This article continues my critical engagement with Timothy Keller’s treatment of hell in “How can a loving God send people to Hell?” chapter 5 of The Reason for God. For part 1 click here.
Keller’s treatment of hell in chapter 5 contrasts with his treatment of science in chapter 6. In the science chapter Keller emphasizes that Christians disagree on the interpretation of Genesis 1-2 and Neo-Darwinism. He observes: “Some hold that God created life and then guided natural selection to develop all complex life-forms from simpler ones.” (96) Indeed, Keller goes on to say “For the record I think God guided some kind of process of natural selection….” (98) Admittedly this is a vague statement, but the fact that it is suggestive of an openness to Neo-Darwinian evolution shows that Keller is progressive and open to different positions in the big tent of Christianity.
This big tent approach reflects the logic of the book itself as Keller remains committed to defending something akin to C.S. Lewis’ “mere Christianity”. As he writes: “I am making a case in this book for the truth of Christianity in general–not for one particular strand of it. Some sharp-eyed Presbyterian readers will notice that I am staying quiet about some of my particular theological beliefs [that is, Calvinism] in the interest of doing everything I can to respect all Christians.” (121-22)
So when it comes to hell, one would expect Keller to carry through this same method of “doing everything [he] can to respect all Christians”. And that would mean flagging for the reader the diversity of opinion on the nature of posthumous punishment. But that’s not what he does. Indeed, one has to read half way through the chapter before one can find a clear and succinct definition of what Keller himself understands hell to be. Here it is:
“Hell, then, is the trajectory of a soul, living a self-absorbed, self-centered life, going on and on forever.” (79)
This statement couldn’t be more inexplicably narrow when contrasted with Keller’s claim that he’s defending “the truth of Christianity in general”, for this most emphatically is not Christianity in general.
Note first that Keller is presenting his reader here with the doctrine of eternal conscious torment. It seems to follow that he is claiming “Christianity in general” is committed to eternal conscious torment, viz. the life of the reprobate continuing eternally in a punishment of torment. Never does Keller make his readers aware of the minority traditions within Christianity in general that have argued for the destruction of the reprobate (annihilationism) or the ultimate reconciliation of the reprobate (universalism). Were Gregory of Nyssa and John Stott, George MacDonald and Clark Pinnock not part of Christianity in general?
Things get even more ironic when we note the following passage that Keller quotes from C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce:
“Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others … but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine.” (cited in 81)
While Keller cites this passage with approval, he never flags to the reader the obvious, namely that it is most naturally read as an endorsement of annihilationism. After all, if at some point there is no longer a “you” existing, if all that remains is the grumble, rolling on like a machine, then that seems to entail annihilationism, the doctrine that the reprobate will cease to exist as the result of a posthumous judgment.
And this is the point at which I get frustrated with Keller. You see, he’s borrowing the emotional comfort offered by annihilationism while suggesting this is somehow consistent with eternal conscious torment. But it isn’t. If Keller believes the reprobate ceases to exist at some point after death leaving only a grumble then eternal conscious torment is false. If he believes the reprobate doesn’t cease to exist then quoting a passage that suggests otherwise seems confusing at best and disingenuous at worst.
All this leaves me wishing Keller had simply applied the same concern to defend Christianity in general in this chapter that he did elsewhere. If his defense of creation is concerned with defending that God created rather than how God created, why couldn’t his defense of hell be concerned with defending that there will be posthumous judgment for those outside Christ rather than how there will be posthumous judgment for those outside Christ? The former, minimal confession would be consistent with eternal conscious torment, annihilationism and universal reconciliation, but Keller (inconsistently) limits his apologetic defense to the first of these three views.
Let’s now return to Keller’s key definition:
“Hell, then, is the trajectory of a soul, living a self-absorbed, self-centered life, going on and on forever.” (79)
Now what is hell according to this definition? In short, it is God leaving us to our own rebellious wills. This definition has “C.S. Lewis” written all over it. And for good reason as it represents the best prospect to present eternal conscious torment to those appalled by the justice of an eternal hell. But this view of God as passively leaving sinners to their own devious devices is emphatically not a predominant New Testament theme. So what does the New Testament say about judgment?
Note first that the New Testament roots posthumous judgment on an event that Keller doesn’t even mention: the resurrection of the reprobate. For example, we read in John 5:
28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.
By contrast, Keller appears to base eternal conscious torment in the immortality of the soul. As he says, “Because Christians believe souls don’t die, they also believe that moral and spiritual errors affect the soul forever.” (83) Keller’s wrong. This idea that souls don’t (and by implication, can’t) die isn’t a view representative of “Christianity in general”. Rather, it is a regrettable platonized form of Christian anthropology. Granted if one is a Platonist about the soul’s necessary immortality then it makes eternal conscious torment a bit easier from a conceptual standpoint. On this view, once God’s made immortal souls then the souls that reject him will continue to exist eternally apart from him. (However, attraction of the position really is superficial. Surely Keller wouldn’t claim that God cannot destroy an immortal soul, and so this begs the question of why he would allow rebellious souls to continue in torment eternally.) To summarize, the biblical teaching is not that immortal souls go on existing forever. Instead, it is that God raises rebellious persons, body and soul, to face a posthumous punishment. Keller thus offers a distorted, narrow and ultimately unbiblical view of posthumous punishment all while claiming to represent “Christianity in general.”
Note as well that time and again God is described in the New Testament not simply as passively ratifying the decisions of rebellious human wills (as Keller would have it), but rather as actively judging them and casting them into hell (whatever hell is). Read the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25. In that passage the sheep and goats are judged as such by God and the latter turned over to eternal punishment. Or consider Jesus’ sobering parable of individuals cast into outer darkness, or the apocalyptic images of Revelation 14 and 20.
Keller’s decision to pass over the theme of God actively resurrecting the reprobate to face a posthumous judgment that God himself inflicts is even more ironic since he begins the chapter with a critique of a culture that simply cannot view God as a wrathful judge (72 ff.). And yet his own treatment of the issue leaves him vulnerable to the charge that he’s capitulated to the same broad cultural ethos.
All these problems could have been avoided if Keller had simply followed his own stated methodology of defending “Christianity in general” which is committed to a posthumous judgment of the reprobate while leaving open whether that judgment continues eternally or whether it results in the annihilation or restoration of the individuals that are judged.
