Stuart & Cliffe Knechtle Get Hit Hard With Questions About Hell From Harvard Students

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]If God is all loving, like why does he why do people go to hell and eternally suffer?

[00:00:06]>> Point one, hell is God's great compliment to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of human choice.

[00:00:13]If I choose to live my life separate from God all lifelong, he's not going to grab me by the scruff of the neck and drag me into his presence, which is what heaven is, living in the presence of God. He's not going to force me to do that. And that's why I just love CS Lewis's uh The Great Divorce. People from hell get on a bus, go to heaven, walk around a bit, and they want to come back to hell. Because heaven is living in the presence of God. And if you hate God, if you resent God's authority, you don't want to be at God's presence.

[00:00:43]I'd rather rule in hell than submit to God in heaven. It's that simple.

[00:00:49]>> They will then eternally rot like >> suffer.

[00:00:54]>> Many followers of Christ believe that hell is eternal conscious suffering.

[00:00:57]Many equally committed followers of Christ, especially out of the English school of thinking and reading the scriptures, insist hell is annihilation, suffering and annihilation.

[00:01:09]Okay, so that would be out of Matthew chapter 10. Do not be afraid of the one who can kill the body but not the soul.

[00:01:16]Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

[00:01:21]Seems to point to destruction. I'm not here to solve that theological debate.

[00:01:26]I don't know exactly what hell's going to be. I do know that in Matthew 25, Jesus says, "Hell was prepared for the devil and his demons." In light of the fact that the de devil and his demons are not physical beings, they're spiritual beings. How physical is hell going to be? I do not know.

[00:01:47]Remember, the Bible does not give us a photograph of hell.

[00:01:52]So, I think it's a little dishonest for me to try and give you a photograph.

[00:01:56]I know Jesus used the most horrible language imaginable to describe hell, separation from God. Oh, no, no, Cliff.

[00:02:02]I'm looking forward to going to hell cuz that's where my frat buddies are going to be. We're going to have a cake. No, no, no, no. That means you can party.

[00:02:09]The ability to party is a gift from God.

[00:02:12]And in hell, there's not going to be any partying because I'm going to be separate from all the good gifts that God has given me. in heaven. That's going to be a real party.

[00:02:22]>> You're saying how science doesn't really touch on like the humanity part like the the arts and the like your personality.

[00:02:27]Correct.

[00:02:29]>> There's more to you than a complex chemical rendition.

[00:02:35]There is something that cannot be chemically analyzed.

[00:02:39]Your soul, your conscience, your rational mind.

[00:02:47]Yes, there's obviously chemicals in your brain, but I would argue there's more to you than the chemical analysis, soul, spirit.

[00:02:56]You see, if someone says to me, Cliff, unless you can scientifically prove it, it's not true.

[00:03:02]My comeback is, really, please scientifically prove to me that unless you can scientifically prove something, it's not true. So, the statement, unless you can scientifically prove it, it's not true, is a philosophy. It's not science.

[00:03:14]And obviously I as I examine life disagree with that philosophy because I'm convinced that there are a lot of things like love that go beyond the chemical San Diego State. You can't give me a foot of you can't show me a foot of love. And his wise cra grabbed his crotch.

[00:03:34]He's wrong. The dude is wrong. Do we all get that?

[00:03:40]If you reduce love to a sex drive, you're an animal. That's all. That's pathetic. You're not an animal. You're a human being. Precious human being created in the image of God, which means there's a lot more to you than just the physical. Yes, we have a sex drive, obviously, but that's a gift from God and it's to be used well according to his purpose. So, >> are these things that are more than just physical, they can be explained by God and like your spirit? Is it?

[00:04:09]>> See, if you've never experienced love, someone really sacrificing for you, tell me right now, have you never experienced love in terms of a generosity, a sacrifice? Maybe it was mom, dad, um, friend.

[00:04:26]Have you ever experienced love?

[00:04:27]>> Yes, I have.

[00:04:28]>> Okay. What describes that experience best? No god, all chemicals, or a personal being who creates you in his image? You see, that's why I follow Christ, God, because God is the best explanation for my experience of life. I don't just make this stuff up. I look at my life, analyze my life, and say, you know something, I know love is real.

[00:04:53]What's the best explanation for love, not matter and energy? God, I experience a partite is evil. I experience date rape is evil. I experienced the abuse of an innocent child as evil. Okay. What's the best explanation for my experience of a conscience that convicts me that evil is real?

[00:05:14]>> You can't prove it with science. So, the mo the like the most probable thing must be God.

[00:05:19]>> You just stepped into the trap.

[00:05:22]>> You I heard you say you can't prove it with science. You're absolutely correct.

[00:05:26]>> Not it must be God. It must be a personal being. Love is very personal.

[00:05:32]It must be a rational being.

[00:05:35]Order and design are real.

[00:05:41]It must be a spiritual being because I can't see him. It sounds a lot like God.

[00:05:48]You're right. I just don't say it's all God. No, no, no, no, no. Great point.

[00:05:53]>> Thanks for tripping me up on that one. I like that. I like that. Very good. Thank you so very much.

[00:06:00]>> You guys have been talking about um objective morality earlier. you were talking about how, you know, killing a child is objectively wrong. Uh, and that relates to a question I had about one of your recent conversations with Alex Okconor, uh, where you were discussing Joshua 8 and the destruction of the Canaanite cities to include the destruction and killing of the residents of I. Um, and I was wondering if God in fact defines what's objectively good.

[00:06:28]Uh, why would he command the slaughter of innocent women and children? Um, and I'll preface by saying I'm not really convinced by the argument that like my question is based on the innovations of Judeo-Christian morality. I'm also not convinced by the argument that Jesus came along 1,500 years later and brought redemption to the human race. Um, because, you know, I don't think that would be much consolation to a child burning alive. So, how do you square that with your objective morality? And then I mean in particular the Canaanite cities I think are particularly bad, but there's also, you know, all sorts of stuff in the Bible like uh laws about slavery too.

[00:07:12]>> So if you're going to say that, okay, that moral standard is wrong. Okay.

[00:07:16]Well, what's the correct moral standard then? You you tell me. You don't have an out on this, >> right? We're we're all we're all detectives showing up to the crime scene, and no detective is just going to stand there and say, "Oh, I don't know.

[00:07:26]He's going to get fired." So you and I both have to say what exactly is the right way to treat those in an ancient neareastern culture who are coming after us who are doing child infanticide themselves.

[00:07:43]And we're going to say, "All right, how are we going to handle these people? Are we going to handle them in a way we handle people in the 21st century? Are we going to look at animal suffering in the same way 3,000 years ago as we do today?" because pets versus animals are very different in how they were treated back then. So what's the right way? So I would say your whole lens just to start off is completely culturally relative and you're saying let's define everything by what we view here in 2026 at Harvard University. I think you got to be really careful with that because God carries along a nation and a time period at the time it's it's being carried away. I mean I mean women last night at Brown University were a handful of women were pressing me on why is it just the gospel authors who are men and not women. We got to look at the context look at the time period. I'm not saying that's necessarily right that it's all men but women are talked about very highly. Women got rights because of the Judeo-Christian values. So you got to look that's my second point. You you got to look at the time period. Third point would be so often in those military strongholds you had the men primarily being killed and so you'd have extreme language of they were wiped out women and children but then later on these societies would pop up yet again and so that was that extreme form of language oftentimes fit into many different types of books from that time period. It wasn't just like, hey, let's make this up and make it sound like, you know, the whole illustration of the basketball team, hey, the Knicks destroyed the Boston Celtics last night. Obviously, they didn't kill them. They didn't judge them. No, they destroyed them in the sense of they won by 25 points. All right, so that's the third point. The fourth point would be where do you get the value of human life to begin with?

[00:09:36]You know, if I'm so this gets back to what is the alternative? Alex Okconor does not have an alternative. Alex Okconor when I'm with the train at the train station with him for 15 minutes.

[00:09:45]I'm like, "Okay, so what is it going to take for you to be a Christian?" And he goes, "I have no idea."

[00:09:50]All right, maybe a revelation. I said, "Oh, wow. Cool. Yeah, I kind of want a revelation myself. What does that revelation look like?

[00:09:57]I have no idea." Okay, so you have if you have no idea what a revelation is going to look like and you're asking for a revelation, that's going to make you a Christian. Well, how do you know when one is a revelation? You're never going to know. So, it's just circular. You have no idea. and you're never going to you're never honestly seeking after God if that's going to be your answer. So be careful with Alex Okconor. I like the guy a lot. We're buddies now, but just be careful. The next one would be, and you might not find soulless in this, but I find some level of soloulless. In the Judeo-Christian worldview, babies will be in heaven. That's why you get passages like when David has an adultery, obviously an adulterous relationship with Bath Sheba and they have a kid. You'd be like, maybe that kid's going to hell or maybe it's just over for the kid. But David clearly states, "I will go to you. You will not come to me. So babies are going to be in heaven." Yes, you're wiped out, but you're ushered right to eternity. A pretty good place. And then my last point would be know that when another civilization was conquered at that time period, what you have there in the Old Testament with the Israelites was a lot more humanitarian when it came to especially slavery and other issues than all the surrounding civilizations. So God was moving in a way that was progressive, more progressive than the other civilizations. Now, do I wish that somehow things could be done differently? Well, you could say, "Hey, should he shouldn't have, you know, there shouldn't be any type of command of wiping out women and children, a civilization." It's kind of like if we drop a bomb on Iran, right, and some women and children are swept along in the process of killing some terrorists.

[00:11:46]Do you have a major issue with that?

[00:11:48]>> Yeah.

[00:11:48]>> Okay. You have a major issue with that.

[00:11:50]Okay. Some people would differ in here from you, but maybe a majority would say, "Yeah, we would rather you not drop a bomb, kill 20 terrorists and two children." But that's what occurred in the Old Testament. They were swept up along within the judgment. And that's what happened in ancient neareaster eastern cultures. Now, some commentators would also add, just to let you know, babies and children, children and babies and mothers and women when they were captured were brutally raped and put into slavery. And I mean, their lives were horrific.

[00:12:28]So that'll be the last one where some commentators will state, yeah, I mean that form of justice, even though it sounds crazy because it is judgment, a final type of judgment on earth, it's actually in some ways more humane than what occurred. So I still have questions myself. I don't think when any Christian says this is an easy one, I I think they're being a little disingenuous, but at the same time, I have way more questions for the atheist asking the question than I do for for the Christian. It's kind of like that. It's it's very similar. I think that's the toughest question that made me doubt my faith back in 2014 2015.

[00:13:05]That question right there, but I've worked through it. And for me, when people ask me, Stuart, what's the toughest question you have to handle?

[00:13:12]It's evil and suffering.

[00:13:14]and the command to wipe out a certain people groups. Obviously, not fully wipe them out because they show up later, but that type of judgment in the Old Testament.

[00:13:22]And yet, I have to say that what is the alternative? If I'm going to take this strong stand that it's really my indignation is saying it's really wrong.

[00:13:33]>> All right. Well, give it to me.

[00:13:35]>> Yeah.

[00:13:35]>> What makes it really wrong? And why are you fighting so hard?

[00:13:38]>> Say I actually don't have the obligation to say why it's really wrong. I mean it's an internal critique of Christianity which has objective morality um which I don't believe in myself. Um and if I could push back on some of the details about what you were saying about um you know what went down with the Israelite slaughter of the city of I you said that you know it was like a hostile people that was coming after them. uh you know Yahushua was bringing the Israelite people into or I might have you know mis right >> uh quoted that a little bit but >> not always hostile cuz they're working towards right yeah so it was it was the Israelites who were moving into Canaan >> uh and then you said you know it could have been exaggerated like you know the next got absolutely killed um I believe in Joshua it says that uh all the men of I left the city to go pursue the Israelites They all got ambushed and killed and then the Israelites came and killed whoever was left in the city. And I think Alex Okconor actually uh treaded this ground with you guys before. Uh and you know if all the men have left the city, who's left? It's the women and children. Um but again, I don't think that that's really like the details on this don't matter as much to me. It's more of the fact that like you've been talking about this objective morality like certain there are certain moral facts. Um, and to me it seems like, you know, you either have to say like God was wrong on this one or you have to bite the bullet and say, you know, objectively this slaughter was a good thing.

[00:15:18]>> God is God and he can use forms of judgment at different times when he desires to. Can you have can you have love without justice?

[00:15:26]>> I don't like believe in a like metaphysically definite, you know, uh definition of like love or justice, but you know where >> So what's your definition then?

[00:15:39]>> I think it's all >> Now we're getting into the highly theoretical philosophical realm.

[00:15:42]>> I I guess what bothers me more is you're talking about you know these children are going to go to heaven because they're they're slaughtered >> um and they're innocent. earlier you're talking about how you know or I guess Cliff I think it was you you're talking about how you know everyone no one's born perfect we all have sin um and I doubt that these children had embraced Christ in their lives so you know I just think it to me it's a terrible atrocity so too with like you know all the commandments the detailed commandments about uh slavery in the Old Testament that I actually read in my bar mitzvah portion um a while back >> right that was the big issue during During antibbellum, people were going out, white slave owners and beyond just white slave owners, and they were capturing men and women of color and their kids.

[00:16:31]Okay? Clearly, the Old Testament states that if you were to do so, you were to be put to death.

[00:16:38]That was one of the most important laws that was stated that was fleshed out within the Israel nation that thank heaven eventually was carried over and taken seriously within our nation.

[00:16:51]Unfortunately, what did white slave owners do? They were terrified of the Bible. Terrified. That's why in the slave Bible, they took out 90% of the Old Testament even because they knew if they took the Bible seriously, they would have to abolish slavery. And all of my atheist friends skip over that one. They have no idea that 90% was taken out. Instead, they think, "No, no, they they used the Bible to pacify." And yes, they did use the Bible to pacify.

[00:17:16]Slaves obey your masters. Certainly, and you know, the whole Nat Turner story and the rebellion and diff different interpretations at different times. But no, if you take it contextually and seriously, even the white slave owners knew this is going to lead to liberty for the slaves, and we don't want that.

[00:17:32]So, we're going to take out 90%.

[00:17:34]And so to try and make the case that, oh man, the Bible is so pro-slavery and how horrible, you got to be really careful.

[00:17:45]Why is the miracle of the black church going on?

[00:17:49]If the Bible is so pro-slavery, did all my black friends just get it wrong? Did they just miss the boat? No, I think they got it right contextually.

[00:18:00]>> I mean, I know I' I've studied the Torah. um for a bunch of years. I know there's incredible stories of, you know, love, justice, freedom in Exodus. Uh so I'm familiar with all these stories uh and with belief. Like I was >> Well, you said you don't believe in love and justice.

[00:18:19]>> Yeah. No, I that's I did little air quotes. I don't know if you could stop see >> Yeah. Sorry. But um I guess it it still is confounding to me as to why God would choose to be, you know, a legal incrementalist. Why not just abolish slavery outright back then?

[00:18:36]He did plenty of other extreme acts, you know, in terms of reshaping Israelite society. That seems like a pretty easy that I mean that that probably should have been on the to-do list, right?

[00:18:48]abolish slavery because they're doing it and it's an objectively >> and what would have happened if he just did that?

[00:18:54]>> I mean maybe the Israelites would have disobeyed as they do many times in the in the Bible um and God would have probably come down and punished them or maybe they would have listened hopefully uh and slavery would be abolished.

[00:19:07]>> Dulos was predominantly servant. It was not slave. So this was indentured servitude where people were actually selling themselves into slavery so they wouldn't starve to death. One, two, they were spoils of war so they would automatically go in. And then three, they were just natural enemies.

[00:19:30]But many people sold themselves in. So many people saw slavery as a very good thing in the Old Testament because it wasn't slavery. It was indentured servitude.

[00:19:41]And again, I I don't think the details on this matter too much. I I in my opinion, there are like plenty of terrible things, even if it wasn't equivalent to modern slavery. Um but and I think the the slaughter of the Israelite um cities is even more compelling case, but I think there's plenty of things in the Bible we can point to. And it just the core question of mine is you know God is this objectively moral good being all powerful as well. Why is he condoning that?

[00:20:16]>> But there's judgment throughout the Bible like are you just picking this one? There's tons of judgment throughout the Bible and New Testament.

[00:20:22]>> So you're saying God should not judge ever.

[00:20:25]>> No I'm not saying that. I'm saying I'm saying these particular commandments seem to me morally aborting.

[00:20:32]>> So So who are you to judge that? Who are you to be the judge? The arbiter.

[00:20:36]>> No, I I'm not the I'm cuz I don't believe in objective morality. Right. So this is an >> arbiter right now. You you are you are saying >> well I'm make I'm making the argument.

[00:20:44]Um but it's an internal critique of Christianity which claims to be to have like this objective. I don't think I think my Jewish friends would say the same because they all buy into moral objectivity. So why are you saying it's just internal to Christianity?

[00:20:58]>> You're standing here today saying, you know, all these things are morally objectively bad, killing children, slavery. I think >> thank you so much for coming and for raising this issue. It was privilege talking with you outside and I really respect you and thank you, >> brother. To net this all out, it's real simple. Is God allowed to judge or not?

[00:21:20]And if you allow God to judge, why?

[00:21:23]Because he's the creator. He's the author. He's the one who created us for a purpose, then God judges the Canaanites, the Philistines at the hands of the Jews. And he turns right around. It's not genocide. He judges the Jews at the hands of the Assyrians and the Babylonians. So the Bible is real clear.

[00:21:44]God is a God who judges. I think you're doing a very good job judging about an internal inconsistency.

[00:21:52]I think you have very good facilities of making judgment calls. Here at Harvard, we understand you've got to be able to make a distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice. You got to make judgment calls. And the Bible insists that's because God created us in his image. And he ultimately makes judgment calls very clearly. And then the amazing message of the cross is God took the ultimate judgment, the penalty for sin in his body when he became a man in Christ. And that's why becoming a follower of Christ is so important because God's judgment is real. I deserve God's judgment for for the wrong that I have done. But Christ on the cross pays the penalty, takes upon himself the judgment that we deserve. And yes, he judges in the Old Testament. and he judges Ananas and Safhire in Acts chapter 5. Judgment, as Stuart pointed out, is from Genesis to Revelation.

[00:22:47]>> My girlfriend's agnostic and we were talking a while ago uh and she was, you know, asking me questions like, "How do we know that um Jesus actually resurrected?" And I was able to answer that pretty well actually. And then she asked, "Well, how do we know that Jesus ever existed?"

[00:23:05]>> Yeah.

[00:23:06]>> And I, you know, I kind of asked I I answered her with another question. And I was like, "Well, how do we know that George Washington existed? How do we know that Caesar existed?" And um you know, she answered and she was like, "Yeah, that too." And I was like, >> "Okay." I wasn't really expecting her you to say that. Um and so I I kind of wanted to ask you that and uh see your insight.

[00:23:28]>> Great question. In our culture, people are pressing for, "Oh, you say you believe in Christ, Cliff?

[00:23:34]Do you have absolute certainty?" And the answer is no, I do not.

[00:23:40]Even though I can't have absolute certainty. Can I have reliable knowledge?

[00:23:45]Yes, I can. I can have reliable knowledge. Well, how do you get that, Cliff? I start with what I am highly confident of.

[00:23:54]This hand is real. I am aware of the fact that a guy in green spectacles could have created me in a vat this morning and put all my memories in my head. And as a Columbia student was trying to argue, I understand that theoretically that's possible. Come on, guys. I'm not going to live my life there.

[00:24:12]It's possible that your water there has a chemical in it that's going to turn into poison. So, don't drink the water.

[00:24:19]Of course, it's possible that that could happen. Are you going to do that every time you go to Starbucks? I doubt it.

[00:24:25]No, you you can't live your life that way. So, you start with what you know, and then you ask, "What is the best explanation for what I know?" What's the best best explanation for love, for rational powers, for morality, for consciousness, for this desire to live life after death, to have eternal life. What's the best explanation? What's the best belief system that explains what I observe in my life? Not a god of the gaps. That's not the point. The point is I experience this love, morality, justice, consciousness, hope, desire for life after death. Okay.

[00:25:04]what's the best belief system that explains what I observe and what I experience in life. So, I'd encourage you to pursue that type of thinking with her. I guess it's uh whenever I try to defend like my faith, the Bible makes some really big truth claims. And I and the way I see it is that science also makes a lot of big truth claims, but as it pertains to theory and evidence and things that we've seen and what my a lot of my friends will point to is like anthropology and they can kind of point to things for example like the thing like you mentioned sacrificing and loving other people. They can point to that as you know sacrificing for like for example someone in my tribe. If they have a need that's greater than mine like they're immediately about to die.

[00:25:45]I'm going to sacrifice something for them uh if I can help them survive, right? Because they have more stakes than I do. So, they kind of argue with with that in that sense. And I guess one thing that my me my friend actually he's agnostic and thinking about exploring Christianity. We talk about this a lot.

[00:26:03]Uh one of the things that he says is that over time I guess Christians have started to see more things in the Bible as metaphors rather than literal statements. Um, so for example, like if you rewind back like 2,000 years ago, there were probably a lot more creationists, people who literally believed that, you know, that the earth was young and stuff, but now that we have a lot of more, I guess, evidence uh in science to point towards the otherwise. So is this kind of a natural thing that God intended us to kind of that intended this kind of phenomenon for us to experience him or does this point to something else? Right? Because that's what my friend is kind of arguing.

[00:26:39]>> There is sacrifice within groups. We see that. But what about sacrificing for another group?

[00:26:46]That's actually inherently selfish and you're hurting your own group by sacrificing for another group. And we see in our day-to-day experiences, people are sacrificing for different groups.

[00:26:56]So I would agree with them. Yes, there's sacrifice within certain groups, but as soon as you jump out of your group into another one, why would you sacrifice for them? It doesn't make sense when it comes to the evolutionary process and theory. Second point, no, absolutely not. Do we see all of a sudden a lot of literal ethics, literal stories all of a sudden becoming metaphor over the years? That's just not true. Now you go back to Galileo and you go back to St. Augustine. Sure, the Catholic Church, others, it wasn't just Catholics thought that it was the Earth that was the center of the universe, center of our solar system. Well, okay. So when you get words in the Old Testament like the earth was stilled on its axis when we get in scripture. Okay. When you get that type of metaphorical language within psalms and poetry, you have to give some type of elasticity, some type of space for, oh h maybe the genre there isn't saying that the earth is actually stilled on its axis that it doesn't spin and rotate. That's that's ridiculous, right? They wouldn't have known that for one that it was still or spinning at that time period and two they weren't making these literal statements. And so for a friend to say everybody was creationists, everybody was a young earther. First of all, that's not true. That's a sweeping statement and an assumption. Secondly, even if did people did think, oh, the earth is younger than it is scientifically, well, how does that discount God in any kind of way? God's existence.

[00:28:32]And then lastly, I'd push them on this metaphor piece. Okay? Are they appealing to homosexuality? Are they appealing to what are they appealing to when it's all of a sudden Christians just cherrypick?

[00:28:46]Because many Christians do cherrypick.

[00:28:47]But no, I think there is sound doctrine, sound theology, sound history in scripture that's lasted 2,000 years that has not changed. But even St. Augustine himself said, and I like that he said this, this was years ago, obviously. He said, if we find something scientifically that might contradict scripture, well, we better go back to our interpretation of scripture. and say, "Oh, this could our interpretation be wrong?" So when Neil deGrasse Tyson says, "Oh, you know, so easy for you Christians."

[00:29:18]You just say something out of your magical book and now all of a sudden science comes around and you say, "See, science backs this point or science disproves this point." So it's kind of like what your friends are espousing, that type of thinking. But that's not what Christians do. That's why modern science was built out of Christianity.

[00:29:41]Every single modern scientist of the scientific revolution, they were all Christians.

[00:29:47]So Newton and others, you know, you have books like the Principia Mathematica, okay, that was written not just for scientists or mathematicians. That was written to glorify God. And it's one of the greatest scientific textbooks of all time.

[00:30:02]So, it pushed people to figure out, okay, there's a creator out there.

[00:30:06]There's a creative process. Now, I want to do good science because of it.

[00:30:10]Hey guys, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode. Like and hit that subscribe button in order to join the family. Also want to invite you to our church where we pastor at in New Canaan, Connecticut. It's called Grace Community Church. We are currently meeting at a middle school, Saks Middle School, and we start at 9:30 a.m. Hope to meet you there. See you soon.