I most certainly did address the out-of-context scripture you you posted. For example Eccl 9:5, does not refer to man's eternal fate, as you imply, it is referring to what the writer can observe with his natural senses, "things under the sun." Some form of "things under the sun" occurs five times in Eccl 9, vss. 3, 6, 9, 11, 13. Thus 9:5 cannot be twisted to refer to man's eternal fate.
Scripture is strikingly solemn upon the state of the unregenerate when they die. They go to the dead, Solomon says [HAWKER]
Ecc 9:6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.
Psa 146:4 When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.
Job 14:12 so a man lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep.
Job 14:13 Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
Job 14:14 If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come.
The same writer in Eccl 3:21 did not know what happens to a man's spirit at death.
Ecc 3:19 For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity.
20 All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.
21 The Hebrew expresses the difference strongly, The spirit of man that ascends, it belongeth to on high; but the spirit of the beast that descends, it belongeth to below, even to the earth. Their destinations and proper element differ utterly [
Weiss].
The truth or falsity of a doctrine must stand or fall on its own merits, not on the basis of who holds it.
Let's see if you follow your own dictate, in this or any other post?
ויגוע (v. t.) To breathe out; to emit from the lungs; to throw out from the mouth or nostrils in the process of respiration. (derivation) exhalation, expiration, breathing out; v. expire, come to an end, finish, terminate; die
(v. i.) To come to an end; to cease; to terminate; to perish; to become extinct Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
ויגוע to die, expire
But this scene occurs in Hades, during the disembodied state between death and resurrection. It is therefore difficult to see how a nonphysical being could have a literal tongue, much less be tormented by literal, physical fire. The same would apply to the other physical metaphors used to describe hell, such as the undying worm (Mark 9:48) Luk 16:26
And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.' and Isa 66:24 "And they shall go out and look on the
dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh."
and Isa 14:11 Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, the sound of your harps;
maggots are laid as a bed beneath you, and worms are your covers.
And the chains of darkness (Jude 6) see Job 17:13 If I hope for Sheol as my house, if I make my bed in
darkness,
14 if I say to the pit, 'You are my father,'
and to the worm, 'My mother,' or 'My sister,'
The punishment of the wicked entails separation from God as a key component. Notice that Christ banishes them forever from His presence. As Guthrie observes, "When we penetrate below the language about hell, the major impression is a sense of separation .."
Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1981), 889-90.
If you cannot find in-context "anything scriptural to back up what you say, you are blowing in the wind." "The truth or falsity of a doctrine must stand or fall on its own merits, not on the basis of who holds it."
Jas 1:23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.
2Th 1:9 They will suffer the punishment of
eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,
Mat 7:23 And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'
Luk 13:25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, open to us,' then he will answer you, 'I do not know where you come from.'
Mat 25:33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.
Probably the most prominent evangelical to go over to the annihilationist position is Anglican John R. W. Stott, Rector of All Soul's church in London. Stott's shift came to light in a book published by InterVarsity Press entitled Evangelical Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue
The fact that no less of a person than J. R. W. Stott has endorsed it now will certainly encourage this trend to continue."
Stott's own meditations on the doctrine of hell have led him to say, "Well, emotionally, I find the concept intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain." Stott is, after all, an evangelical. As such, he declares that the issue for him is "not what does my heart tell me, but what does God's word say?"
Though Stott is probably the most respected evangelical to espouse the annihilationists' cause, others have joined this growing movement as well. Clark Pinnock, John Wenham, Philip Hughes, and Stephen Travis have all positioned themselves as annihilationists within the evangelical camp.
Pinnock's complaint is even more emotionally charged: "Everlasting torment is intolerable from a moral point of view because it makes God into a bloodthirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for victims whom he does not even allow to die."Clark Pinnock, "The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent"; "Fire, Then Nothing," Christianity Today, 20 March 1987, 40-41;
John Wenham, The Goodness of God (London: Inter-Varsity, 1974), 27-41;
Philip Hughes, The True Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 398 ff.;
Stephen Travis, I Believe in the Second Coming of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 196-99.
Edward W. Fudge, The Fire That Consumes (Fallbrook, CA: Verdict Publications, 1982); "The Final End of the Wicked," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 27 (September 1984):325-34;
"Putting Hell in Its Place," Christianity Today, August 1976, 14-17; "'The Plain Meaning': A Review Essay," (1985):18-31;
David A. Dean, "American Conditionalism in the Decade of the Eighties," (1989):3-10; Resurrection: His and Ours (Charlotte: Adventist Christian General Conference of America, 1977
How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been? Surely a God who would do such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God, at least by any ordinary moral standards, and by the gospel itself. Clark Pinnock, "The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent," Criswell Theological Review 4 (Spring 1990):246-47., Professor and Noted Evangelical Author
Alan W. Gomes, "Evangelicals and the Annihilation of Hell, Part One," Christian Research Journal,
Spring 1991, pp. 14ff.
Where is all your scripture? If you cannot find in-context "anything scriptural to back up what you say, you are blowing in the wind." "The truth or falsity of a doctrine must stand or fall on its own merits, not on the basis of who holds it."
Proverbs 1:22 " How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity?
For scorners delight in their scorning, And fools hate knowledge.