Endless or Temporary Punishment? Dealing with Potential Confusion over Section 19 in the Doctrine and Covenants
by Jeff Lindsay
For
many of us Latter-day Saints, Section
19 of the Doctrine and Covenants
is viewed as a beautiful passage of Mormon scripture that deepens our
appreciation of God’s mercy and grace. But for some, it’s
a stumbling block, one that has raised serious doubts about God, or
at least “the God of Mormonism.”
I
wish to address the problematic side of Section 19 in hopes of
helping some who struggle with it.
This
section discusses repentance and the danger of punishment, even hell,
for those who do not accept the grace made possible by the Atonement
of Jesus Christ on conditions of repentance. However, we learn that
hell, though an eternal and endless institution in God’s
eternal and endless work is not endured endlessly for those who are
sent there.
4 And surely every man must repent or suffer, for I, God, am endless.
5 Wherefore, I revoke not the judgments which I shall pass, but woes
shall go forth, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, yea, to those
who are found on my left hand.
6 Nevertheless, it is not written that there shall be no end to this
torment, but it is written endless torment.
7 Again, it is written eternal damnation; wherefore it is more
express than other scriptures, that it might work upon the hearts of
the children of men, altogether for my name’s glory….
10 For, behold, the mystery of godliness, how great is it! For, behold,
I am endless, and the punishment which is given from my hand is
endless punishment, for Endless is my name. Wherefore–
11 Eternal punishment is God’s punishment.
12 Endless punishment is God’s punishment.
Many
Christians over the centuries have struggled with the concept of hell
and wondered why God would create endless torment for those who
didn’t find their way to Christianity. Part of the problem
is the injustice of condemning millions who simply had no chance to
learn of Christ and become baptized Christians.
That
problem, of course, is elegantly and beautifully resolved in the
restored Gospel of Jesus Christ when one understands the divine
concept of baptism
for the dead
and the preaching of the Gospel to the dead so that all will have a
fair chance to hear and accept the Gospel of Christ. But another part
of the problem is this: Why endless torment for those who sin?
Mercifully,
we learn in Section 19 that suffering of hell is temporary. It is an
endless and eternal institution, but one’s passage through hell
is temporary.
As
I understand it, it lasts long enough for one to fully pay for one’s
sins, but then, as we read in Section 76, even those who sinned and
refused to repent will be released from hell and enter into a decent
place, though still cut off from the full glory of God that is
reserved for those who loved Him and accepted the grace offered
through the covenants of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
While
some of us Latter-day Saints read Section 19 and want to rejoice over
the mercy shown even toward those deserving of hell, others are
troubled by the tactic God has taken. By using words like endless
and eternal to describe a temporary hell, isn’t God
deliberately deceptive? Doesn’t He admit to playing deceptive
mind games in saying “it is written eternal damnation ... that
it might work upon the hearts of the children of men”?
If
our God isn’t an honest God, can we really trust Him? Does He
even exist?
The
questions are fair and worth discussing. Unfortunately, this line of
reasoning led one acquaintance of mine out of the Church —
apparently being the “last straw” or the final catalyst
for abandoning faith. I’m writing this post today for her and
anyone else struggling with God’s integrity due to this issue.
I will share some thoughts that I hope will help, though may not
change anyone’s mind.
The
points I wish to make are that 1) the technical gaps in the basic
warnings about eternal torment or endless hellfire may be an
appropriate way for a loving parent to simplify complex teachings
into a simple message that rebellious kids can grasp (e.g., the pains
of hell are very bad, and yes, there are eternal consequences to
sin), and 2) long before Section 19 was given, the scriptures already
contained hints that the “eternal torment” of hell could
be experienced temporarily, as Section 19 indicates.
Parents
and Simplified Messaging
When
I read Section 19, I do not experience the sense of deliberate
deception and lack of integrity from God. I experience the sense of a
parent trying to teach rebellious children. Yes, the words used lack
technical detail, just as many instructions from a parent are
incomplete and even technically inadequate, while adapted for the
good of the child.
A
big part of parenting is teaching complex things in simple ways. To
lead children to the right behaviors and right conclusions, giving
the full technical explanation with all the exceptions, theory,
qualifiers, and so on, is often inadequate.
What
may be complex often has to be boiled down to a simple concept when
people aren’t ready to explore and understand to
understand the full details and all the nuances. The simplified,
incomplete guidance parents give to young children on topics ranging
from safety, diet, and human reproduction is not because parents are
inherently deceptive, but because they love their children and are
trying to teach them what they can digest in ways that will help
them.
The
oversimplified explanations may be rife with technical gaps that
anyone with an advanced degree could point out. God is a heavenly
parent teaching often rebellious kids with highly limited
comprehension.
Mercifully,
at the most basic level, the complex story of the various stages of
judgment, punishment, paradise vs. spirit prison, resurrection, and
other concepts, becomes something like this: "Don’t mess
with sin, and don't stay trapped in sin, because the consequences are
very bad and very painful. The consequences are eternal. Forever. You
really, really, really don't want to go to hell!”
Yes,
the consequences are eternal, for being locked out of God's presence
and all that joy is eternal. OK, the direct suffering to pay for
one’s sins in hell does not last forever, but being out of
God’s presence does, and though that is not hellfire, it is
tragic.
Technically
the intense suffering in the darkness of hell is only temporary,
mercifully, and then we live eternally in fairly cool kingdoms that,
however, are away from God’s presence, which means eternal loss
and separation. Not endlessly in hellfire, but endlessly apart, and
even a brief touch of hell is eternal enough if we knew what it was
like.
Given
all that, it makes sense that God, the merciful parent faced,
condenses the message for us slow learners to inform and motivate
correctly, not to deceive, though the condensed message has some
technicalities that advanced learners can object to.
For
the advanced learners, again mercifully, we have Section 19 and
Section 76 and Section 138, and more to give us a more nuanced
understanding of the afterlife, though still highly incomplete and
perhaps rife with other technical gaps that we will appreciate once
we ready to understand more.
This
could be a case where the more technically nuanced explanation would
get condensed in the minds of men to a message that would ultimately
be deceptive by leading men to think hell and punishment are not a
big deal and everything will be OK in the end, regardless of what
they do.
After
looking at this again, my conclusion might be that perhaps we need to
give God the same kind of break that we hope our kids will give us
and understand that the answers given to 5-year-olds might have
relatively necessary gaps compared to what we can teach later on. Not
because we are deceiving, but because we are parenting and loving.
The
scriptures contain other examples where wording seems to convey
simplified messages that are technically inadequate, but are
perfectly adequate for the purpose intended with the target audience.
For
example, the Creation story speaks of 7 days, and men have naturally
understood this to be short days of 24 hours, when the Hebrew word
day can also refer to an epoch in time. We are now learning that the
earth is very old and that whatever process it has been through to
prepare it for life as we now know it, millions and even billions of
years were involved.
Why
didn’t God give us the technically correct data to begin with?
Why not explain the Creation in a more scientifically robust manner?
Perhaps because the purpose from the beginning has been to let us
know that He is the Creator, and the technical details don’t
matter much, at least so far they haven’t. Perhaps that is
changing and some future revelation will address the science of the
Creation more satisfactorily for those who feel they deserve more
details. Patience for now, please.
Temporary
Tasting of Eternal Torment: A Consistent Message
The
concept of experiencing hell temporarily is not new to Section 19. It
is part of the ancient Christian concept of the “harrowing of
hell” in which Christ bring deliverance to the dead who once
were rebellious but hear and accept the Gospel. This concept is
hinted at in 1 Peter 3 and 4, and in the early Christian concept of
baptism for the dead, but for details on the pervasive extent of this
doctrine, see "The
Harrowing of Hell: Salvation for the Dead in Early Christianity"
by Roger D. Cook, David L. Paulsen, and Kendel J. Christensen.
Perhaps
a more directly relevant issue comes from the story of Alma the
Younger in the Book of Mormon. In describing his torment for three
days and nights after recognizing that he had been fighting against
God, he says that he experienced “everlasting burnings”
and “eternal torment.” See Mosiah 27:28, 29 and Alma
36:12:
Mosiah 27:
[28] Nevertheless, after wading through much tribulations, repenting nigh
unto death, the Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an
everlasting burning, and I am born of God.
[29] My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of
iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous
light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am
snatched, and my soul is pained no more.
Alma 36:
[12] But I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to
the greatest degree and racked with all my sins.
Everlasting.
Eternal. Temporary. Completely consistent with Section 19.
Alma
is not playing mind games either nor being deceptive. The torments of
hell are from the Eternal One, the Endless One, and are endless and
eternal, though temporary.
I
would appreciate your thoughts and insights on how to better deal
with this topic. It does matter for some people and I would like to
find better ways to treat the challenges that some face with this
topic.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.