A few quotes from Chapter Five, “How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell,” of Tim Keller’s The Reason For God
In short, hell is simply one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity. (pg 78)
When we build our lives on anything but God, that thing-though a good thing-becomes an enslaving addiction, something we have to have to be happy. (pg 78)
Hell is, as Lewis says, “the greatest monument to human freedom.” (pg 79)
If Keller’s assessment is correct, and it seems reasonable, then the next question is: How do we build our lives and identities on God? Your comments and ideas are most welcome.
randy
I’ll give a try, Randy. As Bob Dylan once sang, “it might be the devil, or it might be the Lord, but you’re gonna hafta serve someone”. We’re free to serve sin, and be conformed it, which in our fallen human nature comes naturally; or we can be blessed to serve Christ and be conformed to Him, which in our redeemed human nature is being shared in us supernaturally by agency of the Holy Spirit. We’ve got to work with the Spirit, of course, and so we do truly “build our lives” as you say, but to do that, we must lean on the Lord in obedience. As St. Paul writes in Romans 6:17-18, “But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become OBEDIENT from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves to righteousness.” Thanks be to God!