It is perfectly reasonable to believe there is a hell. We know the Bible speaks of it including Jesus himself. For the sake of argument, if there is hell, surely no one would want to go there. It has been depicted as a terrible place for all eternity where Satan himself will be sent. (By the way, Satan is not in charge of hell.) It is a place of absolute misery and pain without relief. Mainly, it is a place of complete exile from God. There is no mercy. There is no grace.
Many people ignore the prospects of dying and at that minute arrive, in hell. Either they do not want to accept the facts or they disregarded it. People joke about meeting other people in hell. Of course, it is not a place where an individual can socialize with another. It is where each person has a sense of aloneness and hopelessness. Because of their rejection of the influence provided by the Holy Spirit, they send themselves to hell.
Now let’s get to the purpose of this blog and its title. We are not going to talk about the biblical implications of hell. The intent is to take what others would call a scholarly approach to the reality of hell. Many people cast aside the teachings of the Bible. Many people reject the teachings of ministers about hell. Let us go on record to say that no matter our opinion or conviction about hell, we must face the facts of what philosophy would tell us that there is a real hell.
All of nature depicts opposites and contradictions. For instance, because there is an up, gravity tells us there is a down. In our common discourse, people speak of good versus bad. Love versus hate. In versus out. Around versus inside. Happiness versus sadness. Justice versus lawlessness. Theory versus fact. Effort versus victory. Helplessness versus strength. Winning versus losing.
Most of all, the common belief among most people is that crime versus punishment. On a different note, most people believe that goodness deserves a reward. It is in our mindset that there must be some consequence to every action because there is also a reaction. The terrible life, like Hitler had, is one who most people would assume to face some type of punishment. A person like him had free will to make choices that affected his life and his destiny as well as 6 million other people.
The only reason that hell has been called into question is that certain people do not want to accept it as a fact. They say a loving God would not send someone to hell. We have already indicated that a person goes to hell because of the choices they make in rejecting Christ as Savior. This type of rejection is not philosophical. It is not the result of someone’s intolerance to consequences.
Most people have little problem believing in heaven. They want to believe heaven is a place of comfort and reward. We want to believe that heaven is where one escapes personal pain physically and emotionally. The people who embrace heaven may do so without much biblical knowledge. They assume it’s a good place to go after death. Now, there are people who believe death ends everything and there is no afterlife. Even people who are not religious rarely would believe that. To them God smiles on good people.
It is against common thought of philosophy to only accept the positive and not recognize the negative. We must not allow ourselves to fall into this kind of trap. There is no gray area between up-and-down. There is no compromise between the living and the dead. Our speculations as to the nature of hell may vary. Yet, we cannot reject the necessity that there is a hell because there is a heaven.
Since we have established the philosophical basis for hell, the question arises about what we’re going to do in reaction to that basis. We could turn our head and ignore the facts. We can postpone addressing the necessity of avoiding hell. We can seek a religious group that denies hell. No matter what our reaction is, if we do not directly face reality, we are purchasing a ticket to it. None of us have any idea when will be our last breath. Philosophically, is it not wise to gamble that we will have time to do what’s necessary so that we can avoid hell? The only logical answer is to do what must be done for its avoidance and do it now.
This causes us to turn to religion. What religion we accept must have a teaching that shows us how to avoid hell in favor of heaven. On the contrary, it would be wiser not to seek a religion with all of its rituals and formalities. Instead of accepting religion, the smartest thing would be to have a relationship with the only person who has experienced death, gone to the place of the departed, and rose again conquering death. Our ideal and really our only choice is to accept the real answer and accept Jesus Christ as our Savior who has promised that he has prepared a place for all believers.
Christian Writer 