Blogizomai: "Is Hell For Real Or Does Everyone go To Heaven?"

Thursday, October 6, 2011

"Is Hell For Real Or Does Everyone go To Heaven?"

2011 will be remembered theologically as the year that Christians and the culture debated hell. Thanks to the firestorm started by Rob Bell's best selling book Love Wins, Christians are discussing hell, who goes there, who doesn't, how long it lasts, does it exist, etc. In addition to these questions, we've been forced to ask the "questions behind the questions," what kind of God creates hell, can God be both love and just, etc.?

In response to Bell's Hell, a series of books have been published challenging his assertions and directing us back to what Scripture and the gospel says on the subject. One of those books is Is Hell For Real Or Does Everyone go To Heaven? edited by Drs. Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson. This short book is a 5 chapter (plus a lengthy appendix) collaboration of some of the greatest Christian minds and theologians. The list of contributors include Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., J. I. Packer, Timothy Keller, and others. These names alone make this book worth the investment.

The book is quit simple. If one wants to know more about the subject of hell, perhaps they should invest in Dr. Morgan's other book, Hell Under Fire. The goal of this book is to offer a biblical response, not to Rob Bell, but to common questions regarding hell. This was one of the more refreshing aspects of the book. I have read Bell's book and found it wanting. I have also read and skimmed through some of the other books written in response to Bell. This book is not directed to him, but to the reader. Bell is only hinted at in the introduction and essentially falls from the discussion afterward. This is not a book about Bell, but about the subject of hell and the gospel.

Instead of discussing each chapter and each author, let me highlight one argument made that I found particularly helpful. In the first chapter, Dr. Mohler is asked the question, "Is Hell Real?" Mohler surveys the historical record about what the Church has taught on the subject (rooted in the Biblical revelation) and how hell has become challenged up to our day.

But it was the conclusion that I gave me new insight. In true Mohler fashion, the author offers a number of cultural trends that have contributed to the current theological crisis. The second trend is our culture's changed view of justice. He writes:

Retributive justice, meaning the punishment of wrongdoing, has been the hallmark of human law since premodern times. It assumes that punishment is natural and necessary. However, this idea has been under assault for many years in Western cultures, which has led to much discomfort about hell.

Rejecting universal moral standards, philosophers such as John Stuart Mill argued that justice is about restoration rather than retribution. Criminals came to be seen not as deserving punishment but as needing correction. The goal was rehabilitation. Yet this shift from the prison to the penitentiary was rejected by C. S. Lewis as a threat to the very concept of justice:

Thus when we cease to consider what the criminal deserves and consider only what will cure him or deter others, we have tacitly removed him from the sphere of justice altogether; instead of a person, a subject of rights, we now have a mere object, a patient, a "case."

As the transformation of legal practice has redefined justice, some theologians have incorporated this new view int their doctrines of hell. For Roman Catholics, for instance, the doctrine of purgatory functions as a kind of penitentiary. Similarly for some evangelicals, a view of hell as temporary and corrective -- rather than eternal and punitive - has become the remedy.

Mohler hits the nail on the head. Liberalism begins with the philosophical assumptions of culture and then seeks to justify them in Scripture. Thus the enemy of liberalism is orthodoxy that doesn't not agree with contemporary culture. Mohler's makes an excellent point.

Overall, this is a good book. Though not exhaustive (that's not its point or goal) it is a helpful introduction from some of the world's leading voices on the difficult theological issue of hell. Each writer and editor defends the gospel and biblical truth even if it is unpopular. And for that, they should be praised.

For more:

Blogizomai - Will This Sort of Love Win?: Reflections on the Bell Controversy - Part 1

Blogizomai - Will This Sort of Love Win?: Reflections on the Bell Controversy - Part 2

Blogizomai - Love Debated: Bell & Warnock Debate "Love Wins"
Blogizomai - Sifting Through the Cybermuck: Links to the Bell Hell Controversy
Blogizomai - Sifting Through More of the Cybermuck: Links to the Bell Hell Controversy

Blogizomai - Some Final Cyber-Thoughts: Links to the Bell Hell Controversy

Blogizomai - Let's Talk About Hell Baby . . . And a Little More on Rob Bell

Blogizomai - Love Promoted: The First Bell Interviews

Blogizomai - Where is He Now? McLaren on the Question of bin Laden's Final Destination

Blogizomai - Is Hell Real? The Difference Between Emergent Agnostic Doctrine & Orthodoxy

Blogizomai - Why Pundits Should Stick to Punditry: Universalism, Inclusivism, and Freud's Wish Fulfillment
Theology - Who Didn't See This One Coming?: Rob Bell, His New Book, & Its Predictable Universalism