Conversational Evangelism: How to Respond to 7 Common Questions From Nonbelieversਨਮੂਨਾ

4. If God is loving, how can there be a hell?

The main truth you want nonbelievers to grasp here is that hell exists because God is loving. To help them understand this truth, ask these questions:

• “If heaven is a place where people worship God, and you do not enjoy doing that now, what kind of God would force you to do that for all eternity? Not a very loving God, right?”
• “Would it not be hell for God to force someone to love and worship Him?”
• “I’m sure you would agree that it would not be very loving for God to make everyone believe in Christ whether they wanted to or not.”

Then you can use a marriage analogy to show that one cannot really force another person to marry him or her, if the other person does not desire to make that commitment. In the same way, God’s love precludes Him from forcing us to act against our will. There are no shotgun weddings in heaven.

To clarify this further, point out that there are some good reasons for the existence of hell. For example, ask:

• “How can you believe in the concept of justice if there was no punishment for wrongdoing?”
• “Do you believe Hitler received in this life all the punishment for his crimes? If not, how will Hitler and people like him be punished for all the evil they have done if there is no hell in the next life?”

If you believe you are making some progress with your friend, you can transition to a presentation of the Gospel. You can say that while the bad news is that because of our rebellion against God there is a separation between us and Him, there is good news for us because the story does not end there. Then wait for your friend to ask for further clarification about this Good News. If you sense he is ready for more, ask, “Would you like to hear more about this Good News that the Bible talks about?”