We Have to Talk About It

There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than the Doctrine of Hell, 

• if it lay in my power.  
• But it has the full support of Scripture 
• and, specially, of Our Lord's own words; 
• it has always been held by Christendom; 
• and it has the support of reason.

If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it.  

• If the happiness of a creature lies in self-surrender, no one can make that surrender but himself (though many help him to make it) 
• and he may refuse.  

I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully 'All will be saved'.  

• But my reason retorts, 'Without their will, or with it?' 
• If I say 'Without their will', I at once perceive a contradiction; 
• how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? 
• If I say 'with their will', my reason replies 'How if they will not give in?'

The utterances of our Lord Jesus Christ about Hell, 

• like all His sayings, are addressed to the conscience and the will, 
• not to our intellectual curiosity.  
• When they have roused us into action by convincing us of a terrible possibility, 
• they have done, probably all they were intended to do; 
• and if all the world were convinced Christians it would be unnecessary to say a word more on the subject.  

As things are, however, this doctrine is one of the chief grounds on which Christianity is attacked as barbarous, 

• and the goodness of God called into question.  
• We are told that it is a detestable doctrine - and indeed, I too detest it from the bottom of my heart - 
• and I am reminded of the tragedies in human life which have come from believing it.  
• Of the other tragedies which come from not believing it we are told less.

Adapted Excerpt From

The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis