“O God, if I worship thee for fear of hell, burn me in hell; and if I worship thee in hope of paradise, exclude me from paradise; but if I worship thee for thine own sake, withhold not thine everlasting beauty.” —St. Francis Xavier
A few years ago, Christian philosopher Marilyn Adams gave a talk at Calvin College on hell. Bottom line: she was agin’ it. Most of the students in my Philosophy of Religion class were scandalized, and the source of their outrage was that if there were no hell, they would lose all motivation to be faithful to God in this life. If one could grab for all of the gusto—sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll (and no getting up early on Sundays for church)—and still get into heaven, why believe in God at all? Atheistic hedonism seemed the best policy: all of the pleasures that this life has to offer plus an eternity of bliss. The alternative, faith in God the Cosmic Party Pooper, demands a lifetime of self-sacrifice.
Some things became clear. My students were motivated more by the stick (fear of hell) than the carrot (desire for heaven). Even more disturbing, they were motivated by selfish desire—avoidance of pain—not by love of or faith in God. Explaining to them that they should be faithful because God is our greatest good, even in this life, left them strangely unmoved. They indignantly demanded their hell.
And not just any hell would do. It had to be savage and brutal and forever. They rejected annihilationism—the view that those without faith cease existing upon biological death (or shortly thereafter)—as too wimpy. Missing out on an eternity of bliss was not punishment enough for them. And they rejected Dante’s hell—where the unrepentant are free to indulge their peculiar vices (and live with their consequences) but not in a divine torture chamber—as too conciliatory. They wanted that good ol’ time religion: conscious, eternal torment. “Unquenchable fire” was their favorite non-metaphor.
In Heaven in the American Imagination, Gary Scott Smith reminds us that these are not merely adolescent musings but have been repeated repeatedly throughout American history. During the Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield famously extolled the progressive happiness of those in heaven, in unrelenting contrast to the fate of those who have fallen into the bottomless pit of hell. Preaching revival, they took fairly literally passages about goats and sheep being separated, as well as images of hell’s torments. Less famously, biblical universalists disagreed, taking literally passages which claim that God will reconcile all things unto himself; the message of the whole Bible, leaving this or that difficult passage aside, is that God wins. These universalists were, predictably, attacked, mocked, and scorned, and then the ceaseless horrors of hell were reasserted in all their lack of glory.
Let me state very clearly, lest the Piper prematurely ring the Bell again, that I am not defending universalism in this essay. I concede that the most troubling problem for defenses of universalism is that Jesus himself, the visible image of the invisible God, apparently affirmed the existence of hell. I do believe, however, that Christians should focus on God and their selves and not on hell and those bound for it. And that Christians should fervently hope that there is no hell.
This hope is a good place to start: it’s easy to defend. Hell’s advocates may lick their lips in anticipation of the torment that will be inflicted upon their fellow human beings; and part of our enjoyment in heaven may involve watching God justly punish the wicked. But we are not permitted such earthly delights. Why should we hope that no one is in hell? The answer is simple. I am called by God to pray for the eternal salvation of my neighbor. And if I pray thusly for her, I must also hope for her salvation. And if I hope for her salvation, then I hope that she does not end up in hell. And if I should hope for the salvation of my neighbor, then I should also hope for the salvation of her neighbor, and for their neighbors, and for theirs …. By simple extension, I should hope for the salvation of everyone; that is, I should hope that no one will go to hell. So, I should hope that there is no hell. And, then, so should you. This is simple biblical logic.
Yet this simple biblical logic grinds against our deep desires to exclude the stranger and to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. God is just, we believe, and God’s justice may require postmortem punishment and separation. But we seem to require only the slightest biblical provocation—small gates, narrow roads and all that—to excite our base, tribal, and exclusionary instincts. Once started, we easily degenerate into self-righteousness. I was once at a restaurant with a gregarious and charming friend who was unduly eager to cheer up our grouchy and unaccommodating waitress. After she had rebuffed his umpteenth attempt, he turned to me and said, “I’m glad there’s a hell for people like that.” He was joking, of course, but how often, down deep, do we really think that hell is just the place for people like that? Hitler and his minions, say, or Muslim terrorists, or liberal democrats. Not for people like me. “God,” I sometimes think, “got a pretty good deal with me. Not much need for forgiveness here. Not like those people.” Where “those people” refers to those who deserve eternal torment. People not like me. We’ve gone from appreciating God’s justice to despising God’s creatures. Just like that I’ve forgotten that I am those people. Little wonder that coinciding with Dante’s inscription over the gate of hell, “I too was created by eternal love,” Nietzsche suggested an inscription over the gate of heaven, “I too was created by eternal hate.”
Pride carries on just as well in our imagination of heaven. Smith reports that white slave owners and ministers believed they would carry on their privileged position in heaven and that their slaves could attain their lesser stake in glory only by obeying their masters in this life. Slaves, on the other hand, thought they would attain the highest status in heaven—and some even believed that no slave owners would be allowed in. Patriotism is likewise exploited: during the Civil War, as among the perpetrators of 9/11, the expectation of a glorious afterlife motivated millions of Yankee and Confederate soldiers, equally convinced their cause was God’s just cause, to sacrifice their lives.
In the course of Smith’s survey, we find various attempts to define the entry requirements for heaven. Ante-mortem faith in Jesus is often proposed, but that would preclude anyone who existed before his birth and seems an unjust requirement for infants or anyone who lacks adequate information about Jesus. Perhaps such people get a post-mortem chance at faith. But there’s scant biblical evidence for the possibility of post-mortem faith in Jesus. And, we are warned, we wouldn’t want to risk hoping for a second chance if there won’t be one. If faith is the requirement, what exactly is faith in Jesus? The Protestant curse is that once one denies salvation by works, one begins to obsess about the content of belief. There are only too many heretic-sniffers eager to declare this or that sort of belief anathema. If, as some assume, belief in the Trinity were an essential part of salvific faith, many “believers” prior to, say, ad 325 would be precluded from having saving faith. R. C. Sproul, when asked if Arminians would be allowed into heaven, replied, “Yes, barely.” If classical Calvinists are in charge of the road crew, the way is narrow indeed. With all this focus on right belief, we forget that we are saved by grace. But thinking salvation the work of a loving and omnipotent God moves us uncomfortably close to universalism. Back to arguing about the faith.
Throughout history, Smith notes, there have been many Christians, of a wide variety of stripes, who think that heaven should inspire us to justice and mercy here and now. The usual suspects include defenders of the social gospel and liberation theology. But on this point, American theologians from Increase Mather to Richard Mouw join hands with their more liberal and even Marxist counterparts: heaven gives us a vision of a redeemed creation. Our earthly calling, then, is to coax the earth as close to this heavenly vision as possible. Justice and mercy won’t be delayed.
Suppose an alien from outer space had tapped into the American evangelical blogosphere and network television news in the past year. Our extraterrestrial observer would have learned that being a Christian means (a) opposing gay marriage, (b) opposing taxes, and (c) affirming the eternal torment of those who aren’t Christians. The alien eavesdropper would not have learned that God’s amazing grace can transform us from selfish, tribalistic, and arrogant people into those who do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God.
In conclusion: if you’re tempted to apostasize, think about hell. If you’re a slave or are persecuted and in fear of death, or if you require a model for redeeming creation, think about heaven. If you’re not one of the above, do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.
Kelly James Clark is professor of philosophy at Calvin College.
Copyright © 2011 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.
