The reason why hell has me so confused.

[Firefly-]

I'm not sure if this is in the right place to put this or not sorry if it isn't.

I have heard that god has a book and in that book he writes down when you die and if you go to heaven or hell. My question is: If god loves all of these people so much(And I know he does) then why does he create the people that he knows are going to hell? It is kind of like having a baby only to torture it. If he knows these people are going to hell in the first place then why does he create them only to punish them?

I know this sounds weird but this question has been confusing me here lately.

[ShiroiHikari]

Well, people have free will. God loves us so much, he'll even let us go to hell if that's what we really want. Nobody sends us to hell except ourselves. Plus, undying devotion means nothing from an automaton. That's why he made us the way he did, I think. He wants us to love Him because WE want to. That's why we have a choice.

I hope that doesn't sound too disjointed.

[Firefly-]

That helps a lot thanks.

[Rev. Doc]

If god loves all of these people so much(And I know he does) then why does he create the people that he knows are going to hell?

With all due respect, you are thinking backwards on this issue. There is no doubt from what the Scriptures tell us that God indeed loves us. Throughout man's history God has displayed this over and over again even to the point of sending His only Son and allowing Him to die for the sins of mankind and providing a way of reconciliation. Therefore, the issue is not "If God loves all..." for He does.

So if the question is not God's love for us, then it must be turned to the real problem. Knowing all He has done for us, why doesn't man love God?" One cannot blame God for man's decision to reject Him. Man stands before God bearing that responsibility. As ShiroiHikari has said, God gave man free will, a choice. He could have forced us into this relationship, but He wanted us to enter into it because we have a desire to do so. Having done it any other way, our love for Him and His love for us would have fallen short of the true love that He wanted expressed.

Yes, it is true, God in His all knowing wisdom has knowledge of who will and will not accept His gift of love. However, the challenge is still placed before man as to whether he will walk in the ways of the world or in fellowship with His Son. We all have the potential of going to hell in the first place. The Bible tells us all have sinned and fall short of God's glory. If the issue were God not creating man because of the potential of eternal punishment, then none of us would have been born. But alongside the fact of potential punishment, is potential eternal paradise with God through acceptance of His Son, Jesus Christ. Again, the choice always lies with man's acceptance of the Father's free gift.

[FadedOne]

To be honest, i've never understood this concept either. My mind cannot wrap around the idea that God would create so many individuals with so-called 'free will' to love or not love Him. If we are crafted by His hand, He knows who will or will not follow. We speak so much Christianese about God's 'grace', God's 'love', God's 'justic'. In the end though, have we thought about these issues or merely vomited what doctrine was taught by our church?

Rev Doc & others, i'm not judging you by that last statement. I merely hear so many canned phrases to explain away hell, and honestly none of them do it justice! The other day, I watched a video on the 'rape of Nanking'. Hundreds of thousands of people wiped out after being brutally mutilated, raped, tortured, and subjected to all manner of inhumanities. Now, by Christian theology, these people are living in a never-ending state of torture. What now of God's justice? Our simple catch-phrases about love, mercy, and justice will not satisfy.

I'm not putting down God or any of His attributes. I'm just being brutally honest....something is wrong here. We cannot have an omniscient God (who is the very definition of 'good' and of all other positive ideals) that subjects His own creation to such terrors and then call that justice. True justice would be for those people, perhaps for us all, to have never existed in the first place. If these things are written off by mere 'love is a choice' this also does not satisfy. We say that our choice is God's glory, correct? So we serve a God whose glory resides in our misfortune. I do not understand.

(To those who find this very critical & un-Christian, I apologize. However, I will not gloss over a difficult subject with cliched resignation. Honest questioning is better.)

[Rev. Doc]

I will be the first to admit that I do not have all the answers. However, the realization is we will never have all the answers concerning God and why He has chosen to accomplish His will the way He has. In an age that is very analytical, many are going to be frustrated with the fact that as believers we are a people who live by faith, not by sight. I realize that even now much of what I have just said will be viewed as "cliche." But it does in fact have it's grounding in Scripture. God's Word, no matter what day and age we live in is never cliche. Doctrine is important. It communicates the truths from the Scriptures we hand down from generation to generation. Whether some wish to view this as "vomiting up," that seems to be more of a personal perspective of organized religion.

Hell is not something to be explained away. It's a reality that each individual must face. I have thought about these issues and have dedicated my life to sharing with people how eternally crucial that decision is for them. Men will stand in judgment (whether we think it's fair or not, God's not really interested in our opinion) for their actions, including those involved in Nanking. They will stand before one God, creator of the universe, not a tribunal of their peers. The testimony against them will be God's Word, not a finely thought out manifesto of mankind.

The eternal glory of God does not reside in mankind's misfortune nor in anything involving mankind. God's glory is found in who He is regardless of our opinions. We didn't elect Him to the position, He is the great I AM. Our relationship with Him does not hinge on our understanding of Him and His Will, it hinges on the fact that He created us for His joy, to love and be loved.

[Syreth]

Also, some simple truths that I've heard that have helped me to deal with this tough issue:

1. God is perfectly just -- that means that there will be nobody in heaven that's not supposed to be there. That means that there will be nobody in hell that does not deserve to be there. God will not make a bad call. That's just a part of who He is.

2. Some people in heaven and some people in hell is better than no people in heaven and no people in hell. If this weren't true, then God wouldn't have created man in the first place.

I hope I haven't stepped over the theological boundary here. I just wanted to share what helped me with the issue.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I must say rev.doc put it quite well. (He is a reverand after all!) The way I see it, God made us. And loves us! But we reject him. Rejecting him is saying "We dont want to be with you in heaven". So God says "Well... I have no other choice then T__T".

I do not believe that Hell is "Fire and Brimstone" with people being tortured and stuff. That's just a Jonathan Edwards Complex (New phrase I made up on the spot) I think the real torture of hell is just the fact that you're going to be thinking over and over, about how you had the chance to be straight with God. And you blew it, and you lost your chance.

[Nate]

I do not believe that Hell is "Fire and Brimstone" with people being tortured and stuff.

Then out of curiousity, how do you interpret the verse about the Lake of Fire? I think to state there is no physical torture in Hell, is probably untrue. But I DO agree that any physical torture would be secondary to the knowledge that you are forever separated from God.

[Destroyer2000]

The thing about it is...if God already knows wether we will or will not accept Him, then why does he create those whom he knows beforehand will not? That's cruelty. And God is not cruel.

Personally, I've always thought that we are given a choice; God knows that when we are born, we are going to Hell, but he gives us the chance to accept Him, and we can go to Heaven, so it changes that knowledge, right?

[Syreth]

[quote="Destroyer2000"]
Personally, I've always thought that we are given a choice]
Well, knowing and micro-managing are two different things. The responsibility is still put on the person that accepted or rejected Him, not on God Himself. I don't know how it works exactly, but I know it does.

To say that the knowledge changes seems to me like saying that God changes, which isn't true. There certainly won't be any surprises for God.

On the contrary to how this might seem, having knowledge about someone's eternal destination doesn't put the responsibility on God, since He already did everything in His power to save us without violating our free will.

[JadePanther]

Hell, for all its definitions, is basically an eternal existence without God. The lake of fire refers to the pain,suffering,and agony that one will experience while there. Think of it like this. Darkness. Space. Void of everythingbut your naked body, which is being put under a tremendous amount of pain.

[Puritan]

I do not believe that Hell is "Fire and Brimstone" with people being tortured and stuff. That's just a Jonathan Edwards Complex (New phrase I made up on the spot)

With all due respect, please take the time to read more of Johnathan Edwards than simply snippets of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" before saying things like this. Like him or not, the man was a theologian and pastor with a great depth of knowledge and he preached about many things besides this sermon, so to treat the idea of Fire and Brimestone as a "Jonathan Edwards Complex" is irritating to me. The man was president of Yale and was used by God to help spark the Great Awakening, so please don't dismiss him so blithely.

I think that most people who have posted have made excellent points about why God allows people to go to Hell. I would also like to make an observation of my own. Without going into a huge theological debate about God's foreknowledge (i.e. does God know who is going to Hell or does He not), realize that every person who goes to Hell does so because they have rejected God. I firmly believe that God has a plan for this universe and that allowing people to live who will go to Hell is part of that plan, and that God's allowing them to do so is not an act of cruelty. God's plan is (because it is God's plan) perfect and perfectly suited to His goals, thus His allowing people to reject Him by no means makes Him cruel. While I freely admit I do not know what God intends, because He is God I have full trust that what He is doing is the ultimate good, and while I find it heartbreakingly tragic that people go to Hell, I have trust in God that His plan is good and right.

In addition, I think it is incorrect to frame the question as "Why does God allow people to go to Hell?" Rather, I think it would be more apt to ask "Why has God saved any of us?" I know I am not deserving us Heaven, in fact no one is. "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23), and because of that we were all condemned to eternal death for sinning against God, for this is required by His justice. Rev. Doc made an excellent point, by all rights we should love God, but instead we are in rebellion against a perfect and loving Creator, so we have no excuse for our actions. However, because of God's grace and His mercy we have been saved, not because of any merit in ourselves. Let us focus on the great mercy and grace of God in saving any sinners rather than asking why He didn't save all of us.

[Destroyer2000]

So, basically...why do we try to witness if it will do no good to some people? It also makes you wonder about these people that constantly struggle with their faith and never seem to get anywhere...perhaps they are not going to make it to Heaven?

[Cap'n Nick]

If you consider it logically, the fact that people go to hell means that God wants some people in hell, or that he is incapable of saving certain people from hell. That, I think, is precisely why we should not consider this question logically. I believe that God is neither evil nor incompetent. How hell fits into this equation, I do not know, but I do know that he doesn't need me to make excuses for him. Let us instead heed the words of Job:

[quote="Job 42:2-6"]I know that you can do all things]

We should focus on the things that are revealed to us, the things that are necessary for salvation, and leave mysteries such as these to when we can ask him face to face.

[Nate]

So, basically...why do we try to witness if it will do no good to some people?

Because you don't know who is or isn't going to Hell, do you? You can't just dismiss someone and say "Well, they're never going to get there, so I should stop trying." It is your duty as a Christian to witness to everyone. God and God alone knows who is going to Heaven and Hell. Not you. Just because some people won't make it gives you no excuse to shirk your duties.

[Puritan]

Kaemmerite makes a good point. Also, remember that witnessing acts on both the person being witnessed to and the person witnessing. God uses our witness to spread His word and to help teach us, so even if our witness "does no good" (something we can't see), God can also use it to affect us.

[Syreth]

Also, the premise for witnessing isn't necessarily to save people... no one can save anyone but Jesus. We witness because God is worthy of the glory.

"Making it to heaven" is almost a non-issue, since the only real way to make it to heaven is to accept Jesus. I've screwed up so many times! If it were up to me, I would never ever go to heaven. But since Jesus saved me, I know that I will.

[Kaligraphic]

Actually, the lake of fire is in the book of Revelation, which explicitly states that it is about Christ Jesus. (Rev. 1:1)

In fact, the lake of fire is talking about a purifying fire, which destroys the sinful parts of you. (i.e. everything that God hasn't renewed yet) It's the refining fire that brings out your purity by consuming the impurities. This is part of the manifestation of his spirit coming forth from inside you.

[ShiroiHikari]

This is kind of off-topic.

I might be the only one that thinks this way, but I don't think that God controls every life on this planet like a freaking chess game. The human race propagates itself. I don't think God looks down on earth and says, "Oops, the humans are running low. I better make some more people even though half of them will probably go to hell."

To a certain extent he leaves us to our own devices. How else do you explain some of the great tragedies of human history?

[Cuddles da Bear]

Different belief systems have different views of Hell. Some believe in a literal Hell with fire and brimstone, others believe that when you die and you are not one of the members of the flock then you just cease to exist and some believe that you will remain concious but will be cut off from God, so while all God's children are whooping it up in Heaven your soul is forever trapped in some 'nothingness' with no love, no light and no warmth.

God is omnipotent and He can pretty much do whatever He wants and many times I wonder why He didn't just reset or just destroy everything and stay by Himself but He has alot of love to give and wants to share it with us even if we don't want it. In the story of the prodigal son the youngest one wanted his share of the inheritance and went off to experience life and live it up in the world and his father obliged. The same with God! If you choose to leave God's family or decide you no longer want to be a member of His household, He's gonna give you what's yours and let you go with the hope that one day you'll come back.

[ClosetOtaku]

Some external thought on the subject of Hell:

There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of our Lord's own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason. If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it. If the happiness of a creature lies in self-surrender, no one can make that surrender but himself...

I glibly said a moment ago that I would pay "any price" to remove this doctrine. I lied. I could not pay one-thousandth of the price that God has already paid to remove the fact. And here is the real problem: so much mercy, yet still there is Hell...

In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell is itself a question: "What are you asking God to do?" To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what he does...

I willingly believe the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.

-- C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

[Mr. SmartyPants]

With all due respect, please take the time to read more of Johnathan Edwards than simply snippets of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" before saying things like this. Like him or not, the man was a theologian and pastor with a great depth of knowledge and he preached about many things besides this sermon, so to treat the idea of Fire and Brimestone as a "Jonathan Edwards Complex" is irritating to me. The man was president of Yale and was used by God to help spark the Great Awakening, so please don't dismiss him so blithely.

I apologize for that. Just to let you know. I have read all of Jonathan Edward's "Sinners in the hands of an angry God". Not just snippets. And I have really enjoyed it. I am NOT saying I do not like the man. But I do not believe there is physical torture in hell. Rather because the worst pain is the knowledge that you lost your chance. That everlasting regret would hurt more than any physical ailment. I like to call it a "Jonathan Edwards Complex" not in spite of him. But simply meaning the idea of physical torture. Much like someone would say "Oedipus Complex". I apologize if you took offense to that.

Then out of curiousity, how do you interpret the verse about the Lake of Fire? I think to state there is no physical torture in Hell, is probably untrue. But I DO agree that any physical torture would be secondary to the knowledge that you are forever separated from God.

Doesn't scripture also reference Hell as Total Darkness? How can fire and darkness concide toegether? As fire brings forth light. As jade panther said, its a symbol of anguish and pain and regret.

[Puritan]

I apologize for that. Just to let you know. I have read all of Jonathan Edward's "Sinners in the hands of an angry God". Not just snippets. And I have really enjoyed it. I am NOT saying I do not like the man. But I do not believe there is physical torture in hell. Rather because the worst pain is the knowledge that you lost your chance. That everlasting regret would hurt more than any physical ailment. I like to call it a "Jonathan Edwards Complex" not in spite of him. But simply meaning the idea of physical torture. Much like someone would say "Oedipus Complex". I apologize if you took offense to that.

I don't mind, I mainly took offense that you seemed to label the idea of a hell with physical torture something that Edwards was really concerned about, when there was much more to him and his teachings than that. Edwards is, in my experience, far too often maligned for being primarily a "fire and brimstone" preacher by a society that won't take the time to read what he said.

[meboeck]

This is kind of off-topic.

I might be the only one that thinks this way, but I don't think that God controls every life on this planet like a freaking chess game. The human race propagates itself. I don't think God looks down on earth and says, "Oops, the humans are running low. I better make some more people even though half of them will probably go to hell."

To a certain extent he leaves us to our own devices. How else do you explain some of the great tragedies of human history?

You aren't the only one who thinks that way. I agree with my dad, who says, "God is not a micromanager." That's part of our free will. God doesn't force us into situations that will make us believe or not believe in Him. Because it we only believed because of events, the love and the grace would be lost. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus says if people won't accept the truth from the prophets, even raising the dead wouldn't be enough to convince them. (Luke 16:19-31) Just because God knows something is going to happen does not mean he causes it to happen. And I am going to stop right there before we get into a debate about predetermination.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I don't mind, I mainly took offense that you seemed to label the idea of a hell with physical torture something that Edwards was really concerned about, when there was much more to him and his teachings than that. Edwards is, in my experience, far too often maligned for being primarily a "fire and brimstone" preacher by a society that won't take the time to read what he said.

If you read his other works. Especially about nature. He likes to talk about how nature is God's creation and stuff. About stars and rainbows and spiders and stuff.

[Slater]

Hmm... I lean more towards the Calvinist viewpoint of things. Indeed, God does guide our lives and knows who all is going to be in heaven/hell (this isn't to say God drives everyone's life to the point that He decides what we're going to eat the morning of Tuesday April 24th, 2006), so the question of why God created people who are destined for hell is an interesting question. I think someone already said it, but it's because He loved the human race enough to give us the ability to make choices. In spite of our hardest efforts, we have yet to make a computer that can make its own decisions, so that says something about how much God loves us.

Now... To say that people are predestined for heaven or hell is something widely misunderstood IMO. God exists outside of time, so that's why He's able to make heads-or-tails out of the future and can communicate it to people (look at the prophcies in the Bible). Beyond this are the matters of the "rules" that God established. He established the rules of sin ("the wages of sin is death") before mankind sinned, and He established the rules of salvation (John 3: 16 et al) before mankind sinned. Since God exists outside of time, it is no surprise that He is able to see who is going to "play by which rules" before any of us were ever born.

So still, why does God create people who are going to hell? Well, first off, God does not create people for the purpose of going to hell. We sent ourselves to hell the moment we first disobeyed God. His plan for the human race was that we would live with Him in perfect love and joy forever, and that plan will be fulfilled at the beginning of the new heaven and earth (I think that saying the beginning of etc is better than saying "the end of the world" since this world's lifespan will be 1/infinity as long as the next's. I don't like to think of Jesus' coming as an end.[endofftopic]). Hell is esentially a lake of fire, physically painful, but moreso painful because those who are there will understand what God's plan for them was (eternal life together with God) and that they won't be able to fulfill that plan because they decided to put their own plans before His.

God doesn't want to send anyone to hell... When we think about friends and loved-ones going to hell because they aren't saved, we are sad. I believe that the sadness we feel is NOTHING in comparison to what God feels about all of those lost souls. However, our God is the Holy God, and as such, sinful things cannot stand in his presence. He gave His Son's holy blood as a way to wash this sin away and cover us so that we may be with Him, but it's up to us to follow the Holy Spirit's call to the bloodbath. Jesus said that many are called but few are chosen... Those who are chosen are thus because they put their faith in Jesus, but those who are called are all people who hear His good news, whether they accept it or not. So Jesus does know who is saved and who is not, but indeed which way we chose to go is up to us.

So just remember, God never made humans for hell; He made hell for humans. It isn't God who sends people there, but ourselves and our own sin that did that. All humans are falling into hell, and that's what makes Jesus our SAVIOR, because He has caught us in our fall.

[Nate]

[quote="Slater"]So just remember, God never made humans for hell]
Uh...God NEVER made Hell for humans. God made Hell to punish Satan and the angels; it wasn't His intention to send humans there until after the Fall.

[Slater]

The principal remains the same. Hell exists as a place of punishment for sin against God. God had similar plans for His angels as He had for humans (note: not the same plans), and His plans of dealing with those angels who have gone astray are the same as for humans. The wages of sin is death... indeed, spiritual death. At the core, us humans are spiritual beings as much as angels are. Afterall, it's clear through the scriptures that sin isn't simply a physical act (ex: lust)

[Zarn Ishtare]

But I'm going to give a little lesson here.

What is Omnipresence? It is defined as being everywhere at once, at all times, everywhere in the universe.

Here, Time is illustrated as a line:


_________________________________________________________
Time Line.


This is the forward movement of time. All goes forward, nothing goes back (No matter what crackpot theories some theoretical physicists may have). Simple, non ?

Now, we will use our imagination alittle here.

Here is God (Our at least as represenative as a line is going to get of the omnipotent Master of the Universe) In relation to that line.


Godline
***************************************************************
_______________________________________________________________
Time Line


So, to summarize. God is in all places and times at once. It is not that their are multiple Jesus's hanging around invisibly (Though the image is interesting), but that his conciousness extends into the very fabric of the Universe. Now, how does this relate to sin and the idea (And reality) of Hell?

First of all, it shows that God does not "Know In Advance" anything. He is there in every moment, so this knowledge would not be past or present.
Therefore, he does not "Create people to send to hell". He knows what choice they "will" make because he is at the point where they make it, and the point where it becomes irrevocable.

Two, it truly shows the lasting significance of the Cross. Christ Was/Is God Incarnate, his will made flesh. God, being eternal, became man. The One who time could not touch became a servant and slave to the laws of the mundane Universe! The mind boggles at what Paul called "the mysteries of Christ" (Paraphrased)!!

Also, it shows that God is quite outside the realms of Time and Space. Think of it like a sno-globe: We inside with the snowman and the flakes, and him outside, shaking the ball.
(So it's not the best imagery. It gets the point across.)

So, to wrap it up, God, being Eternal, stretching from Everlasting to Everlasting, knows all. He knows all because he is always (Using that word in a way that cannot even begin to explain the mystery of Christ) there in every place at every moment. Thusly, he does not make people with the purpose of going to Hell. And he makes them with Free Will, so that they can choose him. He wants them to choose. But he will NOT violate the will of a person set against him. He will do all he can, plead, woo, give you miracles or give you devastation to make you see the truth, but when it comes down to that moment....The Lord will not force you.

If you go to the Lake of Fire, it is by your own selfish will. You are one of the Fallen and it is your place. The soul that burns in hell is a monster in and of itself. It is not the innocent that suffer, but the guilty. And God, being holy, can not suffer the guilty to come into his Kingdom, save through that one miraculous avenue: Jesus Christ, Yeshua Ha Meshiach (Forgive me my Hebrew and Hebrew speaking friends for the poor spelling), Lord of All Creaton and Holy Of Holies.

This is why John 3:16 is so earthshakingly important. God gives us his ONLY Son, so that we may come into that kingdom through Mercy and Grace.

God has "spent" (Once again, realizing that applying time to God is like trying to convince people that Pi is your birthdate) the entirety of human history working toward the birth of Christ. It is the Immaculate Strategy: To give the children who fell away the chance to return, without breaking the Law which God set into place. This entire span of history could indeed be argued as a pitstop, and that the "Real" plan for the world has not even begun yet! We look to the "End" because in reality it is the beginning! The Beginning of God's masterwork, the true life, where we will be with Him and He will be with us.

I leave you with this:

"I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the unperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but be changed-in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the unperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

(And here's the place to pay attention)"When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in Victory."

"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?""

"The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

1 Corinthians 15:50-57.


Thanks be to God, and amen.

Zarn Ishtare.

(End Note: I realize I may have been repeating your sentiment, Slater, but I felt like there were a couple of things I might be able to add. Thanks for the patience to deal with people repeating you.)