Why Would God Send Anyone to Hell

I find it curious that so many like to pose the question that I as well struggle with at times. the question is: Why would a loving God sent someone to Hell? I wonder though when confronted with this thought and worry, why do so many choose to jeopardize their salvation by rejecting God’s laws and love?

To me, that is the more puzzling and troubling dilemma.  I do get it to a certain extent.  Before my reversion to the Faith, I too was making moral choices and partaking in behaviors that separated me from God.  I used the same “rational” thought process too, how could a God who loved me send me to Hell?  Well, since that reversion, I now wonder how anyone who has tasted the slightest piece of Heaven can ever slide back into a life of sin and darkness.  Why are some of us blessed with Graces that propel us into a life of unity with God, while others seem to revel in lives of sin and decay; and think that they have the better deal.  It truly is a mystery.  It is a mystery that I struggle with because I love so many people who are choosing that for themselves.  So many of us seem to think that the dangers are not real, that the loss of salvation is not possible, no matter what our choices are.  We canonize loved ones that die, with the sin of presumption that all seem to gain Heaven immediately upon death, and then fail to pray for those loved ones.  

We claim the Catholic faith as our own yet proceed to deny and rebuke every single moral teaching of the Church.  We rally for abortion, same sex marriage and cohabitation.  We neglect our Sunday obligations and deny the need for reconciliation and repentance and glory in the vices of gluttony, greed and self-indulgence and actually truly believe we are saved.  There is such a disconnect with so many.  Don’t get me wrong, I am guilty of many of these vices as well. Living a true Christian life is difficult and I would say, almost impossible.  Even with the Graces from the Sacraments I myself struggle with pride, vanity, lust and selfishness.  So, I just don’t understand how anyone stands a chance against these vices without the Sacraments, and how can we deny them.  Why is it so easy for so many of us to fall into this mire of self destruction, and why is it that those falling into this sin and deception are so oblivious to it? How did we fall so far to actually believe evil is holy, and bad is good? How do we get to the point of such hypocrisy that we don’t recognize our own intolerance and hatred, instead of understanding the narrow road of choices that lead to salvation?  How did nice become the measure of goodness, instead of morality and holiness?  Since when did worldly happiness become more important than the joy to be found in the eternal? 

These are the questions that I ponder, when someone brings up the question of Hell. We pride ourselves on our ability to be free and independent, and we value the ability to make the choices that being free and independent allow us to make, yet we then deny and question the consequences that those choices yield. We make bad choices knowingly and rationalize that none of these choices matter because God won’t send anyone to Hell. Well, we are right, God doesn’t send anyone to Hell, we freely choose it ourselves.  We can’t have it both ways, we really cannot have our cake and eat it too. God gives us the dignity and freedom to choose Hell or to choose Him.  Jesus spoke over and over again about the narrow road, and the requirements that must be met for salvation.  Yet, so many continue to deny them.  Our pride is so swollen that we can’t even distinguish good from evil any more and we just continue to slide deeper and deeper into the abyss.  The evidence is everywhere.  Just look at the state of our society.  We have decided for ourselves what is good.  We have left God, the creator of Goodness out of it.  We fail to trust in God and only look to ourselves to satisfy those longings that cannot be sated without God.  It is a desperate and deplorable situation, yet one that we have repeated throughout all of time and history, since the very beginning and dawn of the age.  Will we ever learn?  Probably not, and that is why so many of us will be lost.

So the question isn’t one of God sending anyone anywhere.  The question is, what is it that we are choosing for ourselves. Whether we admit it or deny and rationalize our bad choices and behavior there are consequences, and so the question is, what consequences are we choosing?  It is the only question that matters in this life, yet the one that so many of us are avoiding.  The answer to that question decides where we will spend eternity, and answers that question about being sent to Hell.