Conditional Immortality Supports Annihilationion, Refutes Eternal Conscious Torment and Universalism

[LittleLambofJesus]

Ok I'm shifting over to this thread now. Somebody PLEASE help me!!!! Not sure how it happened but I got pulled into the deep end of an evolution debate thread haha, I swear every 10 minutes there's 5 new alerts of atheists coming after me lol...I'd rather get back to some scripture based debating now! Great OP!!!

You must be doing something right......keep up the good fight!


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[Darren J. Clark]

Yet having difficulty finding their works in the archives of the Evangelical Theological Society archives. Yet a cumbersome site, I will keep looking.

I hope you don't mind keeping Stott out as his polemics state annihilation is what a loving God would do. That is an appeal to human emotion. However, the gentlemen posing conditional immortality here do not appeal to this.

I'll look at the sources and what responses they received from their contemporary Evangelical scholars.

Stott was very clear that it was his exegesis that grounded his belief in annihilationism despite his feelings on the issue. Often it is argued that he made an emotional plea as his appeal to adopt annihilationism but that is simply untrue. One can only sustain that argument if one only quotes Stott selectively.

This may help you identify some of the books you are looking for.
Explore

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

The same illustration I always use:

The Rich Man and Lazarus................

Great illustration.
That parable is the largest study I have in the NT.

Lazarus and the Rich Man - Here a little, there a little - Commentary

The parable of Lazarus and the rich man has been the foundation for many of the erroneous beliefs about "hell" within traditional Christianity. Some have viewed it not as a parable, but as a true story Yeshua told to give details about the punishment of sinners in hell.
Yet a thorough, unbiased examination of this story will show that the generally accepted interpretations of this passage of Scripture are erroneous and misleading. In this article, we will go through the parable verse by verse to determine what the Messiah was truly teaching...........................

Kindgdom Bible Studies Template Page

The story of the rich man and Lazarus is without doubt one of the most misunderstood of all the stories in the Bible. Is it a parable, or an actual statement of facts concerning life beyond the grave? It is strenuously denied by most evangelists that this story, as told by Christ, could be a parable.
They hold that this is not a parable because it starts out in narrative form. It is argued, because it reads, “There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day,” that Christ is speaking here of an actual incident that took place.
Yet it is generally conceded that the story of the prodigal son is a parable and all the fundamentalist preachers love to preach from its beautiful figures, thus applying it as a parable......

Against this background of biting criticism Jesus stood and gave the teachings found in chapters fifteen and sixteen of Luke. There are five stories which follow consecutively. It is well known, of course, that chapters and verses were not in the original scriptures............
It should be clear to any thinking mind that all these stories were ONE PARABLE, like the facets of a diamond, as they turn each scintillates with new brilliance. Each was illustrating a view point of one great truth, and together they compose a whole.

And this parabolic discourse of Jesus is continued into chapter sixteen of Luke, including the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The truth is that all five stories are each a fractional part of the complete parable, and when we read, “He spoke this parable unto them,” this embraces the entire collection of symbol-pictures which in their completeness constituted the parable which He spoke. It is a careless assumption and an unfounded assertion to argue that the story of the rich man and Lazarus is not a parable!.....................

 

[redleghunter]

Somehow you accidentally put my username in a quote I am not responsible for. Here's the original post.

Indeed but not intentionally. For some reason when I hit reply to the post by Chris your profile was selected. I'll ask a mod what happened.

 

[William Tanksley Jr]

Imagine this earth if Gods presence did not exist in it. It would be a terrifying place wouldn't it. You would have great anguish, and gnashing of teeth. You could be said to be consumed by a fiery torment of anguish.

That's a colorful imagination, and a creative use of words. But it's completely unbiblical in every detail. A world without God is a world that cannot possibly exist. I don't only mean that the world wouldn't have been created, but also that in God "we live, and move, and have our being," and "in Him all things consist."

Atheists imagine falsely that they can simply reject God, and then live their own lives; some of them have mocked this in a vision of hell where they can scream defiance of the God they imagine (or even more fantastically, where they can party with their friends). But of course this is impossible.

But how is it that some of the defenders of eternal conscious torment have signed into this God-denying vision of hell? Don't you know that in the End, all enemies will be placed underneath Jesus' feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death -- then God is all in all. There's no escape clause here for anyone demanding on living their own life.

If people reject Christ they therefore reject God, so if they then get to a place where Gods presence does not exist, and suffer because of it as described, that is what they chose, a life without God/ his presence.

Jesus said otherwise; He said that those who try to live a life without Him will lose their life, not keep it forever.

 

[stuart lawrence]

That's a colorful imagination, and a creative use of words. But it's completely unbiblical in every detail. A world without God is a world that cannot possibly exist. I don't only mean that the world wouldn't have been created, but also that in God "we live, and move, and have our being," and "in Him all things consist."

Atheists imagine falsely that they can simply reject God, and then live their own lives; some of them have mocked this in a vision of hell where they can scream defiance of the God they imagine (or even more fantastically, where they can party with their friends). But of course this is impossible.

But how is it that some of the defenders of eternal conscious torment have signed into this God-denying vision of hell? Don't you know that in the End, all enemies will be placed underneath Jesus' feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death -- then God is all in all. There's no escape clause here for anyone demanding on living their own life.



Jesus said otherwise; He said that those who try to live a life without Him will lose their life, not keep it forever.

So in your view, Gods presence exists in hell.

 

[stuart lawrence]

That's a colorful imagination, and a creative use of words. But it's completely unbiblical in every detail. A world without God is a world that cannot possibly exist. I don't only mean that the world wouldn't have been created, but also that in God "we live, and move, and have our being," and "in Him all things consist."

Atheists imagine falsely that they can simply reject God, and then live their own lives; some of them have mocked this in a vision of hell where they can scream defiance of the God they imagine (or even more fantastically, where they can party with their friends). But of course this is impossible.

But how is it that some of the defenders of eternal conscious torment have signed into this God-denying vision of hell? Don't you know that in the End, all enemies will be placed underneath Jesus' feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death -- then God is all in all. There's no escape clause here for anyone demanding on living their own life.



Jesus said otherwise; He said that those who try to live a life without Him will lose their life, not keep it forever.

Blessed are those who wash their Robes that they might have the right to the tree of life, and may go through the gates into the city( the new Jerusalem, the new Heaven) Outside( the city) are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolators and everyone who loves and practices falsehood
Rev22:14&15)
When the new Jerusalem has come, judgement day has taken place. The Bible says there are people outside the city/ the new Heaven, it doesn't say they cease to exist/ are destroyed. God dwells with his people inside the city, not outside of it.
What is the name of the place that is outside the city?

 

[Chris Date]

I hope you don't mind keeping Stott out as his polemics state annihilation is what a loving God would do. That is an appeal to human emotion. However, the gentlemen posing conditional immortality here do not appeal to this.

@redleghunter, unfortunately it seems you got this impression from someone like Christopher Morgan, John Piper, or Randy Alcorn, all of whom selectively edit John Stott's words in Evangelical Essentials. I've highlighted the words each of the aforementioned authors replace with an ellipsis ("...") when they quote Stott:

Well, emotionally, I find the concept [of eternal conscious torment] intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain. But our emotions are a fluctuating, unreliable guide to truth and must not be exalted to the place of supreme authority in determining it. As a committed Evangelical, my question must be—and is—not what does my heart tell me, but what does God's word say? And in order to answer this question, we need to survey the biblical material afresh and to open our minds (not just our hearts) to the possibility that Scripture points in the direction of annihilation...

Even many critics of conditionalism admit how emotionally intolerable they find the concept of eternal torment in hell, but they are committed to what they understand the Bible to be saying—just like Stott.

After the above quote, Stott went on in Evangelical Essentials to offer a biblical case for conditionalism, just like most evangelical conditionalists do.

 

[Chris Date]

How do you turn, "tormented day and night forever and ever" into annihilation for the devil, the beast and the false prophet?

Hi, @St_Worm2. I don't know how much more I can add to what Mark said in his response to you, but this passage in Revelation is one of the several texts which I once thought taught eternal torment, but when I discovered that virtually every one of them proves upon closer examination to be better support for conditionalism/annihilationism, I had to change my mind. If you'd like to see why I think this passage is better support for this view I now hold, than it is for eternal torment, please watch this presentation my friend and I gave at the 2015 Rethinking Hell conference:

 

[Chris Date]

I'd like to ask the defenders of eternal torment here what they make of the fact that Jesus, who we evangelicals believe is our substitutionary, atoning sacrifice for sin, died in our place.

Substitutionary, atoning, sacrificial death is worked into the warp and woof of salvation history from the beginning, from the garments of skin made for Adam and Eve from the first sacrificial animal death, to the Passover lamb that died in the place of the first-born of the families who placed its blood on their doorposts, to the animal sacrifices of the Mosaic covenant. This is why Jesus, as their typological fulfillment, is so consistently said to have died in the place of sinners, biblical authors using the Greek prepositions ἀντί and ὑπ́ερ to teach that Jesus literally took our place and suffered what we deserved when he died (e.g., Matt 20:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Tim 2:6; 2 Cor 5:14; John 11:50–52).

It seems eminently reasonable, then, that the penal consequences of sin, borne by Jesus on the cross as a substitute in the place of sinners, is the sort of death he suffered. Yet that sort of death—the privation of embodied life—is the very sort that the finally impenitent in hell will never suffer, according to the doctrine of eternal torment. And so its defenders inadvertently end up denying the substitutionary nature of Christ's death, for whereas he died, the risen wicked will not.

Conservative evangelicals are ordinarily adamant that it is heresy to deny the substitutionary death of Christ, including Bruce Ware, John Piper, and Chuck Colson. Meanwhile, otherwise stellar, thoughtful exegetes and theologians end up inadvertently denying this evangelical essential, including Wayne Grudem. In his Systematic Theology, he writes, "When Jesus knew that he had paid the full penalty for our sin, he said, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30).” Grudem's use of the perfect-tense "had paid" demonstrates that in his view, Christ suffered the complete penalty for sin, the equivalent of the eternity of torment he thinks Christ's people deserved, and then he died. So his death actually isn't substitutionary in this view; only his pain is.

Can any defender of eternal torment here simultaneously affirm the substitutionary nature of Jesus' physical death and the doctrine of eternal torment for the physically risen, immortal wicked in hell?

 

[Darren J. Clark]

Paul, when speaking of his life as a pharisee said:

For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, Sin revived and I died rom7:9

He didn't mean he literally died did he.

Just so, destruction does not have to mean no existence whatsoever

No, destruction does not have to mean no existence but most annihilationist don't argue on the basis that it does mean "non existence". This is a very common misunderstanding of the Evangelical annihilation position. In any case, being able to point out that a word has a different meaning in different contexts doesn't ipso facto preclude that the word isn't carrying the narrower meaning in any given context. One needs to look at usage in context. Once that is done and the meaning is establish it is moot that the same word carries a different meaning in a different context. That is the way of all studies in the NT and not just this issue of annihilation.

 

[Chris Date]

In any case, being able to point out that a word has a different meaning in different contexts doesn't ipso facto preclude that the word isn't carrying the narrower meaning in any given context. One needs to look at usage in context. Once that is done and the meaning is establish it is moot that the same word carries a different meaning in a different context. That is the way of all studies in the NT and not just this issue of annihilation.

That's right. Virtually every word has a semantic range, but the context in which any given word is used restricts which of the candidate meanings from among its range of possibilities is possible. D. A. Carson explains this in Exegetical Fallacies, pointing out that many Christians unfortunately often commit either of two equal and opposite fallacies, the fallacy of "unwarranted adoption of an expanded semantic field," in which a word is assumed to possibly mean anything it might anywhere mean even where context won't allow it, or the fallacy of "unwarranted adoption of a restricted semantic field," in which candidates from a word's semantic range are ignored and it is assumed in a given context to have one of its possible meanings without giving due consideration to its other meanings.

 

[stuart lawrence]

No, destruction does not have to mean no existence but most annihilationist don't argue on the basis that it does mean "non existence". This is a very common misunderstanding of the Evangelical annihilation position. In any case, being able to point out that a word has a different meaning in different contexts doesn't ipso facto preclude that the word isn't carrying the narrower meaning in any given context. One needs to look at usage in context. Once that is done and the meaning is establish it is moot that the same word carries a different meaning in a different context. That is the way of all studies in the NT and not just this issue of annihilation.

If it doesn't mean non existence, where do those exist who do not attain to heaven?
In post 144 mark corbett believes body and soul will be destroyed. So what existence exists for those whos bodies and souls have been destroyed? And where do they exist?

 

[Chris Date]

If it doesn't mean non existence, where do those exist who do not attain to heaven?
In post 144 mark corbett believes body and soul will be destroyed. So what existence exists for those whos bodies and souls have been destroyed? And where do they exist?

Neither Darren nor Mark said the wicked won't be destroyed. Nor did either say the word doesn't mean to cause to cease to exist. What they're saying is that just because it sometimes does not mean that, doesn't mean that it never means that.

 

[stuart lawrence]

No, destruction does not have to mean no existence but most annihilationist don't argue on the basis that it does mean "non existence". This is a very common misunderstanding of the Evangelical annihilation position.

So if most annihalationists don't argue for non existence, where do those exist who's bodies and souls have been destroyed, and in what way do they exist?

 

[Chris Date]

So if most annihalationists don't argue for non existence, where do those exist who's bodies and souls have been destroyed, and in what way do they exist?

Darren didn't say we don't argue for non-existence. He said we don't argue on the basis that the word means "non-existence."

 

[stuart lawrence]

Darren didn't say we don't argue for non-existence. He said we don't argue on the basis that the word means "non-existence."

In my view it is quite plain what he wrote.
Most annihalationists don't argue on the basis it does mean non existence.
Mark certainly did

 

[Chris Date]

In my view it is quite plain what he wrote.
Most annihalationists don't argue on the basis it does mean non existence.
Mark certainly did

Perhaps he did, but then again, Mark is one annihilationist among many. For better or for worse, I have become one of the leading evangelical annihilationist voices, and you won't find me making that argument once over the course of several years.

 

[stuart lawrence]

Perhaps he did, but then again, Mark is one annihilationist among many. For better or for worse, I have become one of the leading evangelical annihilationist voices, and you won't find me making that argument once over the course of several years.

I accept I misread his post, my apologies, but after what i previously read, I jumped to the wrong conclusion
Once again, my apoligies

 

[Chris Date]

I accept I misread his post, my apologies, but after what i previously read, I jumped to the wrong conclusion
Once again, my apoligies

No worries at all! As many great things as the Internet brings us, it often makes clear conversation and understanding more difficult, not less