Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

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ALLAN KARDEC
1005. Does time appear, to the suffering spirit, longer or shorter than in the earthly life?
"It appears longer; sleep does not exist for him. It is only for spirits arrived at a certain degree
of purification that time is merged, so to say with infinity." (240)
1006. Could a spirit suffer eternally?
"Undoubtedly, if he remained eternally wicked; that is to say, if he were never to repent nor to
amend, he would suffer eternally. But God has not created beings to let them remain for ever
a prey to evil; He created them only in a state of simplicity and ignorance, and all of them
must progress, in a longer or shorter time, according to the action of their will. The
determination to advance may be awakened more or less tardily, as the development of
children is more or less precocious; but it will he stimulated, sooner or later, by the
irresistible desire of the spirit himself to escape from his state of inferiority, and to be happy.
The law which regulates the duration of a spirit's sufferings is, therefore, eminently wise and
beneficent, since it makes that duration to depend on his own efforts; he is never deprived of
his free-will, but, if he makes a bad use of it, he will have to bear the consequences of his
errors."
1007. Are there spirits who never repent?
"There are some whose repentance is delayed for a very long time; but to suppose that they
will never improve would be to deny the law of progress, and to assert that the child will
never become a man."
1008. Does the duration of a spirit's punishment always depend on his own will, and is it
never imposed on him for a given time?
"Yes; punishment may be imposed on him for a fixed time, but God, who wills only the good
of His creatures, always welcomes his repentance, and the desire to amend never remains
sterile."
1009. According to that, the penalties imposed on spirits are never eternal?
"Interrogate your common sense, your reason, and ask yourself whether an eternal
condemnation for a few moments of error would not be the negation of the goodness of God ?
What, in fact, is the duration of a human life, even though prolonged to a hundred years, in
comparison with eternity? ETERNITY! Do you rightly comprehend the word? sufferings,
tortures, without end, without hope, for a few faults! Does not your judgement reject