by seedy3 2 Replies latest jw friends
Can someone look up this article and tell me if it says anywhere on pg 604
"If heaven were made the receptacle of the heathen, savages, barbarians, the idiotic, simple, insane and INFANTS" and give a complete quote I do not have access to them
Thanks Seedy
I could not find that on the WT-CD. Google yields:
"If heaven were made the receptacle of the heathen, savages, barbarians, the idiotic, simple, insane and INFANTS, it would cease to be heaven to a considerable extent, and become a pandemonium .. billions of ignorant, imbecile and degraded .. never formed characters [not] fit companions for saints" {WT Oct 15 1896 p245}
http://reslight.addr.com/infantsinheaven.html
Secondly, we know that a vast majority of the adult heathen have never seen "the true light," have died in ignorance, and therefore will not be punished as intelligent wilful sinners, but will be saved. Thirdly, we have a large class whose mental acumen is insufficient, who are non compos mentis, including the insane, idiotic and simple, who could not be sent to eternal torment because of their misfortunes, and hence must also be taken to heaven. Thus the larger proportion of our race will reach heaven, and the few, comparatively, suffer eternal torment.
But we object to Mr. Talmage's gospel on another score. If heaven were made the receptacle of the heathen, savages, barbarians, the idiotic, simple, insane and infants, it would cease to be heaven to a considerable extent, and become a pandemonium. Mr. T. will no doubt admit that the billions of ignorant, imbecile and degraded, whom he describes as the vast majority of the heavenly throng, have never formed characters, and that they will need to do so before they would be fit companions for saints whose characters are formed after the divine pattern. And since each infant, as it develops, will become a free moral agent, what assurance have we in this theory that after all several billions of these infants, heathen, etc., would not choose disobedience, sin, rather than obedience, righteousness, and raise up an insurrection in heaven worse than has ever been known on earth? Verily, if the plan presented in the Scriptures were not much more reasonable than this theory, we would have serious grounds for questioning its being the divine plan, which must surely display divine wisdom.
Thanks so much blondie, I figured it was a typo on the date, but was not sure.
Seedy
