifying! If it were not for the sanctimonious hate the
sinner but love sin doctrine this classification of those who reject it as
extreme sinners would not exist. If they
are extreme sinners then any good they do is false for they equate themselves
and all their being with sin. Humanists
will not have attitudes like that towards people who do that for they reject
free will and see evil as sickness.
If Hell is for those who hold they are their sin it follows that to
believe that love the sinner and hate the sin is to guarantee your
damnation. This is pure vindictive
hatred on the part of the Church. They
want us to rot in Hell forever for the truth and for seeing through their
pretence. It must be an extremely grave
sin.
The Christians say they don’t judge people but sins. They say that if you sin seriously then you
are identifying yourself with your sin and making a complete choice for evil
and against God. They say that everybody
is Hell is there because they believe the sinner cannot be separated from the
sin and that sin reveals the sinner so to hate sin is to hate the sinner. But if we are that bad if we commit serious
sin then some interesting conclusions arise.
The damned must really become that evil when they identify themselves
with their sin. They close themselves off from God forever and
irrevocably. There is nothing left that
God can work on to change them so all good is gone from them. That is why they must stay in Hell forever.
If so those who would be damned if they died now and those who are damned
must be seen as having no genuine good in them.
To hate their sin would be to hate them for they identify themselves
with their sin. If Christians believe
the reason for eternal damnation is that a totally evil choice is made then
they cannot look for anything to praise in mortal sinners, that is, sinners who
deserve Hell. The sinners then must be
hated. When somebody is totally evil and
is sin that person would have to be hated to avoid loving the sin. The doctrine of Hell certainly urges
Christians to hate sinners.
Then it objects that
those Eastern religions that do not believe in Hell do not believe in an
objective morality. As long as they
believe in behaving themselves on earth who gives a damn? And lots of people deny Hell and do believe
in objective morality.
Then it objects that if
there is no everlasting punishment then Jesus is only a teacher and prophet but
not saviour. He alone could still have
died for our sins to save us from guilt and punishment even if there is no
Hell.
Page 289 says that
the torment of Hell is love. God showers
love on the damned and it torments them because they hate it and want to cling
to their selfishness instead of receiving it and turning to him. It gives the example of a stubborn enraged
child that hates its parents and sees the love they lavish on it as torture as
exactly what happens in Hell. But few
mortal sinners who are fit for Hell feel that way about God. God must make them feel like that in Hell so
it is his fault after all that Hell exists and not just the fault of free will. Page 299 then puts a damper on the idea that
it is God’s love that is painful by saying it may be the tormenting fire of
Hell. So they are not sure – this is the
idea that the torment of Hell is not God’s fault or doing at all. They speak of love as if it were a
force. Parents do not and cannot rain
the power of love on their children – love is not like an electricity that you
can make flash from your fingertips. The
parents can hurt the child not by unwanted love for unwanted love is a
contradiction. It is not love. They can hurt the child only by doing pretend
loving actions such as by giving the child unwanted hugs and unwanted
sweets. It is the actions that hurt. God then is tormenting and teasing the damned
and then pretending he loves them. And
the handbook authors are trying to make excuses for him so they are no
better. Their arguments show their
manipulative ways up. Consider
this. If you teach that Hell is our
doing not God’s then you have no choice but to say that it is God’s love that
torments the damned. That way you make
it superficially look like that God is not deliberately tormenting them.
If God lets the
damned burn one another then he is no better than a God who creates a fire to
burn them in himself to save them the trouble.
Page 292 criticises
the notion that Hell puts justice before love by saying that justice is simply
a way of loving. Then it launches into
an attack on the Calvinist doctrine that God makes some people and schemes to
land them in Hell. But if they are
honest they will agree with this for God is the only explanation of the change
in a sinner who dies from one who is in sin but who might repent given the
chance to one to whom repentance is impossible.
Then it is said that
we influence our punishment in Hell and shut God out but he does not shut us
out. The shutting out of God is the
reason Hell is painful it says for God alone can give joy.
Page 297 argues that
if Hell is not true then if we don’t like God we can worship another. It says that Hell follows from the
exclusivity of God. But even if we do
sincerely adore another God we indirectly adore God. The book itself argues that sincerity can
save despite the errors so it has no right using this sectarian and arrogant
answer.
Page 298 argues that
since all of us fear what will come to pass after death there must be a Hell!
Presumably, since God
makes us and if there is a Hell he would have to warn us by giving us that
feeling.
This argument insults
and calls anybody who says they don’t have this fear a liar. Atheists fear extinction at death but not
Hell. One could well argue that anybody
who says they don’t believe in the pope is a liar. The argument is also vindictive in the sense
that it is non-falsifiable – whoever needs to use bad arguments is teaching
harmful doctrine and seeking to harm us.
The fear of death is not about Hell – it is a fear of extinction and the
unknown. It is only some Christians for
most are just skeptics who feel the fear of Hell. The argument fails if people exist who don’t
fear Hell. As they exist then clearly
there is no Hell for God would put the fear of Hell in everybody.
If you don’t fear
Hell then presumably you are so evil that you want to go there even if you live
a good life. See the vindictiveness in such
a stance?
If there
were a Hell the fear of judgment at death would be a universal thing but it is
not. It is among those who have heard of
Hell and think it could exist. But if it
existed God would give all people a great worry about what would happen if they
died in a bad spiritual state.
The same page then
starts answering objections to Hell. It
agrees with the objection that Hell is against the love of God but says it is
not God’s fault.
The second objection
answered is that the punishment does not fit the crime. It says it does fit the crime for it is what
the damned want.
The third says that
God could have done more to stop people getting into the situations that caused
them to choose Hell.
The silly answer to this
is that this would be doing away with free will. It says the bad situations are our fault not
God’s. Even if this is true on earth it
need not be true when we leave the earth for God could put us on another world
that will give us a better chance of turning to him forever. And besides if God gave us better influences
on earth we would choose better. There
would be nothing wrong with that for we have influences on us all the time
anyway.
The fourth and fifth
objection answered says that nobody would choose Hell. The reply answers that nobody can understand
why or how people could do that but says that they do. Then it blames it on choosing to be insane. It admits that insane people are not
responsible but adds that if you choose to be insane it is different. Most people would be disgusted at that
suggestion for it means that God is justified in allowing the person to become
mad by choice and lose free will for in Hell you cannot change. A God who really respected free will would
give us more free will not less and ignore the choice. And nobody deserves to be punished while they
are insane even if they have chosen it because it is not them anymore. They are not themselves. The Christians insult insane people to
maintain the credibility of Jesus.
The answer to
objection six which says that Jesus would have been immoral if he taught Hell
says that he was right to for he was only warning us. But he never said he saw Hell so what
business had he doing that? He hadn’t
even proved by his resurrection that he had come from God at this stage and he
was making outrageous statements like that.
He was not warning but causing trouble.
Objection seven says
that Hell is a bad doctrine for it scares people and makes them feel hatred and
despair.
The answer says that
the doctrine leads to a healthy fear and that only bad teaching makes Hell lead
to despair and hate. But the authors
surely know that lots of people would not agree with their solutions to the
problem of a Good God allowing a place like Hell to exist so what do they
expect?
If you get a
temporary depression from guilt see then how the thought of Hell affects your
mind. It will not bring a healthy fear
to a person who suffers from depression or bad self-confidence. The only persons who can be happy while
believing in Hell are those who only kid themselves that they believe in it or
who are smug and happy because they think they are going to Heaven and are
enjoying the thought of others going to Hell.
Also, even if the
authors aren’t too upset about Hell because of their arguments and
understanding of Hell, what about people who have a worse view of Hell than
they do? The authors cannot condemn them
for disagreeing with them for they do not claim to be infallible.
Objection eight says
that if your loved ones go to Hell you can’t be happy in Heaven.
The answer is that
you should pray for your loved one if you can’t stand heaven when they are in
Hell. But people have prayed for the
salvation of the world and all people and still some go to Hell so what use is
that for consolation?
Objection ten that
says that Hell means that evil will exist alongside good forever meaning that
God failed to destroy all evil is given a erroneous reply.
It says that
scripture says that God will one day triumph over all evil but says that Hell
will still be everlasting but it does not know how the two doctrines can be
reconciled and that it is a mystery to do with time and eternity. But we know what time is like and eternity so
when we are not given an answer there is no answer. The answer is something devious and nasty in
this context called a copout.
Objection eleven says
that Hell cannot be true for it serves no good purpose. The answer admits that Hell is useless but
says that since God made souls to be immortal he cannot end it by destroying
them. Then why didn’t he make them
conditionally mortal? They seem to be
implying that by making souls immortal God was promising it that it would live
forever. Wasn’t that irresponsible of
him? And making is not promising so
perhaps he is innocent of that charge.
Page 309 responds to
the suggestion that those who preach Hell are being self-righteous and telling
others they could go there while thinking that they themselves are too good for
that at least in their present condition.
Christians admit that
all sin is rooted in pride and when they say that they are all sinners let us
take their word for it that pride motivates their preaching about Hell for a
heart given to pride cannot issue humble acts but only acts that superficially
appear humble. The response given is
that all preachers must realise that it could happen to them. But anybody who takes precautions can afford
to be self-righteous. Born again
Christians are self-righteous for they say they have chosen Jesus which is a
righteous act in their opinion and that those who do not do as they have done
are going to rot in Hell forever and ever.
Their claim that God does all the work but they cannot mean that. Catholics who go to confession and communion
often are taking all the best precautions and can be fairly confident that they
will go to Heaven. When they warn about
Hell they think themselves to be more sensible and righteous than those who
need that warning. They think that they
have more right to walk the earth than them.
The authors of the book know fine well that self-righteous people cannot
be made as humble as they ought to be by the thought that they could be damned
so their saying that preachers knowing they could be damned means they are not
self-righteous when they preach to sinners is utter nonsense. It’s a desperate cover-up but it fails to
mask how vicious and self-righteous and pompous the Hell doctrine is.
Faith in the God who
would send you to Hell forever arises from vice not virtue and no matter who
says the doctrine is not caused by some level of hatred for others that is
exactly what is behind the doctrine.
Also, the many bad things that arise from belief in God are enough to
show that to believe in a God and also in Hell makes you a very bad person
indeed no matter how your outward actions appear. What could you expect for you are believing
that a bad God who gives you unhealthy faith has the right to abandon people to
Hell forever? Who does he think he is
and who do you think you are? Good and
evil are too close for anybody to deserve a cruel punishment and especially one
like eternal punishment. Even evil
consists largely of good intentions – the only thing that is wrong with evil is
that it is perverse or harmful good. Not
only does the Church cause a lot of hatred by brainwashing people into seeing
good and evil as complete opposites when they are not opposites but cousins but
it has to invent the doctrine of Hell as well.
The false view that we
must believe in God to seriously believe in morals shows how vindictive belief
in Hell is. If God commands right
because it is right then we don’t need belief in God to be moral. If actions are right only because God
commands them then what if he commands us to torture and slaughter the old
women next door? Neither of these
options show that we need God to believe in morality. Yet it is either one or the other. The Christian claim that both are false and
that morality is God’s nature cannot work for it has to be one or the
other. If morality is God’s nature then
the questions are still not solved. Its
another copout again. God says it
matters that we believe in him so clearly he commands us to believe the
Christian lie. It follows then that
belief in God is dangerous to morality and right and wrong and for a Christian
to say there is a Hell is just plain nasty.
Their excuse that God is so good that there has to be a Hell is shown to
fail then.
The handbook contains the kindest interpretation of Hell possible and it is still vindictive. It proves more than any other book that Hell has to be scrapped. The kinder the doctrine is made to appear the worse it gets. The more people end up evilly defending the indefensible. The more they end up worse than those who defend what Hitler did.
Some daring theologians want to teach that Jesus and the Church have never declared that anybody is going to Hell but have merely said that it is possible (page 1176, Catholicism, Father Richard P McBrien, HarperSanFrancisco, New York, 1994). But Jesus in the gospel promised to send a person to Hell for not visiting prisoners and said that Judas the traitor is going to his own place. Jesus predicted what he would say to those who came before him without loving God. He said he would tell them to go away for he never knew them and they would be condemned. Its more than a possibility when it is easy to go to Hell. Jesus predicted that people would be lost forever. Other theologians are saying that Hell is not God punishing us but us rejecting God. Others are saying that because God is the source of all good and community we are rejecting all that is good and all that has to do with community so we are choosing to destroy or annihilate ourselves and so Hell is where we cease to exist.
Such considerations are saying that punishment is bad. They certainly arise from a suspicion that it is better to believe we make our own Hell than that God has anything to do with it. They arise from a suspicion that believing you could be so bad that you annihilate yourself is better than believing that God punishes you forever! They are attempts to sweeten people to Christianity who are turned off by the evil vindictive God of traditional faith by appealing to their finding equal or worse evils almost attractive! So a God who punishes somebody mildly for all eternity is an abomination and believing in a Hell, a madhouse, which a person freely creates is better! How absurd.
FURTHER READING
APOLOGETICS AND CATHOLIC
DOCTRINE, Most Rev M Sheehan DD, M H Gill & Son, Dublin, 1954
APOLOGETICS FOR THE
PULPIT, Aloysius Roche, Burns Oates & Washbourne LTD, London, 1950
ENCHIRIDION
SYMBOLORUM ET DEFINITIONUM, Heinrich Joseph Denzinger, Edited by A Schonmetzer,
Barcelona, 1963
GOD IS NOT GREAT, THE CASE AGAINST RELIGION, Christopher Hitchens,
Atlantic Books,
‘GOD, THAT’S NOT FAIR!’ Dick Dowsett, [OMF Books, Overseas Missionary
Fellowship,
HANDBOOK OF CHRISTIAN
APOLOGETICS, Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli, Monarch, East Sussex, 1994
HAVE WE TO FEAR A
DEVIL? Fred Pearce, The Christadelphian
Office, Birmingham
HEAVEN AND HELL
Dudley Fifield, Christadelphian Publishing Office, Birmingham
HELL – WHAT THE BIBLE
SAYS ABOUT IT, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1945
JEHOVAH OF THE
WATCH-TOWER, Walter Martin and Norman Klann, Bethany House,
LIFE IN CHRIST, PART
3, Fergal McGrath SJ, MH Gill and Son Ltd,
RADIO REPLIES VOL 1,
Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press,
REASON
AND BELIEF, Bland Blanschard, George Allen & and Unwin Ltd,
THE
BIBLE TELLS US SO, R B Kuiper, The Banner of Truth Trust,
THE
DEVIL, THE GREAT DECEIVER Peter Watkins, The Christadelphian Birmingham,
1992
THE
ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF BIBLE DIFFICULTIES, Gleason W Archer, Zondervan,
THE FOUR
MAJOR CULTS, AA Hoekema, Paternoster Press,
THE
KINDNESS OF GOD, EJ Cuskelly MSC, Mercier Press,
THE LIFE OF ALL
LIVING,
THE REAL DEVIL, Alan
Hayward, Christadelphian Bible
THE REALITY OF HELL,
St Alphonsus Liguori, Augustine Publishing Company,
THE SERMONS OF ST
ALPHONSUS LIGOURI, St Alphonsus Ligouri, TAN,
THE TRUTH ABOUT HELL,
Dawn Bible Students, East
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE
SAY ABOUT HELL? Radio Bible Class,
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO
HEAVEN?, Dave Hunt, Harvest House,
WHY DOES GOD?
Domenico Grasso SJ,