Hitler in Heaven: A Game.

Let’s play a game. This isn’t about truth. This is about us. This is about what kind of God we want. Now, immediately, I expect this reaction: “I don’t want any God but the God that exists. What I want doesn’t matter.”

To use the technical theological word here: bullshit. But don’t miss the point.

When we talk about God, we are talking about something that can’t be proved. (That’s why it’s called faith.) We have deep beliefs about who God is and we have very strong convictions about who that God is. And it is surrounded by ideas about what we believe is good and right and true. And if someone else starts describing God and their idea of God is different, we reject those ideas. We don’t want to believe those things because we believe God is different. Whether it is actually true or just speculation, it is what we want to believe.

So the game. Heaven. The afterlife. I have created four scenarios in a thought experiment that hopefully pulls us out of our comfort zone and pushes our ideas of justice, mercy, and God’s love to the limit. And more than asking what kind of God we want, it asks us what kind of person we are. And want to be. Enjoy!

So here are the scenarios:

1. You get to heaven and you see Osama bin Laden and Hitler. You rejoice that God's grace has no bounds and that nobody is beyond redemption. God's love can save even the most evil and cruel individuals.

2. You get to heaven and you search and search, but there is no Osama bin Laden and no Hitler. You rejoice for justice. They did horrible, terrible things on earth and they pay for their crimes with eternal punishment and separation from their creator.

3. You get to heaven and you see Osama bin Laden and Hitler. You become very angry. How could God forgive them so easily of the horrible things they did on earth and their lack of faith? Where is justice for the innocent people they killed? Where is the God that promises to have vengeance for us (Romans 12:19)? Like the other brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, you become angry that God would welcome such horrible souls into heaven with the same people who served God day and night on earth (Luke 15:25-32).

4. You get to heaven and you search and search, but there is no Osama bin Laden and no Hitler. Yet you believe in a mercy so profound that even God's forgiveness certainly can penetrate even the most evil and cruel human souls. You have faith that God's love and mercy can restore all humans, even ones so vile as those two, back to him. Like Abraham did when God planned to destroy Sodom, you beg God to reconcile them back to him and be able to join eternal happiness and communion in heaven (Genesis18:16-33). You know that none are without sin and all deserve death, but the sacrifice of Jesus has reconciled us all to God. If God can overlook my sin, why not theirs?

This is the basic sketch. It becomes even more complex when you don't think about Osama bin Laden and Hitler but think about Gandhi. He was a Hindu. But he was by no means evil. He was good! Is that justice?

Or think about just regular people who try very hard to figure out these very very very complex issues and simply make a decision that might send them to an eternity of punishment. Does that seem just? Do they deserve God's wrath more than Christians who have faith in God but do horrible, terrible things in his name?

Hope you enjoyed.