Cold Case Christianity: Why Would God Send Good People to Hell? He doesn't.

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

Why Would God Send Good People to Hell?

Posted: 13 Sep 2017 01:22 AM PDT

256I’ve been blogging recenty on the existence and nature of Hell and, unsurprisingly, I’ve received tremendous response from Christians and non-Christians alike (much of it hostile). The topic polarizes believers and unbelievers. Many Christians struggle to correlate God’s mercy with a place of permanent justice, while others prefer to believe God would annihilate rebellious souls rather than assign them to Hell eternally. Non-believers often point to the apparent unfairness of God related to those who either reject Jesus or haven’t heard of Him. After all, there are millions of good people in the world who are not Christians. Is it fair for God to penalize people who are otherwise good? A good God would not send good people to Hell, would He?

That depends on your definition of "good".  If you can tell yourself with any seriousness that the God of Deuteronomy 28:63 who "delights" to cause rape (v. 30) and parental cannibalism (v. 53) is "good", then your morality is so far out of whack that it is more than likely that you are either psychologically beyond any rational discussion, or, you make too much money peddling your wares to give a fuck about the minds you are messing up with each sale.

Here’s the good news: God will not send good people to Hell; of this we can be sure.

But God's "delighting" to cause rape and parental cannibalism for those who disobey him, seems to invoke more the barbaric mindset of the ancient people that wrote this garbage, and not the actual views of an infinite creator whom you think hates rape and cannibalism just as much as you do.

But, here’s the bad news: “good” people are far rarer than most skeptics (and many Christians) are willing to admit. The Christian worldview describes the true nature of humans and the incredible sovereignty of God, and once these truths are understood, no one will expect their own “goodness” to merit Heaven:

Yeah, you aren't a real Christian until you confess that the baby born to David and Bathsheba "deserved" to be tormented with a terrible fatal illness for 7 days before finally dying:

 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)

Wallace continues:

People (By Their Very Nature) Are Not “Good”

We don’t have to teach our infants to be selfish, impatient, rude and self-serving; infants must be taught just the opposite.

Which implies they aren't made in the image of God, since they only reason they are moral when they grow up is because they are taught to suppress these primal urges, not because any law of God is in their heart.  Well gee, animals can be taught to suppress their primal urges too, yet you cannot allow animals to be made in the image of God.  Your problem.

We don’t come into the world equipped automatically with sacrificial “goodness”. We must be taught how to love, how to think beyond our own needs and desires, how to share and how to appreciate others. The daily news headlines are filled with examples of young men and women who were not taught how to love and respect the law. When young people are not nurtured and trained in this way, they default back to their innate nature.

And so this innate nature wasn't created in the image of God, unless you say God wants criminals to do what they do, as your brothers and sister in Christ called "Calvinists" say.

And if we are honest with ourselves, each of us must admit we often have difficulty controlling our anger, our lust, or our pride.

Yes, the way Samuel did when he used a sword to hack King Agag to pieces:

  33 But Samuel said, "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women." And Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the LORD at Gilgal. (1 Sam. 15:33 NAU)

Wallace continues:

We are inherently fallen creatures, trying our best to constrain our fallen nature. The Bible simply recognizes the innately fallen nature of humans (as described in Romans 3:10-18).

It also recognizes that these humans can obey the law to the point of pleasing God:

 5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
 6 They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. (Lk. 1:5-6 NAU)

Feel free to twist yourself into a theological pretzel trying to explain how imperfect sinners can be righteous in the sight of God due to their obedience to his commands (Luke 1:6), while also insisting that we cannot be righteous in god's sight by obeying his commands (Romans 3:20).

Wallace continues:

Heaven (By Its Very Nature) Is “Perfect”

Can't be too perfect:  it is a place where God enables demons, who are otherwise sitting around God's throne (!?) to go down to earth and cause people to tell lies:

19 Micaiah said, "Therefore, hear the word of the LORD. I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left.
 20 "The LORD said, 'Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?' And one said this while another said that.
 21 "Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD and said, 'I will entice him.'
 22 "The LORD said to him, 'How?' And he said, 'I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' Then He said, 'You are to entice him and also prevail. Go and do so.'
 23 "Now therefore, behold, the LORD has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the LORD has proclaimed disaster against you."    (1 Ki. 22:19-23 NAU)

Wallac continues:

If there is a God, He is responsible for creating everything in the Universe.

No, that's your out-of-control monotheism.  Many scholars see in Deut. 32 a distinction between a being called Elohim and a being called Jehovah.

  8 "When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, When He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the sons of Israel.
 9 "For the LORD'S portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance. (Deut. 32:8-9 NAU)

 See The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God. Some Christian commentaries admit the text was corrupted intentionally because it gave the appeareance of supporting henotheism, at least:

...I emend the text here following the reading בני אלהים, “sons of God,” found in 4QDeut^j and LXX ἀγγέλων [or ὑιῶν] θεοῦ, “angels [or sons] of God,” to read “according to the number of the sons of God.” The Tg. adds “seventy” after “the number,” connecting the text with the seventy nations of the Table of Nations in Gen 10 and the song of Jacob in Gen 46:27 (cf. 10:22). It is easy to understand the change that was made in MT to remove a text that seems to suggest the existence of other gods.

Christensen, D. L. (2002). Vol. 6B: Word Biblical Commentary : Deuteronomy 21:10-34:12. Word Biblical Commentary (Page 796). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

 Wallace continues:

This means that God created matter from non-matter

Creation from nothing or creation ex nihilo involves logical contradiction, and is on the level of talking about animals just appearing in your living room out of thin air.  From nothing, nothing derives.  The only logical way God could get something from nothing is if God added something to the nothingness first. God can no more cause zero to produce 4 acorns, than he can cause 5+5 to equal 83.

and life from non-life. If this is true, God has incredible, infinite, and unspeakable power.

So apparently you are more interested in your generalizing dogmas than you are in actual scripture, since many bible texts are logically incompatible with God having infinite power:

 19 Now the LORD was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots. (Jdg. 1:19 NAU)

 Inerrantist Christian scholars cannot explain why a chariot being made or iron could possibly thwart God's purposes for Judah, and they resort to speculation, a thing inerrantists forbid skeptics from doing:

In our text (v. 18a) the narrator explicitly attributes Judah’s successes in the hill country not to equivalent military power but to the presence of Yahweh. Then why could they not take the lowland? Why is Yahweh’s presence canceled by superior military technology? The narrator does not say, but presumably the Judahites experienced a failure of nerve at this point, or they were satisfied with their past achievements.

Block, D. I. (2001, c1999). Vol. 6: Judges, Ruth (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 100). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

 Wallace continues:

With muscle like that, God surely has the power to eliminate imperfection.

except in the case of Judges 1:19.  He also grieves his own choice to create mankind in Genesis 6:6-7.  Slow down and don't be so damn quick to view God as magic genie in the sky who is just omni-this and omni-that.

This is why, as Christians, we believe that God is perfect; He has the ability to eliminate imperfection.

Perfection logically cannot create imperfection. God cannot create that which he doesn't already possess.  So if he created mankind, it was not logically possible for man to have "freedom" to disobey god...except in the Calvinist sense of our sins disobeying the revealed will of God but yet still conforming to and obeying God's secret will, in which case the disobedience toward God is only in appearance, not reality.

The Christian God is not a “good God” after all. He is a “perfect God”. His standard is not “goodness”, it is “perfection”.

It doesn't matter how many bible verses you can cite to justify that, the standard for salvation Jesus taught in Matthew 25 is decidedly lower:

31 "But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.
 32 "All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;
 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
 34 "Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
 35 'For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;
 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'
 37 "Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?
 38 'And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?
 39 'When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'
 40 "The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'
 41 "Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;
 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;
 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.'
 44 "Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?'
 45 "Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'
 46 "These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
 (Matt. 25:31-46 NAU)

 Not only is there no mention of "faith" here, but many of those whom Jesus says go to heaven because of their charitable works, likely weren't even Christians at all, since Jesus describes them as not realizing during their earthly life that they were helping Jesus when they helped the homeless and fed the hungry (v. 37).  Jesus would hardly base salvation on a sinner's doing of good works, as he does here, if "perfection" were the true standard.

And in context, Matthew 25:14 gives the parable of the talents as an example of what God's judgment is like; and while in that parable the person who did nothing with the master's talents is disciplined, the sinner who tried to do something good with their talents were rewarded despite the philosophical trifle that their being sinners means they probably did the good only via selfish motive.

The real question that each of us has to ask ourselves is not “Are we good?”, but “Are we perfect?”

A question that can be disregarded now that we've replaced your fabulous ultimately Utopian god with a god that is slightly more scriptural.

Can any of us answer in the affirmative here?

We don't need to answer your question, a question posed in scripture is far more conducive:

 8 He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God? (Mic. 6:8 NAU)

 God rewards Solomon with great riches solely because Solomon prudently answered one of God's questions:

 7 In that night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, "Ask what I shall give you."
 8 Solomon said to God, "You have dealt with my father David with great lovingkindness, and have made me king in his place.
 9 "Now, O LORD God, Your promise to my father David is fulfilled, for You have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.
 10 "Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people, for who can rule this great people of Yours?"
 11 God said to Solomon, "Because you had this in mind, and did not ask for riches, wealth or honor, or the life of those who hate you, nor have you even asked for long life, but you have asked for yourself wisdom and knowledge that you may rule My people over whom I have made you king,
 12 wisdom and knowledge have been granted to you. And I will give you riches and wealth and honor, such as none of the kings who were before you has possessed nor those who will come after you." (2 Chr. 1:7-12 NAU)

 Some would argue that God was stupid for giving such wealth to a sinner whom God knew or should have known would foolishly squander it with idolatry-promoting events and works, as Solomon did.

Others would argue that if God is rewarding Solomon's imperfect answer, then God's standard for sinners probably isn't perfection.

Even if we reject the teaching of the Bible, but accept the possibility that there may be an all-powerful God, we must acknowledge that His standard will be perfection and that we will ultimately fall short of this standard.

You are high on crack, there is nothing about god outside the bible, that would argue this God's standard for human beings is some type perfection unattainable by purely naturalistic efforts.   On the contrary, the argument from natural theology would counsel that the God who made us, knows perfectly well our limits, and whatever standard he might have imposed, is likely a standard most responsible mature adults are capable of meeting.  You think Moses was inspired by God to write the Pentaeuch, and if so, then when he says obeying all of God's commands isn't too difficult, he is contradicting your evangelical presupposition that nobody can obey all of God's laws without being perfect:

 10 if you obey the LORD your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and soul.
 11 "For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. (Deut. 30:10-11 NAU)

 You get the same idea in the NT, namely, that sinners not only can, but often DO become righteous in the sight of God because of how much they obey his commands:

 5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
 6 They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. (Lk. 1:5-6 NAU)

Wallace continues:

God doesn’t send good people to Hell.

But he does take "delight" in causing rape and parental cannibalism, Deuteronomy 28:30, 53, 63.

In order to consider ourselves “good”, we typically have to overlook much of what we think about and a lot of what we have done.

The way God does in Matthew 25:40, no discussion about whether they did their acts of charity with "perfect" motives or not, they are just allowed into heaven because they performed acts of charity:

Conversely, God doesn’t send good people to Heaven either.

The people who do good, including those who don't know Christian theology, go to heaven according to Matthew 25, supra.

“Good” is simply not “good enough” in light of Heaven’s perfection.

Under the doctrine of original sin, Abraham's trust in God cannot have been "perfect" trust or belief, as original sin would taint each and every motive we have to do anything or believe anything, yet Paul still taught that it was this act of belief by Abe upon which God justified Abe:

 9 Is this blessing then on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say, "FAITH WAS CREDITED TO ABRAHAM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS." (Rom. 4:9 NAU)

Jesus responds positively to an imperfect form of faith:

 23 And Jesus said to him, "'If You can?' All things are possible to him who believes."
 24 Immediately the boy's father cried out and said, "I do believe; help my unbelief."
 25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again."
 26 After crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, "He is dead!"
 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up. (Mk. 9:23-27 NAU)

Peter's motive for asking Jesus to save him, cannot have been a motive completely free from the taint of sin and selfishness, yet Jesus still finds the request sufficient to justify granting:

 30 But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!"
 31 Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" (Matt. 14:30-31 NAU)

If Jesus was a modern day Conservative Evangelical Inerrantist, he would have said to the father of the demon-possessed boy "you were born in sin, all of your motives to action are based in sin, you do not want me to heal this boy because of pure motive, but because you desire an easier life.  Didn't you know that my strength is made perfect in weakness (2nd Cor, 12:9)?  This messenger of Satan shall continue to afflict you, to teach you to be humble (Id)!  Go forth and praise God that you were counted worthy to suffer shame for my name! (Acts 5:41). Fuck you.

A loving God rescues creatures who are “practically” imperfect by offering us the free gift of forgiveness (Romans 6:23).

Sure is funny that you run immediately to Paul and not what Jesus had to say about salvation.  According to one gospel author, the "gospel" consists of the words and deeds of the historical Jesus (Matthew 28:20) and therefore, not the theological ravings of a rich duplicitous philosopher who wants to make his own ramblings more the center of attention than the words and deeds of Jesus.

When we accept this offer, we become “positionally” perfect (Hebrews 10:14) by clothing ourselves in the perfection of Jesus.

Something Jesus explicitly contradicted when he made a sinner's own acts the basis  upon which they enter the kingdom of heaven, in a context nowhere expressing or implying a righteousness imputed to them from Christ:

 17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
 18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
 19 "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
 20 "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:17-20 NAU)

Because Jesus goes on to preach the Sermon on the Mount and show how obeying the spirit of the Law is equally as important as obeying the letter, the gospel Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount cannot be reconciled with a gospel that says salvation is a free gift.  Sorry, but you don't enter the Kingdom of Heaven if your own moral righteousness doesn't meet the standard Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount.

Wallace's belief that God's standard is too high for sinful humans to meet, overlooks God's equally magical genie-ability to just get "rid" of sin by unspecified means, such as his getting rid of David's adultery with Bathsheba, and the death penalty that normally attached:

 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."
(2 Sam. 12:13 NAU)

Gee, can the God of evangelical Christians really just get rid of a sin and the consequence demanded for it in the law, so easily?  If so, Wallace needs to worry more about what the bible actually teaches, and less about making his idealism sound good to Christians who already hold most of his presuppositions.