In his popular book "The Reason for God," Tim Keller dedicates an entire chapter to answering the question, "How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?" While this paper is not a report on Keller's book, the same concept will be explored and discussed in the following pages. As a Christian, this is such an important issue to address because in today's culture, there exists a prevalent idea that God's love would not allow Him to justly send people to Hell. Unfortunately, in order to keep from offending masses of people and risking church membership and attendance, the modern church seems to have turned from the truth Paul wrote about in his letter to the Romans and other churches. It has often been said that "instead of shaping our desires to fit reality, modern man tries to control and shape reality to fit our desires"" (Keller). When considering the issue of a loving God sending people to Hell, it is evident that modern man has taken from Scripture only the verses and concepts that fit popular desires and beliefs, and for this reason, the modern church does not actually understand who God is. .
According to Christianity Today journalist Douglas Groothuis, unbelievers from "Epicurus to David Hume to Hitchens have denied that one can rationally believe in a God who is both all-good and all-powerful"" (47). These unbelievers argue that if God were good, "he would want to eliminate evil: if he were all-powerful, he could eliminate evil" (Groothuis 47). Yet, as all men know, evil exists today. So now, Groothuis says that the burden of the Christian apologist is to reconcile the fact of evil and Hell with the reality of God (48).
To explore this important issue, one must first look at the Biblical description of man. According to Scripture, who is man? Then, one must consider man's relation to God; who is God? After a clear description of the relationship between man and God has been presented, it is then necessary to look at Paul's description of Hell.