CrossTalk: Theodicy

“If God is good, how could he damn some people to hell just because they never got a chance to hear about Jesus?”

That’s a question that I have been asked over the years. Sometimes it’s an honest question. Sometimes it is not. Human beings are capable of deep compassion for people we have never met. We are also capable of inventing all kinds of excuses to avoid humbling ourselves before God.

Whether the question is asked in honesty or dishonesty, the conversation rarely leads to a satisfactory answer. So, today I want to put something in writing. It will not satisfy all people, but I hope it will satisfy the heart that is pious and compassionate about people you have never met.

The first thing that needs to be said about this question is this: It is a theodicy. That means it is an attempt to justify God. That is so backwards as to be nonsensical. God has sent His only begotten Son in order to justify you, not the other way around. Any God who needs our justification is not worthy of the name.

The next thing that should be said is that the question itself hides a number of dubious assumptions. First, it assumes that some people never got a chance to hear the Word of God. Yet everyone who ever asked the question already knows enough about God to ask the question. So, where are these people who haven’t heard?

If you meet one, let me know. I would be glad to tell him. Better yet, tell him yourself. If it’s a benighted tribe in Africa, fly there and tell them. Or take all the money you spend on yourself and give it to a missionary. It’s no good complaining that God is stingy with His word when you yourself are sitting on a pot of gold.

Second, the question assumes that people are damned because they don’t believe. That’s not what Christianity teaches. People are damned because they are in open rebellion against their Creator. Jesus comes to save you from this condition—and His salvation is received by believing.

It is the peculiar blunder of our day to think of faith as some sort of accomplishment on my part that makes God happy with me. No! Faith is the natural, healthy posture of any human being towards his or her Creator. Lack of it is a problem akin to a mental health issue—except worse.

Those that have faith in the true God have been healed of a deadly disease. Those who reject it can’t blame the Physician.

Why do some people reject the Physician’s cure and others receive it? That is the real question. And it cannot ever be answered for someone else. It can only be answered for yourself. You can go to the library and read a Bible. You probably have several in your own home. If you read it, it will tell you to go to church. So, go.

Find a church that teaches every last word of the Bible and attend worship and Bible study. If you do, God will bring you from unbelief into the true faith (or He will keep you in the true faith if you already have it). If you are not doing this, the real question is neither about God nor about noble savages on the other side of the globe.

Rest assured that the God who gave His only begotten Son to be crucified for the sins of the whole world loves every person on the globe more than you could even imagine. He does absolutely everything to save them that could possibly be done. He has also done everything to save you. Believe it, or not.