Can A Good Atheist Get Into Heaven?

Or: why I think we focus too much on the afterlife

A few days ago, a friend asked me if I thought a good atheist could get into Heaven. It was a fascinating topic, and so I started to mull on it. Below are my thoughts.

(Note: I won't pretend this is the 'official' Christian answer; and in fact, some of my Christian friends might consider this borderline heresy. This is merely the answer that resonated with my own soul. I offer it in the hope that it may resonate with yours as well).

First, I think this question—can a good atheist get into Heaven—is actually the wrong question. More precisely, I think it's the wrong starting place. As Christians (and perhaps members of other faiths are guilty of this too), I think we can get too fixated on the afterlife. But I've never seen the primary benefit of Christianity as offering a place full of joy and love and peace and connection that I get to go only after I die. I think the primary benefit of a connection with God is a life that has those things in it starting right now.

To put it another way: I don't think eternal life starts when we die. I think it starts the moment we seek and find God. As theologian Jamie Winship puts it in Living Fearless, our eternal life with God begins "not when you're dead" but rather "starting now."

What does this mean? In Paradise Lost, John Milton writes that, "The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n." I think that's what eternal life means. We can absolutely find Heaven and Hell in the afterlife; but we can also find either state right now, in this moment, on earth. Heaven is a state in which we are completely filled with what Paul calls the "fruit of the Spirit": "love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." (Gal 5:22-23, NIV). Hell is the state in which we abjectly lack those fruits.

Or to put it another way: when we are filled with the fruits of the Spirit, we are close to God. When we are full of love and joy and peace and connection, we are tautologically full of God; because that's what God is. That's Heaven, both in the afterlife (where it may be more full and complete than what we can experience on earth) and on earth (where it can still be pretty full and complete, in my neophytic experience). When we are utterly bereft of those fruits, and we are instead full to the brim of fear and guilt and shame: that's Hell. That is the absence of God, an absence that can exist utterly in the afterlife but can still exist very powerfully in our own minds here on earth.

So, to get at the original question, let's ask its inverse: can a Christian end up in Hell—not merely in the afterlife, but also here on earth?

I think the answer to that is very clearly yes. In fact, Jesus says explicitly that some people who claim to follow him are in fact distant from him: "Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’" (Matthew 7:22-23, NIV).

I used to have trouble with this passage. How could Jesus reject those who claimed to follow him? Isn't that callous? But then I remembered all the awful things that Christians have done over the centuries. Many Christians participated in the slave trade, and I agree with Pat Sawyer and Neil Shinvi when they write that "Hell is populated with those who aided and abetted the Middle Passage."

I think the people who crammed other human beings into brutal conditions on slave ships and sold them into chattel slavery in the New World, without ever repenting, didn't just end up in Hell in the afterlife. I think they were in Hell on earth too. I don't think the soul-corroding effects of hearing mothers weeping for their slaughtered babies during the Middle Passage could be alleviated just because the perpetrators went to church every Sunday.

So: Christians can end up in Hell (both on earth and in the afterlife), and I don't think anyone really disputes that. So let's make the thought experiment harder. Can a Christian who spends his life doing nothing but good deeds end up in Hell on earth?

Here, too, I think the answer is yes.

How? Because when it comes to the fruits of the Spirit, I think intention matters more than outcome.

Imagine a Christian, let's call him James. James feels abjectly worthless all of the time. He is ashamed of himself on a soul-deep level. He feels a constant sense of guilt for every sin (real or imagined) that he has ever committed.

Rather than dealing with these feelings at the root level, James tries to address them at the surface level by doing good deeds. If he gives enough money to charity, he thinks, maybe he won't be so worthless. If he volunteers enough nights and weekends tutoring homeless people or making sandwiches for the Sunday bake sale, maybe he won't be as ashamed of himself.

Are James' actions going to bring him the fruits of the Spirit—that is, are they going to bring him Heaven on earth? Tragically, I don't think so. I don't mean that as a moral judgment. It's just a practical consequence of how he lives. He is acting from a place of, "I am deeply worthless and shameful; but maybe if I do enough good things, I won't be worthless and shameful." But I suspect that acting from that place is just going to reify his shame and guilt; because his actions are confirming, in his own mind, the underlying script of "I'm worthless and shameful."

(Now, it's possible that James could break the cycle by using his actions to shatter the underlying lie about his worth i.e. "I can't possibly be worthless, look at all the people I've helped." Let's assume for the sake of argument that he doesn't do this).

James is, in this moment, stuck in Hell on earth. It may not be fair. It may not be just. But I also think it's a consequence of his free will. He is choosing, on a perhaps subconscious level, to reify rather than rebut the lies of his False Self (his fear, guilt, and shame). I think God weeps for James. But so long as James chooses to act and think in a way that puts him in Hell on earth, I think God has enough respect for James' free will to let him do so.

(As an aside, there's a whole deeper discussion to be had about free will and why God allows us to suffer, which I am flatly unqualified to do more than occasionally dip my toe into. Suffice to say for now that suffering exists and that God seems to allow it).

So. If Hell and Heaven can exist on earth, and if accessing the fruits of the Spirit is about intent rather than only about outcomes, then we can start to answer our original question: can a good atheist go to Heaven on earth?

I think the answer is yes.

Imagine a woman, let's call her Susie. Susie loves each of her neighbors with her whole being. One day she bakes a cake for her elderly widow neighbor. She doesn't bake the cake with any desire to be seen doing good or to get a divine reward. She doesn't do it out of a feeling of her own worthlessness and guilt. Instead, she feels a profound and deep love for her elderly neighbor, knows that he's been going through a very hard time since his wife died, and thinks that what would really take away some of his pain and put a smile on his face would be one of her cakes.

So she makes him a cake and delivers it, feeling as she does so her bone-deep love for this man and a pure desire to help him and care for him however she can.

In this, I think Susie is doing God's will and is advancing His kingdom. I do not think He will turn from her as she does this work. In fact, in our hypothetical, I think it's clear that He has *not* turned from her; because in the moments of baking and delivering the cake, she is filled with the fruits of the Spirit.

As Hans Christian Andersen is alleged to have written, "A thoughtful atheist, living in good conscience, himself does not understand how close he is to God. This is because he performs good deeds with no thought of reward…"

To put it another way: I think the atheist who loves her neighbor is closer to God than the Christian who doesn't.

So if atheists can experience the fruits of the Spirit, why do I talk so much about the importance of spiritual formation? Why do I encourage us all to go deeper on our chosen spiritual journeys, if the love and joy and connection and peace of God aren't restricted to those who even consider themselves to be on such a journey?

For one thing, because I think Susie *is* on a spiritual journey, whether she admits it or not. Seeking God is a lot bigger than simply calling Him by name; and some of those who I think are closest to Christ in my own life are those who would not call themselves Christians and who do not go to church.

But for another: I do think spiritual formation is a fairly proven way to go deeper into Heaven on earth, and to spend less time in Hell on earth. I do not think it is the only way. But I've found it to be a pretty good one, in my own life and in the lives of my friends and family members. Susie may in fact be light-years ahead of me in her connection to God; but I know of no better way besides spiritual formation to help me become closer to her (and to God) today than I was yesterday.

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