Questions and Answers

As I have expressed before Rob Bell’s book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived is problematic.

In this post, as in my previous discussions of the book, I am not seeking directly to engage with the content of the book.  This is because I have concerns about fundamental aspects of the book that underpin the content within it, and feel that these should therefore be addressed first.

In the book Bell asks many questions – sweet!  This is a good thing.

Even better, Bell tells us in the preface that he asks the questions that no-one else is willing or game enough ask.  He asks questions like:

 Of all the billions of people who have ever lived, will only a select number “make it to a better place” and every single other person suffer torment and punishment forever?

Is this acceptable to God?

Has God created over millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish?

Can God do this, or even allow this, and still claim to be a loving God?

Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things they did in their few finite years of life?

I think you get the gist of it.  There are many more questions of this kind on page 2 through to page 11 of the book, as well as sporadically throughout.

One could assume, and rightly so, that the reason that Bell asks these questions is in order to answer them.  He states emphatically:

But this isn’t just a book of questions. It’s a book of responses to these questions.  And so, away we go.

As we read through the book Bell poses a number of answers to the stated questions, however, when you reach the end of the book you are still left wondering what he believes.  Why would someone with such influence ask the questions that no-one apparently wants to ask and then give possible answers without signing up or putting his name categorically to any of them?

I mean, the questions that he poses are not regarding his favourite ice-cream topping or colour.  The questions are fundamental to how the Bible deals with, and how the church has historically dealt with, the doctrine of salvation, amongst others.  Why would he not show us his colours?

It appears that he is suffering from the same condition that many before him suffered with.  The questions that nobody wanted to ask are the same questions that he doesn’t want to answer.  If Bell believes that what he has discovered in his thinking and research is truth, then why would he not stand up and state it?  If what he has discovered in his thinking and research is untruth, then why would you offer it as worthy of belief or perhaps an alternative truth(?)?

What Bell does in the book in asking the questions that nobody wants to ask is valiant and needed.  The church needs to engage with these sorts of questions as Bell has done – historically and biblically, because they are as relevant as they have ever been.

Where Bell clearly drops the ball is in his ambiguity in outlining his own thought.  It is fair and good to outline other answers to the posed questions, however the world is not short on answers.  Everyone has an answer, but are they biblically valid and historically consistent?  The world, and indeed the church, is short on people who will cogently argue using the Bible, and who will stand by their reasoning in the face of an often hostile world and (unfortunately) often hostile church.

When I think of the great men and women in history who have changed how we think about any issue, we think of people who bravely fought for their ideas in the market place.  In recent times we can think of a person like Nelson Mandela.  What he stood for was clear to South Africans of all persuasions and clear to the world.  He did not waver in outlining clearly his stance on equality for all and he faced whatever came his way.

What Bell does is helpful in that he leads the way in asking the questions that nobody wants to ask, however he demonstrates something very unhelpful too – in his silence he validates not one but any or all of the possible answers that he provides.

As Christians we must not shy away from these issues, but face up to them and be able to give the Bible’s answer.  Our leaders must lead the way in asking the questions and clearly standing by their answers to these.