Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors Part 34

-- 2. The Doctrine of Everlasting Punishment, as held by the Orthodox at the Present Time.

What is this doctrine, as it is taught at the present day in all Orthodox churches, and as it stands in all Orthodox creeds? It is, that the moment of death decides, and decides forever, the destiny of man; that those who die impenitent, unbelieving, and unconverted are forever lost, without the possibility of return; that those thus lost are to suffer forever and ever, without end, the most grievous torments in soul and body. These torments consist in banishment from the presence of G.o.d, and positive sufferings, in addition thereto, of an awful kind. Precisely what they are, it is not, perhaps, necessary for an Orthodox man to believe. There is no Orthodox definition which is authoritative on that point; and considerable range, therefore, is allowable. The suffering may be that of literal fire, or it may not. It may be physical suffering, or the pangs of conscience, the absence of love, and the sense of emptiness. On these points there is some liberty of opinion, doubtless. But we presume that it would not be Orthodox to admit a preponderance, in h.e.l.l, of good over evil; or to admit, with Swedenborg, the existence of pleasure there, even though it be only a diabolical and sinful pleasure. The doctrine of Orthodoxy certainly is, that evil predominates over good, and pain over pleasure, in the condition of the d.a.m.ned; so that there existence is a curse, and not a blessing. Especially is hope shut out: there is no hope of return, no possibility of escape, no chance of repentance, even at the end of myriads of years. The man who is condemned to imprisonment for life, in solitary confinement, is in an unfortunate condition; but he has hope,-hope of escape, hope of pardon,-sure hope, at all events, of deliverance, one day, by death, from his condition, and a change to something better, or at least to something different. But, in the Orthodox opinion, there is no such alleviation as this to the sufferings of the future state.

It is usual, we know, for many Orthodox preachers to intensify in description the sufferings of the future state, and to task their imagination for multiplied pictures of horror; and we shall presently give some examples to show how far this is carried. We have no doubt that there are many Orthodox men who are as much shocked by these gross descriptions as those are who deny everlasting punishment. But are they not themselves really responsible for them? Those who admit the principle that G.o.d can torment his children forever, in the other life, for sins committed in this, have accepted the principle, from which _any_ view of the Deity, however shocking, may very legitimately proceed.

But let us, for the present, only a.s.sume that Orthodoxy a.s.serts a preponderance of evil over good in the other world, and that this preponderance is to be continued without end-forever. Let us see what this means.

It means that the suffering to be endured hereafter by each individual soul, as a punishment for sins committed in this world, will infinitely exceed in amount all the suffering borne on the surface of the earth, by its total population, from the creation of Adam to the destruction of the world. Each lost soul will suffer not only more, but infinitely more, than all the acc.u.mulated sufferings of the human race throughout all time. We shudder as we read the account of the sufferings from hydrophobia, or the burning alive of a slave at the South, or the tortures inflicted by the Holy Inquisition, or the horrors of a field of battle, or the cruelties inflicted by savages upon their victims; but all of these, added together, are finite, and the sufferings of a single soul hereafter are infinite.

That is to say, all the pain and evil of this world, resulting from all human sin, through all time, is infinitely small and insignificant when compared with the punishment endured by a single soul hereafter for his share of that sin. And all this is inflicted by G.o.d; and he is a G.o.d of love.

There are some doctrines, the statement of which is their refutation.

This, we think, is one of them.

But it must also be considered, that this doctrine, which throws such darkness over the future, also sends down a rayless night over the present. It refutes every theodicy; it nullifies every solution of evil.

The consolation for the sufferings of this world is, that the fas.h.i.+on of this world pa.s.ses away, and that there is a better world to come. The explanation of the evils of this life is, that they are finite, and that they are, therefore, to be swallowed up and to disappear in an infinite good. The Christian finds relief, in considering the sufferings of this world, by regarding them as the means of a greater ultimate joy; by looking forward to the time when all tears shall be wiped away; and by a firm faith that love is stronger than selfishness, good stronger than evil. But the doctrine of eternal punishment gives us, in the condition of a single lost soul, a greater amount of evil hereafter than all the evil, which is to be thus explained, here; and the myriads of lost souls, each of which is to suffer infinitely more than all the sufferings of the present world, present us with a problem, in the future, so appalling, that the problem of present evil, vast as it is, becomes insignificant by its side.

We are tormented with evil here. We seek a solution of the problem: we find it in the limited, finite, and ancillary nature of evil. But that solution is wholly taken away when we are told that evil is infinite and eternal.

It seems to us impossible to hold the common doctrine on this subject, without having the gospel view of the divine character essentially shaken; it is not possible to regard Him as a being in whom love is the essential attribute. If this is so, as we shall presently undertake to prove, it becomes a matter of vital importance that the doctrine should be disproved and rejected. It is not enough that it should be quietly laid aside: it is due to the truth that it should be distinctly and fully confuted. For this doctrine, if it be false, is deeply dishonorable to G.o.d: it takes away his highest glory; it subst.i.tutes fear of him, in the place of love, in the human heart; it neutralizes the peculiar power of the gospel; it degrades the quality of Christian piety, and poisons religion in its fountain.

The Orthodox doctrine of future punishment is, then, exceedingly simple.

There is to be a judgment in the last day, universal and final. All mankind are to be collected before the judgment seat of Christ, and there to be divided into two cla.s.ses,-one on the right hand, and the other on the left. These are to go upward, to heaven, to be eternally happy; those downward, to h.e.l.l, to be eternally miserable. There are no degrees of suffering; for the torments of h.e.l.l are infinite in degree, as well as everlasting in duration. Usually the suffering is made intensively as well as extensively infinite. Sometimes degrees are allowed in suffering. No allowance is made for ignorance, or want of opportunity; for inherited evil, or evil resulting from force of circ.u.mstances. The purest and best of men, who does not believe the precise Orthodox theory concerning the Trinity, sits in h.e.l.l side by side with Zingis Khan, who murdered in cold blood hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, marking his b.l.o.o.d.y route by pyramids of skulls. The unbaptized child, who goes to h.e.l.l because of the original sin derived from Adam, is exposed to G.o.d's wrath no less than Pope Alexander VI, who outraged every law of G.o.d and man, and who, says Machiavelli, "was followed to the tomb by the holy feet of his three dear companions-Luxury, Simony, and Cruelty."(46)

This is the doctrine which every denomination and sect in Christendom, except the Unitarians and Universalists, maintain as essential to Orthodoxy. It is but a year or two since twenty-one bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church issued a declaration of their belief that this doctrine is maintained, without reserve or qualification, by the Church of England. Only recently an ecclesiastical council of Congregationalists refused the fellows.h.i.+p of the churches to a gentleman elected as its pastor by the Third Congregational Church in Portland, Maine. In the report of the result, the council says that it believes the candidate to be generally sound in his belief, and exemplary in his Christian spirit, and heartily extends to him its Christian sympathy. But it declines to install him as pastor, because it "understands him as saying, that he does not know but there may be another state of probation and offer of salvation, after death, for all to whom Christ is not personally preached; and that, whilst believing in a future retribution, he says that the everlasting punishment of the wicked may be an extinction of the wicked by annihilation." So that a mere doubt on this subject is considered a sufficient reason, by the most advanced and liberal of the whole Orthodox body at the present day, for refusing church fellows.h.i.+p.

The American Tract Society floods the land with loose leaves, all appealing to the fear of an eternal h.e.l.l. We have one before us now, called "Are you insured?" which represents Christianity as a contrivance for escaping from everlasting torment, as a spiritual insurance office, where one must "take out a policy," and so escape everlasting fire.(47)

There is no theological journal, bearing the Orthodox name, which is more rational and liberal than the "New York Independent." But in its issue of January 5, 1860, it speaks of future endless misery thus, saying that there is a "vast amount and weight of evidence to the point-evidence enough to prove it, if provable; all nature, all law, all revelation uttering the doctrine, so that it is an amazing stretch and energy of unbelief not to believe it, implying a moral state and position that will not believe it on any testimony, however clearly and unqualifiedly, even to the exhaustion of the capabilities of language, G.o.d himself may declare and affirm it."

There is evidently an energetic attempt made in some quarters to revive the decaying belief in the doctrine of everlasting punishment in the future state, as a penalty for the sins of this. Dr. Thompson, of New York, has published a work to this end, called "Love and Penalty." Dr. J.

P. Thompson, the author of this book, is considered the leader of New Haven theology-the Elisha on whose shoulders the mantle of Dr. Taylor, of New Haven, has fallen. Dr. Nehemiah Adams, of Boston, has labored in the same field, exerting himself to prove this doctrine in various tracts and other works. Professor Hovey, of the Baptist Seminary of Newton, has published a little book on the same subject.

It is probably thought dangerous by these gentlemen to relax at all the terrors of futurity. And, no doubt, if all those who have been restrained from evil by fear of eternal punishment were to lose that belief suddenly, the consequences, at first, would be sometimes bad. If you have exerted your whole force in producing fear of h.e.l.l, instead of fear of sin, then, the terror of h.e.l.l being taken away, men might rush at first into license.

But the dread of a future h.e.l.l is by no means so efficacious a motive as is often thought. We become hardened to everything, and neither the clergyman nor his parish eat any less heartily of their Sunday dinner, nor sleep any less soundly on Sunday night, in consequence of the terrible descriptions of eternal torments contained in the morning's sermon.(48)

-- 3. Apparent Contradictions, both in Scripture and Reason, in Regard to this Doctrine.

Beside the practical motive for maintaining this doctrine, which we have intimated, there are also scriptural and philosophical reasons. Scripture and reason both do, in fact, seem to teach opposite doctrines on this subject. There are pa.s.sages in the New Testament which appear to teach never-ending suffering, and others which appear to teach a final, universal restoration. It is written, "These shall go away into eternal punishment;" but it is also written, that Christ "shall reign till all things are subdued unto him;" when "the Son also himself shall be subject to Him who did put all things under him, that G.o.d may be all in all." As the same word is used to express the way in which all enemies are to be subject to Christ, and the way in which Christ himself is to be subject to G.o.d, it follows that the enemies, when subjected, shall be friends. It is said that the wicked shall be punished "with everlasting destruction from the presence of G.o.d;" but it is also said that "in the dispensation of the fulness of times, G.o.d will gather in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and on earth;" and "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven, in earth, and under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of G.o.d the Father." It is said of the wicked, that "their worm never dies, and their fire is not quenched;" but it is also said that "it pleased the Father, having made peace through the blood of the cross, by Christ to reconcile all things unto himself, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven." So that Scripture, at first sight, seems to teach both eternal punishment and universal restoration.

There is a similar contradiction on this subject, if considered in the light of pure reason. When looked at from the divine attributes, the unavoidable conclusion seems to be, that all men must be finally saved.

For G.o.d is infinitely benevolent, and therefore must wish to save all; is infinitely wise, and therefore must know how to save all; is infinitely powerful, and therefore must be able to overcome all difficulties in the way of saving all: hence all must be saved. But, on the other hand, when we consider the subject from the position of man's nature, an opposite conclusion seems to follow. For man, being free, is able to choose either evil or good at any moment; and, as long as he continues to be essentially man, he must retain this freedom; and therefore, at any period of his future existence, however remote, he may prefer evil to good-that is, may prefer h.e.l.l to heaven. But G.o.d will not compel him to be good against his will (for unwilling goodness is not goodness); and therefore it follows that there is no point of time in the infinite future of which we can certainly say that then all men will be saved.

Of course these seeming contradictions of Scripture and antinomies of reason are not real contradictions. G.o.d does not contradict himself either in revelation or in reason. Whether we can reconcile such antagonisms _now_, or not, we know that they will be reconciled. Meantime, it is our duty to disbelieve whatever is dishonorable to G.o.d, or opposed to the character ascribed to him by Jesus Christ. Christ has taught us to regard G.o.d as our Father. It is our duty to refuse credence to any doctrine concerning him which is plainly opposed to this character. If I have formed my opinion of my friend's character from a large experience, I ought to refuse to believe, even on good evidence, anything opposed to it.

What is faith in man, or in G.o.d, good for, that is unable to resist evil reports concerning them? If I am told that my friend has become a thief or a swindler, and he who tells me says, "I know that it is so-here is the evidence," I reply, "I do not care for your evidence. I know that it is impossible." So, if all the churches in the world, Catholic and Protestant, tell me that Jesus teaches everlasting punishment inflicted by G.o.d for the sins of this life, and produce chapter and verse in support of their statement, I reply, "If I have learned anything about G.o.d from the teachings of Jesus, it is that your a.s.sertion is impossible. About the meaning of these pa.s.sages you may be mistaken, for the letter killeth; but I cannot be mistaken in regard to the fatherly character of the Almighty."

These contradictions we shall consider in a paper printed in the Appendix (an examination of Dr. Neheimiah Adams's tract on the "Reasonableness of Everlasting Punishment"). At present we will only say that we should hold it less dishonorable to G.o.d to deny his existence than to believe this doctrine concerning him. We think that in the last day it will appear that the atheist has done less to dishonor the name of G.o.d than those who persistently teach this view. For what says Lord Bacon? (Essays, XVII. Of Superst.i.tion.) "It were better to have no opinion of G.o.d at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superst.i.tion is the reproach of the Deity.

Plutarch saith well to that purpose. 'Surely,' saith he, 'I had rather a great deal men should say there were no such man at all as Plutarch, than that they should say there was one Plutarch that would eat his children as soon as they were born,' as the poets speak of Saturn. And as the contumely is greater towards G.o.d, so is the danger greater towards men."

The doctrine of everlasting punishment, being essentially a heathen and not a Christian doctrine, cannot do any Christian good to any one. It is the want of faith in the Church which makes it afraid of giving it up. The Christian Church has not faith enough to believe in the power of truth and love. It still thinks that men must be frightened into goodness, or driven into it. Fear is a becoming and useful motive no less than hope; but fear of what? Not fear of G.o.d; but fear of sin, fear of ourselves, fear of temptation. To be afraid of G.o.d never did any one any good. These doctrines drive men away from G.o.d; or, if they drive them _to_ G.o.d, drive them as slaves, as sycophants, as servants, not as sons. We are saved by becoming _the sons of G.o.d_; but you cannot drive a man into sons.h.i.+p by terror. You may make him profess religion, and go through ceremonies, and have an outward form of service; but you cannot make him love G.o.d by means of fear.

But good men teach these things, no doubt. Men far better than most of us believe them and teach them. It always has been so. The best men have always been the chief supporters of bad doctrines. A good man, humble and modest, is apt to shrink from doubting or opposing what the Church has taught. He accepts it, and teaches it too. When G.o.d wants a reformer, he does not take one of these good, modest, humble men. He does not take a saint. He takes a man who has ever so much will, a little obstinacy, and a great love of fighting; and he makes the wrath of such a man to serve him.

Neither St. Teresa nor Fenelon could have reformed the Catholic Church. It took rough old Martin Luther and hard-hearted John Calvin to do it. The first Universalists, the Abolitionists, all reformers, are necessarily men of that sort. They are rude debaters, not standing on ceremony or politeness. They are hard-headed logicians, going straight to their point, careless of elegances and proprieties. They are G.o.d's pioneers, rough backwoodsmen, hewing their way with the axe through the wilderness. After them shall come the peaceful farmer, with plough and spade, to turn the land into wheat fields, orchards, and gardens.

-- 4. Everlasting Punishment limits the Sovereignty of G.o.d.

It is certain that the doctrine of eternal punishment, in the common form, can only be maintained by giving up some of the infinite attributes of the Almighty. If punishment is to exist without end; if h.e.l.l is always to co-exist with heaven; if certain beings are to be continued forever in existence merely as sinful sufferers,-then, it is clear, G.o.d is not omnipotent. He shares his throne forever with Satan. Satan and G.o.d divide between them the universe. G.o.d reigns in heaven, Satan in h.e.l.l. G.o.d desires that all shall be saved; but this desire is absolutely and forever defeated by a fate greater than Deity. Law divorced from love-that is, nature in its old Pagan aspect-is higher than G.o.d. G.o.d is not the Almighty to any one who really believes eternal punishment. G.o.d is not the Sovereign of the universe, but only of a part of it. The doctrine of eternal punishment, in its common form, does, therefore, virtually dethrone G.o.d.(49)

It is, in fact, impossible to conceive of an eternal h.e.l.l co-existing with an eternal heaven, without also seeing that it limits eternally the divine Omnipotence; for the omnipotence of G.o.d is in carrying out his will to have all men saved by becoming holy. Unless G.o.d's laws are obeyed, G.o.d is not obeyed; and he is not sovereign if not obeyed. h.e.l.l is a condition of things hostile to G.o.d's will: it is a permanent and successful rebellion of a part of the universe. It is no answer to say, that it is shut up, and restrained, and made to suffer; for it is _not_ conquered. G.o.d has conquered sin only when he has reduced it to obedience. h.e.l.l is no more subject to G.o.d than the Confederate States, during the rebellion, were subject to the United States government. They were shut up by a blockade; they were restrained by great armies and navies; they were made to suffer; but they were _not_ reduced to submission and obedience.

Nor is it any answer to say, that the existence of sin and suffering hereafter no more limits G.o.d's omnipotence than their existence here and now limits his omnipotence. For the question is of ETERNAL suffering.

Temporal suffering hereafter, we grant, is no objection to the divine Omnipotence. Limited and finite evil, in this world or the other, is no philosophical difficulty; and for this reason-that finite evil, when compared with infinite good, becomes logically and mathematically _no_ evil. The finite disappears in relation to the infinite. All the sufferings and sins of earth, through all ages, are strictly nothing when viewed in the light of the eternal joy and holiness which are to result from them. This is a postulate of pure reason. Make evil finite, and good infinite,-make evil temporal, and good eternal,-and evil ceases to be anything. But make evil eternal, as is done by this doctrine, and then we have Manicheism-an infinite dualism-on the throne of the universe.

-- 5. Everlasting Punishment contradicts the Fatherly Love of G.o.d.

This doctrine is a relapse on Paganism, and derived from it. It has nothing to do with Christianity, except to corrupt it. No man was ever made better by believing it: mult.i.tudes have been made worse. It attributes to our heavenly Father conduct that, if done by the worst of men, would add a shade of increased wickedness to their character. It a.s.sumes that G.o.d has made intelligent creatures with the intention of tormenting some of them forever. It a.s.sumes that those who are thus created, exposed to this awful risk, are to be thus tormented, unless they happen to pa.s.s through what is called an Orthodox conversion in this short earthly life. G.o.d keeps them alive forever in order to torture them forever.

The barbarity of this opinion exceeds all power of language to express. We are accustomed to mourn over the anguish and misery that are in this world. The problem of earthly evil has been a burden and anxiety to good men in all times, a great question for thinkers in all ages. The only satisfactory solution is, that it is temporary and educational; that it is to pa.s.s away, and, in pa.s.sing, to create a higher joy and goodness than could otherwise have come. But the doctrine of everlasting punishment not only annuls this explanation, and makes it impossible to explain earthly evil, but adds to it a tenfold greater mystery. The fatherly character of G.o.d disappears in Pagan darkness, in view of this horrid doctrine; for the everlasting suffering of one human being contains in itself more evil than the acc.u.mulated sufferings of all mankind from the creation of the world to the end of it. Add together all the sicknesses, bereavements, disappointments, of all mankind; all the wars, famines, pestilences, that have tormented humanity; add to these all the mental and moral pangs produced by selfishness and sin in all ages, and all that are to be to the end of time,-and these all combined are logically and mathematically _nothing_, compared with the sufferings of one human being destined to be everlastingly punished. For all temporal sufferings added together are finite; but this is infinite.

Now, the being who could inflict such torture as this is _not_ the G.o.d and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There may be some deity of cruelty, some incarnation of wrath and despotism, in the Hindoo Pantheon, capable of such terrific wickedness. It is no answer to say that G.o.d inflicts suffering now in this world, and therefore he may inflict everlasting suffering in the other; for those are all finite; that is infinite.

_Finite_ suffering may result in greater good, may be an education to good; but _everlasting_ suffering cannot. The finite and infinite cannot be compared together. There is no a.n.a.logy between them.

The G.o.d of the New Testament is our Father. If he inflicts suffering, it is for our good; "not for his pleasure, but for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness." All earthly suffering finds this solution, and accords with the fatherly character of G.o.d in this point of view. Much, no doubt, cannot be now fully understood. We do not _see how_ it tends to good; but all suffering _that ends_ MAY end in good. Suffering that does not end CANNOT end in good.

If human beings are everlastingly punished, it must either be that they go on sinning forever, and cannot repent, lose all power of repentance, and so cease to be moral agents, or else that they retain the power of repenting, and therefore _may_ repent. In the first case, G.o.d continues to punish forever those who have ceased to sin, because their freedom and moral power have ceased; or else he punishes forever those who have repented, and _so_ ceased sinning. In either case, G.o.d must punish everlastingly those who have ceased to be sinners; which is incredible.

If G.o.d is a Father, he is at least _as good_ as the best earthly father.

Now, what father or mother would ever consent to place a child in a situation where there was even a chance of its running such an awful risk?

G.o.d has _created_ us with these liabilities to sin; he has (according to Orthodoxy) chosen and determined that we shall be born wholly p.r.o.ne to evil, and sure to fall into eternal and unending ruin, unless he saves us by a special act of grace. "What man among you, being a father," would do so? Custom dulls our sense to these horrors. Let us therefore imagine a case far less terrible. Suppose that a number of parents should establish a school, to which to send their children. Suppose they should arrange a code of laws for the school of such a stringent character that all the children are sure to break it. Under the school are vaults containing instruments of torture. For each offence against the laws of the school (offences which the children cannot fail to commit) they are to be punished by imprisonment for life in these cells, with daily torture, from racks, thumb-screws, and the like. A few of them are to be selected from the rest, not for any merit of their own, but by an arbitrary decree of the parents, and are to be rewarded (not for their superior good conduct, but according to the caprice of the parents) with every luxury and privilege. Among these privileges is included that of taking a daily walk through the cells, and witnessing the horrible sufferings of their brothers and companions, and hearing their shrieks of anguish, and praising the JUSTICE of their parents in thus punis.h.i.+ng some and rewarding the rest.

But this, you may say, is not a parallel case. No, we grant it is not, for what are these torments to that of a never-ending futurity? They are all as nothing. Therefore every such comparison must utterly fail of doing justice to the diabolic cruelty ascribed to the Almighty by this Orthodox doctrine.

"But what right," says the Orthodox defender of this doctrine, "have we to reason in this way concerning the divine proceedings, by the a.n.a.logy of earthly parents? What right have we to compare G.o.d's doings with those of a human father?" _No_ right, perhaps, as philosophers; but as Christians we have not only the right to do it, but it is our duty to do so. Jesus has himself taught us to use this a.n.a.logy, in order to acquire confidence in G.o.d's ways, and to a.s.sure ourselves that G.o.d cannot fail of acting as we should expect a good and wise earthly parent to act. "What man is there of _you_, whom, if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If _ye_ then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him?" (Matt.