One bad of a hell argument

I recently received a review copy of God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist? (IVP, 2011), by David T. Lamb, who is associate professor of Old Testament at the Evangelical school, Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. It opens with this clever question:

How does one reconcile the loving God of the Old Testament with the harsh God of the New Testament?

Lamb notes that when he asks this question of his students, they are shocked, and "then most assume that I have simply misspoke, as I am prone to do." But he points out to them that, "God in the Old Testament is consistently described as slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, but Jesus speaks about hell more than anyone else in Scripture"—that is, in either the New or Old Testament. He points out that the specific word "hell" doesn't even appear in the Old Testament.

Off the top of my head, I guessed that 75% or so of New Testament references to hell ("Gehenna", "hades", etc.) were from the mouth of Jesus. I was off a bit: it is 73% according to Lamb. Anyhow, I bring it up because a month ago or so I had started to write a post in response to a young agnostic, James Kirk Wall, who was intent on showing me up because I dared to criticize his weak attacks on Christianity (specifically, the Christian belief in hell) as "flippant, theologically-challenged, and historically-illiterate snarkiness". In fact, the brave lad wrote on his Facebook page: "I will crush him [that is, me] in argumentation." I don't recall being crushed in any manner whatsoever, but will give him the benefit of the doubt, as the only thing he seems adept at is doubting.

Anyhow, I was going to respond to this comment he left on May 3rd on the Insight Scoop:

As for hell itself, the Old Testament does not contain the New Testament concept of hell, and Eastern religions do not either. I maintain that the New Testament concept of hell was created as a marketing tool and is a direct contradiction to the tolerance and love taught by Jesus Christ.

Normally I don't pick on silly comments (okay, I sometimes don't pick on silly comments), but I thought this one was worth the effort because Wall sums up very well a common and completely false belief about the teachings of Jesus. The ol' "nasty God of the OT vs. the non-judgmental Jesus of the NT" is common fare among skeptics, liberals, and people who never read the Bible, which includes, alas, a lot of self-described Christians.

One of the more memorable instances of this is the description by atheist Richard Dawkins in his best-selling book The God Delusion of the God of the Old Testament as “arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” As I wrote in one of my "Opening the Word" columns, "That remark indicates far more familiarity with the dictionary than with the Bible." To make this point, here's a quick quiz: which of the following statements is made by or about God in the OT and which were made by or about Jesus in the Gospels?

1. "But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be liable to the hell of fire."

2. "But thou, O Lord, art a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness."

3. "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell..."

4. "Light rises in the darkness for the upright; the LORD is gracious, merciful, and righteous."

5. "You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell..."

6. "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness..."

7. "And you, Caper'na-um, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day."

8. "I will recount the steadfast love of the LORD, the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel which he has granted them according to his mercy, according to the abundance of his steadfast love."

9."There you will weep and gnash your teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves thrust out."

10. "Nevertheless in thy great mercies thou didst not make an end of them or forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God."

Yep, you guessed it: 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 are statements made by Jesus in the Gospels, and 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 are statements by or about God found in the Old Testament. The basic point is that both the Old and New Testaments speak of judgment and mercy, punishment and love, communion with God and separation from God. And the word "hell" is just one way of describing or referring to eternal separation from the presence, life, and love of God, just as "heaven" is one of many ways to refer to everlasting communion with God. While the Old Testament does not contain the word "hell", it most certainly describes the painful, everlasting punishment that comes upon those who rebel against God and reject his commandments. For example:

For a fire is kindled by my anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth and its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains. And I will heap evils upon them; I will spend my arrows upon them... (Deut. 32:22-23)

The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: "Who among us can dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?" (Isa. 33:14)

A stream of fire issued and came forth from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. I looked then because of the sound of the great words which the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was slain, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. (Dan. 7:10-11)

To put it rather simplistically, what we see in the Old Testament is a pedagogical arc in which a deepening understanding of God, man, justice, and sin is reflected in a growing comprehension of an afterlife in which the righteous attain to life in God while the unrighteous and unjust are separated from that same life. This separation is judgment on those who are unrepentant, sinful, rebellious, unjust—and this is described in numerous ways. This includes terms such as "hell" and "Gehenna" and "lake of fire", the latter further described as "the second death"—that is, as the Catechism says, "the state of definitive self- exclusion from communion with God" (par. 1033).

The main point here is that a careful reader of the Bible will note there is a deep and rich continuity between the Old and New Testaments when it comes to these matters of eternal judgment, mercy, sin, love, damnation, and forgiveness. Which is one reason that this sentence by Wall is so off the mark: "I maintain that the New Testament concept of hell was created as a marketing tool and is a direct contradiction to the tolerance and love taught by Jesus Christ."

Another reason it is incorrect is that it's impossible to reject "the New Testament concept of hell" and claim affection for "the tolerance and love taught by Jesus Christ" since the New Testament concepts of hell and judgment come directly from the lips, person, and teachings of Jesus Christ! And they are clearly rooted in an Old Testament understanding of the role of the prophet: to foretell the judgment of God on those who reject his commandments and break his covenant. The main lines of these truths are presented quite nicely in these two paragraphs from the Catechism:

We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."  Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.  To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self- exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."

Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.  Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,"  and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!" (par. 1033-34)

When an agnostic or atheist claims that the Christian belief in hell is "intolerant" or "mean-spirited" or "hateful", he is making a perfect case for Fr. Thomas Dubay's statement, "The atheist's vision is often so narrow that he does not see how necessarily assumes a metaphysics in order to deny metaphysics" (Faith and Certitude, p. 214). In other words, they claim to have an objective basis—belief in "justice"—for making a judgment against the only ground for such an objective basis. If "justice" is a human creation, it can mean whatever humans want it to mean. Nothing more. So the real issue is not that atheists reject belief in God but that they reject the truth of the moral order that flows from the very nature of God, which is why the supposed "injustices" of Christian morality always align with the latest immoral fads. In the end, as Fr. Dubay writes, "The only logical, consistent alternative to theism is nihilism", for this "doctrine declares that reality is empty, worthless, meaningless, valueless, absurd. ... Even moral values are decadence for they are turned against our instincts and have behind them nothing but nothingness."

It is often said—and rightly so—that there is hell here on earth for innocent people; there is murder and genocide and rape and molestation. But denying the existence of a loving God and the reality of an afterlife does not solve or soften these horrible injustices, but only marks them as gross, pathetic jokes that emerge as vile laughter from the dark underbelly of a mechanistic universe and drown us in a sea of meaninglessness. Yet we know there is meaning; we know that justice and injustice are real things. Which means, ultimately, that hell is not a marketing tool, but an instrument of cosmic justice and of divine love, allowed by the true God who gives us life, free will, and the ability to know, to choose, and to act as a moral creature.

Related Ignatius Insight Links:

• Hell and the Bible | Piers Paul Read
• The Brighter Side of Hell | James V. Schall, S.J.
• Socrates Meets Sartre: In Hell? | Peter Kreeft
• Are God's Ways Fair? | Ralph Martin

Comments

[Nancy D.]

No doubt, one bad of a hell argument.

[Nancy D.]

Thanks for pointing out there is "a bright side " to the existence of hell.

[peter l]

Amazing how many people do not believe in the existance of Hell,sorry,do not want to believe in Hell's existence.I call these people the "Loophole" finders.They use the Bible like solicitors trying to get themselves or their clients of with all moral charges by finding these loopholes to comfort or console themselves.

Classic loophole finders will say there is no Hell because the Bible has been misinterprated or the passages that refer to Hell have been forgeries,i have seen a lot of people say these things.What they dont realise is that God will not be asking them to take a lie detector test to prove his case.As for Hell being used for a marketing tool,one does have to admire the ingenuity of the loophole finder to make his or her case, Perry Mason,eat your heart out.The Church does not need marketing tools.

BTW,the last paragraph of your post Carl,is a very interesting view on the concept of Hell,i never thought of it like that before,excellent.

[peter l]

PS.
That was some crushing lol.

[Alex]

I completely agree that the New Testament is every bit as fraught with terror and horror as the Old. Slavery is endorsed in both the Old and New Testament as well. Which always leads me to wonder why anyone would buy any of it.

[peter l]

@Alex........I think slavery in the Old and New Testaments are very different to the slavery we see a few centuries ago,especially regarding black Africans.Regarding "slavery" in the Bible, it was quite common those days to hire or be hired out to a landowner for specified period of time and to be paid a wage.Most people were willing participants in this transaction,seeing that being hired out was the only means for an income in those days.

By your logic,anyone who is in employment,even today could be considered a slave.

[Charles E Flynn]

If you would like to read an explanation of why the New Testament does not condemn slavery, try Sarah Ruden's book "Paul Among the People." She makes it clear that merely condemning slavery would have been an exercise in futility. The entire ancient culture of relentless brutality had to go, and that is what Jesus and Paul helped to bring about.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/02/the-iconoclastic-sarah-ruden.html

http://momentarytaste.blogspot.com/2011/01/paul-among-people-sarah-ruden.html

[LJ]

I completely agree that the New Testament is every bit as fraught with terror and horror as the Old. Slavery is endorsed in both the Old and New Testament as well. Which always leads me to wonder why anyone would buy any of it.

Actually Alex, if you want to read about terror and horror, read almost any history about any period, particularly the twentieth century. Leaving aside the Bible entirely the track record of history leads me to wonder if the terror and horror are a human problem.

Indeed, it would seem that if there were a God as the Jews and the Christians claim, he either doesn't care enough to either force humanity to comply and act morally or totally eradicate them; or he would rather allow them the free will to actually be moral of their own volition. Hmmmm...

I know what the Catholics say about that. In fact, they even suggest that God has entered the world expressly for the purpose of letting humanity know what is right and what is wrong, lay out the facts of the case as it were, and not only that, but to point out the ultimate result of either course. Pretty generous of him wouldn't you say? Letting us decide like that.

But it wouldn't have been really truthful and fair if he didn't give us the whole truth, as in both heaven and hell, now would it?

[James Kirk Wall]

This is an interesting article to debate. An argument that the god of the New Testament is just as bad and awful as the god in the Old Testament doesn’t do Catholicism any favors. After all, in the Book of Numbers Chapter 31, the god of the Old Testament orders Moses to go to war against the Midianites in which Moses orders the killing of every man, women and child, except the young girls who are still virgins, they are given to the soldiers. And after the slaughter of this people (so much for thou shall not kill) god starts to micromanage where all the stolen booty should go. And the god of the New Testament is no better than this? Oh, and if I’m miss-representing anything in the Book of Numbers, please correct me. It’ll be interesting to see how this is somehow justified as the acts of a loving god, the kind we want in charge of “cosmic justice.”
As for Jesus preaching tolerance, I will provide some quotes to backup my statement.
“Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you.”
“In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the law of the prophets.”
Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured of you.”
“For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”
“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.”
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

[Scott Hendrickson]

No comment but a question. I would like to buy a Catholic catechism, and would like your recommendation. I saw several on amazon and am confused as to which would be best for me. I am an evangelical. I read your background and am curious if you were a Church of Christ evangelical.

By the way, Wall's analysis of Numbers is way off. God choosing the means and methods of his punishment of a morally bankrupt people and culture is of course horrifying to atheists, as it implies that God might put the atheist in the same boat as the Canaannites. Also, the support for tolerance is lacking in the quotes provided. Example letting prostitutes in but not pharisees is not tolerant. Not forgiving those who dont forgive is not tolerant. The implication that the unmerciful will not receive mercy is not tolerant. Judging people by their own standards is not tolerant. Tolerance would be applying no judgement. Finally, if treating people they way you want to be treated summarizes the law and prophets, then it is a command, not a suggestion (also not tolerant), and I assume there is probably some punishment associated with not treating people in that way, and punishing people is not tolerant.

Sorry, I guess there was a comment after all.

Thanks again about the catechism.

Scott H

[Carl E. Olson]

Thanks, Scott, for the note and question. The Catechism is The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), which is the first "universal" catechism issued (if I'm not mistaken) since the Catechism of the Council of Trent. There is also an U.S. Catholic Catechism for Adults, which is solid, but the CCC is the best, in my opinion. If you have other questions, please let me know (carl@ignatius.com).

[M. Jordan Lichens]

I love that people always insist that there is no such thing as Hell in Eastern Religions. Such insistence usually reveals ignorance and an idealization of exotic faiths, which might also explain why such people cannot accept that the Dalai Lama has controversial beliefs about gay marriage and abortion.

The one example I can think of from an Eastern religion is from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, occurring on the second day in part II. "The aggregate of thy principle of consciousness, being in it's pure form -- which is the Mirror-like Wisdom -- will shine as a bright, radiant white light, from the heart of Vajra-Sattva, the Father-Mother, with such dazzling brilliancy and transparency that thou wilt scarcely be able to look at it, [and] will strike against thee. And a dull, smoke-coloured light from Hell will shine alongside the light of the Mirror-like Wisdom and will [also] strike against thee."

From the same text: "Be not fond of the dull, smoke-coloured light from Hell. That is the path which openeth out to receive thee because of the power of accumulated evil karma from violent anger. If thou be attracted by it, thou wilt fall into the Hell-Worlds; and, falling therein, thou wilt have to endure unbearable misery, whence there is not certain time of getting out."

The Hell of Tibetan thought would have been a perfect image for Dante. Granted, however, Hell (Naraka) in this context is not necessarily a permanent place. Also, see Chinese mythology.

I'm not saying that Hell is validated just because it is in Eastern faiths. However, I get tired of people taking beautiful and complex religious traditions that are among the oldest faith traditions in the world and turning them into some sort of pop psychology. Maybe Americans just can't do religion and philosophy.

[Alex]

peter I you are referring to bondservants or indentured servitude. The bible endorses both indentured servitude and slavery. And biblical indentured servitude differed in really only one way and that was that the bondservant could hope to see freedom when his contract was up. But he still lived and died at the pleasure of his lord while he was in service to him and could be beaten for a very large range of infractions. So let's not be silly and pretend there was no difference between indentured servitude and modern employment.

[James Kirk Wall]

"God choosing the means and methods of his punishment of a morally bankrupt people and culture is of course horrifying to atheists."

I would think slaughtering children would be horrifying to anyone, not just atheists.

[Yash]

Old Testament written by illiterate Cowherds of Middle East which does not suit European way of life. Hence Roman Emperor Constantino & his associates created New Testament, also copying some Eastern Religion. If educated present generation follow this thrash is ignorance at helm.

[Michael]

Yash, speaking of ignorance, I just don't know where to start except to say that I think you're a troll that is only out to get a reaction. Hmm, based off what I just typed, that's me!