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If you're an American and you care about the World Cup at all, you know about the third goal in our game last Friday; the non-goal; the disallowed goal. The blown call has the whole soccer world up in arms because it was such an obvious breach of justice. The Wiki page of the referee who made the call was defaced within minutes of the blown call, and there has even been a revival of discussions about the use of video replay in soccer, because it's obvious to everyone that it's a better game if officials get the call right. Right. The word shares it's root with the word "Righteous", and both are also rooted in the universal notion of justice that seems to course through the veins of humanity. We're outraged at Rwandan genocide, and more recently, Kyrgyzstan, just as we are at pedophilia, missing children, and so much more. We have longings, deep inside us, for the way the world ought to be, and when it isn't that way, we're offended. But we're more than offended - we want things made right. That's why there are courts, and military tribunals, and war crimes trials. We want justice. When it's a blown call at a World Cup match, we yell at the TV and move on. When it's real life, it can suck the air out of our lungs as we mourn and grieve.And yet, in educated places like Seattle, the average person on the streets doesn't like the notion of hell. "God shouldn't send people away, not if he's loving" is sort of the way we think. Still, we want those who murder, and rape, and steal, sent away. Can you see the contradiction? We want God to accept everyone, but we also want to live in a just world. Here's important news: If it's going to be a just world, it will be because God roots out all injustice, and that will happen because of God's intervention to confine wickedness, so that the world of justice and peace for which we all long can finally happen.Do you want to live in a just world? Me too. At least 4000 years of human history make it clear that this won't happen without intervention. Left to our own devices, evil will find its way into cultures and will, by force, seek to reign. This is why the doctrines of judgement and hell are important. You can argue about the literal or metaphorical nature of the flames, but it misses the point. The point is this: we long for justice and God, who is love, is committed to creating a just world, precisely because God is love, and love demands justice.Our offense at injustice is present at every level, from blown calls to genocide. We rightly want the world to be right and the good news is this: God will make it right. That's why the Bibles praises God for his judgements (as seen in so many places), a counter-intuitive notion to our modern minds, but utterly sensible if we'll but take a moment and think about. |
Comments
The nature of hell, and the particular details of suffering, are surely open to interpretation because metaphors abound in the Bible and we don't always know what's metaphor and what's literal. But this is a diversionary conversation from your main concern (I think).
You imply that people in hell don't deserve to be there. Do people deserve to suffer who, having been diagnosed with a fatal illness, refuse free treatment? Whether they're too proud to accept a free gift, or living in too much denial to believe they're ill doesn't matter at all; either way, they're still overtly rejecting an offer, both regarding the state of the human condition, and regarding the offered cure. Reject the antidote if you like, but if I'm told that vitamin D will cure me, given six bottles, and I proceed to toss them in trash on the way home, I've a feeling I deserve the suffering that comes with the disease. Further, one's rejection doesn't lessen the character of the one freely offering healing; not in the least. My understanding, according to I Jn 2 is that Christ's death has provided the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. God's not mad anymore. Therefore, the only ones who suffer in hell are those who refuse the offer of the free gift.
I maintain that its rich irony when people rage against genocide, auto theft, infidelity, and AIG salaries, but point their fingers at God when he seeks to make the world just by confining rebellion, leaving those who freely choose autonomy from God to live by their own rules - but in their own space. If you'd prefer God wink, turn the other way and ignore, be my guest. I prefer a God who won't tolerate the insanity forever.
“You imply that people in hell don't deserve to be there.”
Maintaining consistency with my previous comment, I’d rather put it like this: I am skeptical towards the idea that people generally deserve to suffer for all of eternity a torment comparable to burning forever in a lake of fire. I also find absurd the claim that an individual deserves to suffer like this because of something that his/her ancient ancestor did.
"Do people deserve to suffer who, having been diagnosed with a fatal illness, refuse free treatment?"
Suppose that young Suzy is diagnosed with a congenital disease that, unless treated, will, by her 20th birthday, render her irreversibly blind, deaf and completely incapacitated by a constant, debilitating pain for the rest of her life. At her 18th birthday, we offer Suzy medication that will cure her of this terrible disease. Being foolish and irresponsible, however, Suzy tosses this medication into the garbage. Two years later, the predicted effects of the terrible and irreversible disease kick in. 20 years after that, you meet Suzy: blind, deaf and tormented by her constant, debilitating pain. She is 38 years old and all she has to look forward to is decades of dark, silent, painful torment.
Now we can say many things about Suzy. We can say that she is criticizeable and blameworthy for foolishly rejecting the medication. We can say that her condition was avoidable, and is even, to some extent, her own fault. But, looking at bedridden 38 year-old Suzy, do you also say that she also deserves to suffer in this miserable condition for the rest of her life? At least to my ear, it seems no more true that Suzy deserves that than to say that a child deserves to be hit by a car and paralyzed for the rest of her life for chasing a ball into the street, against her mother’s wishes.
Note how none of this implies that I think that God—or anyone for that matter—should “wink, turn the other way and ignore.”
I should add: I didn't mean my original comment to come across as combative. I find myself generally agreeing with your commentaries, and I expected (and continue to expect) that we'll find much agreement on this topic too.