We’re on to Chapter 5. I’m glad to be moving on to the new topic of… hell… oh… kay. Well, good. Hell it is then.
At issue for this section is the complaint that it doesn’t seem fair for God to send people to hell. Some people resolve this issue by geting rid of God and hell, others just to get rid of hell. Keller has another solution. His solution is to ignore the problem. He says that it is just a cultural objection, that in other cultures a judgmental god is not an issue but perhaps the message of turning the other cheek is. He backs up this position by mentioning that if there were a metaphysical truth it would be inconsistent in some ways with all human cultures, since our cultures are imperfect. He rightly points out that Christianity fits this description.
I’m gonna go in reverse order today. It’s true that in this particular way Christianity melds with the reality we all observe, parts of it are offensive to every culture. Unfortunately, this is true of all religions, and pretty much any other sufficiently complex body of ideas, so as a guide to picking the Truth, it is not helpful. Also, since there are many observed systems with this property, it must also be true that it is possible to create one without divine inspiration. Since such is the case, perhaps all systems that offend all cultures in some way are purely mundane. The fact that Keller even bothers to put such weak evidence into his book is a testament to how little evidence there is for his claims.
Keller’s argument that the belief that Hell is inconsistent with a loving God is cultural is a misdirect. All notions of right and wrong are culturally influenced. He’s right that it’s important to look at ones objections to things and check to see how they are derived, upon which we base these objections, what assumptions are being made. But our individual beliefs are all we have, culturally influenced or not. If you are going to ignore them you lose all basis for making moral decisions for yourself.
Keller, at least so far, as not defended the existence of hell in any way. He just said ignore your objections, because your objections are culturally based. This is equivalent to saying, “Nuh uh. God says it’s ok.” The only way this makes sense is if you can convince yourself that there is a Truth out there, and that the Christians have it, despite all the evidence to the contrary. All you have to do is surrender your independence over to a higher power, which may in fact just be a bunch of old guys reading an even older book.
Side Note:
I take Keller at his word that there are cultures out there that have little problem with the idea of Hell, at first, but I wonder what these cultures think of hell after some reflection. Explain to someone that god exists, he is all powerful, all knowing, and loves you completely. Then explain that if you don’t accept him, he will torture you forever. In what culture does perfect love manifest in torture, or revenge?