Heaven: Why It's Not as Popular as You'd Think

Heaven is a place of singular beauty and unending joy--a home for those souls who have found refuge in Jesus Christ. Although the exact nature of Heaven has been a topic of much conjecture, all orthodox Christians have believed that it is spectacularly good. Logically, this might lead one to believe that those who reside in Hell would regret their rejection of God and eternally desire the passage to Heaven.

I've heard Heaven compared to Noah's ark, which was sealed up by God when the floods started, leaving those who had rejected Noah's warnings to beat hopelessly on the door to get in. Surely there must be belatedly repentant souls beating on the gates of Heaven, hopelessly begging for a pardon, right?

I suggest not.

As bad as Hell is (and, I do believe in Hell), I'm entirely convinced that its residents would rather be there than in Heaven. For them, Heaven would be an even worse Hell. I have come to this conclusion for a couple of reasons. First, my own acceptance of Reformed theology has lead me to ask difficult questions about the harsh reality of God's judgment, and this resolves some of those questions. Secondly, I have been influenced heavily by C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce and Mere Christianity.


Reformed Theology

It took me 10 years of eroding resistance to finally accept the severe doctrines of Reformed (Calvinist) theology. It is not a theology that one accepts due to its warmth. I was compelled by its truth, rather than it is congeniality. (Of course, my allegiance is to biblical truth as best I can grasp it -- not any particular confession. Reformed theology could be falsified for me.) Due to humanity's radical fallenness, no one deserves God's salvation, and no one even desires it. Our wills are so completely corrupted that our desire can only be for self, rather than for God or others. Therefore, the only way to get saved is for God the Holy Spirit to change our wills by the touch of his grace, which is so magnificent as to make it irresistible. It is so good that everyone who encounters it truly and freely wants it; it is not coerced. Because no one can choose God by his own will, God must choose whom he wants. And, apparently, not everyone is chosen. That's the severe part. But, then again, no one deserves it at all.

To many this sounds mean, but the meanness is only superficial. In reality, those who are not elect, do not want to be, because their wills are radically corrupted. They don't want God, and they don't get God. Those whom God does elect do want God, and they get God. In this theological system, everyone gets what his will wants. Why God doesn't pick everyone is something of a mystery, but it is his prerogative to pick whom he wants. God has mercy on whom he has mercy, and we are in no position to talk back to him. (Romans 9:6-21)

From a Reformed perspective, residents of Hell have no love for God due to their own corrupted desires. But this raises another question, what do they do when they get to Hell? Do they not realize what an awful decision they've made and repent? If they repent, is it benevolent of God to make them live with their decision for all of eternity in unquenching and unconsuming fire? Why must God's grace be cut off at physical death? C.S. Lewis provides a possible theological resolution.

The Great Divorce

The Great Divorce

In The Great Divorce, a bus pulls up in Hell and a number of embittered residents of Hell board. Then, the bus seems to rise up out of Hell, eventually arriving in Heaven. (In reality, the bus is only getting larger, and Hell is smaller than a grain of sand in Heaven.) All of the passengers, who appear as translucent ghosts, are told they can get out. They are even told that they can stay if they want. Shockingly, they all find Heaven to be absolutely intolerable. The rays of light hurt them. The grass, which is soft under the feet of the Heaven-ites, pierces their feet like knives. Rain drops threaten to riddle them with holes like bullets. They are not substantial enough to withstand the "realness" of Heaven. The story is a series of interactions that the Hellions have with one another and with the residents of Heaven, and Lewis reveals the psychology of the experience for each character. Each very plausibly decides to return to Hell, because Heaven is misery for them. Why? How could Heaven be so miserable?

The answer to this lies in Mere Christianity in which Lewis constructs a continuum of the human condition. At one end of the continuum, the human nature is purified and virtuous, most like our Lord Jesus Christ. At this end, we become real and solid like the residents of Heaven. At the other end, the human nature has become totally devoid of any virtue and is hellish and evil. The human spirit becomes empty and unsubstantial, a hollow shell of what it originally was. In this present life, each human action moves that person's central being a little to the hellish side or a little to the virtuous side. Lewis urges his reader to seek out and develop a virtuous life now, because only a virtuous soul can immediately enjoy the perfections of Heaven. Even those of us who are in Christ may find Heaven to be a bit uncomfortable at first, until we develop complete virtuosity.

Bringing It All Together

It is this that made it all click for me. Everyone gets what his will want. But, also, if God were to just forcibly remove everyone from Hell and plunk them down in Heaven, in spite of their perverted wills, they would be absolutely miserable. Forcing Heaven upon the hellishly unvirtuous would be worse than Hell. This is precisely why Hell must exist. It is the only alternative to God's perfection for those whose wills have rejected him. Hell is made necessary by its residents.

Love Wins

This is also why I reject Rob Bell's postmortem universalism. In Love Wins, Bell argues that God's love is so overcoming that no one stays in Hell. Hell is a place where people remain only until God's love "wins" and compels them into faith and repentance. Eventually, Hell, like a vacant slum, is destroyed, because no one lives there anymore. This scheme must be rejected on biblical exegetical grounds, for one, but it also assumes that people are capable of repentance while in Hell. There is no logical or theological reason to think that they are. If Lewis is right, Hell is a place where one's nature continues further and further down the hellish continuum, because there is no work of God to sanctify him back the other direction. They don't get better by contrition; they get worse by pride and hatred.

Heaven is not a place that the damned long to inhabit. They may hate Hell, but there is no reason to believe they'd prefer Heaven.