How could a loving God send anyone to hell?

How could a loving God send anyone to hell?

Just because God is loving, does not mean that he loves everything—there are some things that God doesn’t love, that in fact he hates. So he doesn’t love murder, or abuse, or selfishness, or pride. Actually, if he is loving, then he will hate these things. It wouldn’t be very loving of God to look at something like child abuse and say: “Well, I’m not really that bothered.”

So God is loving - and yet he doesn’t love everything.

And because this loving God hates bad things, he does something about it. And this is good news. We all have a kind of a sense of justice - so it’s good news that people who mistreat others are not allowed into God’s perfect kingdom, but are shut out—that is, they’re sent to hell.

It’s loving of a just God to hate and punish wrongdoing, so that only perfect things are in his perfect kingdom.

Now as I say this, I know it’s not an easy thing to hear. It’s not an easy thing for me to hear. But just because we don’t like something, doesn’t mean that it’s not true.

Now I guess not many of us have a problem with the idea of famously bad people facing punishment - but this actually leaves us with a problem too, because none of us are perfect. None of us have treated God, or treated each other, in the perfect way we were intended to.

If I’m honest, I know I haven’t treated people as I should. I’ve hurt people, I’ve ignored their needs, actually I’ve upset even some of the people I love the most. And I haven’t treated God as I should - as my Maker and my Creator, and therefore the ruler in charge of my life.

And so I deserve punishment of my wrongdoing too. We actually all deserve to be punished. We all deserve to go to hell. None of us are perfect - so none of us should be in God’s perfect kingdom.

And it’s not something that Jesus says flippantly or lightly, without caring. He doesn’t say it just to scare us. But he does say it to warn us - and to help us see how amazing it is that he offers us a way out.

Because this is the amazing news - that even though we all deserve punishment, even though we deserve to go to hell, Jesus - God himself - has provided a way out for us. He doesn’t do this by leaving things unpunished, and so forgetting about justice. He does it by himself taking our place; in his death taking our punishment and himself experiencing hell so that we don’t have to.

It seems to me as if this is a truly loving God. He loves the world enough to punish wrongdoing, and he loves people enough to take the punishment himself.

He loves us enough to give us a choice: we can ask him to be part of our lives now, and so avoid hell and look forward to enjoying his perfect eternal kingdom

https://www.christianityexplored.org/Articles/469280/CE_ORG/Tough_Questions/Transcripts/How_could_a_loving_God.aspx

Question: There are over 4 thousand different Gods, and religions. How do you know the Bible is true?
Answer: A cumulative case for the God of the Bible

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1753-a-cumulative-case-for-the-god-of-the-bible

When you weigh the NT historical evidence against any other major or minor religion, you will discover that Christianity is far beyond any of them because Christianity is all based on eyewitness testimonies, and is backed up by external historical evidence. We have as well over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament, that fulfilled in Jesus Christ. We have the Shroud of Turin. We have with high probability found the Ark of Noah on Mount Ararat. We have evidence of the Exodus.

The steps of progression to elaborate an epistemologically solid world view goes as follows:
1. The starting point is to recognize that today, with the internet, we have a wealth of information, based on science, philosophy, and theology, permitting to come to meaningful conclusions in regards of origins. Remaining agnostic is not justified.
2. Defining a solid epistemological framework that minimizes assumptions, excluding scientism or verificationism, and permitting a holistic examination of evidence including scientific, philosophical, and theological considerations. The best methodology to make meaningful inferences and conclude the best, most accurate world view is based on the current wealth of knowledge of operational and historical sciences, philosophy, and theism.
3. Disposition to analyze the evidence as much as honest and unbiased as possible, permitting it to lead wherever it is.  An unbiased starting point for inquiry of world views and explanations of origins is essential in order to come as close as possible to gain a realistic understanding of reality that includes physics and metaphysics. That means proper understanding of science, philosophical and theological explanations and searching for truth without eliminating possible theistic implications a priori.
4. Research of falsifiable scientific evidence and philosophical considerations which after careful evaluation point to Intelligence as a better mechanism to explain our origins rather than naturalistic explanations.
5. The inference of intelligent design/creationism leads to deism, theism, and/pantheism.
6. Philosophical considerations lead  to agnostic theism
7. Specifics about various lines of evidence lead to the conclusion of an Infinite Creator.
8. Comparative religions and historical evidence point to God of the Hebrews/Abraham.
9. Internal evidence constrains the choice of Judaism. Islam, Christianity, and born-again Christianity.
10. How we proceed in the cumulative case for Christianity is a much more detailed step. Ultimately we are not talking about "proof" like in repeated experimentation...but rather a preponderance of the evidence. There's no empirical proof for the Resurrection or the Virgin birth. These, too, are based on faith and the cumulative case made for Christianity. Ultimately it is the conviction of the Holy Spirit to believe in the miracles of Jesus and His Lordship/Deity.

Is the Bible Historically Accurate?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1974-is-the-bible-historically-accurate

Are the Bible & the Gospels Reliable?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1506-are-the-gospels-reliable

Evidence of the historical Jesus
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1676-evidence-of-the-historical-jesus

Evidence of the ressurrection
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1764-evidence-of-the-ressurrection

The Impossible Faith: A Defense of the Resurrection
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2502-the-impossible-faith-a-defense-of-the-resurrection

The shroud of turin
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1688-the-shroud-of-turin

Fullfilled prophecies in the bible
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2435-fullfilled-prophecies-in-the-bible

Noah's Ark has been found with high probability on Mount Ararat
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2940-noah-s-ark-has-been-found-with-high-probability-on-mount-ararat

Evidence of Exodus
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1718-evidence-of-exodus

The Kalaam leads to the God of the Bible
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2877-the-kalaam-leads-to-the-god-of-the-bible


How you can get Saved!
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2501-how-you-can-get-saved

A mind, and a heart, that is touched by the experience of knowing God by the message of the gospel, Christs sacrifice, proof of the unfathomable love of our heavenly father, and HIS amazing grace, is born again, can not and will never get back to its old dimensions.

People are not going to Hell because God rejects them. People are going to hell because they reject God.

Romans 3: No One Is Righteous

9 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10 As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11     there is no one who understands;
    there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
    they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
    not even one.”[b]
13 “Their throats are open graves;
    their tongues practice deceit.”[c]
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”[d]
14     “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”[e]
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16     ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.”[f]
18     “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”[g]
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

Righteousness Through Faith

21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in[h] Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,[i] through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

God is not to be blamed when an unrepentant, rebellious creature chooses a destructive path that leads to Hell

When unbelieving critics talk about Hell, they sometimes speak like it will be full of innocent people (like themselves!). However, the Bible doesn’t indicate that innocent people will spend a single moment in Hell. Rather, Hell is God’s answer to the fundamental injustice of this life. There are many murderers, rapists, and other people who wreak havoc in the lives of others, who never experience judgment in this life. Everyone knows that it is wrong that these people never be brought to account for what they’ve done; something in the human heart demands justice. And Hell is God’s answer.

Without Hell, justice would never overtake the unrepentant tyrants responsible for murdering millions. Perpetrators of evil throughout the ages would get away with murder—and rape, and torture, and every evil.

Even if we may acknowledge Hell as a necessary and just punishment for evildoers, however, we rarely see ourselves as worthy of Hell. After all, we are not Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Bundy, or Dahmer.

God responds, “There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10–12).1

For the majority of people who are not guilty on the scale of these obviously (even to us) depraved people, it’s hard to understand that we deserve punishment, too. But most people have grievances against others—if someone stole from you, or hurt your children, or if you were a victim of something fundamentally unjust, you would want justice; your sense of what is right would demand that the person at fault pay a penalty for wronging you. Every time we break God’s law, that’s an affront to God, and He demands justice, just as we do imperfectly on a smaller scale. If you’ve ever said in your heart, “That person should pay for what he did!” then you fundamentally agree with the idea of Hell, because the doctrine of Hell says somebody is going to pay for every sin, eventually.

Hell: a place for those who reject the loving God
It can be hard for the person who loves God to comprehend that there are people who hate God as much as we love Him. That there are people who hate Him so much that if they saw Him finally, they would not embrace Him and turn from their rebellion, but they would shake their fist all the more and damn themselves for eternity.

Just as through the Spirit, the believer is finally sanctified after death, something happens to the unbeliever at death that makes him unable to ever repent. He has chosen to hate God and he will hate God for all eternity. Jesus reminded us that some will not believe even if He rose from the dead. The unbeliever cannot inhabit Heaven, because he embodies everything that can never enter Heaven; and to be in the presence of God is not Heaven for him in any case, but the most exquisite torment. He has lost the ability to experience God as anything but terrifying.

For such a person, Hell is God giving him what he asked for all along—a place where His presence is not manifested as it is in this life. But this also means that there are none of the blessings and providence that even the unbeliever experiences in this life.

Sin: Rebellion against our loving Creator
God didn’t create people to go to Hell, and He didn’t create people to sin. In fact, the place He made for people originally was perfect. The Garden of Eden had everything Adam and Eve could ever want. It was safe and pleasant, God lovingly provided everything they needed, and they enjoyed a perfect relationship with the Creator. God gave them some simple commands (have children, tend the Garden, and don’t eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil), and their continuing perfect relationship with God only required them to obey. It was a position that we can only imagine today.

Even though Adam and Eve had everything they could ever possibly need, they disobeyed God and ate from the Tree that God had forbidden. Sin immediately broke the perfect fellowship that they had enjoyed with God. They realized that they were sinful, and they were ashamed and aware of their wrongdoing—as is shown by their initial attempts to cover themselves with fig leaves.

God is holy, meaning that He is completely separated from anything sinful. And as their Creator, He had the right to judge them when they disobeyed—in fact, His nature and His justice demanded that He respond when they rebelled against Him. He could have instituted the death penalty instantly, and He would have been perfectly just if He had done so. But God is also loving and merciful, so He did not put a premature end to the human race. Adam and Eve had spiritually died, meaning that their relationship to God was broken, but they would continue to physically live long enough to have children, who would inherit their propensity to sin.

Even after Adam and Eve sinned, God still loved them and provided for them. He agreed with them that their new sinful state required them to cover themselves; but the fig leaves were inadequate. He killed animals instead and made clothes out of their skins for Adam and Eve. This is the first place in Scripture where anything is killed—and for thousands of years, animals would continue to be killed in an attempt to cover over man’s sin, and to delay God’s wrath against humanity.

God was not willing to leave all of humanity to perish (cf. 2 Peter 3:9), so He promised that Eve would have a descendant who would defeat Satan (Genesis 3:15). This is called the ‘protevangelion’ because it’s the first hint of the Gospel in Scripture. The rest of the Old Testament can be characterized as God dealing with sin in various ways by judging it or putting off judgment, and getting ready for the descendant of Eve who would deal with the sin problem once and for all.

Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden into a world that was now largely hostile to them. And when Genesis tells us that Adam had a son (Seth) “in his image and likeness”, it leaves no ambiguity about whether the sinful state was in fact passed on from father to son.

https://allongeorgia.com/georgia-opinions/column-why-would-a-loving-god-send-people-to-hell/