Conscious torment over an infinite period of time?

tonychanyt said:

It seems strange that the Lamb should be present to watch them being tormented forever and ever.

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That's one of several things that make me wonder about the Revelation. There's a lot of stuff that just seems out of character.

tonychanyt said:

How long will forever last when the last day is finished? How do we measure time after the last day?

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Good points.

tonychanyt said:

Does second death imply conscious torment over an infinite period of time?

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I don't see how it does unless one simply accepts ECT a priori and simply "interprets" everything else to fit in with that assumption.

tonychanyt said:

Concerning the wicked, Isaiah 26:

14 They are now dead, they live no more; their spirits do not rise. You punished them and brought them to ruin; you wiped out all memory of them.​

Matthew 10:

28 "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell [Gehenna]."​

Only God is immortal. Believers possess immortality because they have the Paraclete. Non-believers do not have the Paraclete. They are not immortal, 1 Corinthians 15:

53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.​

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I can't see it any other way. Eternal life is conditional, and granted only as a gift from God. But for ETC to be correct, one must assume that either everone has eternal life by default, or that God forces the damned to live forever so as to extend their torment indefinitely. I can't see any basis for believing either of those ideas.

tonychanyt said:

To me, eternal conscious torment isn't a 100% sure thing. It has never been at any time in church history.

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I find that I can no longer accept ECT at all. It turns God into an implacable monster who has sinners tortured forever for no discernible reason other than that He is offended by their sin. It serves no remedial purpose, because the damned remain damnednor does it benefit the blessed, because they're already victors over sin. It also flies in the face of the idea that eternal life is a gift from God, by turning it into a curse from God as well. It also negtes several Scriptures that explicitly say that the sinful soul will die. The argument that "die" and "death" don't really mean die and death, but instead mean eternal life in torment. That seems too clever by half.

tonychanyt said:

There have always been some other views such as annihilationism.

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That one makes sense to me, with reservations. It takes the sinner out of time and space completely, so that they have, in effect, never existed. Perfectly fair, no painful memories remaining to haunt the blessed, God's justice satisfied and His mercy demonstrated. It leaves no one with any reasonable claim against God. I think Scripture supports that position far better than ETC, which, which leaves God open to being compared to a some heartless human tyrant, mde even more horrible by the punishment being endless throughout eternity.

tonychanyt said:

Some Christians argue for conscious torment for a finite period of time.

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I can consider that i it's for remedial purposes. I can't see our Lord having someone tortured eternally. That is completely at odds with what we see Him presented in the Gospels.

tonychanyt said:

In any case, I'm not the judge of people's eternal destination. I know that Jesus died for all my sins and I have eternal life in Christ.

Whatever will happen to the unbelievers, I rest in God that he will do the right thing—whatever that may be.

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Amen.

Mark Quayle said:

Annihilation seems to me a temporal claim. If, in God's mind, they don't exist anymore doesn't that imply that they never existed?

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Yep. He never knew them.

Jipsah said:

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I find that I can no longer accept ECT at all. It turns God into an implacable monster who has sinners tortured forever for no discernible reason other than that He is offended by their sin. It serves no remedial purpose, because the damned remain damnednor does it benefit the blessed, because they're already victors over sin. It also flies in the face of the idea that eternal life is a gift from God, by turning it into a curse from God as well. It also negtes several Scriptures that explicitly say that the sinful soul will die. The argument that "die" and "death" don't really mean die and death, but instead mean eternal life in torment. That seems too clever by half.

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I fully agree with you, and can't understand when others hold fast to the concept of eternal torture.