WHAT KIND OF A GOD?

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 31, 1878

WHAT KIND OF A GOD?

An exchange which advocates the still somewhat popular view of the eternal conscious suffering of the wicked, in speaking against the doctrine now so widely held that the wicked will be destroyed, says: “We hold destructionism in its essence anti-Christian. It is not in harmony with what we know of the nature of God, the character of the religion of the New Testament, or the aspirations of the human soul.”

Then we are to understand, we suppose, that the keeping of millions of beings in a lake of unquenchable fire, preserved by the direct power of God, to sin and suffer and wail and blaspheme to all eternity, is in harmony with what our exchange knows of the nature of God, the character of the religion of the New Testament, and the aspiration of the human soul!! Where is this nature of God revealed? Where is this character of the religion of the New Testament set forth? And where are some such aspirations of the human soul recorded?

It is reported that when missionaries were sent to Siam, the natives asked them how long God tormented bad men. The reply was, “To all eternity.” “Well,” said they, “our God only torments the worst of men a thousand years; so we will not have your American God in Siam.”

So it seems that the aspirations of those heathens did not extend but a thousand years in this direction. Perhaps in this enlightened land there are some who have so much more noble aspirations that they would be willing to tread this path to all eternity; but we imagine they are not very numerous.