A loving God would never send anyone to hell

Why this objection matters so much

For many people, this is the most troubling part of Christianity. Images of flames and eternal torment, often used to frighten people, seem flatly incompatible with a loving God. Even many Christians feel deeply uneasy about it. It deserves an honest answer, not a defensive one.

Love and justice belong together

A God who didn't care about evil wouldn't be loving. Think of how we feel about someone who abuses children or commits genocide. A loving person isn't indifferent to that. We want justice, precisely because we love the victims. Miroslav Volf, a theologian who grew up in the former Yugoslavia during its wars, has argued that belief in God's judgment is actually what makes it possible for victims to give up personal revenge. Judgment isn't the opposite of love; it's love's response to evil.

Hell as a choice

C.S. Lewis argued in The Problem of Pain that "the doors of hell are locked on the inside." In his view, God doesn't drag unwilling people into hell; people choose to be separated from God, and God finally respects that choice. In The Great Divorce, Lewis imagines people from hell visiting heaven and choosing to go back because they won't let go of their pride, resentment or self-pity. As he put it, there are two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says "Thy will be done."

Timothy Keller, in The Reason for God, develops a similar picture: hell is the trajectory of a self-centred life, continued forever.

What about the imagery?

The Bible uses vivid images for hell: fire, darkness, a garbage dump outside Jerusalem. Many Christian scholars think these are metaphors pointing to the reality of utter loss, not literal descriptions. Fire and darkness are both used, which can't both be literal. Christians also hold different views on the nature of hell: some believe in eternal conscious separation, others that the lost cease to exist (called annihilationism), and some hope that all may eventually be reconciled. These are serious debates within the faith.

God's character is shown in Jesus

Christians believe the clearest picture of God is Jesus, who welcomed outcasts, wept over a city that rejected him, and died praying for his executioners' forgiveness. Whatever hell is, it is the decision of a God who went to the cross to keep people from it.

A fair concession

This doctrine is hard, and it has been misused to frighten and manipulate. It's okay to wrestle with it honestly.

How to explain this to a friend

When talking with a friend, don't rush to defend hell. First acknowledge that it's a hard teaching and that it has often been used badly. Then explain that love and justice belong together, and that, in C.S. Lewis's picture, hell is God respecting a person's choice to live without him. Pointing to Jesus's character, which welcomed outsiders and forgave enemies, helps frame the conversation around who God is.

The bottom line

A loving God is also just and respects human choices. Hell, on this view, is not God torturing the unwilling but God giving people what they insist on: life without him. For more, see What happens after death?