Cold Case Christianity: Why Is the Penalty of Hell the Same, Even Though People Are So Different?

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Why Is the Penalty of Hell the Same, Even Though People Are So Different?

Posted: 08 Sep 2017 01:20 AM PDT

257The notion of Hell is incredibly controversial, even among Christians.

Which means you need to be god-damn sure you aren't spouting heresy before you tell the world that Hell is a literal place of literal endless torment.  You aren't going to gain that level of certainty in light of the fact that most Christian scholars provide convincing biblical arguments that the NT concept of Hell is mere metaphor.

Many believers struggle to reconcile the mercy and grace of God with the existence of Hell and have tried to redefine Hell in an effort to remove what they perceive as offensive. For some, Hell seems too inequitable to be possible. Would a Loving God punish everyone in the same way?

God himself prescribes different level of punishment for different offenses in the bible, for example death for adultery (Lev. 20:10), but when the adultery is between a slave owner and his slave-girl who was previously pledged or betrothed to another man, then the death penalty doesn't apply "because she isn't free".  Lev. 19:20-22.

  10 'If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. (Lev. 20:10 NAU)

  20 'Now if a man lies carnally with a woman who is a slave acquired for another man, but who has in no way been redeemed nor given her freedom, there shall be punishment; they shall not, however, be put to death, because she was not free.
 21 'He shall bring his guilt offering to the LORD to the doorway of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt offering.
 22 'The priest shall also make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the LORD for his sin which he has committed, and the sin which he has committed will be forgiven him.     (Lev. 19:20-22 NAU)

If God never changes, Mal. 3:6, then his sense of justice also doesn't change, so that if NT Hell lumps every lost sinner together in a mindlessly screaming fiery mass, it is inconsistent with other biblical teaching.  God's rescinding the death penalty for adultery in the specific case of the slave girl, supra, makes it clear that James 2:10 is wrong for saying those who offend in one point of the law are guilty of all.  If God seriously thought the slave owner who committed adultery with the slave girl was therefore also guilty of death-deserving blasphemy, God would not have rescinded the death penalty in the case of the slave-girl.

Sorry, Wallace, but you need to learn how stupid it is to say that the guy who is convincted of jay-walking is viewed by God as guilty of rape, child molestation, murder, arson and spousal battery.  Such stupidity provokes interesting philosophical conversation, but doesn't amount to jack shit for practical reality.  How long would you live in a convervative Christian county where the law said that if you are convicted of theft, you will be viewed by the judged as guilty also of kidnapping?  If James 2:10 is so stupid that it doesn't even work in real life, what makes you think it remains a valid theological truth?

Wallace continues:

Isn’t it unfair to send someone like Gandhi to Hell (simply because he was not a Christian) alongside someone like Hitler (who committed unspeakable atrocities)?

Yes, and biblical arguments could be made that your ultra-fundie view that gospel rejectors go to hell, is false.  though I doubt you have the courage or conviction to contact me to find out how you've been missing the forest for the trees your whole Christian life.  Contacting me would not promote sales of your book, so why would you bother?

A reasonable and just God would not be the source of such inequitable punishment, would He?

Makes sense enough on a practical level, but any Christian who has trouble with God's love appearing so unloving, is probably talking from biblical ignorance.  Your God not only causes rape to befall women who disobey him (Deut. 28:30), he takes the same "delight" in causing such rape that he would take in causing prosperity to those who obey him (v. 63).  Let's first resolve the question of why you so blindly believe the bible's statements that God is loving in the first place, when it is a perfect absurdity to say the person who can "delight" to cause rape, is "loving".

In one sense, it is true: All sin has the same consequence when measured against God’s perfection.

Not if the OT has anything to say about it.  God thinks adultery with a free woman deserves death, but not adultery with a slave-girl.  God would hardly demand less punishment in the latter case if he seriously believed both acts "deserved" the same degree of punishment.

Lying is just as significant as murder when it comes to assessing our imperfection relative to the perfection of God.

And only a jailhouse lawyer for God would insist that the man who exaggerates his bowling abilities to his friends (lying) has committed a wrong equally as significant as the man who rapes a child to death.  Fuck you.

Even the slightest sin demonstrates our inadequacy and need for a Savior.

Your spiritually alive and authentically born again 5-Point Calvinist brothers and sisters in the Christian faith would explain that the ultimate reason we sin is because God wanted us to. 

But make no mistake about it; some sins are clearly more heinous than others in the eyes of God (John 19:11-12).

You just contradicted yourself, since you just said "Lying is just as significant as murder when it comes to assessing our imperfection relative to the perfection of God."  How can murder be more heinous in God's eyes than lying, if in God's eyes they are of equally significant sin?

As a result, the God of the Bible equitably prescribes punishments for wrongdoing on earth and in the next life:

Some would argue that the degree of heat one is tormented by in hell hardly matters, since it at minimum must be a place where everybody weeps and gnashes their teeth.  I've often asked fundies to explain how hell can be so mindlessly awful as certain biblical descriptions say, if at the same time it is sufficiently tolerable to allow the rich man to have an intelligent conversation with Abraham as he does in Luke 16.  You cannot hold intelligent conversations with another person when you are on fire.

There Are Degrees of Punishment on Earth

When God gave the Law to Moses, He made one thing very clear: Some sins are more punishable than others. God assigned different penalties to different crimes, based on the offensive or heinous nature of the sin itself.

For example, it is because the slave girl is not free, that the man who commits adultery with her escapes the death penalty otherwise required for adultery, thus indicating God views the worth of slave-girls exactly the way most other slave-owners did in those days:  her lesser social status proved her lesser ultimate worth.

The Mosaic Law is filled with measured responses to sin. God prescribed punishments appropriate to the crimes in question (Exodus 21:23-25). In fact, the Mosaic Law carefully assured that each offender would be punished “according to his guilt” and no more (Deuteronomy 25:2-3).

Which contradicts James 2:10 and its statement that offending any part of the law makes one guilty of offending everything else in the law.

The Mosaic Law is evidence of two things. First, while any sin may separate us from the perfection of God, some sins are unmistakably more offensive than others. Second, God prescribes different punishments for different crimes based on the severity of each crime.

And it is for this reason that the the harshest possible penalty of being burned alive is required of the girl who has pre-marital sex (Lev. 21:9).  Some would argue that murder, rape of a child, and other crimes are far worse than pre-marital sex. 

There Are Degrees of Punishment in Hell

In a similar way, God applies this principle to the next life, prescribing a variety of punishments in eternity corresponding to the crimes committed in this life (Revelation 20:12-13). This is most apparent in Jesus’ teaching on the “Wicked Servant” (Luke 12:42-48). In a straight forward interpretation of this parable, those who reject the teaching and calling of God will be harshly punished, but those who have less clarity on what can be known about God (“the one who did not know it”) will be punished with less severity. There are degrees of punishment in Hell; God is equitable and fair when it comes to the destiny of those who have rejected Him.

So God punishes also the one who "did not know it"?   How cruel and unloving is it to punish those who didn't know what they were doing was wrong?  Do you as a Christian wish to rescind the laws that protect mentally ill people from trial, on the ground that because God subjects the innocently ignorant to punishment, we should too?

By the way, Jesus concludes that parable by saying his purpose was to cast fire on the earth:

42 And the Lord said, "Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time?
 43 "Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.
 44 "Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
 45 "But if that slave says in his heart, 'My master will be a long time in coming,' and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk;
 46 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
 47 "And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes,
 48 but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.
 49 "I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!
 50 "But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!
 51 "Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; (Lk. 12:42-51 NAU)

The only way you can say this parable speaks of hell, is if you agree that hell will take place on earth.  But you don't believe that.  You agree with most other fundies that the currently existing hell that sinners are now in, is not "upon the earth".  So there is objective and legitimate room to object that you are taking what Jesus said out of context when you use it to promote your idea of hell as this other-dimensional place of suffering.  Jesus clearly thought the fire he would use in punishment would be sent "upon the earth".

Those who know more about God are held to a higher degree of accountability and responsibility. This is clear from the words of Jesus Himself (John 9:41, John 15:22-24)

Clement of Alexandria asserted that John didn't wish to repeat the "external facts" which he knew were covered in the previous Synoptic gospels, and therefore wrote a "spiritual" gospel, and the contrast requires this spirituality to constitute something different than "external facts".  So since directly quoting what the historical Jesus really said would qualify under "external facts", John's intent to write a "spiritual" gospels more than likely means his quotes of Jesus aren't always what the historical Jesus actually said, but John's own theological reflections being represented AS IF Jesus had actually said them.

and the authors of the New Testament (Hebrews 10:28-19).

Christian scholars are sufficiently divided on who authored Hebrews that skeptics are rational to toss it aside until author-identification makes a credibility assessment possible.

But God has also given us enough information in the natural world (Romans 1:18-20) and in our own moral intuitions (Romans 2:14-15) to conclude He exists.

Did the natural moral intuitions of the legislators for 19th century Delaware tell them anything about God as they concluded that the age of sexual consent should be seven years old?

For this reason, no one holds a legitimate excuse excluding them from the justice of God.

I don't serve sadistic lunatics who not only cause rape (Deut. 28:30) but who take delight to cause rape (v. 63).  I'll wear my eternal misery in hell as a badge of honor.

The Bible is clear: While all who reject God will be separated from Him for eternity,

thus contradicting the bible's other teaching that God is omnipresent or present everywhere.

not all will suffer the same form of punishment.

thus contradicting the teaching in James 2:10 that God thinks being guilty of murder proves one guilty of adultery too.

The God of the Bible is equitable and fair, loving and just.

As demonstrated by his choice to cause an infant to suffer the torment of some unspecified terrible sickness for 7 days, as opposed to just killing him quickly:

 15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
 16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.
 17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
 18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died.  (2 Sam. 12:15-18 NAU)

Your god cannot just mercifully kill an innocent infant quickly (and too many Christian theologians, perfectly well aware of Romans 5, nevertheless deny the doctrine of original sin that you will predictably hide behind to justify your predictable  response that all infants "deserve" to be killed, you fucking scumbag), your god has to torture this baby for seven days with a terrible sickness first, as if the creator of the universe could not possibly imagine any better way to get his point across to David and Bathsheba and the rest of the onlookers except to torture this baby for 7 days.

And nevermind that if God's "taking away" David's sin was sufficient to exempt David personally from the death penalty required for adultery, then there was no sin left to punish anybody for, such as the torment of a 7-day fatal illness God "struck" the baby with.

Nevermind that David was King, and therefore Nathan's very quick assurance that God made an exception to the death-penalty rule for adultery in the case of David, appears to be politically motivated

Nevermind that if in fact God really did successfully exempt David from the death penalty otherwise normally required for adultery, then apparently there is nothing about God's nature that "requires" him to punish sin, and therefore, God is not sending people to hell because "his righteous nature demands it", he is doing so in spite of the fact that it would be just as consistent with justice for him to exempt them from hell the way he exempted David from death.  Stop telling the world God's righteous nature "requires" God to punish sin.  God apparently can also just as easily spare a sinner from punishmen by a simple wave of his magic wand.  He punishes by voluntary choice, not any necessity.


And yet you think skeptics irrational when they laugh at the idea of your god's sense of justice?  If so, you must think winning a debate with me would be very easy.  So respond already and let's get started.  Or continue confining your frightened ass to just the narrow market of fundie Christians who already agree with you on 99% of what you say, thus showing by your actions that you care more about selling books than you care about being correct in what you believe.  You risk losing book sales if you spar with me, so you probably just "don't have the time" to engage with skeptic who use frigthtening words like "fucking scumbag", eh?  Yeah, that's believable.

He provides a pardon to everyone (through Jesus’ work on the cross) and fairly deals with those who have rejected the pardon.

 Except that Luke 12:48 indicates God will also send to hell, at least under your interpretation, even people who did not know the Master's will, which sort of makes it laughable to say your God is in the least bit "fair".  The big mystery is why you take the doctrine of God sending innocently ignorant people to hell, and do what comes naturally:  become a 5-Point Calvinist.

Might your God believe a particular girl will reach the age of accountability at 7 years old? 

If so, where would God send her if she died one day after going to church and rejecting the gospel invitation?

Does your god send 7 year old girls to hell?  or is this the part where you save face by appeal to God's mysterious ways, you know, that excuse you never find the least bit convincing yourself when you hear cultists and heretics employing to the same end?