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Even the most uninitiated Christians realizes that the Christian life is a battle, and also that there are plenty of casualties around from this battle. They also realize that every child of God is part of the battle whether one wishes to participate or not. All this taken as a whole often looks like a bleak picture to them.

Fighting a lonely battle against a whole army is no joke, and the first question that comes even to the most motivated person is, "What can one person do". One’s inadequacy immediately becomes apparent, but what does not dawn upon them is the substantial contributions which individuals have made — and continue to make — in the spiritual battlefield.

God has used plenty of Individuals — Noah, Moses, Joseph, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel — to fulfill His plan. He wants YOU to be the next! Are you ready?

Click on the picture to download the book to study what YOU can do in this battle!!

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(A Seminary In Every Home) A lot of people wish to have an “introduction” to Bible books that will tell them exactly what a certain book is about, what its outline is, who wrote it when and for whom etc. Thus we have started issuing a 66-volume Bible Survey at the end of which you will have close to 300 pages of such introduction.

Here is the first volume: Genesis. We plan to release one volume per week and do come back here weekly for your next volumes.

Here is a FREE educational ebook for you. Please download, distribute and spread Christian WorldView. Click on the picture for your download.

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Lesson 6: The Book of Job: the Bible’s Answer to the Problem of Evil

Since the Bible, as God’s Word, gives us all that we need to know for salvation, it is not surprising that it has something to say on the problem of evil. The Psalmist deals with the question in several psalms:

For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou sitest in the throne judging right. Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever. O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them. But the LORD shall endure for ever: he hath prepared his throne for judgment. And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness. The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. (Psalm 9.4-9)

Continue reading “The Problem of Evil: Lesson 06” »

Lesson 5: Hell

‘The idea of hell is morally absurd’ – B.C. Johnson

A special instance of the problem of evil concerns Hell. Some critics and indeed some Christians argue that it is inconceivable that a loving God would condemn any of His creatures to an eternity of dreadful suffering and so they have tried to offer an understanding of Hell that avoids the difficulty or have attempted to provide some adequate justification for the damnation of the unrepentant.

Those who try to deny the existence of Hell or who propose some sort of annihilationist theory for the fate of those who are not saved have to accept that there is no solid scriptural basis for such positions. The reality of Hell is clearly indicated in several Biblical texts and it is equally clear that some people will be there, and there for eternity. Jesus believed in hell – so Christians should trust him to be right!

Some Texts about Hell

For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. (Deuteronomy 32:22) 

The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. (Psalms 9:17) 

And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed. (Isaiah 1.28)

I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit. (Ezekiel 31:16) 

But whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. (Matthew 5:22) 

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. (Matthew 5:29) 

But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 8.12)

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28) 

Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? (Matthew 23:33) 

Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power? (2 Thessalonians 1.9)

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; (2 Peter 2:4) 

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. (Revelation 20:13) 

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. (Revelation 20:14) 

Since denial of the existence of Hell is impossible for those who take the Bible seriously there have been a number of attempts to render its reality less problematic. The main approaches all overlap to some extent.

Toning down its dreadfulness

Firstly, attempts are made to make Hell not quite as bad as it has traditionally been painted. The descriptions are read as symbolic language with the flames necessarily being figurative of God’s judgement as it is also a place of utter darkness. Hell is conceptualised as a negative or relational, an absence of goodness and love and an absence of God, banishment from His presence and from all that is of value, a ‘place of less blessing’. Not all suffer equally but it is still dreadful; it may not be torture but rather conscious suffering from the loss of everything that is worthwhile, an eternity of shame and regret, mental and physical, and especially of grief for what is lost. God is not, therefore, not to be thought spiteful or cruel;  annihilation would in fact be a less moral choice in so far as it can be seen as treating people as means not ends. Hell in this sense recognises the intrinsic value of human life so has to sustain persons in existence for eternity. 

Explanations in terms of human choice

Secondly Hell becomes a natural consequence of human choices and the infinite seriousness of ignoring God; it is not an arbitrary and excessive punishment imposed on sinners by a despotic divinity but the natural consequence of unrepentant evil. Nobody is forced into this Hell against their will, it can be even seen as a mercy to those who would find being in the presence of God intolerable because of their utter selfishness. Hell becomes a choice made by those who refuse God’s offer of forgiveness. Chesterton went so far as to suggest that hell is God’s great compliment to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of human choice. If we repeatedly fail to abide by His standards, if we make choices not to care for the values of heaven and have no interest in the well-being of others, God will have no choice but to give us the separation we want. Those in Hell continue to defy their maker and want to be centre of universe. They have not repented – God has no choice as it would be dehumanising to force everyone into heaven against their will. God accepts Hell ‘after the fact’ rather than positively wills it (as a participant in a sporting contest accepts that losing is a price to be paid for playing the game). God the Father does not will that any should perish (Matthew 18.14), any more than a footballer wills to be beaten, but He will not revoke the free will of sinners to choose to refuse His mercy. It has even been suggested that Hell was a ‘fall back’ and not original part of creation though this seems to be incompatible with God’s omniscience.

Explanations in terms of justice

Thirdly Hell can be understood in terms of the demands of Justice. God is not simply a sentimental Father but also a holy judge with ‘hard virtues’ as well as soft ones like love and mercy. Without Hell there is no real justice – evil cannot remain unpunished and it cannot be permitted to (re)enter Heaven. If Hell were merely a sort of purgatory there would be no guarantee that there would ever be universal acceptance of God’s will (and besides is non-scriptural): separation from God would be unlikely to lead to repentance and Hell would be too coercive for any repentance to be genuine. No one who would repent dies prematurely and life matters too much for there to be endless ‘second chances’. There is much to recommend this approach but there is also a big problem with it – Hell does not actually eliminate evil, merely shuts it up for ever, so perhaps annihilation would end it more effectively. Some texts might suggest such an outcome (including some of those quoted above) but other passages do state unambiguously the eternal nature of Hell.

Explanations in terms of human wickedness

Fourthly, Morris offers a Calvinist response based on the inherent wickedness of humanity. All the talk of free will and sinners choosing heaven is seriously at odds with a strict Reformed (Calvinist) theology. Here the essence of the difficulty is compounded by the need to explain how double predestination can possibly be fair. If God can elect some to salvation without compromising His justice and holiness then why, the critics ask, would He not save everyone? Edward A. Morris has attempted to work out the basis of a response to this. He accepts that free will (which he denies as being real, scriptural or especially important) cannot explain the pain of Hell. God does love all but not equally and while He loves everyone ‘generally’ He only loves some ‘specially’ (that is, sufficiently to save them). Furthermore He is not simply a god of love but of wrath and holiness who hates sinners (e.g. Romans 11.22). While this might seem harsh and unjust to humans we must accept that we cannot evaluate God using human categories (Psalm 50.21, Isaiah 55.8). He can do what seems morally wrong for humans if it is for His own glory and that can include permitting pain while still loving those who are allowed to suffer. We also need to accept that humans are not innocents wrongly condemned but fallen creatures only able do good through God’s grace so that Hell can be seen quite simply as humanity left to their own devices without God to moderate the terrible consequences (2 Thessalonians 1.9). Such people – or their souls – can never regret their sins or turn in repentance to God. This may not be a comfortable answer but the Bible cannot be seen as a cosy, non-challenging book nor the Biblical God a non-threatening one! In fact He is a god who chose Hell.

Such a position is not without its difficulties (though Morris claims it is at least logically non-contradictory). Perhaps the biggest obstacles to accepting this theory are that it does not really explain at all why God only saves some nor does it provide an answer to the question of why God should create such appalling creatures in the first place.

Conclusion

Hell is a difficult concept to associate with a loving and merciful God but not at all difficult to reconcile to a holy and just one once we recognise the evil of humankind and the fact that not all are punished equally. To destroy the wicked would be less respectful of the value of humanity than to allow them to live with the consequences of their rebellion and since on their own they are incapable of repenting and turning to God their exclusion from His presence will be eternal.

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Lesson 4: Other Theodicies

In an attempt to respond to the apparent inadequacy of the theodicies based on free will and soul making Phillips (2004) has sought to replace these ‘conceptually bankrupt’ responses with the truly ‘religious’ response of ‘dieing to the I’ in which suffering teaches us that we are nothing and finds, not an all-powerful God, but one present in absence, whose love helps to sustain suffering. This seems to come close to the view that evil can be overcome by turning to more spiritual values. There are two other important approaches which we need to consider next.

Theodicy based on God’s Own Suffering

Some theologians argue that the ‘primary response of God to the problem of evil’ must be sought in the atonement. The Father reconciles and reshapes the fallen world thorough the incarnation of the Son whose death on the cross promises final victory and the chance of a new life. This is the victory of a God of love rather than of force and it is for the church to implement this victory by its pastoral response. On a practical level this can mean repentance, the rejection of idolatry in all forms, taking up the call to wage war on evil (as in liberation theology) by helping those in distress, thereby sharing in the work of a God who also suffers (as Father and Son) and who became a man (the ‘suffering servant’ – Isaiah 53) to accept responsibility, share the burden and remove the isolation. This is the ‘most satisfactory theodicy we can achieve’ (Fiddes 1989 pp207ff ). Moltman argued that only a suffering God can help and through the incarnation God Himself entered the agony, not as a passive observer but as someone who went the extra mile and practiced what he preached (John Kreeft in Strobel 2000 #1). In this sense the cross is God’s acknowledgement of His responsibility for what happens. He is not a remote deist ‘first cause’ but is present wherever there is suffering. A famous story told by Wiesel about the execution of a child in Auschwitz makes the point well (though it may not be the point the author intended): someone asked where God was as the child dangled between life and death and the reply was that He was there hanging on the gallows.

Theodicy Based on the Eschaton

We have already hinted at this approach in the previous section. This theodicy basically puts temporary suffering and injustice (however dreadful they appear to us now from our human perspective) in the context of eternity. We may even be grateful for the suffering we endured once we understand its purpose. Saint Theresa put the point in an arresting way: in the light of heaven a life full of even the most atrocious suffering will seem no more serious than a night in an inconvenient hotel, so much will the joy and goodness of God will outweigh all the pain. Justice will be done to all at the Last Judgement, the evil will not prosper and those who love God will be rewarded in the life to come when God creates the new heaven and the new earth (2 Peter 3.13). In heaven moral perfection will be achieved by the grace of God the Father through the work of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and the saved will come to know and love God, their neighbour and themselves. Transience, death and suffering will be no more but the new order will be built out of the old as Jesus’ post-resurrection body was a transformation of his pre-resurrection body. Come the ‘cosmic consummation’ humans ‘

will be His people and He will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away’ (Revelation 21.3-4).

On one view, those in heaven have chosen for God to transform them so that there will be no evil there but to achieve a sinless Heaven perhaps there had to be evil on earth (we return to the ‘sufficient reason’ approach here!) but whatever the case from the perspective of eternity the brief interval of suffering will seem trivial in comparison to the blessings in store.

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