The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN: Tertullian Holds Wicked Ever Burn but Never Consume

I. Mystic Everlasting Fire That Never Consumes Victims

We have noted that there were two philosophical arguments that carried Tertullian on into this theory of Endless Torment for the wicked. The first we have already surveyed—that the wicked are in Hell but cannot die there because the soul is immortal. The second argument concerns the body, which the eternal fire of Hell cannot consume, for in the very act of burning it repairs and endlessly sustains what it consumes. Such is Tertullian’s “fire of hell,” in which the body will scorch in pain and agony through all eternity. Observe the course of argument. CFF1 959.1

1. NONCONSUMING FIRE CAUSES ENDLESS TORTURE

In order to explain how the flames of Hell will sear the wicked perpetually, without ever devouring them, Tertullian has recourse to the second philosophical notion, likewise borrowed from paganism—that of a special form of fire, a “secret,” or “divine,” fire, that though it burns does not consume, but repairs, reproduces, and restores while it consumes. Thus his doctrine of eternal punishment is inseparably tied in with the pagan idea of ignis sapiens. Observe the setting of his statement. He first refers to the “immeasurable ages of eternity.” And while the saints are, of course, saved forever throughout this eternity, the wicked are— CFF1 959.2

“consigned to the punishment of everlasting fire—that fire which, from its very nature indeed, directly ministers to their incorruptibility. ¹ The philosophers are familiar as well as we with the distinction between a common and a secret fire. Thus that which is in common use is far different from that which we see in divine judgments ... for it does not consume what it scorches, but while it burns it repairs.” ² CFF1 959.3

Thus the “philosophers” are again invoked in this second philosophical argument, and this “secret fire,” shared with them, is defined as being CFF1 960.1

“the ‘fire eternal!’ a notable example of the endless judgment which still supplies punishment with fuel! ... How will it be with the wicked and the enemies of God?” ³ CFF1 960.2

So this all stemmed from eternal fire and eternal destruction combined with the error that the soul is eternal and indestructible. CFF1 960.3

2. EXULTS OVER ETERNAL TORMENT OF PERSECUTORS

The horrors of this Eternal Torment are vividly portrayed, and Tertullian’s own satisfaction over their recompense is unabashedly set forth. In De Spectaculis (The Shows) Tertullian describes the “spectacle”—the “fast-approaching advent ... the glory of the rising saints! ... the kingdom of the just ... that last day judgment with its everlasting issues ... the world .. consumed in one great flame.” ⁴ And now: CFF1 960.4

“How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What there excites my admiration? what my derision? Which sight gives me joy? which arouses me to exultation?—as I see so many illustrious monarchs, whose reception into the heavens was publicly announced, groaning now in the lowest darkness with great Jove [Jupiter or Zeus] ⁵ himself, and those, too, who bore witness of their exultation; governors of provinces, too, who persecuted the Christian name, in fires more fierce than those with which in the days of their pride they raged against the followers of Christ. What world’s wise men besides the very philosophers, in fact, who taught their followers that God had no concern in ought that is sublunary, and were wont to assure them that either they had no souls, or that they would never return to the bodies which at death they had left, now covered with shame before the poor deluded ones, as one fire consumes them”! ⁶ CFF1 960.5

And to these he adds “poets,” “tragedians,” “actors,” “the charioteer,” “the wrestlers,” “tossing in the fiery billows,” “those whose fury vented itself against the Lord.” CFF1 961.1

Charity demands that we remember Tertullian lived in an age of cruelty without pity, of heathen games, with blood gushing from the gladiator’s wounds, and above all, an age of pitiless pagan persecution—with Christians cast to the wild beasts and burned as human torches. All this was reflected in Tertullian’s stern concept of eternal life in Hell for such tormentors, as he exults over pagan persecutors now groaning in the hottest fires of Hell! Such was his cruel creed. Henry Constable made this searching comment back in 1886: CFF1 961.2

“The devouring flame supplies its inexhaustible fuel! Roaring, crackling, raging, scorching, paining, in the lurid vaults of hell, it supplies the bones, and marrow, and blood, and flesh, round which it roars, and crackles, and rages, with a noise as loud as the shrieks and wailings of the damned. Such was the philosophical theory which forced Tertullian to his view of future punishment. Men now laugh at the philosophical dogma. [But] they accept the diabolical conclusion which was based upon it!” ⁷ CFF1 961.3

One cannot read Tertullian’s treatises and compare them with the earlier Christian writings without sensing the fact that it was Tertullian who gathered up the scattered ideas and gave force and prevalence to these new and revolutionary views—the Innate Immortality of all souls, now coupled with the Endless Torment of the wicked. CFF1 961.4

3. ETERNITY OF SIN INVOLVED IN MONSTROUS CONCEPT

Tertullian’s description of the eternal anguish of the damned surpassed any and all predecessors. He drew no veil of mercy over their agony. The pain of endless dying was brought out with terrible vividness. The cruelty of the age was clearly reflected in Tetullian’s horrific postulate. And God was made the author of it all! Omnipotence was made to put forth His power to stay any mitigations and prevent any escape. Forever and ever! Millions and billions of years, and yet no nearer to its close. Endless cries, ceaseless groans, interminable despair. CFF1 961.5

That is but Manichaean Dualism—the eternal principle of evil coexistent with the eternal principle of good. Such a monstrous concept turns the God of love into a fiendish torturer who would be eternally cursed by His innumerable victims. If that were true, then pity, horror, anguish, and revulsion would fill every celestial breast, since sin would be perpetuated forevermore. CFF1 962.1