That is the question that Ross Douthat uses to respond to Rob Bell’s query about whether Christians must believe that Ghandi is in hell for being Hindu (probably not the best way of putting it since the eternal destiny of any human, aside from Christ, has not been part of Protestant church dogma).
Here is part of Douthat’s reasoning:
Atheists have license to scoff at damnation, but to believe in God and not in hell is ultimately to disbelieve in the reality of human choices. If there’s no possibility of saying no to paradise then none of our no’s have any real meaning either. They’re like home runs or strikeouts in a children’s game where nobody’s keeping score.
In this sense, a doctrine of universal salvation turns out to be as deterministic as the more strident forms of scientific materialism. Instead of making us prisoners of our glands and genes, it makes us prisoners of God himself. We can check out any time we want, but we can never really leave.
The doctrine of hell, by contrast, assumes that our choices are real, and, indeed, that we are the choices that we make. The miser can become his greed, the murderer can lose himself inside his violence, and their freedom to turn and be forgiven is inseparable from their freedom not to do so.
As Anthony Esolen writes, in the introduction to his translation of Dante’s “Inferno,” the idea of hell is crucial to Western humanism. It’s a way of asserting that “things have meaning” — that earthly life is more than just a series of unimportant events, and that “the use of one man’s free will, at one moment, can mean life or death … salvation or damnation.”
If there’s a modern-day analogue to the “Inferno,” a work of art that illustrates the humanist case for hell, it’s David Chase’s “The Sopranos.” The HBO hit is a portrait of damnation freely chosen: Chase made audiences love Tony Soprano, and then made us watch as the mob boss traveled so deep into iniquity — refusing every opportunity to turn back — that it was hard to imagine him ever coming out. “The Sopranos” never suggested that Tony was beyond forgiveness. But, by the end, it suggested that he was beyond ever genuinely asking for it.
The entire piece is worth reading not only for its explicit point but also to show that as supposedly debased and secular as American society is, it still permits arguments like Douthat’s – at the New York Times no less. Way to go, Ross. Way to go, light of nature.
Old Life 
Darryl, thanks for posting this article. It is one of the better reflections I’ve read in this whole non-sensical debate.
But where does a proper orthodox Protestant response begin? With the Creed perhaps? If Jesus really did descend to hell that means something, no?
And, thanks for your point about the eternal destiny of particular human beings. The big issue is not really hell… it’s heaven. Unless I’ve misunderstood the gospel, contra the popular “light of nature arguments”, I’m not sure Mother Teresa has more claim to being in heaven than Hitler.
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We can check out any time we want, but we can never really leave.
Particularly nice use of Hotel California.
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If the light of nature (per Douthat) and the light of Christ (per Scripture) both find Bell’s arguments wanting, then from where comes Bell? Has he receded into the futility of the Gentiles, a darkened understanding? As a 2K fan these are earnest questions. In pondering a taxonomy of revelation how might we categorize one whose sympathies are against both general and special revelation?
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If you ask me, Tony sealed his fate when he smothered his beloved nephew Christopher, who was trying his imperfect best to disentangle himself.
But this seems like the money quote to me: “Doing away with hell, then, is a natural way for pastors and theologians to make their God seem more humane. The problem is that this move also threatens to make human life less fully human.” This really is the problem for Bellians or all who would that love wins. To indulge the notion that God will overlook the consequences of human behavior is to finally treat the imago Dei like a cartoon character. And the irony is how doing so is actually to make out a deterministic God instead of a sovereign one.
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John, no man’s land.
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John, I’m not sure I understand your question. Revelation doesn’t imply understanding. Indeed, perversion of revelation–both light of nature and scripture–is the norm, is it not?
So of course Bell is engaging in some futility of gentiles, some wolfish twisting of the Shepherd’s words. Take your pick.
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Brian, yes indeed perversion of revelation is the norm. My question was coming with a presupposition that a so-called minister of the gospel has been shepherded away from that norm to a place where he hears both nature’s witness and Christ’s witness. When someone has “once been enlightened” and has tasted “the goodness of the Word” but then drifts away into a place where the light of nature and the light of Christ is no light – my, oh my, how great is the darkness. How far the fall if pagans (no reference to Douthat here) still have enough grace to warm themselves before the light of nature.
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Love to see you getting in on the “Rob Bell” brouhaha, even though it was a complaint against TGC. Anywho …
Anyway, on what basis do we assume that it is “the light of nature” informing Ross or his swimming in a “Christian” West, and wearing goggles forged by said conceptual scheme?
Lastly, gotta love the last line by Ross. You know, the C.S. Lewisian/Arminian view that hell is “locked from the inside,” filled with people that just won’t ask for forgiveness, but could be forgiven if they asked. So it appears Hart thinks “the light of nature” delivers Arminian views on the nature of hell and the damned.
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Paul, consistency is the hobgobblin of worldviews.
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If you’re going to send Mohandas Gandhi to hell, at least extend to him the minimal dignity of spelling his name correctly.
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