Searcher

Eternal punishment from a God of love has to be the hardest thing of all for me to accept. I don't know about others but, I never feel Ive studied God's word enough, prayed enough, gone to Church enough etc. When I think about 'Eternal punishment', I try to put it into human terms such as: If a man broke into my house and killed my wife yet, instead of calling the Police, I managed to capture him, tie him up and put him in my basement then, kept him alive with the sole purpose of inflicting pain by, say, burning a piece of his flesh with a blowtorch, morning, noon and night every day for the rest of his life, Would this be just? Could I still claim to be a Christian? Even though this intruder took away the thing in life I hold most dear, how could I justify inflicting neverending torture against this individual? There's not a court of Justice in the world that wouldn't convict me. No matter how grave my loss, it simply wouldn't be right, would it? The above scenario has the merciful fact that life here on earth is finite, so the torture outlined would end. 'God is Love', therefore, the thought that he would inflict eternal, everlasting pain on any of his creatures is something Ive yet to come to terms with.