Does it never seem horrendously heartbreaking to you that God would eternally torment the majority of men for a faith he himself denied them?
Never – never dared to, never needed to, never wanted to think this way.
A long time ago I would have found the question perplexing. I had read the Bible for a few years before I started to encounter Christians from different churches and cultures, and it was not until then that I became familiar with how many Christians think – that is, exactly the opposite of what the Bible teaches. Now I am usually not surprised because I have learned that for Christians, unbelief is the default, and man-centered thinking is the norm. Jesus marveled at the Gentile’s faith. Now I also marvel when a Christian truly believes what the Bible teaches.
I remember that I was very surprised when I first heard about the so-called problem of evil, that the existence of evil has been used as a logical or evidential argument against the existence of God, and that many professing believers in fact struggle with it, if not from the logical viewpoint, at least from the existential viewpoint. It never occurred to me that the existence of evil could pose any challenge to the existence of God. I was amazed that it was a big deal, and that many people, over thousands of years, have debated over it. Since then I have written about it, showing that it is one of the easiest objections against Christianity to answer.
Thus my confusion was never about the existence of evil, but about why anyone would ever think that it is a problem. Then I realized that the Bible also teaches me the answer to this. That is, I have learned that there are many people whose intellectual positions and emotional sentiments do not stand with the Bible, and these people are stupid and sinful. They are intellectually incompetent and dishonest. This cleared up everything for me. When people’s thoughts and feelings are not aligned with what God has revealed – when we do not think like God – their thoughts and feelings are wrong. But they do not realize it because they are stupid, and they do not admit it because they are sinful.
Non-Christians are in complete disagreement with God, and this is why they are stupid through and through. You cannot even teach them to improve their understanding because they are too stupid, so that there is nothing to work with, nothing for you to help or to improve. As Paul indicates in 2 Corinthians 4, for conversion to occur it requires something like the creation of the world, where God made everything out of nothing. He had nothing to work with, but he spoke, and the world came into being. Likewise, an unbeliever is so stupid that there is nothing to work with. There is no spark of intelligence there that you can fan into flames with a proof here or a fact there. Arguments are to be given to vindicate the honor of God, and if he pleases, for the Holy Spirit to use as means to convert the sinner, but in themselves they are powerless to cure a lifeless mind. Rather, the God who said “Let light shine out of darkness” must make his light to shine in their hearts, so that they may perceive the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (4:6).
On the other hand, Christians have been enlightened by the light of Jesus Christ, so that they at least affirm the basic principles of the gospel. However, there is much room to grow, so that stupidity and sinfulness remain, and so senseless doctrines and foolish questions also persist. This is not so much a condemnation as it is a statement about reality, and as long as we press on in the knowledge of Christ, there is no need to be discouraged. That said, some are pleased to stay with worldly standards and false traditions. They need to be whipped out of their sinful stubbornness. There is no need to be lenient toward them.
With this background, let us consider the question. In the first place, it makes no sense. Some people would try to wiggle out of it by saying that God does not really “deny” the faith to those who perish, but that he simply passes over them, or that it is his sovereign decree but their free choice at the same time. You would not get this nonsense from me. Elsewhere I have explained why these answers are all unbiblical, and how they fail to answer the challenge. Instead, I affirm that God is the one who actively denies salvation to those whom he has chosen for damnation, and who actively prevents them from either hearing the gospel or from believing it when they hear. With Paul, I believe that God created the elect and the reprobates “out of the same lump.” He did not create out of an elect lump and a reprobate lump, and he did not draw the elect out of a reprobate lump. The Bible says that he made both out of the same lump. Thus I believe in active and unconditional reprobation. And instead of finding ways to soften this, I will state it as hard as I please.
But what in the world does this have to do with what you are asking?! In the context of the question, it is evident that what leads to the horrendous heartbreak is the eternal torment and not the active reprobation. If for the moment we assume that everyone shares my taste, would not the whole world rejoice if God by an active and unconditional decree eternally withholds eggplants from our diet? If this is what the issue is about, would you still ask me about the horrendous heartbreak, or would you consider the matter rather trivial? If you still want your eggplants, I will cover this in the course of what follows. But it seems that the issue is really about the eternal torment. The question arises because that there will be eternal torment and not how or why there will be eternal torment. If this is not about eternal torment, you might not care so much about the way it is decided.
But why would changing the how or why also change how I should feel about the eternal torment? Do you mean that I should feel better about it if people have genuine free will and choose to dive into hell? Does it really make a big difference to you, if the result is the same? If it is the people that I care about, why should it change my feelings about it even if they are the ones who choose to go? Would it not cause horrendous heartbreak to you if your child freely chooses to become a serial killer instead of being divinely ordained to become one? If what you care about is whether the child becomes a serial killer, then why would you care about divine sovereignty and human freedom? Would you not prefer to have God sovereignly prevent your child from becoming a serial killer? Or, would you say, “I would rather my child become a serial killer than leave it up to God’s choice and power”? But if you can say this, then the real issue is that you hate God, and not that you love your child. You do not really care about what your child becomes and what he does to other people. You just detest the idea that God is in control.
If your main focus is on the welfare of the people, then the complaint should remain as long as there is a hell. You can reject the biblical teaching on divine sovereignty and still say, “Does it never seem horrendously heartbreaking to you that God would eternally torment the majority of men for a fall that he himself has ordained?” or, “Does it never seem horrendously heartbreaking to you that God would eternally torment the majority of men for a fall that he himself has permitted?” or, “Does it never seem horrendously heartbreaking to you that God would eternally torment the majority of men when he created them knowing that they would fall?”
Again, it appears that the latter part is irrelevant. The question arises only because the issue is about eternal torment, not eggplant. Thus the question might as well be, “Does it never seem horrendously heartbreaking to you that God would eternally torment the majority of men?” Now the essence of the question becomes even clearer, and it is, “Does it never seem to you that God is horrendous?” If it does not seem to you that God is horrendous, or if you do not wish that I would think so, then I see no basis for the question to arise. If you think that God is perfectly good, that his decisions are perfectly good, that the fact that everything comes from his decree is perfectly good, so that eternal torment itself is perfectly good, then how could you ask the question? Does it never seem horrendously heartbreaking to you that something perfectly good and righteous happens because God is sovereign? Well…no, never. How about you?
On a human level, or for the lack of a better term, on the horizontal level, we are not pleased that even a cat has to suffer. But God enables us to perceive the world with divine intelligence. As Jesus said, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). We know the Father’s business, and we can see from his perspective. There is no excuse for a man-centered theology or for a man-centered set of priorities.
Any thought or feeling that even remotely implies disapproval of God must be wrong. It is not sinful to see and feel on the horizontal level, but to remain on this level as if it represents the whole scope of reality is sin and leads to sin. Grieve about your friend’s unbelief, but when you think that he will suffer eternal torment “because you, God, denied to him the faith that saves,” as if to accuse God, then you ought to tremble and repent, because now you are the one in trouble. Does a person deserve hell only if he freely rejects the gospel? As a sinner, does he not deserve hell to begin with? Man, why does it seem to you that God owes it to anyone to deliver the gospel to him and to have him believe the gospel?
As for me, even if there is horrendous heartbreak over something, it is dissolved once I know that it is actively decided and caused by a God who can do no wrong. It is a most heartwarming doctrine to know that all things occur according to his perfect wisdom and total control. I love him, and I am always happy to agree with him. When I do not, it must be my fault, and if he shows me kindness he will enable me to change my thinking and agree with him again. What if it hits close to home and we are talking about a close relative? Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). You fool! If you have true love for humanity and for your family, where do you think it came from in the first place?
How can I find fault with his sovereignty, when it is his sovereign love that saved me? How can I be so ungrateful as to harbor even a hint of disapproval? And how can I disapprove, when I care about God first of all, and by this reprobation and eternal torment of the wicked, he will show forth his wrath and glory? If there is horrendous heartbreak in you over something that God does, it is never something that a greater love and gratitude toward God cannot heal. Thank you, Father, for vindicating yourself and for revealing your wrath in the eternal torment of the wicked! And thank you, Father, for rescuing me from all this by choosing me for salvation through Jesus Christ!