By Aalstair Tucker

QURAN AND BIBLE CONTRASTS (REVISITED): HOW CAN AN ALL LOVING GOD SEND PEOPLE TO HELL?
1). INTRODUCTION
# PROPOSITION: ALLAH PREDESTINES MEN FOR HELL; YHWH WILLS ALL TO BE SAVED.
When the Quran and Bible are compared so many doctrinal differences, anomalies and contradictions are evident that it’s obvious they cannot be from the same source. Nowhere is this more evident than in how the WILL of God is portrayed towards their creature men and women.
On the one hand the god of Islam is capricious and sadistic; appearing to derive pleasure in causing humanity to stray, purposefully filling Hell with those Jinns and men he predestined to perish. Moreover he gives people no clue and no certainty as to their destiny. Without atonement nor can he exercise mercy except at the expense of justice.
On the other hand, the Biblical God has ONE will and purpose – that NONE SHOULD PERISH, has provided the means that ALL should be saved, and Hell is reserved only for the devil and his fallen angels and those who fully deserve to be there.
The contrast is stark. The following references show there is only one God who respects free will and takes no pleasure in anyone perishing. Above all the Christian God is uniquely able to show mercy AND preserve justice because of atonement.
(My caps for emphasis)
□ THE QURAN
“Whomsoever Allah guides, he is the one who follows the right way; and whomsoever HE CAUSES TO ERR, THESE ARE THE LOSERS.” (Surah 7:178)
“And certainly, WE HAVE CREATED FOR HELL MANY OF THE JINN AND THE MEN; they have hearts, with which they do not understand, and they have eyes, with which they do not see, and they have ears with which they do not hear; they are as cattle, nay, they are in worse errors; these are the heedless ones.” (Surah 7:179)
“And it is not for a soul to believe except by Allah’s permission; and HE CASTS UNCLEANNESS ON THOSE WHO WILL NOT UNDERSTAND.” (Surah 10:100)
“If We had so willed, We could certainly have brought every soul its true guidance: but the Word from Me will come true, “I WILL FILL HELL WITH JINNS AND MEN ALL TOGETHER.” (Surah 32:13)
■ THE BIBLE
“Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” This is the declaration of the Lord God . “Instead, don’t I take pleasure when he turns from his ways and lives?” (Ezekiel 18:23 HCSB)
“Tell them: As I live” — the declaration of the Lord God — “I TAKE NO PLEASURE IN THE DEATH OF THE WICKED, but rather that the wicked person should turn from his way and live. Repent, repent of your evil ways! Why will you die, house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11 HCSB)
“For the Son of Man has come to save the lost. What do you think? If a man has 100 sheep, and one of them goes astray, won’t he leave the 99 on the hillside and go and search for the stray? And if he finds it, I assure you: He rejoices over that sheep more than over the 99 that did not go astray. In the same way, IT IS NOT THE WILL OF YOUR FATHER IN HEAVEN THAT ONE OF THESE LITTLE ONES PERISH.” (Matthew 18:11‭-‬14 HCSB)
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16 KJV)
“[1]. I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men; [2]. For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. [3]. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; [4]. WHO WILL HAVE [NKJV – “DESIRES”; HCSB – “WANTS”] ALL MEN TO BE SAVED, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. [5]. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; [6]. Who gave himself a ransom FOR ALL, to be testified in due time.” (1 Timothy 2:1-6 KJV)
“For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For WHOSOEVER SHALL CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE SAVED.” (Romans 10:12-13 KJV)
“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, NOT WILLING THAT ANY SHOULD PERISH, but that all should come to repentance.” (2. Peter 3:9 KJV)
2). DISCUSSION
The background to this post is a debate on my assertion on another thread under this Post
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10158813519528275&id=726018274
that
(i). God in the Bible is love and His love is unconditional – in contrast to the Islamic god whose love is contingent, conditional and only reciprocating (he does not initiate love).
and
(ii). That God desires that NONE shall perish, where Allah boasts that he makes people to fill hell.
A Muslim has no problem admitting:
“Of course it is unconditional love – it’s not dependent on whether the object of your affection loves you back. Unconditional means I love you with no “ifs, ands or buts.”
It’s a promising start because such a definition is not how Islam’s god expresses love. In Islamic doctrine God only loves those who first love and obey him. His love is conditional, it’s reciprocating and it’s partial. But the bigger problem comes when the Muslim is faced with the consequences of his freely made decision to respond. (As if he/she cannot cope with exercise of free will). A Muslim will dispute the concept as follows:
“because you are saying rejecting the gift [of eternal life through the cross of Jesus] has negative consequences and that’s not unconditional love, that’s blackmail and coercion. To be unconditional love literally means you can accept or reject it without consequences – not “if you reject the gift you are going to a horrible place.”
The problem here with this objection is its stopped being a free gift, something freely given and freely accepted. Because it demands acceptance it’s now an imposition, involving coercion. It’s immediately removed the right of the individual to accept or reject it. God would have to override His making mankind as free moral agents and He would be violating His sovereign justice by such an imposition.
A good place to get to the heart of the philosophical issues as to “how can an all loving God send people to an eternal hell of torture” is this debate between Dr William Lane Craig (WLC) and the atheist Dr Ray Bradley to be found here on the Reasonable Faith website. I urge all readers and apologists of whatever persuasion to read it.
www.reasonablefaith.org/media/debates/can-a-loving-god-send-people-to-hell-the-craig-bradley-debate/
WLC in his conclusions hits the nail on the head when he says:
“This problem of the doctrine of hell isn’t really for most people an intellectual problem at all. And I think that in many of the comments Dr. Bradley just made in that last speech we saw that. It’s an emotional problem. And I think that this is easily proven. How many people do you know who reject God or Christianity because of the question: “How could an all-holy and just God send people to heaven?” As a purely intellectual problem that is every bit as difficult as how an all-loving God could send people to hell. But how many people reject God or Christ because they just can’t figure out how an all-holy, all-just God could permit people to go to heaven? Nobody, right?
I think this shows that the problem is primarily emotional, not intellectual. People just don’t like the idea of a God who might send them to hell, and so they choose not to believe in Him. But that kind of attitude is just suicidal. Imagine you’re standing in the middle of the street, and suddenly a friend on the curb says, “Look out! Here comes a car!” Now what do you do? Do you stand there and close your eyes real tight and say, “anybody who would run over me can’t be a very nice person! If I don’t believe in him, then it won’t affect me! I just won’t believe that he exists!” And then it is too late. A lot of people look at God that way. They think that just because they don’t like the idea of God sending them to hell, if they close their eyes real tight and pretend that He doesn’t exist, then it doesn’t affect them. And that kind of attitude is just fatal.”
What bothers Muslims is they want to have their cake and eat it. More than that they all want to “play God”. They accuse and deny God of being able to become incarnate, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. All Muslims boast of wanting to be able to freely reject the “door of Christ” to heaven and find the door of his own self righteousness. They forget or deny the reason why Christ is the only door in the first place. That an all loving and holy God of perfect justice, who cannot compromise His own nature, NECESSARILY must admit only those washed clean in His sight, whose sins have been paid for and God’s wrath and justice satisfied. Hence why the doctrine of atonement (totally absent in the Quran), is an ever present theme throughout the Bible. As WLC said, God’s perfect justice, His being all loving AND HIS wrath against sin came together and collided on the cross. Christ vanquished sin death and eternal separation from God. In essence LOVE CONQUERED DEATH.
That #FACT alone demolishes the intellectual basis to reject the proposition of an all loving God and eternal hell for those who reject Him, as being mutually incompatible propositions.
Another answer WLC gives in the Q&A session is on point:
“God does it for the greater good, which is to achieve this multitude of persons who come to know and experience His love and forgiveness. And what I’m saying is the fact that some people freely would choose to reject it shouldn’t be allowed to blackmail God into not being free to create a world. They shouldn’t have a veto power over what God wants to do, so long as God gives them sufficient grace to be saved as well. Their loss is the result of their own free will.”
He elaborates in another answer:
“[The theological issue is] whether a divine pardon must be accepted in order to be efficacious. Given my commitment to human freedom of the will, I think that it must. Obviously, God is not constrained by some higher law, but He is constrained by human freedom. Theologians have differed on whether God’s grace is intrinsically efficacious and so irresistible by Him upon whom it is bestowed or whether grace is extrinsically efficacious and so requires the free consent of the creaturely will in order to produce its effect. I take the latter view. God treats us as significant moral agents who make free moral choices. He would violate His own essential justice if He forced a pardon upon us.
By contrast, on the Muslim view God’s omnipotence trumps God’s justice. He can treat human beings, not as significant moral agents whose choices He respects, but as mere puppets to be manipulated by Him, and who’s destiny is predetermined by him. Here again we see the theological superiority of the Christian conception of God to the Muslim understanding.”
Because it is Christ the sinless and not we the sinner who has discharged the sentence for our sins, our redemption is not accomplished unless and until we freely receive God’s pardon. It requires of us repentance, (recognising our need for a pardon which we are powerless to earn for ourselves), and then receiving it. In contrast to the criminal who has been pardoned after fully serving his sentence, we remain in our state of judicial condemnation until we accept the pardon offered us by God. If anyone refuses the pardon offered by God, then Christ’s sacrifice avails him nothing, for he has rejected the satisfaction of God’s justice wrought by Christ. Thus, “those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ” (Romans 5.17).
A Muslim trying to argue that, by not accepting His gift of eternal life means the consequence of eternal hell is effectively “blackmail” and “coercion” in other words “you are free to choose to accept my gift but woe to you if you refuse it”, is effectively refuted by turning the argument around and correctly labelling the detractors as the blackmailers. Why should my acceptance of what a loving God chose to do for me be denied to me because some very selfish people chose not to accept it? Worse still they then have the nerve to complain at the unfair punishment they have brought upon themselves! How can they attack God after what He did to send Jesus to die the death we deserve? Yet that is effectively what all Muslims are trying to do 24/7. They mock and sneer and make excuses and pretend a God of justice can simply forgive without retribution. Muslims make God into an appeaser where there is no retribution or consequences for sin and where mercy can be exercised without any regard for justice. In other words they are recasting God in their image and that is idolatry.
3). CONCLUSIONS
No case has been shown that an all loving God and the doctrine of hell are mutually exclusive, contradictory or incompatible. God foreknew who would choose to accept His gift of eternal life and who would reject it but He desires that none shall perish (unlike the God of Islam who made men to fill hell). God in His infinite wisdom elected to make this world anyway because Jesus was always central to God’s purposes to be our salvation from eternity. (1 Peter 1:18-20; Revelation 13:8)
God knew about Satan and He made the world anyway. He made provision for Satan’s defeat and the termination of his tenure and demise are imminent. Love conquered death on the cross. Satan is defeated. Sadly many people have been blinded by him and don’t recognise his defeat, using another emotional response as an excuse that is the evil and suffering in the world.
God cannot be accused or mocked. No one who finds themselves in hell will have anyone else to blame, and those headed there in anticipation who squeal ‘it’s not fair and God cannot be all loving if He permits people to spend eternity in hell’, have no right of veto over those who make the wise choice and respond in love to our God of love. The Muslim loss, as a result of their being prisoners blinded to the consequences of exercising free will, cannot deny or be allowed to deny the rest of us who did the right thing. The only blackmail is with them not with God.
The bottom line is that God cannot compromise His nature and He cannot act contrary to His nature. Remember God is perfect love, holiness, justice and wrath (against sin and all that dishonours Him). Whether we escape His wrath is entirely up to us individually (and that means it’s not for us to concern ourselves with who goes to hell which is none of our business). Leave that to God knowing His justice is PERFECT. Amen.
God’s wrath is the obverse, converse, or reverse side of his love. Wrath is but love spurned. As Brunner puts it, “the wrath of God under which the idolatrous, sinfully perverted man stands is simply the divine love, which has become a force opposed to him who has turned against God. The wrath of God is the love of God, in the form in which the man who has turned away from God and turned against God, experiences it, as indeed, thanks to the holiness of God, he must and ought to experience it.”
Judgment is according to one’s response to the love of God in Jesus Christ (John 3:16-21, 36). But why is this? It might appear that God’s judgment is no more than the macabre revenge of a jilted suitor. If wrath is nothing more than rejected love, God is open to the following charge: “Why does he get so angry, then, when we just want to be left alone?” But there is more to the story than simply jilted love. We are God’s creatures and owe him our love and obedience. We are sinful people who have been “bought at a price” (l Corinthians 6:20). We are not autonomous beings receiving overtures of love from a neo-Marcionite God who has no more claims upon us than the romantic affections of a stranger. The love that is being spurned is the love of Creator for creature, of the One who has redeemed us at great cost. To reject such love is to turn one’s back upon one’s only hope and to consign oneself to wrath and judgment.
The bottom line is that God loves righteousness because righteousness is the very essence of God. We can NEVER attain that for ourselves.
Don’t be surprised therefore when you discover that having spurned His unconditional love to redeem you at such a heavy price you become the object of His divine wrath.
The worst words anyone can ever hear are these of Jesus who is our Lord and Judge: “away from me I never knew you” for the righteous judgment of a wrathful God is all they have left to receive, and is all they can have any right to expect.