Cold Case Christianity: Why Would God Punish Finite, Temporal Crimes in an Eternal Hell?

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

Why Would God Punish Finite, Temporal Crimes in an Eternal Hell?

Posted: 06 Sep 2017 01:01 AM PDT

240I was interviewed recently on a large Los Angeles radio station about the existence of Hell.

Did you tell them about the liberal Christian scholars who say hell-fire in the NT is mere metaphor? 

One caller objected to the duration of punishment in Hell. From his perspective, the idea our temporal, finite sin on earth warrants an eternal punishment of infinite torment in Hell was troubling, at the very least. The punishment does not seem to fit the crime; in fact, the disproportionate penalty makes God seem petty and vindictive, doesn’t it? Why would God torture infinitely those who have only sinned finitely?

Did you have any callers who objected that the bible god sometimes gets rid of sin by simply waving his magic wand, no atonement needed?  Or were the callers just a bunch of ignorant skeptics who didn't know the bible as well as I do?

Better, the OT God makes it clear that human sin is completely forgiven by means of animal sacrifice, even if the sin was one normally calling for execution, such as adultery:

  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)

 The bible also says Yom Kippur completely cleansed Israel of sin:

 30 for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD. (Lev. 16:30 NAU)

But no, J. Warner Wallace believes Hell is literal and eternal, and thinks the bible doesn't have any mistakes, and so insists that regardless of how this passage reads, it cannot mean that you are "really" cleansed of sin before the Lord, because we have to account for why requires an eternal hell of torment in the NT.  Well excuse me, but biblical inerrancy is total bullshit, so you cannot get rid of Leviticus 19 by pointing out that Jesus taught a literal hell in Luke 16.

If this sexual sin was rape, the easy way to obtain divine forgiveness makes God a mysoginist prick.

If this sexual sin wasn't rape, it was likely intentional, for what sexual sin between consenting adults wouldn't be?  But then the forgiveness here for this intentional sin contradicts the explicit teaching of the bible that intentional sins cannot be forgiven:

 30 'But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the LORD; and that person shall be cut off from among his people.
 31 'Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt will be on him.'" (Num. 15:30-31 NAU)

 26 For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
 27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES.
 28 Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. (Heb. 10:26-28 NAU)

Wallace continues:

I think it’s important to define the nature of Hell and sin before our discussion of the eternal nature of punishment can have any meaning or significance.

And good luck in your attempt to show that any Christian scholars who define hell a pure metaphor, are just spiritually dead. 

Objections related to the eternal nature of Hell result from a misunderstanding of four principles and terms:

Those objections also arise from a belief that the bible has mistakes, another presupposition you won't be refuting anytime soon, indicating that while you pretend to be writing to equip Christians to answer skeptics, the truth is, you are only writing to convince people who carry around the same basic Christian convictions that you hold.

We Fail to Understand the Meaning of Spiritual “Torment”

The Bible says those who are delivered into Hell will be tormented, and the degree to which they will suffer is described in dramatic, illustrative language. But, the scripture never describes Hell as a place where God or His angels are actively “torturing” the souls of the rebellious.

Yes it does:

 10 he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. (Rev. 14:10 NAU)

 8 "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." (Rev. 21:8 NAU)

The Revelation author was pro-Jewish and lived in the first century, where prisoners were routinely tormented or punished in the presence of, and by the authority of, the local king or other ruler.

 Jesus likened God to a king who beat his subjects:

 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.  (Lk. 12:45-48 NAU)

Why should the rational person distinguish Wallace's god who doesn't "actively" torture anybody, from the biblical god Jesus taught, who apparently throws unbelievers into a furnace of fire?  What's the difference between selectively burning a person on their body with a blow torch, and throwing them into a furnace intended to burn them without killing them?

 40 "So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age.
 41 "The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness,
 42 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matt. 13:40-42 NAU)

 Jude describes the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire as "punishment"

 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7 NAU)

To make sure you cannot quibble, the bible specifies that God was hurling fireballs "from heaven" down onto these two cities:

 24 Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven, (Gen. 19:24 NAU)

Now are you still sufficiently fundamentalist so as to admit that God does the punishing?


And the idea of God causing endless unbearable suffering is perfectly consistent with God threatening to cause parental cannibalism, kidnapping, rape and other horrific atrocities in Deuteronomy 28:15-63.  Read it, then you talk to me again about about how wrong it is to call your god a sadistic lunatic.  Is it really true that the all-powerful creator of the universe could not, during the days of Moses, think of any more humane way to successfully dissuade his people from sin, except to threaten them with horrific plights?

“Torture” is the sadistic activity that is often perpetrated for the mere joy of it.

No, "torture" is intentional infliction of pain, but whether it is inflicted sadistically goes beyond the dictionary definition:

“Torment” results from a choice on the part of the person who finds himself (or herself) suffering the consequences.

No, "torment" is the experience of anguish and pain as the result of harsh circumstances, the dictionary definition does not link the experience to the suffering person's "choices"

However, it is obvious that you've inserted "choices" into the definition of "torment" because of your arbitrary desire to blame hell's torments on those who suffer it, as required by your religion.  You have done an unconvincing job of trying to disconnect Jesus from the cause of those hellish torments.

One can be in constant torment over a decision made in the past, without being actively tortured by anyone.

Immaterial, the bible god actively tortures people on earth AND in hell, see above.

We Fail to Understand the Insignificance of Sin’s “Duration”

If someone embezzles $5.00 a week from their employer’s cash register they will have stolen $260.00 over the course of a year. If they’re caught at the end of this time, they would still only be guilty of a misdemeanor in the State of California (based on the total amount of loss). Although the crime took a year to commit, the perpetrator wouldn’t spend much (if any) time in jail. On the other hand, a murder can take place in the blink of an eye and the resulting punishment will be life in prison (or perhaps the death penalty). The duration of the crime clearly has little or nothing to do with the duration of the penalty.

And according to Leviticus 16 and 19, supra, sins in general and the sin of adultery in particular cease their duration upon sacrifice of an animal.  If the Book of Hebrews in the NT teaches that sin is not "fully" dealt with by animal sacrifices, then the author got it wrong, since full expiation and cleansing before the Lord is exactly how Leviticus' originally intended recipients would have taken those words, and it is what they signify in their immediate contexts anyway.  The whole business of Jesus fulfilling the animal sacrificial system with his own death is total bullshit...how could Jesus "forgive" sins during his earthly ministry as he is alleged to have done (Mark 2:10), if after such forgiveness, the sin still required some type of sacrifice?  But the theological problem of Jesus needing to die for previously forgiven or previously atoned-for sins, is yours and yours alone.

We Fail to Understand the Magnitude of God’s “Authority”

If your sister catches you lying about your income last year, you might lose her respect. If the IRS catches you lying about your income last year, the resulting punishment will be far more painful. What’s the difference here? It certainly isn’t the crime. Instead, we recognize the more authoritative the source of the code, rule or law, the greater the punishment for those who are in violation. If God is the Highest Authority, we should expect that violations of His “laws” would result in significant punishment(s).

No, see Leviticus 19:20-22, supra.  If a slave-owner has sex with his female slave after she had been betrothed to another man, the slave-owner who committed this adultery is spared from the mandatory death penalty because the slave-girl wasn't "free" (she wasn't important enough by god's standards to infuse the sexual act with that much importance or significance), and he will obtain divine forgiveness by nothing more than his giving a sacrificial animal to the priests for slaughter.

Oh, and don't miss the fact that no matter how many times you read that passage, the slave-girl in question is never penalized or punished in any way, despite the fact that, if you deny this act was rape, she consented to the sexual liaison and therefore was no less guilty than the man and thus just as needful of expiation as the man.  So either a) she isn't penalized because the sex act described here was rape (in which case the man obtained divine forgiveness for rape by simply allowing one of his animals to be slaughtered, showing that the god of the OT thinks rape does not require the man to suffer any punishment beyond giving up an animal, when in fact the man being a slave-owner implies he was rich and could afford to give up several animals without feeling any financial sting), or b) she consented and was guilty of adultery as much as the owner, but God for whatever reason finds it unnecessary to address her part in the sin.

We Fail to Understand the Depth of Our “Sin”

Finally, it’s important to remember the nature of the crime that eventually leads one to Hell. It’s not the fact you kicked your dog in 1992. It’s not the fact you had evil thoughts about your teacher in 1983. The crime that earns us a place in Hell is our rejection of the true, living, eternal God.

On the contrary, the bible says people are judged for all of their acts and words, not just the act of rejecting the gospel:

 32 "Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
 33 "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.
 34 "You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.
 35 "The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil.
 36 "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.
 37 "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matt. 12:32-37 NAU)

  27 "For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS. (Matt. 16:27 NAU)

  12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.
 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. (Rev. 20:12-13 NAU)

 No, "according to their deeds" cannot be whittled down to "only because they rejected the gospel".

The rejection of God’s forgiveness is not finite. People who reject Jesus have rejected Him completely.

First, that's just plain stupid.  If I reject my neighbor because I don't like his morals, that doesn't mean I'd just stand there and do nothing while watching him drown, or refuse his offer of money if I needed it to avoid being evicted.  What are you going to say next?  That we only reject the light lest our evil deeds be exposed?

Second, those authentically born-again spiritually brothers in the faith you call 5-Point Calvinists believe that God has predestined people to do all that they end up doing, including their sins, which makes God's sending unbelievers to hell even more atrocious, since the only reason they desired to sin was because God forced them to desire this.

Then there's Ezekiel 38:4, where God describes his sovereign forcing of a foreign people to attack Israel, by saying he will put a hook in their jaws and draw them against Israel, and ch. 38 and 39 go on to say God will then punish by great slaughter these foreign nations for doing what he forced them to do.

Wallace, who are you trying to impress here?  The people who already believe everything you say (gee, real toughie there)?  or the skeptics and atheists who agree with most Christian scholars that bible inerrancy is total bullshit?   Given how obscenely weak your theology is, I'd say you've chosen the low-road, and you intend more to make Christians feel confident that their beliefs are true, and less to convince skeptics of the alleged error of their ways.

They have rejected Him as an ultimate, final mortal decision. God has the right (and obligation) to judge them with an appropriate punishment.

Don't call God a punisher unless you credit him with the torments the sinners experience in hell.  Sorry, Wallace, but you are not going to reconcile the biblical picture of God as tormentor, with the modern Christian belief that God doesn't himself torment anybody.  Again, read the most depressing news in the world in Deuteronomy 28:15-63, then come back here and tell me God doesn't inflict torment and torture.

To argue that God’s punishment does not fit our crime is to underestimate our crime.

And although God could have caused Bathsheba to miscarry early after her adultery with David so that the child conceived would never experience any torment, God did not.  And although God could have simply caused the born baby to die immediately, he did not, but struck the child, so that it suffered a tormenting  sickness before finally expiring after 7 days:

 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)

To argue that a teenager stealing a pack of bubblegum deserves to be roasted alive in hell in screaming mindless agony forever, indicates you deny those parts of the bible that delimit God's power and holiness.  It also tells me you think God's plan to deal with sin is perfect, when in fact you should know from Genesis 6:6-7 and Exodus 32:9-14 that God sometimes discovers later that his original plan was less than perfect.

Your belief that people "deserve" hellish torments forever for temporal sins also indicates you reject those parts of the bible that teach that God was capable of getting rid of somebody's sin by simply waving his magic wand, as he apparently did in the case of David's adultery with Bathsheba:

 11 "Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.
 12 'Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.'"
 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
 14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die." (2 Sam. 12:11-14 NAU)

If God is capable of just "removing" even sins otherwise requiring death, such as adultery, then you need to stop pretending that God's holiness "demands" that he punish sin.  He "needs" to punish sin about as much as a morbidly obese woman "needs" to eat ice cream. 

How do you expect this senseless rambling of yours to strike the fear of God into the hearts of unbelievers, when it is clear you simply reject any biblical teaching on God that doesn't fit the traditional conservative Evangelical understanding of sin and punishment?

The Bible describes Hell as a place where those who have rejected God will suffer the torment of their decision.

It also says they will suffer burning from fire and brimstone, see Revelation, quoted supra, and the last I checked, there is no logically necessary connection between stealing a candy bar and being burned by fire and brimstone, which means somebody else is responsible for forcing the sin and the punishment to be connected to each other, and since God is the one who punishes sin, it is God who is causing the fire and brimstone to burn the sinner.

It is only jailhouse lawyers like Wallace who would try to explain away the video showing his client murdering another person with a gun, by arguing that it was the bullet, not the client, who "caused" this death.

It’s an appropriate punishment given the magnitude of God’s ultimate authority and the mortal opportunities for each of us to choose otherwise in this life.

Then arbitrarily exempting adulterers from the death-penalty is also consistent with God's nature, 2nd Samuel 12, supra, in which case there is room in God's "nature" to simply eternally avoid punishing a sin.  Your portrait of a God whose nature mandates that he punish sin, reflects less from the bible and more from your choice to be a modern-day fundamentalist intent on selling books to the people who already believe everything you believe.

I'm not exactly quaking in my boots over J. Warner Wallace's pitiful attempts to justify the doctrine of literal torment in a literal Hell.  To quote one of my favorite songs from Deicide, fuck your god.