Why do People Go to Hell?

One of the first things people learn about the Christian faith is the two eternal destinations: Heaven and Hell.  

The basic formula we learn is that good people go to Heaven - where everyone lives on fluffy clouds and plays harps.  Bad people, on the other hand, will go to Hell - where they will undergo an eternity of fiery punishment. 

The concept of Hell can be very confusing.  Most of us don’t want to see harm come to other people – even those we dislike.  The idea of condemning a person to an eternity of misery and torment seems a bit… psychotic.  Yet, Christianity posits that our infinitely good, infinitely loving, and infinitely merciful God is prepared to do just that.

So… what’s that about?  How could a loving God do that to someone?

Images of the Invisible:

Seeking an answer to that question forces us reexamine the images of Heaven and Hell that we learned in our youth.  That starts with realizing that both are realities experienced by the soul apart from the body. 

Your soul is not a material thing, so it cannot interact with physical fire.  Nor can it play a harp or sit on a cloud.  Even the concept of location  becomes a little hazy when you’re no longer dealing with the material universe.   

It is true that Scripture depicts Hell as a place of eternal fire (Matthew 13:42 ) and Heaven as a bright city (Revelation 21:9-27 ).  However, we have to understand that these are images used by Scripture to depict spiritual realities.  Therefore, we should imagine the suffering in Hell as a spiritual pain. 

A Deprivation:

So imagine a time when you experienced self-hate, shame, and embarrassment.   Or a time when you felt completely unloved, isolated, and lost.  A time when you felt like you were not alive in any meaningful sense and moved toward the bitter edge of despair. 

These negative experiences are not really substances themselves, but the lack of something that should be there.  In the same way that darkness is the absence of light, despair is the deprivation of the three core desires of the human heart - truth, life, and love.  Coincidentally, those are the three divine attributes of God:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.” – John 14:6

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” -  1 John 4:8

So the punishment of Hell is not an eternal spanking that God dishes out to people who cross some threshold of badness.  Instead, the anguish of Hell is the consequence of separation from God.   

Removed from the one source of truth, life, and love, all that remains is the experience of suffering and despair… in their absolute fullness… forever.

Finding What You Seek:

So let’s return back to the question at hand:  Why would God inflict that sort of eternal penalty on a person? 

The answer:  He doesn’t.   It is something we choose for ourselves.

By our thoughts (Matt 5:28 ) and in our words (Matt 10:33 ), in what we have done (1Cor 6:9 ), and what we have failed to do (Matt 25:41 ) – our life is an opportunity to either serve God or serve ourselves.  And if we don’t seek out God in this life, why would we expect to find Him in the next?

 In the end, everyone hits what they are aiming at.