Required reading
Dogmatic Theology Vol 3 by William G.T. Shedd (Available from Amazon or here) - Conclude 'Eschatology'.
My summary
Today we finish the notes on eschatology, including:
(i) sin against the Holy Ghost;
(ii) whether the dead are unconscious;
(iii) pagan virtue;
(iv) infant salvation;
(v) imprecatory psalms'
(vi) the torments of hell.
What grabbed me
I liked Shedd's comments on the relation of mercy and justice: 'The sinner does not begin at the beginning, by bending the knee before the Holy One. Justice must first be recognized in order to any experience of mercy. Whoever denies the justice of God and recalcitrates at it will be eternally kept in contact and conflict with it and never know anything of divine compassion. He will find it an iron wall through which he cannot break. God, for him, will be a perfectly just and righteously punitive being and nothing more. But whoever humbly recognizes justice by confessing sin and guilt will find that the Supreme Being is infinitely and tenderly pitiful and will forgive and eradicate the deepest sin. For the mercy has been manifested at the cost to the eternal Trinity of a self-sacrifice to satisfy justice of which neither man nor angel has any conception and which was necessitated by the inexorable nature of law and retribution. To deny, therefore, or combat this inexorableness makes the manifestation of pity and mercy on the part of God an utter impossibility.'
There is no mercy if there is no justice.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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