Ascent Blog

More thoughts about good and evil:

If God would allow any unbelievers to enter heaven it would be worse than hell for them. How can those who detest prayer and praise to God bear to remain eternally in a place which does this continually? If they felt uncomfortable for only an hour in chuch doing this, think of the eternal discomfort if they had to do it forever. Or, to put it more strongly, since heaven is a place where men will bow in worship to God, how could it be loving for God to force men to go there when they do not will to worship God? It seems more congruent with the nature of divine love not to compel men to love Him against their wills.
Surely no one wishes to go to hell, but some certainly do will it. God refuses to coerce anyone into loving Him because forced love is rape. But He demonstrates a tough love by allowing people to go their own way. If God’s perfect and steadfast love has failed to win them, what could possibly change their minds? Hell is simply a place where the unbeliever is no longer bothered by God pestering him with His love.
Geisler & Brooks, “When Skeptics Ask”

I think I have heard this notion a thousand times and yet every time it strikes me how simple it is. Hell is not just a place of physical pain. The biggest punishment one can endure is the eternal absence of God! C.S. Lewis correctly stated: “The gates of hell are locked from within.” If God Himself cannot convince someone that love is the only true thing that matters then who could? People lock themselves up in hell and hate God for it when they have refused God’s call and willingly chose the absence of God.