Is Eternal Torment the Basis of the Work of Christ?
Dr. Enoch Pond, in an article in the Congregationalist against Universalism, takes the long-accepted position on the infinity of sin, and the consequent endless duration of woe to the sinner. He argues that nothing less than this could have induced God to give his Son, or the Son to die, for human redemption. The Independent replies to Dr. Pond in the following manner. There is an approach to the truth in these remarks that shows that the doctrine of eternal torment is losing its hold on the minds of the Christian world. Could they but see that there is no necessary connection between eternal punishment and eternal torment, and that eternal death—not eternally dying and never dying—is the penalty of the divine law, it would bring light where all is now dark, and give relief where there is a longing of heart for relief from the oppressive thought of infinite woe—eternity of sin in the universe of God. “With great respect to Dr. Pond, we wish to record our emphatic dissent from the line of argument here taken. To say that nothing short of the eternal misery of the whole race could have prompted God to send his Son into this world is to say what we have no means of knowing to be true, and what we have many reasons for believing to be untrue. It is entirely conceivable that a calamity somewhat less appalling than this might have moved the Infinite Goodness to interpose in behalf of suffering and sinning men. To arrest the progress of error, to stay the floods of misery, to hasten the deliverance of men from the bondage of sin, might have been a sufficient motive for the work of Christ.” “Suppose that the human race were lying in wickedness and that the work of restoration, if going on at all, were going on very slowly. By the light of nature, by the moral retributions of God’s government, and by the influence of the Spirit which has always visited the race, all men might have been saved from wretchedness and transgression in the infinite ages of the future. But long generations would pass before this result could be secured through these agencies. Now, must we suppose that God, looking down from Heaven upon such a condition of humanity, would be touched with no feeling of compassion, no desire to help these struggling creatures of his hand, no wish to hasten their emancipation from the thralldom of sin? Would he turn away in entire indifference from such a spectacle, giving as the reason of his unwillingness to interpose Dr. Pond’s excuse, that the poor wretches would by-and-by, after some millions of years, escape from their bad condition; and that, therefore, the Sovereign of the worlds was not called upon to do anything for their relief?” “It seems to us that to impute such principles of action to God is greatly to dishonor him. To say that no man can see why Christ should come into the world unless men were in danger of eternal misery is greatly to limit our conception of the Infinite Love. We can see many reasons why he might have come if no such calamity had been impending. There were calamities enough and dire enough under which the race was suffering to have touched the heart of God with pity, even if eternal woe had not been threatened. To have alleviated in some degree these calamities, to have checked but in part the progress of sin, to have shortened the bondage of the slaves of passion and vice, might well have brought the Son of God to earth. If he had known that such a manifestation of the eternal love of God as he might make in the flesh would remove the alienation and fear with which men regard their Maker, and would draw them unto him by a mighty attraction, he would have had an ample reason for his incarnation.” “The assertions of Dr. Pond rest upon the old notion that only an infinite evil, such as the eternity of suffering would be, could require an infinite sacrifice, such as the offering of the Son of God was; but this coarse, commercial calculation is utterly at variance with all right thoughts of God. The Eternal Goodness does not stand chaffering with mortals, determined not to expend his love except for an exact equivalent. He loves them because it is his nature to love them. He saves them because he finds infinite joy in saving them. To say that he would consider the cost of his sacrifice too great a price to pay for their deliverance from a woe which might last millions of years, but would at length terminate, is to assign a bound to his goodness, which no man has any right to do.” “We wish we could say that we do not believe in any punishment that is eternal. We have tried hard to doubt it; but the facts of human nature which stare us in the face summarily dispose of our skepticism. Spiritual death, the obliteration of the faith faculty, the utter paralysis of that part of our nature by which we hold communion with God—this seems to us a phenomenon which cannot be disputed. And, as a man may lose his eyesight and be hopelessly blind, so we believe he may lose his spiritual vision and abide forever in darkness. Spiritual death when it is finished becomes eternal death. The freedom which God has given to men involves the possibility of destruction; and we cannot doubt that the possibility in many cases becomes a fact.” “Nevertheless, we do not believe that the doctrine is essential to every conception of the gospel. Christ might and would have come to save us from our sins if there had been no danger of eternal woe. Hell is not the sole basis of the kingdom of Heaven.”