Defending an Eternal Tormentor god

"A callous, heartless religion is that which defines it's God as a cold and unmerciful deity, quick to anger and even quicker to condemn it's people to an eternity in fire. I know of only one such God and he is the God of Christianity."
Sherman Milliken (1923)

"After the sermon was ended,... I revolted at the recollection of what I had heard.... I moreover believe that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system..." Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)

Imagine having to defend the gas chambers of Hitler or the death camps of Stalin and other Tyrants. Imagine having to try and justify their atrocities. It would be impossible.

How much more impossible do you think it would be to defend an eternal tormentor God? The torture chambers of hell make in comparison all the man made atrocities put together look as Disneyland. No wonder the traditional "fire and brimstone" version of hell is repudiated even by conservative "orthodox" theologians who describe the torments in hell in terms of emotional/spiritual suffering.

Such conservative theologians however, "because of the fear of the Jews" always rush to add as a disclaimer that the "spiritual" suffering in hell is equal if not more intense than that in the torture chambers described by Dante and Jonathan Edwards. Apparently, orthodoxy is measured by the degree of sufferings. Any scaling down of the sufferings is seen as a sign of apostasy from orthodox doctrine. Evangelical author Ajith Fernando warns his readers: "We have a responsibility to warn people that it ( hell ) will be a horrible place. It is not enough to describe hell as separation from God, because our hearers may have consciously chosen to live separate from God. To them that would be a blessing. We may need to use more vivid language to convince the sinner that hell is not a place any sane person would want to enter." He then goes on to suggest that more creativity should be employed to scare people into the kingdom: "If we are to be vivid in proclaiming judgment, we need to find creative ways of doing it…There is a challenge here to artists, musicians and writers…" ( Crucial Questions about HELL, Ajith Fernando, Crossway Books, Illinois, 1991, pp.160-161 ).

Fernando and his like minded ministers of the good news (?) may well start a new genre in films and literature. Christian horror.

The twisted logic of Hell: A classic example of bad apologetics by a Conservative Christian leader

Audience Participant: "I've been reading through the Book of Numbers recently, and come across that passage in Chapter 31 about the destruction of the Midianites. How do you explain that apparent travesty of the destruction of that people with the just and holy God?"

Pat Robertson: "The wars of extermination have given a lot of people trouble unless they understand fully what was going on. The people in the land of Palestine were very wicked. They were given over to idolatry. They sacrificed their children. They had all kinds of abominable sex practices. They were having sex apparently with animals. They were having sex men with men and women with women. They were committing adultery and fornication. They were serving idols. As I say, they were offering their children up, and they were forsaking God..."

"...God told the Israelites to kill them all: men, women and children; to destroy them." And that seems like a terrible thing to do. Is it or isn't it? Well, let us assume that there were two thousand of them or ten thousand of them living in the land, or whatever number, I don't have the exact number, but pick a number. And God said, "Kill them all." Well, that would seem hard, wouldn't it? But that would be 10,000 people who probably would go to hell. But if they stayed and reproduced, in thirty, forty or fifty or sixty or a hundred more years there could conceivably be ... ten thousand would grow to a hundred, a hundred thousand conceivably could grow to a million, and there would be a million people who would have to spend an eternity in Hell! And it is far more merciful to take away a few than to see in the future a hundred years down the road, and say, "Well, I'll have to take away a million people, that will be forever apart from God because the abomination is there." It's like a contagion. God saw that there was no cure for it. It wasn't going to change, and all they would do is cause trouble for the Israelites and pull the Israelites away from God and prevent the truth of God from reaching the earth. And so God in love -- and that was a loving thing -- took away a small number that he might not have to take away a large number... Now that's a long answer, but I think that's closer to it"

Audience: Well, my question would be, Pat, why didn't He just save them all? I mean, why didn't He say, "I forgive you, I save you," and save them that way? Why obliterate them?

Pat Robertson: A righteous God, just like a righteous judge -- if a man comes into court who has committed murder, the judge can't say, "Well I'm a merciful kind of judge, and the jury has found you guilty of premeditated, first degree murder, but I'm such a nice guy, you can just go ahead and I forgive you." He can't do that and uphold the law. They would impeach him. A judge has to keep the law and God has certain laws in the universe which must be upheld. The only way He fulfilled those laws was to die himself in the person of His son on the cross. And he is not going to force anybody to accept him. It has to be a free choice. And they had freely chosen to reject him and it doesn't get any better. It gets worse... (Pat Robertson, The 700 Club television program, May 6, 1985, justifying and celebrating the wholesale genocide allegedly committed by the early invading Israelites. Excerpted from "Genocidal Act of 'Love'" by Elliott Finesse, and critically edited by Cliff Walker; some portions are contained in Robert Boston, The Most Dangerous Man in America, source: Positive Atheism's Big List of Scary Quotes)

So much for the traditional versions of hell. They cannot possibly be presented in the field of apologetics. A tormentor god is indefensible morally, theologically and philosophically.

The evangelical apologists that remain in the "orthodox" camp in regards to the doctrine of eternal hell have been forced to retreat to less embarrassing grounds. Eternal hell has been sanitized and redefined to such a degree that it appears almost desirable to the sinners of the world. Even though "grace oriented" preachers retain and even emphasize the element of suffering in their euphemisms for hell, the front-line apologists do not do so. The sanitized hell of modern apologists resembles more a kind of demi-heaven where sinners finally get what they always wanted; a life without God. Such a hell is presented as a testimony to God's love towards even the wickedest of sinners. The doors of such a heaven are not shut at all. In principle, the sinners can repent at any time and "upgrade" to heaven but they prefer to exist away from the presence of God. Such versions of hell seem to save the day in the philosophical front since God is no longer portrayed as cruel and the sinners are not suffering against their will. They enjoy instead a "lower quality" of life and in a perverse way continue indulging forever in their sins. Other more strict versions of such hells include require that the sinners experience feelings of shame and remorse and dissatisfaction- but not torment.

One of the leading modern "orthodox" apologists, Glenn Miller makes the point that ultimately what matters is that everyone is better off existing than not existing. He proposes a logical criterion as a measure for "fairness", namely that when all is done in the afterlife and fates are sealed "there must be more good than bad" for everyone. Like many other modern apologists, Miller adopts the view that even evil humans are too valuable for God to annihilate and that He allows them to exist in a lower quality state, a kind of "eternal quarantine". He outlines the three main views on the fate of sinners as Universalism, Annihilation and Eternal Hell. He calls Universalism as "the easiest view" to defend as it clearly makes existence "more good than bad for even the cruellest of humans". He argues that from the point of view of unrepentant sinners even the Annihilation view is "more good than bad" as they at least get to exist for a limited time. Regarding the eternal hell view he describes the situation in these words:

"Although we have very, very little data on what life apart from God will be like, the less-violent pictures painted by C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce or by Kierkegaard in Sickness Unto Death may be better guesses than those of the more traditional theologians. In Lewis's fictional portrayal, the people in hell live as they pretty much did in life, but (1) without the 'restriction' to be good to people or to live around other people; (2) without the natural pleasures or extra benefits that God endows all living humans with (e.g., affections of friendship, expansiveness, good times, satisfaction over completed projects, etc.), and (3) with the ability to completely avoid personal change and development. They go through the motions of their existence, increasing their isolation from others there, and are, at some level, "less personal" or "less real" themselves. They don't even know what they are missing--they settle for less and less over time…"

He adds: "In the traditional view, one of the standard objections that comes up is that a merciful God would at least "put them out of their misery" (i.e., the annihilationist view). The traditionalists laudably fall back upon biblical exegesis to arrive at their answer, but when they toggle into philosophical mode, they sometimes argue that life has value in itself, and therefore even a "low quality of life" life (i.e., of a person in hell) is better than non-existence…For example, Moreland/Habermas argue (in their fight against the annihilationists): "But there is a more important, fundamental consideration than the ones just listed: For the sake of argument, if we compare extinction with life in hell, it is clearly more immoral to extinguish humans with intrinsic value than to allow them to continue living in a state with a low quality of life. In fact, we do not believe the second alternative is immoral at all, but the first alternative is immoral." "In our view, annihilationism versus the traditionalists regarding hell form a precise parallel to quality-of-life versus sanctity-of-life positions regarding infanticide and euthanasia. Remember, hell is not a torture chamber, and people in hell are not howling like dogs in mind-numbing pain. There are degrees of anguish in hell. But the endlessness of existence in hell at least dignifies the people there by continuing to respect their autonomy and their intrinsic value as persons.""

Miller then comments: "If this statement is simply a very rarified statement of 'value without any benefit to the creature itself' (i.e., the suffering creature is 'contributing value' to the universe by simply existing, but their experience is not of this value, but rather only of suffering), then this hardly parries the objection of the superior mercifulness of annihilation. However, if their statement is that the value/suffering "mix" of the individual is 'better than' the "mix" of non-existence (i.e., pure neutrality or zero), then you clearly have a 'more good than bad' situation for those in hell."

"Notice that this reflects a 'time-smoothed' view of hell, which we are not certain of at all. The 'weeping and gnashing of teeth' at having missed the chance for such a 'party' as the Kingdom(!), may only be an initial response to the judgment; they might then simply resign themselves to shame, remorse, and mutual criticism/contempt … as they begin their 'self-created new existence'."

Miller concludes that such a view of hell ( as a bearable/lower quality of existence ) also meets the criterion 'more good than bad' for even the worse sinners: "Under the Traditional view (i.e., some human creatures have unending conscious experience in a low quality of life state called 'hell'), conscious experience is still "more good than bad" for everyone."

( For more on what Miller writes about this issue see: Why didn't God stop the process before it started, if He knew of the massive amounts of suffering that would befall many of His creatures?? )

Most traditional "orthodox" theologians would jump to disagree with Miller, but he more than adequately replies to any nostalgic references to the popular hell of preachers when he says: "Now, the evangelical might at this point feel quite uneasy, for it might appear that we have taken "the hell out of hell". If hell now is characterized more by regret and shame and poverty and a self-determined/created experience, than by torture and pain and screaming and victimization by other agents of torment, do we still have the biblical hell at all? And the answer is: "Yes"-because we built this from some of the clear biblical images of post-death experience. (And, to be safe, we even used traditional, literalist theologians to make sure we were not de-Danteing too far). That this "more tolerable" view of hell might surprise us is probably a testimony to the effectiveness of our culture in perpetuating its extra-biblical myths into our worldviews..."

The very orthodox Miller's able debunking of the traditional concepts of hell may seem to absolve God from the stench of sadism and cruelty but, as I am sure Miller would agree, any scenario where sin still remains in the universe "falls short from the Glory of God". The ultra sanitized eternal hell of leading apologists and sensitive Christians would still damage God's reputation- not to mention His joy and "good pleasure". The notion of hell as a quarantine actually dishonours God by implying that He is unable to cure His children from their sins. An eternal "quarantine" would be an eternal embarrassment to God and His Saints. God will be forever willing that His children come to a knowledge of the truth. He will be forever longing for His prodigal sons and daughters to return. Think about it. I am not talking about theological technicalities. I am talking about having faith in the infinite Greatness and Wisdom of God. Surely God can do better than merely contain sin forever even in a "five star" prison.

Only when the church gives up the doctrines of demons can the apologists properly defend the faith. If the church had kept the simplicity in Christ by remaining Universalist, there would had been no need for all the elaborate defences and endless speculations about a place that doesn't even exist. The world would have also taken the Church's warnings about the Judgments of God more seriously, something that cannot happen with the unrealistic and outrageous doctrine of eternal hell.

I am sure the church would have made far better use of the reasoning gifts in Christian men like Miller if they wouldn't have to waste so much of their valuable mental resources to salvage the reputation of God from the devastating doctrine of eternal hell and its many "extra-biblical myths".

It is lamentable that the front-line apologists are required to enter into the spiritual battlefield with the debilitating disadvantage of having to defend a doctrine, which they abhor in their very own hearts.

A good taste of apologists like Miller in action ( when they don't have to deal with the concept of hell ) is his smart and brief solution to the problem of evil:

"The other day I had an interesting experience. A young friend of mine went to take his test for his drivers license. We had prayed together for success, but the young man had NOT studied for the written exam! Needless to say, he failed the test...and I am told that when he left the examination site, he 'cursed God' for causing him to fail!

As I heard this, my mind turned to Proverbs 19:3...

A person's folly ruins his life, but his heart rages against the Lord.

I have, of course, experienced this myself often in my own life, as I have blamed God (for a while at least) for some of the consequences of my own stubbornness, laziness, or otherwise inappropriate attitudes.

But as I continued reflecting on this, I thought again of the problem of evil, with its implicit 'linkage' of evil with a good God. And I wondered if that wasn't just the ultimate case of Proverbs 19:3, in which WE produce the vast destruction and racism and violence and avarice of human history...and then argue 'how can a good God let that happen?'... As we make ourselves the ethical judge of God in this process!...and implicitly blame Him for this evil!

We, the human race, produce the Hitlers and the Torquemadas, the Mansons and the Neros...when will WE begin to accept responsibility for what WE have done?...and when will WE begin to develop a justification for OUR human character--an anthropodicy instead of theodicy?

[This musing was more of an ethical statement, I suppose, than a philosophical one. Indeed, the general problem of evil can probably be constructed without the blame-shifting of the above. And even the portion of the problem that occurs in nature, such as hurricanes and earthquakes, can hardly be placed at our feet. But I think the point is still valid...we are often prone to make God 'closer' to the responsibility than WE are--at least the responsibility for the horrors that people have produced in history.]

Second Musing - the self-stultifying character of the problem of evil

One of the insights of Sartre, in my opinion, was that he saw clearly the relationship between a transcendent, conscious, volitional deity and the reality of "pre-built" values (and subsequently, ethics) in the universe:

"About 1880, some French teachers tried to set up a secular ethics which went something like this: God is a useless and costly hypothesis; we are discarding it; but, meanwhile, in order for here to be an ethics, a society, a civilization, it is essential that certain values be taken seriously and that they be considered as having an a priori existence. It must be obligatory, a priori, to be honest, not to lie, not to beat your wife, to have children, etc., etc. So we're going to try a little device which will make it possible to show that values exist all the same, inscribed in a heaven of ideas, though otherwise God does not exist. In other words nothing will be changed if God does not exist. We shall find ourselves with the same norms of honesty, progress, and humanism, and we shall have made of God an outdated hypothesis which will peacefully die off by itself.

The existentialist, on the contrary, thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him; there can no longer be an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. Nowhere is it written that the Good exists, that we must be honest, that we must not lie; because the fact is we are on a plane where there are only men."

"...but if I've discarded God the Father, there has to be someone to invent values. You've got to take things as they are. Moreover, to say that we invent values means nothing else but this: life has no meaning a priori." Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions, pp 21-22,49

Depending on whether one can construct a system of ethics WITHOUT some ultimate, transcendental "Something", the argument against the existence of God, on the basis of the existence of evil, MAY be self-defeating.

God exists.
As God (ultimate), he/she/it 'creates' ethics (by virtue of character, or decree, or other proposed means)...
Evil 'exists'.
(assumption: evil and God cannot co-exist.)
Therefore, God cannot exist.

Now the problem with this should be obvious. If we use evil (which is dependent on God for its existence, in this argument) to disprove God's existence, then we pull the rug out from under 'evil' at the same time. In other words (if we work within the notion of transcendentally-defined 'good') we cannot disprove God, without losing the reality of evil.

This is not a dualism type thing at all, though. The old "you can't have good without evil" is barely true conceptually, and certainly not true 'ontologically'.

And, to be very pragmatic about this, I would find it much more difficult to believe that genocide, child abuse, kidnapping, vandalism, crimes against the elderly, racial violence were NOT truly evil, than to believe that a God existed who might someday be able to explain it to me and/or 'fix it with justice and mercy'...

Needless to say, this is very simplified..."