One popular objection to Christianity is the notion that a loving God would never send anyone to hell. Or even at the very least, a loving God would never send anyone to hell who’s a generally ‘good’ person, even if he/she is not a Christian.
This objection brings up a good, common point; it seems logical—even morally compelling—that a loving God would never send a ‘good’ person to hell. But too often, we stop here in our projection of what God ‘should’ do and ‘ought’ to be like while the main issue guiding such a projection remains unaddressed.
What do I mean? I mean that there are bigger assumptions beneath the projection that are shakier than skeptics realize, or more shaky than skeptics would like to confess.
One aspect that makes their assumptions quite shaky is their use of terminology, particularly for a ‘loving’ God and a ‘good’ person.
Most people in our culture define ‘love’ or ‘loving’ as allowing and encouraging someone with the rights to do whatever they want, to be whoever they want to be, and to live with their own parameters, boundaries, and ethics as they go through life seeking purpose, satisfaction, and self-fulfillment. In a Western culture especially, maximum individualism is the height of love. And the definition of a ‘good’ person is the notion that they fulfill whatever parameters they have set before them, so long as it causes no harm to other people.
According to these definitions, however, there is an inherent problem with calling God ‘unloving’ if he sends people to hell. In fact, on the contrary, according to these Western definitions of ‘love’ or ‘loving,’ God actually fits the definition of ‘loving’ if he sends people to hell.
Here’s what I mean: When we choose to do whatever we want, be whoever we want, and live by our own parameters of values and ethics, then we are choosing to live the way we want over the way that God has willed for us in his good design of us. An individualistic self-lord posture of living is what the Bible calls ‘sin’—choosing to follow our own authority instead of God’s. Contrary to common conception, sin is not just about ‘bad’ behavior, but about what that behavior represents—a deep-seated rejection of God’s ultimate lordship in one’s life.
According to Western terminology, when we choose to do whatever we want and be whoever we want and live by our own terms, then God can only be considered ‘loving’ by giving to us exactly what we want—separation from Him, i.e., hell.
Furthermore, according to this paradigm of Western thinking, God allowing you to be the authority of your own life is loving. He is giving you what you want. He is allowing you to be who you want to be. Therefore, if you define ‘love’ as ‘allowing someone whatever they want’ then it follows—at least by your own definition—that God is ‘loving,’ since he is giving someone what they want. Indeed, people want separation from God’s lordship, and so God ‘lovingly’ (Western terminology) gives it to them: hell.
In other words, God sending someone to hell is simply allowing someone to do what he/she wanted after all. They never wanted to be under God’s authority anyways, so they get what they wanted all along: separation from God, hell.
Ultimately, therefore, it is logically unfair for a Westerner who uses the definition of ‘love’ as ‘enabling someone to do what they want and be who they want and live how they want’ to also say that God is ‘unloving’ by sending someone to hell because he is giving people what they wanted all along: An eternity of self-lordship spent away from God.
This Objection Is More Cultural Than You Think
Quick note: notice too, that the notion of God sending someone to hell for not following his will is not a disagreeable, distasteful, or offensive idea in non-Western cultures. For non-Western cultures, such judgment of hell seems completely agreeable, understandable, and just. Maybe Western objections against this ‘loving God who sends people to hell’ are more culturally rooted than we think or would like to confess. And surely a secular Westerner who exalts toleration and diversity of all cultures would never confess that their objection of a ‘loving God sending people to hell’ is more superior to another culture’s view of God, right? To be fair, however, the notion of a loving God who dies, forgives, and saves his enemies—which is pleasing, acceptable, and normative to Westerners—is actually disagreeable, distasteful, and offensive to non-Westerners. It’s interesting to note that, to Westerners, the idea of a loving God who sends people to hell is just as offensive as the idea of a loving God who forgives his enemies to non-Westerners. Maybe such objections to God’s character as revealed in the Bible stem more from cultural influence than we think. It might also be important to suggest that the fact that different cultures object to God’s character in different ways serves as an argument for the transcultural, objective truth of Christianity’s claims about God. Meaning, while cultures continue to change, God’s nature will continue to offend different, changing cultures in different ways.
