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This question has been thrust to the forefront of culture’s thinking by Steven Bartlett of the Diary Of A CEO and his recent guests, Wes Huff (Vice President of Apologetics Canada) and Professor Emeritus John Lennox (President of The OCCA Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics). So, let’s think about this.

Are we even talking about the right Hell?

The first place to start is to understand what is actually being asked we need to make sure we are answering the right question. Most people who raise this objection have a particular picture of hell in mind: the hell of The Simpsons and South Park, of red-horned devils with pitchforks, of Dante’s nine circles of torment and Milton’s brooding Satan in Pandemonium. I call this straw-hell, and I have no interest in defending it, not least because I do not believe it exists. The hell the Bible actually describes is something different. Jesus, who speaks about hell more than any other figure in the New Testament, uses imagery to describe it as a condition of absolute desolation and anguish. It is a state of full and final separation from the source of everything good, namely God himself (so not some torture chamber). Now, the question sharpens: would the God of the Bible send someone to that place who never had a genuine opportunity to respond to him?

That question requires us to be equally clear about who God actually is. Just as straw-hell is not the biblical hell, the God who happily (or arbitrarily) assigns people to hell is not the biblical God. Call him straw-God. Old Testament prophet Ezekiel records God saying he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 33:11). New Testament apostle Peter tells us God does not desire that any person should perish (2 Pet. 3:9; Paul shares this view in 1 Tim. 2:4). Why? Well, the Bible’s most fundamental theological claim is that “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8). How does love act? Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas identified two necessary features of love: desiring the good of the beloved, and seeking union with the beloved [1]. So, if God is love, then God never stops loving any human being this way; hence, the entire narrative thrust of the Bible is God pursuing relationship with human beings.

What about people who have never had the chance to hear?

So, what happens to those without a genuine opportunity to respond to Jesus? Hell? Not necessarily. This is precisely why philosopher Jerry Walls argues for what he calls ‘optimal grace’: the idea that God, as a perfectly loving being, ensures every person receives a genuine, fully informed opportunity to respond to him[2]. This means no one is “sent” to hell simply because geography or history made a response to God impossible (Walls argues that a post-mortem decision is possible for those without optimal grace). And for those who died before the Gospel reached them? Who are we to say what God might communicate to a person in their last moments (much like reaching “closed countries” with dreams and visions[4])?

Does God send anyone to Hell at all?

Finally, is God immoral or unjust for sending people to hell? Hold on. Does God send? The biblical God does not send anyone to hell. We know this from reflection on his nature (love) and the fact that this God went all the way to the Cross to rescue and not condemn humanity (Jn 3:16-7). In the end, people get what they want: either relationship with God (i.e., heaven) or not (i.e., hell). As C.S. Lewis famously observed, there are only two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘thy will be done’[5]. If someone arrives in hell, it will not be because of some arbitrary, unlucky geographical or historical issue. Rather, hell is the end of a (genuinely awful) road freely chosen. And the road was lined, every step of the way, with the open arms of Jesus Christ. As Yale Professor of Theology Miroslav Volf puts it: “God will judge, not because God gives people what they deserve, but because some people refuse to receive what no one deserves. If evildoers experience God’s terror, it will not be because they have done evil, but because they have resisted to the end the powerful lure of the open arms of the crucified Messiah”[6]. Hell, in the end, is not some malevolently dispensed eternal punishment handed down by a cold and vindictive judge. It is the destination of those, who, in the end, do not desire, and continually resist, a loving relationship with God.

 

References

  1. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, Q. 26, a. 4
  2. Jerry Walls, ‘Heaven and Hell,’ The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, 2009, p. 498
  3. Eleonore Stump, personal correspondence with the author, December 2024.4.
  4. David Garrison, A Wind in the House of Islam: How God Is Drawing Muslims Around the World to Faith in Jesus Christ (Monument, CO: WIGTake Resources, 2014).
  5. C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, Geoffrey Bles, 1945
  6. Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation, Abingdon Press,1996 p. 293-4
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