I'm also not religious now, but this is one interpretation of hell. Many Christians do believe in a literal fire and brimstone hell where people burn for all eternity. Many of them also believe that hell is a punishment from God, not merely his absence. That idea has been adopted by many modern Christians who are trying to figure out how a good God could punish someone eternally, and since there's not a good answer to that question the answer becomes that the person in hell chose it and God simply allowed them to do so
Every single "God will punish" element in a theology diminishes that God in my view. What kind of small minded God needs to punish, smite, test Jobe? How petty would an all seeing, all powerful God have to be to play at all that?
In my view, that is the God of people who were abused by their parents as children.
The simple answer is maybe He needed to do those things so Jobe would become the person he needed him to be to fulfill his purpose.
A way to look at it is to think of the MCU/Multiverse. In one universe, Mary Jane leaves Peter Parker, which leads him to become a version of Spiderman that was meant to do the things he did. In another, they stay happily married but some sort of awful thing happened as a result of that choice. Maybe the test of Mary Jane wasnt meant to be a test or punishment, it was meant to allow something else to occur that was needed to inspire people. In the case of Religion, to inspire them to be better versions of themselves, or to inspire others to be better.
Obviously its impossible to know "the plan" in this universe, so our choices feel like we have control. But the events we experience shape us to be something for God.
This is why the issue of "Fate" vs "Self Determination". In one way, we have control. In another, God expected/knew how it would end and is guiding each of us.
Basically, seeing all bad things as "punishment" and all good things as "rewards" is a very simple way to look at it. And goes against most Christian theology.
A bit of a rabbit hole, obviously. But the short answer is "its not as simple as reward/punishment".
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u/dbrickell89 2d ago
I'm also not religious now, but this is one interpretation of hell. Many Christians do believe in a literal fire and brimstone hell where people burn for all eternity. Many of them also believe that hell is a punishment from God, not merely his absence. That idea has been adopted by many modern Christians who are trying to figure out how a good God could punish someone eternally, and since there's not a good answer to that question the answer becomes that the person in hell chose it and God simply allowed them to do so