Nice Guys Go to Hell

All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight

But the Lord weighs the motives. Proverbs 16: 2.

One of the objections to Christianity resides in the fact that a God could send a nice person to Hell, one whose moral behavior may be better than the proverbial hypocritical church goer. It’s asked why should it be that a nice, fatherly like gentleman, who simply doesn’t claim any recourse to the saving power of Jesus, should suffer this anguish and pain of Hell?

The standard answer that is offered  is that God is Great. God who is the God of all perfections: Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient and Everlasting. He is worthy of our worship. He created the Universe. He can judge us; we are his creation. We on the other hand are finite, fallible, feeble, limited in knowledge, prone to error, often selfish, among other things. Even that nice guy down the block. Since he created us he can take us out, you might say. So in some sense He has a right to judge because He is holy and we are not.

All religious traditions characterize the ordinary soul or person as someone under delusion or ignorance or my tradition, Sin. Our will is corrupted and often doesn’t make correct choices or it might be said we are steeped in ignorance, fail to co-operate properly with God’s grace or condemned under God’s Judgment. Other religious traditions consign us to be left to re-experience the cycle or birth and death, an aimless wandering, just for that ignorance and error. Being re-incarnated as a dung beetle is not a happy prospect at all.

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One of the best pair of films I’ve ever seen are the French movie(s) Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring showing that ordinary men can commit great evil. Just after World War 1 in Provence, the South of France, an Uncle and his Nephew conspire to obtain the land of a neighbor, a newly arrived city “slicker”. The land is perfect to grow roses, although the slicker doesn’t know that. They secretly block his well and the man’s farm fails and they get his farm among other things. In the next movie they are seen successfully growing beautiful roses. The nephew by accident happens to catch a glimpse of a young woman dancing completely nude with no reason to think anyone’s watching. This young woman lives in the wild high country tending goats. He becomes inflamed with lust for her and begins to pursue her. She rebuffs him and finds him repulsive; he’s a rustic and physically unattractive. His passion for her and her rejection basically drives him to mental derangement and death. The Uncle subsequently discovers a horrible, tragic truth about the neighbor upon which they propagated the embezzlement. As sinister as all this sounds the uncle and nephew were respected members of the community living largely ordinary lives and this is similar to some of the Nazi criminals. They lived ordinary lives, were good family men and yet committed great crimes. There were millions of nice Germans that supported the Nazi regime. Nice guys are capable of evil.

Now the neighborly gentlemen down the block did no such things. He donated bottles to the Boy Scout bottle drive, paid his taxes and was faithful to his wife among other things. Let’s suppose this person was a good guy then. Why does God have a right to judge him? We know God is God the Great. But if he’s a bully then is he worthy of our worship? I admit it’s a good point.

So let’s look at it from the nice guy’s view point. He’s lived a lawful life. He obeys the traffic laws and sees the car with the Honk If you Love Jesus bumper sticker speed pass him up. At work he’s conscientious not like the Bible believer who likes to show up late and take lots of breaks. If there is no God  worthy of our worship, then nice guy probably shouldn’t go to hell. This nice guy is a likeable guy. So one could draw the conclusion, if God wants to send a likeable guy like him to hell, then maybe God is the problem. Without God there’s no sin and no blame. The nice guy didn’t seem to harm anyone and hadn’t really sinned, at least to speak of. His behavior might be prescribed by social convention and according to social convention he’s not so bad.

Of course truly nice guys are far and few between. Jesus, Christ, had a response to nice guys of his age, the Pharisees. Nice guys in our age are seen to follow the rules. Pharisees followed all the rules and Ancient Jews had a LOT of rules about what to do and don’t. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.” Matt. 23; 27.

So Jesus was concerned with the interior life, the thought life of the individual. And HE called us to an interior holiness.

Modern society is not very interested in the state of anyone’s interior life. Virtually all our activity and effort is geared to economic production with a whole lot of distracting entertainment. A large part of the Modern world view, futility of interior development, comes from the Reformed Protestant movement of the 1500’s. Men like Luther and Calvin advocated a reform of Christianity that viewed the natural state of man as hopeless and utterly depraved. Monkish efforts to build virtue and gain merit in the eyes of God, were wholly futile. Luther characterized us as white washed shit (those are his words), sinful nature covered with saving grace.

 We in Modern society would rarely use such stark language, but would sympathize with the idea that character building exercises are of limited value. Some would say those who try are a bunch of hypocrites anyway. For example if you’re attempting sexual purity, if I can still use those terms, you’re suspected of secretly cheating on your wife or signed up to some pornographic web site on the sly. So it is said that these types of urges can’t really be corralled.

Under the Modern View it would also be said that efforts at ordering, purifying, edifying your interior life are bound to fail. Conclusion drawn is that our ordinary selves with our natural behavior are beyond redemption and beyond reproach for that matter. Even for many modern religious, thought life is not a priority, you simply need the Atoning sacrifice on the Cross, (St. Anselm’s Substitutional Atonement, God kills his Son in your place, if rather crudely put). This is largely among the Protestants. And so there is great suspicion in these religious circles of anything that hints of salvation by works. Yet, it is written, Be holy because I am Holy (I Peter 1: 16). In my Eastern Orthodox religious tradition striving for holiness, the acquisition of the virtues, is a valid part of the cooperation with God’s Grace.

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Another thing about the Nice Guy, what’s his moral framework? Under what rule or principle is the Nice Guy behaving? You might say the Golden Rule, do to others as you would want them do to you. But what compels the Nice Guy to adhere to the Golden Rule?

Or say that the Nice guy should obey any law or principle? Or pay his taxes or remain faithful to his wife. Of course one can counter trying to conform to principle is patently hypocritical, isn’t that’s what those religious folks are doing? But nonetheless if there’s no sin or rules, why be upset if someone lifts the bicycle off your front porch? That person was only doing what benefited him. What rule says we should do things to benefit others? Shouldn’t we do things that benefit us and let others benefit us if they feel so inclined to our benefit? How are we harmed behaving that way?

The next retort becomes what if everyone behaved that way? Then we need law to punish folks who commit crimes but being a clever person I’ll just make sure I don’t get caught taking advantage of people. The retort becomes, wouldn’t we all be better behaving for the good of the community? But will I personally be better? Maybe not. I may never see any tangible benefit for my sacrifice to the community. So once again if I cheat and take advantage, while my neighbor sacrifices and acts to the good of the society, I’ll be ahead of the game.

Then again the Nice Guy might still be observing the Golden Rule even if for no good reason, just because it feels right. He’s obeying his conscience. Only if God is deemed the Deity of All Perfections including an All-Knowing character, who would have infinitely greater Knowledge than us, would sending this man to hell make sense. In other words God in His Infinite Wisdom sends the Nice Guy to a condign punishment; we of limited, finite knowledge simply fail to understand. See Proverbs 16:2 above.

It also could be said:  someone truly Nice will be aware of the authenticity of the God of All Perfections because that is the source of Goodness. So someone who doesn’t recognize such authority can’t be completely holy and free of judgment. Nice Guy’s conscience has rejected God’s Goodness. Thus God’s not angry, simply just.

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So I ask again, what higher rule is the nice guy living under by being nice other than social conventions and those vary from time to time and nation to nation?  The most compelling principle is the one laid down by the Highest Power and not just as a social convention. In attempt to replace God the 20^th Century Social Systems, the authoritarian ones, laid claim to a higher ideal or power, as well. In the Soviet Union it was the construction of the utopian Communist state or in NAZI Germany all things were subjugated to the great Fatherland of the Master Aryan Race.  Millions of innocents fell under their terror.  

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As far as merited or condign punishment in the afterlife, many doubt the existence of Hell, altogether. What is it? What does the Bible say about Hell? It’s described as a fiery furnace where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth or simply put a place of torment. The standard Eastern Orthodox Christian, the Church of the writer, rendering is that this fire is the same righteous fire that the Saints will enjoy but the unredeemed will experience as a torment. Virtually all religious traditions including Buddhism (for example the soul can be reincarnated into a hellish place of torment rather than here in this terrestrial plane among other places) have hells or places of torment. The fundamental revelation about these traditions speaks to a truth that we, humans, are not without guilt or simple mindedness. And we need in some measure salvation or enlightenment to escape the prospect of torments in the afterlife.

Ultimately, the evil that lurks in the hearts of man, that is in our thought life, sends the Nice Guy to hell. See Proverb 16:2 again.  So in my humble opinion, God, the God of all Perfections, rightfully sends the Nice Guy to hell. He compassionately provided a means to avoid such eventuality by offering a way out lest any man perish, through devotion to Jesus, Christ, God incarnate. Incidentally even the Hindu has a similar escape from the destiny of karma which is through bhakti worship, introduced into India during the Moghul period under the Delhi Sultanate (13^th and 14^th Century AD). Bhakti, if you will, is a simple devotion to an Indian God (take your pick but often Vishnu, Shiva or Krishna) largely devoid of the struggle for Karmic works (that is ascetic disciplines) as a means of attaining Moksha, liberation.  

The Hare Krishna devotee, the guys in the orange robes that used to be at the airport, practices a form of Bhakti Hinduism, devoted to …well, Krishna.




Addendum:


The great 3rd Century theologian Origen argued for the eventual redemption of all souls condemned to hell even Satan. The early church chose not incorporate this into accepted doctrine. Nonetheless there are and have been monastics who have held the belief that no one is beyond the reach of God's salvation. I wonder if the damned just don't want to be saved. It's a mystery.