Charles Grandison Finney on the final state of the lost
Eternal conscious punishment
But the penal sanction of the law of God is endless death, or that state of endless suffering which is the natural and governmental result of sin or of spiritual death.
THE POSITION
The penalty of the moral law is endless, and it has to be. A lesser penalty would not give the strongest motive the case admits to restrain sin: "Either, then, God has no law, or its penal sanctions are endless." The death the law threatens is not natural death, which among his reasons falls on the forgiven righteous as well and on infants and animals, but endless suffering.
41 Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
25 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Law student turned revivalist of the Second Great Awakening, licensed and ordained by a Presbyterian presbytery in 1824, later professor of theology and president at Oberlin College. His Lectures on Revivals of Religion argued that a revival is the right use of means and not a miracle. His Systematic Theology built a doctrine of salvation on moral government and on the sinner's natural ability, and denied original sin as a sinful nature, imputed righteousness, and that the atonement paid what sinners owed. This entry rests on that Systematic Theology (1878 edition), the Revival Lectures, one chapter of the Memoirs, three Oberlin Evangelist pieces and one letter.
Cite this page
"Charles Grandison Finney on the final state of the lost", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/finney/final-state (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/finney/final-state).