Is hell for those who offend Deity or for those who offend humanity?
Evangelical Rico Tice is to the “Christianity Explored” course as Nicky Gumble is to the “Alpha” course. Tice and Gumble have conceived and implemented their respective introductory courses to the Christian faith and left the hallmark of their particular Christian subcultures on their creations: If Christianity can be regarded as a combination of stick and carrot then I don’t think it is an over simplification to say that Tice is more drawn toward the stick of eternal damnation than is Gumble. It therefore comes as no surprise that in the July edition of “Christianity” magazine we find Tice justifying his strong promulgation of the doctrine of eternal torment. He is quoted as follows:
The reason I believe in hell is that hell tells me that an infinite God can be infinitely offended. If the punishment for murdering my neighbour is £100, it immediately diminishes my neighbour. The punishment for hurting other human beings in this life, if I don't find rescue with Jesus, is eternal torment, because that's how valuable they are. They're made in God's image, and they're very valuable. I don't have a problem with eternal torment, because it tells me that people are incredibly valuable and how you treat them is a very serious thing.
Tice is sugaring the bitter pill of eternal torment by invoking God’s love: According to Tice human beings made in God’s image are so incredibly valuable to God that He is infinitely offended if they are sinned against. It follows, then, that the perpetrators of sin deserve eternal torment. In short, according to Tice, God’s love is so expansive and His offence is consequently so great that hell becomes a kind of creation of God’s love! Love and hell are two sides of the same coin, according to Tice.
Sounds good doesn’t it? Tice can slip in the bitter pill of hell amidst soothing talk of God’s love. This is certainly an advance on the more mediaeval take on eternal torment. Here the Glory of God is thought to be so infinitely above lowly human beings that a slight against His awful presence deserves eternal torment; such a justification sits well with a feudal system and its hierarchal systems of worth, but not a modern ethos that likes to hear about self worth.
In shifting the emphasis away from sin as an affront to a high medieval tyrant to an offence against much loved humanity, Tice’s justification for eternal torment works by distraction: In bamboozling us with God’s love for humankind one little point may pass unnoticed: That is, the identity of the nameless entities who have sinned against those incredibly valuable human beings. Those entities are, of course, none other than those valuable much loved human beings! Tice passes over this fact without comment.
Tice’s verbal sleight of hand hides a nasty conundrum and paradox: If those human beings are oh so valuable and oh so loved, they are clearly not so valuable and loved that this prevents them from being consigned to eternal damnation if they should commit a sin against their fellows. But if they are not that valuable how then could sinning against them be so offensive to God? Does sin somehow subtract from their value in a kind of mathematical way, viz: Value = Value – Sin? Unlikely since sin and love-value are incommensurable; someone can sin against you but that doesn’t necessarily reduce their value to you.
Hugely valuable human beings but huge offence: An impasse that is perhaps well addressed by the Christian doctrine of a self sacrificing Deity whose love is so great that He resolves the contention between the immoveable object of justice and the irresistible force of Divine love with His own self sacrificial act. This might make sense if all are saved, but given that Tice represents a Christian culture where it is thought that only a self defined remnant will benefit from God’s grace, then for the broad swath of humanity the conundrum and paradox of eternal torment remains in place: Valuable and much loved human beings are being consigned to hell in large numbers. According to Tice countless average human beings are going to be eternally damned for sinning against other humans. To complete the experience of eternal damnation there will be one last cruel irony for them: They will find the majority of those incredibly valuable human beings they have sinned against occupying hell along with them!
Whatever the realities behind the age old archetypical concept of hell, Tice’s attempt to sugar the pill is a piece self deception that fails to allay the deep moral distaste for this doctrine.
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