If Rob Bell’s thesis on Hell has made the cover of Time Magazine, as it has this week (just in time for Easter), then it is certainly worthy of comment here.
As regular readers know, I am not one who professes to any belief system that includes recognition of a place called Hell. I don’t view Heaven as any more probable, and, just to make sure I am completely understood, I don’t see a strong argument for the existence of God, not at least in what would qualify as a religious belief.
But Rob Bell is not a non-believer (a category I fall into most readily). He is a Christian minister of one of those mega-churches that typically feature evangelical preachers for whom the Bible is absolute gospel – scripture from on High, as it were.
And so, when someone of his stature writes that Hell is not necessarily the place of eternal damnation that the Bible suggests, folks who have a lot invested in that view are bound to be just a little upset.
Bell makes his position relatively clear on the point in his book, “Love Wins,” which, in addition to getting the attention of evangelicals, is all the buzz on cable news networks and talk radio. In his book, Bell says that Hell is irrelevant to a truly Christian life, which instead should be seeking to live ethically above all else.
As would be expected, Bell is being attacked as a heretic by some and as a provocateur by others. He seems unperturbed, speaking of the need to live in the here and now and to work on what he regards as Christ’s primary teaching: the power of love.
Be that as it may, with Easter week at hand and the masses (Donald Trump apparently included) about to make their annual pilgrimages to their local churches, the opportunity to explore the likelihood that Hell exists cannot be ignored (at least not by one who professes proudly to unadulterated agnosticism on the subject).
Here, then, for those who care to indulge in a little spiritual cogitation, is what makes sense to me.
The vast universe is too immense to make any real sense to mere mortals. Scientists who study it endlessly are constantly finding new ways to understand it. We seem to have passed beyond the view that life cannot possibly exist anywhere but on this little planet in this relatively tiny solar system in this otherwise insignificant galaxy.
The current scientific thought seems to be that intelligent life may well exist elsewhere in the universe, albeit we are unlikely to ever encounter it, the spatial distances being too great to ever transcend.
But accepting that we may not be unique and that the universe is immense neither confirms nor denies the existence of a master creator who put it all in motion and who even controls how it all plays out.
God, in other words, at least in a deistic sense, is no more improbable than probable. In fact, if we expand our inquiry to include how it all started (“it” here being the universe itself), we are left with a giant question mark that seems only capable of being answered with something akin to God, even if that concept is a mere acknowledgement of the laws of physics that seem to control everything.
And so, as an agnostic, I acknowledge the very real possibility that a master force, call it God, not only exists, but may well be in control. Saying so, doesn’t reject the only slightly less plausible notion that the laws of physics just are what they are and that the universe just is what it is, intellectually vacuous though that statement will appear.
In any event, whether there be a God or not, the likelihood of a Hell that is eternal damnation for all souls not deemed worthy of salvation seems outside the realm of intellectual calculation. It presupposes, among other things, the existence of something that “survives” the end of the physical life and that is somehow capable of experiencing pain and anguish even without the central nervous system that provides a living being with those sensations.
Moreover, it supposes a means of calculating the worthiness of every living being at the point of that being’s demise and of being unmerciful in assigning such “souls” to that eternally damnable place. And if such assignments are made by this same God that we hypothecate may well exist, what does that say of Its (His is so sexist; Hers is so condescending) creation?
Of course, the foregoing is a discussion devoid of faith, but faith does not provide much solace if it results in a God who deliberately created a universe without regard for how Its subjects would be treated once they were born into it.
And the same God that presumably assigns “souls” to Hell is also supposed to be merciful and loving, at least in the Christian version of the deity, since He (now I must be sexist) claimed to have embodied Himself in living form as Jesus Christ some 2,000 years ago.
Similar inconsistencies can be found throughout the Bible and in the theologies that have embraced it. The fact that so many views of God exist in the organized religions of the world should provide more than ample evidence of the view that the Biblical God is a human creation (which is not to deny the view of God I previously acknowledged as being intellectually plausible). The two conclusions, if you follow my drift, are not irreconcilable.
At some point, however, the entire subject becomes absurd, which is why, as the thinking person that I believe It intended me to be, I cannot make sense of the puzzle.
And so, I applaud Rob Bell for his forthrightness and his courage. While I will probably never attend his church, I certainly might read his book. Any Christian theologian who acknowledges the likelihood that Hell is a human construct and, more importantly, who stresses the need to live an ethical life in pursuit of true Christian salvation, has my vote.
Happy Easter everyone.
Ed,
I very much enjoyed your post. Having been raised and instructed as a child to believe in Biblical truths I’m always interested in faith and how it plays in our lives. To believe in a personal god is to believe in ultimate justice and freedom from suffering, two items missing from our world. My small disagreement with you is one of alliance. I’m an atheist. To say I’m agnostic seems to ease my way out from the argument with believers on this notion of justice and freedom outside the world we know. Believers will argue I just need to study a little longer and perhaps pray and belief will surely come. I feel confident in saying there is no ultimate justice and freedom from suffering only comes by death. Any easing of suffering or freedom from injustice will only come from mankind. If I’m wrong, then we know our enemy. A god who’s indifferent to suffering and mocks any pursuit of justice.
Ed,
When you say that “faith does not provide much solace if it results in a God who deliberately created a universe without regard for how [God’s] subjects would be treated once they were born into it,” I do not think many people of faith would disagree. As a Christian, I believe this is the point of the incarnation. You know, there is a long line of universalists among Christian theologians, going back at least as far as Gregory of Nyssa. But consider another angle: perhaps people condemn themselves to hell. St. Catherine of Sienna wrote that the flames of hell are merely the loving warmth of God seen from a different point of view. C. S. Lewis made a similar point his novella “The Great Divorce.” Some people might not want to be with God. It requires too much humility. (You understand, I am sure, that I am not here arguing for the existence either of God or hell. I’m just trying to give you another angle.)
Ed (or should I still call you Prof?), this is something that I struggled with some years ago. As you know, I was raised Christian. But once I reached my early 20s, I couldn’t reconcile the idea of God that I had been holding with what I experienced and witnessed around me. It took an unexpected (and even less requested) personal revelation to make me a believer once again. That revelation was that God is much more loving, forgiving, and kind than many would have you believe.
To complement this idea, I agree with Joel 100%; I believe that hell is a state of mind. Furthermore, I agree that there are many who will choose not to remain in God’s presence whether that be out of shame or a lack of humility (as Joel argued) or laziness (not wanting to continue God’s work in the hereafter) etc. Personally, my idea of hell is what is often depicted as heaven in cartoons. After all, I can think of nothing less tortuous or agonizing than an eternity wearing a robe and sitting around on a cloud with a harp. I mean, I don’t even play the harp, and there must be quite the draft up there. 🙂
As always, thanks for the thought-provoking post.
I hope this is obvious, but near the end I meant “nothing more tortuous,” not “less.” Guess I should have white-gloved that a little more…
Very interesting piece, Ed, and on a topic we’ve discussed several times. I will take issue with one point, though: “God, in other words, at least in a deistic sense, is no more improbable than probable.”
I agree that science does not and cannot prove or disprove the existence of God or heaven or hell. But, as a matter of logical analysis, is not necessary to posit the existence of God to explain what we understand of the universe and how it came to be. In fact, it is perfectly reasonable to say that “the laws of physics just are what they are and that the universe just is what it is,” even if it’s not emotionally satisfying.
If this is so, Occam’s razor, a guiding principle of science, suggests that God’s existence is at least somewhat less likely than His non-existence.
Further, a truly omniscient and omnipotent God, with knowledge of and power over every particle/wave/quantum of matter or energy in existence now and throughout all of past and future time, would of necessity be more complex than the entire universe (or multiverse, if you embrace some current theories). How could such a thing exist? This is so far outside the bounds of everything we know or likely ever could know about existence that parsimony suggests–or demands–that we assign a very low probability to the existence of God.
I’m well aware that for most people, belief in God isn’t about logic. It’s more about emotional needs and choosing to believe, and the power that faith can have. I’m OK with that. It just doesn’t work for me. I can’t ignore logic and reason.
I’m not so confident in our understanding of and knowledge about the way things work, Jan, which is why I think your premise is faulty. It may well be that the laws of physics have just “always been,” but even assuming that to be the case, their existence must still be explained.
I suppose we could end up with a semantic argument that revolves around our definition of God. As a creature with human traits and “feelings,” the idea makes no sense at all, and as a directive force, with the power to intercede at will, the concept is intellectually repulsive.
But as a force that has creative powers and that has no real interest in our little speck of existence in the multiverse of Its creation, I see no more reason to accept the possibility of Its existence than to reject it.
Of course, I’m not describing anything that is in need of worship or belief. But I am acknowledging that I don’t know, can’t know, and therefore would be a fool to absolutely reject the possibility of the existence of something that would explain everything.
And, I’ll go one step further: While the idea of a Biblical God is absolute anathema to rational thought, I do not discount the possibility that there is some force that is capable of “speaking” to individuals in ways that go beyond physical conceptualization. Hence, ESP and related metaphysical claims/events might be explained
Bottom line: Absolute beliefs on the subject are a fool’s conceit. Agnosticism is the only honest intellectual attitude.