Hence,
there would be no need of torment.
Further, if unforgiven sin entails a penalty of infinite duration, the
penalty could never be rendered. For infinite duration has no end.
Hence, if the suffering were prolonged through countless aeons, there
would still be countless aeons to come; and when these would have run
their course, we would only be at the portals of eternity. Therefore, as
the supposed penalty involves eternal duration, it is plain that it
never could be rendered. Hence, in all justice, no punishment whatever
need be exacted, for we are as near to the complete rendering of it now,
as we ever can be, if it be of infinite duration. On that showing,
divine justice would never be satisfied.
Again: If justice calls for eternal punishment, how is it that justice
can delay the punishment? But it does delay. Does not such delay reduce
by so much the term of punishment? But somehow justice can wait. Now if
justice can wait for an hour, why not for a day, and why not for a year,
and why not for a thousand years, and why not for ever? On this
principle we fail to see why there need be eternal suffering.
Then there is the idea that nothing that is really good ever perishes.
Scientists and moralists generally agree in this. It is a wholesome
instinct, which commends itself at once to every wholesome mind.
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