Eternal Punishment

Alfred Farlow

Boston Times

The term punishment, if attached to Deity, should have a meaning differing from that which is current, since its common use is to refer to an affliction which is prompted either by wrath or a mere determination to offset an evil deed with its merited pain. To associate this sort of practice with God, is to belittle His exalted nature and hide His unerring law. As a matter of fact, no God-made condition or law exists without a purpose; and skepticism is born and bred of the attempt to enforce the acceptance of mere dogmas without presenting therewith a rational explanation of their need and intent.

Even a human parent, if civilized, would not inflict pain upon his child as a mere matter of revenge or because he was angry, but his single object should be to correct the child. Much less would the All-wise institute any methods of torture merely because He was provoked to anger, nor would He permit such to exist beyond the lifetime of the erroneous condition which the affliction is calculated to expiate. It is the evil in the individual which is punished or which suffers, and it is irrational to suppose that God would continue the punishment after the evil is destroyed, or would establish a plan of affliction on the supposition that evil is eternal. Pain and discord are never the special visitants of God, but are always directly produced by deviation from the law of rectitude, which must ever govern harmoniously.

A careful study of the New Testament discovers that its authors had a much more scientific sense of punishment than is credited to them by some modern theologians. For example, in Matthew 25, the text, "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment," could have been translated, "And these shall go away into age-abiding correction." The unjust, not being ready for the state of the just, shall endure correction throughout the lifetime of the evil in the individual.

The word punishment, as it occurs in the Scriptures, should be interpreted by a correct knowledge of the Being who punishes; and a scientific knowledge of the nature and attributes of Deity shows that He punishes only to destroy evil and to spare the individual; always in accord with the law, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

Those who are in error are not fit for the kingdom of God; that is, they are not living in recognition of harmonious being; and, as a consequence, they remain in discord. To suppose that God, who is Love, has made provision whereby certain classes are to be forever shut off from further opportunity for improvement, is not Christian, and is not borne out by any teaching of the Bible.

It can be properly said that when "the Son of man cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels;" that is, when the glorified sense of God's sonship appears to the individual, the separation between truth and error, good and bad, begins, and the evil is eternally destroyed, while the good lives on forever. Error overpowered or displaced with error, may revive again, while error overcome with truth, is eternally destroyed, and this constitutes its eternal punishment.

Mortals are struggling for harmonious, substantial, and enduring existence, a state which can come only through the understanding and practice of righteousness; and they will suffer defeat, failure, and discord so long and in exact proportion as they fail to apprehend and deport themselves according to right ways and means. This law never changes; it applies to the life beyond as well as to this present plane of existence; and he who fails to finish his work in this life, will not only have the opportunity but be under the necessity of finishing it in the future, for the Scripture prophecy will be fulfilled, all evil will eventually be abolished, and righteousness alone will abide.

Alfred Farlow.

Boston Times.

A progressive condition of thought is so manifest to-day that the orthodox can attend the Baptist church without having his feelings shocked, and the Christian Scientist hears his own views spoken from pulpits which sneer at his denomination. The end of it all will be what we all desire to see; viz., unity among men, and oneness as regards the belief in things spiritual.

Editorial in Watertown (Mass.) Tribune-Enterprise.

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