VI. Dunn—Doctrine of Eternal Torment Not in Scripture

HENRY DUNN (1801-1878), lay theologian, was long the highly esteemed and successful secretary of the British and Foreign School Society. He became an able writer, and was for some time editor of The Interpreter. A thinker with an almost Socratic power of finding out an opponent’s weak point, he was a master in exposing half truths that often pass unchallenged in popular theology. A lucid style and originality of expression made his writings distinctive. About 1858 he retired from public life, feeling that he had a special work to do for God. He thenceforth devoted all leisure time to the production of literature on religious themes, and traveled widely.CFF2 335.2

Dunn had a spiritual insight into the heart and intent of Scripture. He sought for basic principles, feeling that the excessive emphasis of some upon mere words had often detracted from more important truths as a whole. He was primarily concerned with the plain meaning of the English Bible, recognizing that his generation had inherited the controversies—along with many of the retained errors—of former ages. He denied that the Eternal Torment of unbelievers is taught in Scripture, or that it could be reconciled with the highest concept of God. That terrible dogma, he held, was inherited from early corruptions of the Christian Church, employed to support a religion of terror, and formed the basis of the Roman Catholic dogmas of endless Hell, Purgatory, priestly absolution, masses for the dead, and kindred errors.CFF2 335.3

Dunn was one of the first to plunge into the controversy created by the publication of Edward White’s Life in Christ, and H. H. Dobney’s On the Scripture Doctrine of Future Punishment. The issuance of these books by comparatively young writers had created a furor in the religious world, and resulted in vitriolic attacks in the Eclectic Review. Dunn was able to show the Nonconformists how unfairly those writers had been treated and placed under proscription. His leading writings were titled The Destiny of the Human Race, a Scriptural Inquiry (1863); The Churches: a History and an Argument (1872); and Christianity irrespective of Churches (1873)—translated into French as Le Christianisme sans Eglises (Paris: 1878).CFF2 335.4

Dunn was not a Universalist, but believed in “Life in Christ Alone.” He believed in the provision of restoration for the race, but only in the salvation of the reclaimed individual. He was typical of new recruits to Conditionalism now on the increase.CFF2 336.1