Here is a great analogy about the problem of hell as “eternal suffering” from my link above:
Suppose for a moment that a wonderful manMr. Right, if you willoffers a marriage proposal to the woman he loves. “Marry me,” he says, “and I will give you a life like you’ve never dreamed of before. You will be loved with the greatest commitment and passion that any woman has ever known. I will give you the finest house with all of the wonderful things you’ve ever wanted, and you will be happy for the rest of your days!”
Now suppose the woman is very flattered by the proposal, but is uncertain about whether or not she is ready for such a commitment. Asking for a few more days to think it over, Mr. Right answers, “You are welcome to take more time, but it’s only fair that I warn you what will happen if you decline my generous offer. Your only option, other than spending paradise with me, is to be thrown into my underground dungeon, have your eyes gouged from their sockets, and be subjected to unimaginable pain every hour, on the hour, for the rest of your long, miserable life.”
What do you suppose would be going through the young woman’s mind at a time like this? I imagine that would change the way she feels about the man considerably. She might have previously accepted Mr. Right’s proposal because of her love for him, but is there much chance of that now? Surely not. If she takes him seriously, she’ll undoubtedly marry him, but not as much for love as out of genuine terror at the alternative.
Is this God’s way of doing things? Does God want His people to turn to Him out of fear that they will be tortured otherwise? Where is the love in that? If everyone really believed in this doctrine, wouldn’t that properly tarnish their concept of the Savior? I would imagine some might even have a hard time calling Him “Savior” at all. How merciful can it be to create a never-ending torture pit for everyone and then save only a few from it?
God does not threaten, nor does God consign a soul to Hell. The rebellious soul itself insists on going there. As C.S. Lewis said in The Great Divorce, "All who are in hell, choose it."
Another quote from that marvelous little book, which may be his best. Sarah Smith comes down to the entrance to Heaven to meet her husband and try to persuade him to give up his narcissism in order to 'enter into joy'. He is a whinging little passive-aggressive worm who guilted her into misery. He refuses to give up his self-pity and vanishes from the entrance to Heaven - Sarah Smith rises and moves away, apparently unaffected by his damnation. The narrator objects:
And yet and yet said I to my Teacher, even now I am not quite sure. Is it really tolerable that she should be untouched by his misery, even his self-made misery?Would ye rather he still had the power of tormenting her? He did it many a day and many a year in their earthly life.
Well, no. I suppose I dont want that.
What then?
I hardly know, Sir. What some people say on Earth is that the final loss of one soul gives the lie to all the joy of those who are saved.
Ye see it does not.
I feel in a way that it ought to.
That sounds very merciful: but see what lurks behind it.
What?
The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven.
I dont know what I want, Sir.
Son, son, it must be one way or the other. Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it; or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject in themselves. I know it has a grand sound to say yell accept no salvation which leaves even one creature in the dark outside. But watch that sophistry or yell make a Dog in a Manger the tyrant of the universe . . . . Every disease that submits to a cure shall be cured: but we will not call blue yellow to please those that insist on still having jaundice, nor make a midden of the worlds garden for the sake of some who cannot abide the smell of roses.
Is this Gods way of doing things? Does God want His people to turn to Him out of fear that they will be tortured otherwise? Where is the love in that? If everyone really believed in this doctrine, wouldnt that properly tarnish their concept of the Savior? I would imagine some might even have a hard time calling Him Savior at all. How merciful can it be to create a never-ending torture pit for everyone and then save only a few from it?
On the other hand i would think it hard to take any one very serous when they start trying to describe Heaven or hell either one.