The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

II. Foster—Renounced Dogma of Eternal Torment of Wicked

JOHN FOSTER (1770-1843), celebrated Baptist minister and essayist, was widely recognized as a profound thinker. ² He was trained for the ministry at the Baptist college in Bristol and identified himself with the “General Baptists,” some of whom were Conditionalists. He preached successively at Newcastleon—Tyne, Chichester, Frome, and Downend. Then, after preaching for about twenty-five years he decided to devote himself thereafter largely to religious writing. His best-known works were termed Essays (2 volumes) and On the Evils of Ignorance (1820). However, between 1819 and 1839 he contributed 184 articles to the Eclectic Review. He was a close friend of Robert Hall, also of Bristol, and likewise a Conditionalist. CFF2 318.2

Foster was widely known for his intellectual powers, and gained a permanent place in English literature. But it was his widely publicized Letter ... to a Young Minister [Edward White] on the Duration of Future Punishment, dated September 24, 1841, that chiefly concerns our quest. It was reprinted many times on both sides of the Atlantic. CFF2 318.3

1. REJECTED DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL TORMENT HALF CENTURY PRIOR

The interesting fact is that Foster repudiated the doctrine of Eternal Torment when “in his twentyfifth year” ³—therefore back about 1795. And he publicly declared his rejection of the dogma of “endless punishment” the following year, in a letter dated October 17, 1796, to the Reverend Joseph Hughes, founder and secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society. ⁴ And now at the age of seventyone Foster restates and reaffirms his position to Edward White, after nearly half a century of “quiet, thoughtful, avowed maintenance of such views.” ⁵ Through all these years Foster consistently held that Eternal Torment is “not only unwarranted by Scripture, but directly contradictory to the testimony of Scripture.” And he continued freely to express that conviction throughout his life. It should be added that he was in no way a Universalist. ⁶ CFF2 318.4

Picture 1: John Foster
John Foster (d. 1843), Baptist minister and essayist—endless torment irreconcilable with God’s love.
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2. ENDLESS TORMENT A “SLANDER” AGAINST GOD

In his early years Foster had been in a quandary. He had not yet renounced the Platonic immortality-of-the-soul thesis. And he could not accept Origen’s theory of Universal Restoration. Neither could he reconcile the concept of Eternal Torment with the revealed character of God. He considered Eternal Torment “a slander against his Maker.” He pondered the inconsistency of a “lost soul, after countless millions of ages, and in prospect of an interminable succession of such enormous periods,” punished “for a few short years on earth.” He was deeply troubled over the contention of torment of “millions of ages for each single evil thought or word.” It was unthinkable. CFF2 319.1

The explanation currently given was that there will be a “continuance of sinning, with probably an endless aggravation, and therefore the punishment must be endless.” But this Foster called a “disproportion between the punishment and the original cause of its affliction.” “The doom to sin as well as suffer” was, according to the argument, “to sin in order to sufer.” “Therefore, the eternal punishment is the punishment of the sins of time.” ⁷ Such reasoning appalled him. CFF2 320.1

3. UNABLE TO RECONCILE ENDLESS TORMENT WITH GOD’S LOVE

This conflict and revulsion led Foster to record these convictions:
“But ENDLESS PUNISHMENT! HOPELESS MISERY, through a duration to which the terms above imagined, will be absolutely NOTHING! I acknowledge my inability (I would say it reverently) to admit this belief, together with a belief in the Divine goodness,—the belief that ‘God is love,’ that his tender mercies are over all his works.” ⁸ CFF2 320.2

In another letter to Edward White, Foster states that he knows of a number of ministers who are now likewise disbelievers of “the doctrine in question”—the eternal punishment of impenitent sinners. ⁹ The movement of repudiation was already under way in 1841. Foster dropped the hint that the “difference of degrees of future punishment, so plainly stated in Scripture, affords an argument against its perpetuity.” ¹⁰ CFF2 320.3

Now, Foster was one of the two men who influenced Edward White during his period of investigation of Conditionalism. CFF2 320.4