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I think the “justice” of hell is a more appropriate term than a subjective sense of morality. In traditional understanding, hell is an aspect of God's justice. While traditional understandings may not be convincing, even re-articulations like Richard Beck's hold strongly to a sense of God's justice.
- http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2009/1…

Per Beck's articulation, I think calling it “morality” places more responsibility of our own sinful actions on God than us (Hell is something done TO us) rather than understanding the cause/effect relationship in our free will.

Yes, if Hell were real, then God would be immoral.

But the good news is that the God of Jesus, as he originally taught, has no intention of ever hurting anyone, not for a second, much less for eternity.

I've actually written an entire book on this topic–Hell? No! Why You Can Be Certain There's No Such Place As Hell, (for anyone interested, you can get a free ecopy of Did Jesus Believe in Hell?, one of the most compelling chapters in my book at http://www.thereisnohell.com), but allow me to share one of the many points I make in it to explain why.

Jesus most certainly rejected the idea that God wants or needs “justice: “You have heard it said, 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' but I say to you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also,” which is found in Matthew 5:38-39, and then expanded upon in Luke 6:29f, “and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also.” Now, just in case you didn’t know, Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament book of Exodus, Chapter 21 which has God telling Moses to tell the people of Israel that if someone pokes out your eye, then you’re to poke out his. But Jesus says that not what God REALLY wanted, that he didn’t want or need “justice,” or revenge, but instead, to respond to evil with good. Quite the opposite of what the Jews of his day had heard all their lives, this teaching was revolutionary! It carried with it a view of God’s nature that rebuked the “eye for an eye” concept, and the view that God is all about getting back at those who do bad things, that he is compelled by his “just” (or let’s face it, the real word is “vengeful”) nature to hurt people to the same degree they had allegedly sinned. Instead, Jesus’ bold assertion implied God is anything but vengeful and, therefore, he asks that we return good for evil because that’s what God does.

Now, in fairness to Moses and the prophets, a lot of what was in the Old Testament, was a PROGRESSION toward what God really wanted. That's why Jesus had to come, because, while he was getting through to a degree, the Jews had not quite got the whole picture.
We have to bear in mind that BEFORE the Law, things were bad! If someone poked someone's eye out, that other guy or his family or the ruler in that area might poke out the ALL the eyes of the offender, his wife, his slaves, his children and his animals! Well God wasn't happy about all this, but the OT folks weren't quite ready to receive the full message of God! So he took them from WHERE THEY WERE, and tried to elevate them! That's were the “eye for an eye” came in, which was, RELATIVELY SPEAKING, a huge improvement! But if God REALLY was into “getting back at people” he would have simply stopped there!

But Jesus came to FULFILL the message of God. Basically, he was trying to say, “OK, yes, that eye for an eye thing was a step in the right direction, but the real point here is to STOP THE HURTING! So I'm telling you to BREAK THE CYCLE of trying to get back at people. It only leads to more “justice” or vendettas for vendettas for vendettas, back and forth, never ending.

The morality of hell? I don't know. I have felt the need to re-evaluate this doctrine, but haven't yet gotten around to it (I particularly want to read “Four Views of Hell”). But I do think it's weird that many Christians presume: if you don't believe in hell, you're definitely going there!

Jeremy, does justice include morality?

Thanks for your contribution Rick. I agree. We must break the cycle.

That's a strange thought to me Sarah. “If you don't believe in hell, you're definitely going there.” Kind of a backwards logic.

Yes, it totally is backward logic. But that's the feeling I get from mainstream evangelicalism.

The standard evangelical response to this kind of worry about hell's morality tends to be that God's morality is more fair, or something similar, than our own. In short, a critic of the doctrine of hell is told that their sense of justice is un-Godly. But is this right? I'm not sure. I think we've been sold this response to the degree that we're scared to criticise the doctrine. That needs to change if the Church is going to re-examine its ideas. Interesting post, Jonathan!

So what I think I hear you saying is that we don't really know what justice is. Is that right?

Not exactly how I'd put it, but that way of putting it does make me think. Have we ever thought through our concepts of justice, as a Church – especially the justice that many Christians believe is at the heart of substitutionary atonement and similar doctrines? We may need to rethink what we believe is the justice of God. Beginning with reference to the rest of the Bible, perhaps!

Not to be self-serving but that's what I'm trying to do in my book. I think we've completely misunderstood justice in the narrative of Scripture.

Yes, I think we have too, and I think a re-examination of the concept could completely overhaul our understanding of God.

While the word “hell” may appear in our Bibles, it is not referring to a fiery torture chamber. “Hell” is actually a blanket term used for the Hebrew word Sheol and the Greek words Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus. nnHades and Tartarus are underworlds in Greek mythology. Those words replaced “Sheol” when the Hellenists began to influence Jewish language. Gehenna is a trash heap. When Jesus talked about fire, he was reminding the Jews of Ben Hinnom (also known as Gehinnom), which was a detestable place where “pagans” sacrificed their children to an idol named Molech. nnWe read the “eternal hellfire” ideas into the Biblical text because we’ve been trained to do so. I flesh this out a little more on my blog (Jesus Was A Heretic, Too), but friends, hell is a doctrine— not an actual place.