I’ve been in a Twitter conversation with a Christian fundamentalist about hell. What has come to light once again is the Christian double standard regarding hell and God’s omnipotence. This Christian and many like him suggested God doesn’t send anyone to hell. People choose to go to hell. They choose with their sins, they choose with their blasphemy, and they choose with their rejection of God. And most disturbingly, some will even admit that according to Christian doctrine and the idea of original sin, even newborn babies are deserving of this punishment because of the stain of original sin.

Yeah who determine the parameters that resulted in such consequences? Who determined that transgressions against gods will result in separation from God? God of course. God said all the rules and all the consequences, so why are you might want to try to suggest to ease your conscience that God doesn’t send anyone to hell, he set up all the framers to make that a certainty in some situations.

This Christian continued his argument by explaining that God didn’t Mikaël for humans but rather for the devil. Here once again we run into a problem when we accept the idea of God’s supposed omnipotence and omniscience. He exists outside time, Christians explain, so he knows all things at all times. That means that when he created hell for the devil, he knew man would eventually end up there as well. But the Christian view creates a surprised God who thinks, “Crap — that went off the rails quickly! I’d better do something!” My interlocutor explained it thusly:

Can you decide anything yourself? Free will. Man had free will & chose evil. He didnt have to, was warned not to but did anyway. Free will. Then God Himself made the way back. Man sends himself to hell. Your choice.

My response was along the lines above:

God made the consequences of disobedience hell. He could have made the consequences anything. He chose infinite punishment for a finite transgression—or, thanks to original sin, the transgression of a distant relative of eating a piece of fruit. Perverse.

But he’ll likely continue to insist that I just don’t understand God’s grace, that I don’t understand the finer points of the theological argument, that I just don’t understand.

And that’s another problem: why would a benevolent god make things so difficult to understand, so easy to misunderstand, when eternal punishment is on the line?!