Let's talk about Hell

I've been reading Tim Keller's new book called, "The Reason for God," and so far, the most intriguing chapter that I've read has been his chapter entitled, "How can a loving God send people to Hell?" I think this is a very necessary question for those of us who espouse a loving God to answer. Within this question are many "sub-questions," questions that we would do well to think through and grapple with in order to better understand who God is.

I might blog about this issue off and on, because I have had many thoughts as I have sifted through Keller's chapter. This week is exam week, so the writing might be sparse. But I shall continue again next week.

First, I think I want to talk about the idea of what hell actually is. I would agree with Keller and others who propose that most people think of hell as a hissing cauldron of fiery lava, a place you go at the end of your life when God says, "Whelp, you didn't make the right choices...so...uh...see ya later stupid." I think this misses the point by a long shot. In thinking about hell, we would do well to think less about what is present in the place called hell and more about what is not present..... God. I think my college pastor Joel Brooks put it best when he said, "There is a word for the place where you get literally everything in the world that you could possibly want....minus God. That word is hell." Read Romans 1. The phrase, "And God gave them up.." is repeated over and over. Why? Because God gives you what you want. If you don't want Him, and you want other things, He doesn't get out his whip and taunt you with images of fiery furnaces. He says, "Fine. You can have what you desire." And I can attest to this personally, when I choose something over Jesus, something that I think is more fun than Jesus, more beautiful than Jesus, more interesting. I always turn out to be wrong, but it has taken many progressive trips to the land of misery for me to see how wrong my worldy wisdom always turns out to be. And I'll probably try again tomorrow. Jesus always turns out to be more beautiful.

So what is hell? I think C.S. Lewis describes is best, as Keller quotes him:

"Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others...but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God "sending us" to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE HELL unless it is nipped in the bud."

Keller adds:

"The people in hell are miserable, but Lewis shows us why. We see raging like unchecked flames their pride, their paranoia, their self-pity, their certainty that everyone else is wrong, that everyone else is an idiot! All their humility is gone, and thus so is their sanity. They are utterly, finally locked in a prison of their own self-centerdness, and their pride progressively expands into a bigger and bigger mushroom cloud. They continue to go to pieces forever, blaming everyone but themselves."

Lewis:

"There are only two kinds of people- those who say "Thy will be done" to God or those whom God in the end says, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self- choice it wouldn't be Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it."

So in the end, there is no pit with tons of sad people wishing they could see Jesus saying, "Please let me out of here! It's awful!" There are only people who couldn't and wouldn't want anything but Hell. So what's hell? The place where Jesus isn't. There's just you. You finally got your way. And you're simply miserable. Forever.