This week another well known Christian speaker and author has thrown his hat in the ring on the debate about hell, creating some kind of an evangelical celebrity death match: Francis Chan vs. Rob Bell.
Let me say that I have deep respect for these men but I strongly disagree with both of them on this issue. In fact, I find Chan's recently posted ad for his new book Erasing Hell as troubling as anything I read or heard from Bell.
It seems to me that the main thrust of Chan's argument for the traditional understanding of hell (eternal conscious torment) is that God's ways are not like our ways. His justice is higher than our justice. His love is not like our love. Chan's says, “I’m a piece of clay trying to explain to other pieces of clay what the potter is like. It’s silly to think we are experts on him. Our only hope is that he would reveal to us what he is like, and then we repeat those things.”
All of this is of course true, but Chan is using this as a starting point to show what can and cannot be known about God. This is what I find troubling.
All Christian doctrines undergo a certain amount of development over time. A variety of factors in society, history and philosophical thought impact the way issues are viewed and interpreted. Scripture is of course primary - but it is illumined by two millennia of Church history, vivified in personal experience and confirmed by reason.
In other words, the traditional doctrine of hell forms a "lens" through which we view and interpret the Bible. But unlike the Bible, tradition is not infallible and it must be balanced and tested by reason and experience. Reason (rational thinking and sensible interpretation) and experience (how a particular view of scripture is actually lived out) is the means by which we may evaluate and even challenge the assumptions of tradition and adjust our interpretations of Scripture.
This is what I find so troubling about Chan's video. Arguments such as these, whether offered in love and humility or with contempt and fear, have been used by religion for thousands of years to prop up the existing tradition and stifle reason and sensible interpretation.
This morning over at Jesus Creed, pastor-philosopher Jeff Cook offers up three more important critiques to Chan's video (his book has not been released yet) which I would like to share with you here:
(1) In contrast to Chan’s claim, we need to rationally wrestle with our views about who God is and what he does, and to fail to do so is sloth. Scripturally speaking God invites us to use our minds when engaging who he is and what he does (Isa 1:18, Rm 12:2, among many others). In fact, we put God’s actions “in submission to our reasoning” every time we say that what God does is praise-worthy, loving, good, just, wise, self-sacrificial, etc, These are all rational assessments of God’s nature, actions, and character—and they should not be avoided. I can bring into this discussion two quotations from those who have pondered Job — one from C.S. Lewis and one from Robert Gordis.
“The point [of Job] is that the man who accepts our ordinary standard of good and by it hotly criticizes divine justice receives the divine approval: the orthodox, pious people who palter with that standard in the attempt to justify God are condemned. Apparently the way to advance from our imperfect apprehension of justice to the absolute justice is not to throw our imperfect apprehensions aside but boldly to go on applying them” (C.S. Lewis, “De Futilitate,” in Christian Reflections, 70).
“Faced with the tragic dilemma of a righteous man’s suffering in an immoral world created by a righteous God, Job is nevertheless unwilling to surrender his ideal of rectitude ” (R. Gordis, Book of God and Man: A Study of Job , 153).
(2) There’s a real problem with criticizing all claims that begin with, “I wouldn’t believe in a God who would….” We should choose not to believe in a God who would … repeatedly torture three year olds for fun. We should choose not to believe in a God who would …. command cowardice, betrayal, abuse, and ignorance.
“Belief in God” implies trust and devotion, and it seems to me *some* pictures of God are not worthy of either trust or devotion.
Now, if I say, “I wouldn’t believe in a God who would … create a few billion people, knowing that they will never believe in him and are irreversibly destined to suffer in unending isolation and fire,” that *can be* an appropriate move. I can make that move while acknowledging that my course of action “might be the one flawed.” I can make that move while acknowledging that God’s “sense of justice” is superior to mine, and that God thinks about things in a different way than I do.
What those who defend the traditional view of hell must do is showcase why a good God *could* think unending conscious torment is the best option for the damned. Otherwise, it seems appropriate for a reasonable person (if they believe a “good” being by definition will not create conditions in which a person will experience torment for countless lifetimes) to either reject that picture of God or reject that view of hell.
(3) The idea of “justice” must be the same for God and for us, otherwise the term lacks linguistic value. Chan asks, “Do you ever even consider the possibility that maybe the creator’s sense of justice is actually more developed than yours?” Of course it is in one sense, but if God’s concept of justice is radically different than ours then it makes no sense for us to call God “just” any more. If we are to talk about “justice” at all, the definition must hold for ants as well as deities, otherwise we are talking of apples and oranges and all such language breaks down.
Cook concludes by saying that what Chan and others must do is show how the traditional view of hell is in any way “just,” The response that, “God knows things we don’t” or “God does things we wouldn’t do” is insufficient here (In philosophical jargon, this is a “phantom argument”). Some kind of story needs to be told that makes initiating eternal conscious torment morally praise-worthy and in accord with what we mean (or should mean) by “justice.”
Those who affirm the traditional view of hell need to do more than say “this is what the Bible says and we’re just repeating it.” Everyone involved in the debate about hell right now is saying “this is what the Bible says”. What those who affirm the traditional view must show is why that view is worthy of devotion.
By the way, Tim Keller does that better than anyone in his book Reason for God and in an article he posted HERE and I hope that in the book Chan will move more in that direction.
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