Thursday, January 26, 2012

THE ABSURDITY OF ETERNAL DAMNATION IN HELL

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excerpted from Christ Triumphant by Thomas Allin:

So long as the popular creed and the Bible are held together, so long must this system of untruth continue. We pray to "our Father," to Whom in the next breath we assign acts towards His own children more cruel than any to which the worst earthly parent would stoop. We thus degrade the Godhead below, FAR BELOW, THE LEVEL OF HUMANITY. What is left for us to worship if the truth be a lie - if love essential be cruelty itself - if God be that, which I dare not write? Nor is this all. Having thus assigned to God acts of infinite cruelty, the popular creed goes on to assure us of His tenderness that never wearies - His love that never fails. What falsehood, what cruel mockery is this, coming from those who really mean, that this unfailing, eternal Love watches to all eternity, callous and unsympathising, the undying evil, the endless agony of its own children.

A merchant who has two contradictory measures is dishonest; but what of the theologian, of whom the same is true, is he less dishonest? It is cruel to torment a cat or a dog for five minutes, but to be callous to all eternity about the endless misery of a wife or a child, is quite right and good. The transient wrongs of a chimney-sweep excite the sincerest pity; but the eternal anguish of the lost human spirit awakes not even a passing gleam of pity in the Blessed. Let a criminal be tortured for an hour by human law, and all the civilized world is roused; but let the same criminal pass to torture without end, and these endless pangs do not disturb for a moment the raptures of the inhabitants of heaven. Vivisection is odious on this earth, but is most just in hell. Is it, then, odious when temporary, and most righteous when endless? e.g., is it most righteous for Eternal Love to vivisect for ever, or at least permit to be vivisected, His own children, in the sight of the Lamb, and the Holy Angels - Rev xiv. 10, (for the true meaning of this passage see p. 278-9.)

That Philanthropists (whom we honor) should be unable to bear the sight of the momentary suffering of the outcast here, while they are prepared to accept heaven's joy unmoved by the endless agony of the outcast hereafter, fills the mind with thoughts, for which amazement is too feeble a term.

The apologies offered for the traditional creed are truly worthy of it. Thus many shelter themselves under the phrase, "God will do His best for every man" I can only suppose such an apology meant, not as an argument, but as an ill-timed piece of pleasantry. For what are the admitted facts? An Almighty Being, Who is, on any possible hypothesis, perfectly free to create or not, yet forces on myriads of hapless children of His own the fatal gift of existence, knowing that in fact this life of theirs will ripen into endless misery and woe. To call this doing His best for them is an abuse of language -- could He do worse for them?

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