If God Asks Us to Love Our Enemies, Why Would He Torture His?

What does Jesus ask us to do for our enemies?

Imagine being told to care about someone who has treated you badly. You are asked to resist the wish to hurt them back. Their cruelty does not give you a blank check to be cruel, even when your anger has a clear cause.

Now imagine being told that God will keep his enemies in pain forever, while the same faith that asks you to seek an enemy's good also asks you to praise their endless suffering as perfect justice.

It is reasonable to notice the tension.

In Matthew 5:43–48, Jesus tells his listeners to love their enemies. He points to a Father who gives sun and rain to both good and bad people. In Luke 6:27–36, he connects that call with God's kindness toward people who do wrong. Mercy is part of the example they are asked to follow.

Neither passage settles every question about the afterlife. But both give us a reason to ask what God's love for an enemy means. Why point to God's kindness as our example if God's final purpose for some people is pain with no end?

The question does not require pretending that enemies are harmless; it asks what love seeks for them, even while resisting the harm they cause.

Reflection: When you hear “love your enemies,” what do you think love should seek for them?

Why would the meaning of love change when God is the judge?

A common answer is that God has the right to judge, while we do not have the right to take revenge. There is a real difference between the role of a judge and the role of a person who was hurt.

But having the right to judge does not make every possible sentence fair.

A judge may have the power to take away someone's freedom. That does not give the judge a good reason to cause any amount of pain for any length of time. We still ask what the sentence does, why it fits, and whether it respects the people affected.

Calling a judge perfect raises our hopes for the judgment, but it does not explain the judgment in advance.

If a human ruler kept an enemy in agony without any end, we would ask why. If the answer were simply that the ruler had the power to do it, the moral question would remain. Power explains who can enforce a sentence, but it does not explain why the sentence is good.

Our moral judgments can be mistaken, and we should be willing to question them, too. But that is a reason to examine the argument carefully, rather than accepting endless cruelty before anyone has explained how it expresses love.

A different role can justify different duties. It does not, by itself, turn endless torment into kindness.

Reflection: What makes an action loving besides the identity of the person doing it?

Can love take wrongdoing seriously without causing endless pain?

Suppose someone steals the savings of a person who trusted them. The loss may change that person's whole life, and their anger makes sense. The theft deserves a serious response.

A fair response could require the thief to face the truth, return what they took where possible, and accept limits that prevent more harm. The person who was robbed deserves support and protection without owing the thief trust, contact, forgiveness, or a new relationship.

Seeking the thief's good would not cancel any of those duties. It could mean wanting the thief to stop lying, grasp the harm, and become someone who no longer exploits others. That would require change, not a cheap excuse.

The question is what endless torture adds.

If others are already safe, why must the pain keep going? If the truth has been faced, why would justice require suffering that can never reach an end? If change is possible, why would love have no interest in it?

Some defenders of hell answer that a punishment can be deserved even if it produces no future good. That claim deserves a hearing, but it still needs to explain why the deserved suffering has no limit and how it fits with love for the person who suffers.

We do not have to choose between ignoring victims and endorsing eternal torment, because taking harm seriously still leaves room to question the sentence. Our article Can finite wrongdoing justify infinite punishment? explores that question further.

Reflection: Which consequences protect people or require change? What further purpose would torture without end serve?

What about judgment passages and freely chosen separation?

An honest discussion cannot stop with the passages about mercy. Matthew 25:31–46 describes judgment, condemns failures to care for people in need, and speaks of eternal punishment. Readers who defend an eternal hell have texts they take seriously.

We should read those passages in context. We should also let the teachings about love and mercy remain part of the discussion. The moral tension is something to examine, not something to hide by quoting only one set of verses.

Other readers stress that hell is separation from God, chosen by the person who refuses him, and that account deserves to be described on its own terms. The Catholic Catechism, paragraphs 1033–1035, describes hell as freely chosen separation. It also affirms lasting punishment and identifies separation from God as its chief punishment.

That is more than a claim that God enjoys hurting people. We should not replace it with that caricature.

Still, chosen separation and a fair sentence are not the same claim. Nor are separation, active torture, and suffering that a person cannot escape the same thing. A careful argument should say which claim it means.

If the result is permanent misery, we can still ask how it fits with seeking the person's good. Respect for someone's refusal may explain why love is not forced. It does not, on its own, explain every painful outcome said to follow from that refusal.

The article Can love be freely chosen under threat? examines those questions in more depth. Here the focus stays on what love for an enemy would seek.

Reflection: If someone rejects love, does love become a wish for their suffering—or can it still oppose their harm while seeking their good?

Does loving an enemy depend on being loved back?

It is easy to care for people who are kind to us. The hard part of enemy-love is that it reaches beyond that exchange. It asks whether we can seek good for someone who has not earned our affection or returned our care.

That does not mean we must keep offering closeness to a dangerous person. Distance can protect us. Trust can be lost. A loving response can include a firm refusal to let harm continue.

But refusing closeness is different from wanting someone to remain in agony forever.

When defenders of hell say that a person rejected God, we should ask what that explains. Does it explain a broken relationship? A need for truth and change? Or does it explain why the person's pain must never end?

Those are different questions. Answering the first does not automatically answer the last.

We should also be careful about whom we call God's enemies, since a person who cannot believe a religious claim may be trying hard to be honest. Doubt is not proof of hatred, and we cannot read a person's whole inner life from their religious label.

Even in the harder case of someone who knowingly does harm, the question remains: can love oppose their conduct while still wanting them to become better?

Our argument is that love should not become a wish for endless misery when it is refused. That moral argument does not tell us exactly what happens after death. Readers who want to explore the wider hope of restoration can turn to If God wants everyone saved, why would anyone be in hell forever?.

Reflection: If love ends when it is refused, what makes it love for an enemy?

What can you question without excusing harm?

If you grew up hearing that everyone deserves hell, this question may feel forbidden. You may fear that rejecting the sentence means you no longer care about right and wrong.

You can slow down and separate three claims:

• People can do real wrong.
• Justice can require serious consequences.
• People therefore deserve torture without end.

The third claim needs its own defense, because it does not follow just because the first two are true.

You can tell the truth about harm. You can make amends where you can. You can respect another person's boundaries. You can accept that some losses cannot be repaired. None of that requires agreeing that you, or anyone else, deserve endless torture.

Our position is clear: no one deserves eternal torture, and keeping a person in endless torment cannot express perfect love. Calling that person an enemy does not solve the problem. It makes the call to love enemies harder to explain.

If love asks anything of us in the face of cruelty, surely it asks us to think carefully before praising cruelty as good.

You are allowed to ask the question without silencing your concern for another person in order to take God seriously.

Reflection: Can you hold someone responsible while refusing to call endless cruelty love?

Frequently asked questions

Does loving an enemy mean excusing harm?

You can love an enemy while opposing their wrongdoing, protecting yourself and others, and supporting firm consequences. Love does not require giving a dangerous person access to you or restoring a relationship that is not safe.

Can God judge people without torturing them?

Judgment and torture are different ideas: naming wrongdoing or requiring a person to face its effects does not, by itself, require endless pain. Our moral argument is that taking evil seriously does not make eternal torture just.

Do all Christians understand hell as eternal torture?

Christians disagree about the nature and purpose of hell, so we should not present one account as the only Christian view. Some defend endless conscious punishment; others argue for final death or eventual restoration. Our article What if the traditional doctrine of hell is wrong? introduces those differences.

Keep exploring

• Can love be freely chosen under threat?
• Can finite wrongdoing justify infinite punishment?
• If God wants everyone saved, why would anyone be in hell forever?
• Explore the question library