Is not believing in an eternal hell Heresy?

[MoreCoffee]

Coffee.
I did deal with your entire post, look for my responses.

I did read all of your posts and I didn't see any that offered a significant response to the post #193 and you have not yet answered post #216. And asking me to summarise post #216 does not give me any confidence that you've read it and want to respond.

 

[Timothew]

I did read all of your posts and I didn't see any that offered a significant response to the post #193 and you have not yet answered post #216. And asking me to summarise post #216 does not give me any confidence that you've read it and want to respond.

I don't want to wade through that long post and respond to it. Would you?
And I did respond to post 193. Please go back and look at my response because I don't care to repeat it. I've been caulking the attic all day and I'm tired.

You talked about Samuel and the Witch of Endor and I am simply baffled at how you think that is any kind of proof for eternal conscious torment.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I don't want to wade through that long post and respond to it. Would you?

I can see that you won't but I would if a pertinent post were written to me in a serious attempt to engage the issues.

And I did respond to post 193. Please go back and look at my response because I don't care to repeat it. I've been caulking the attic all day and I'm tired.

Post #216 is a reply to what you wrote about post #193. But you seem unwilling to deal with #216.

You talked about Samuel and the Witch of Endor and I am simply baffled at how you think that is any kind of proof for eternal conscious torment.

I am wondering if what I said was misunderstood or was not sufficiently clear but nevertheless #216 deals with these issues again in the paragraph about the church fathers. If what I've written is not clear enough for you to understand then let me know exactly what is unclear to you, please.

 

[James Is Back]

Witch of Endor you mean the Ewoks have more to worry about

Seriously though ever heard of her until now.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Witch of Endor you mean the Ewoks have more to worry about

Seriously though ever heard of her until now.

She's in Samuel's account of the end of the kingship of Saul and the end of his family including his good son, Jonathan. If you like I can give you references to the story.

 

[Mama Kidogo]

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.

 

[James Is Back]

She's in Samuel's account of the end of the kingship of Saul and the end of his family including his good son, Jonathan. If you like I can give you references to the story.

Yeah I'd like to learn about that.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Yeah I'd like to learn about that.

Okay, here's the passage. The following chapter or two records the deaths of Saul and his family. It's rather tragic considering how Saul started ...

1 Samuel 28:3-25 NJB

(3) Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned him and buried him at Ramah, his own town. Saul had expelled the necromancers and wizards from the country.
(4) Meanwhile the Philistines had mustered and had come and pitched camp at Shunem. Saul mustered all Israel and they encamped at Gilboa.
(5) When Saul saw the Philistine camp, he was afraid and his heart trembled violently.
(6) Saul consulted Yahweh, but Yahweh gave him no answer, either by dream, divination or prophet.
(7) Saul then said to his servants, 'Find a necromancer for me, so that I can go and consult her.' His servants replied, 'There is a necromancer at En-Dor.'
(8) And so Saul, disguising himself and changing his clothes, set out accompanied by two men; their visit to the woman took place at night. 'Disclose the future to me', he said, 'by means of a ghost. Conjure up the one I shall name to you.'
(9) The woman replied, 'Look, you know what Saul has done, how he has outlawed necromancers and wizards from the country; why are you setting a trap for my life, then, to have me killed?'
(10) But Saul swore to her by Yahweh, 'As Yahweh lives,' he said, 'no blame shall attach to you for this business.'
(11) The woman asked, 'Whom shall I conjure up for you?' He replied, 'Conjure up Samuel.'
(12) The woman then saw Samuel and, giving a great cry, she said to Saul, 'Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!'
(13) The king said, 'Do not be afraid! What do you see?' The woman replied to Saul, 'I see a ghost rising from the earth.'
(14) 'What is he like?' he asked. She replied, 'It is an old man coming up; he is wrapped in a cloak.' Saul then knew that it was Samuel and, bowing to the ground, prostrated himself.
(15) Samuel said to Saul, 'Why have you disturbed my rest by conjuring me up?' Saul replied, 'I am in great distress; the Philistines are waging war on me, and God has abandoned me and no longer answers me either by prophet or by dream; and so I have summoned you to tell me what I ought to do.'
(16) Samuel said, 'Why consult me, when Yahweh has abandoned you and has become your enemy?
(17) Yahweh has treated you as he foretold through me; he has snatched the sovereignty from your hand and given it to your neighbour, David,
(18) because you disobeyed Yahweh's voice and did not execute his fierce anger against Amalek. That is why Yahweh is treating you like this today.
(19) What is more, Yahweh will deliver Israel and you too, into the power of the Philistines. Tomorrow you and your sons will be with me; and Yahweh will hand over the army of Israel into the power of the Philistines.'
(20) Immediately Saul fell full length on the ground. He was terrified by what Samuel had said and was also weak from having eaten nothing all that day and night.
(21) The woman went to Saul and, seeing his terror, said, 'Look, your servant has obeyed your order; I have taken my life in my hands and obeyed the command which you gave me.
(22) Now please, you in your turn listen to what your servant has to say. Let me offer you a piece of bread. Eat something and get some strength for your journey.'
(23) But he refused. 'I will not eat,' he said. His servants however pressed him, and so did the woman. Allowing himself to be persuaded by them, he got up from the ground and sat on the bed.
(24) The woman owned a fattened calf which she quickly slaughtered, and she took some flour and kneaded it and with it baked some unleavened cakes
(25) which she served to Saul and his servants; they ate, and then set off and left the same night.​

 

[MoreCoffee]

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.

Yes, the Lord spoke of everlasting (or eternal) punishment often enough to make finding passages about it easy. I wonder why those passages almost always get reduced to parables, visions, metaphor, or something else by those who teach Conditional immortality.

 

[James Is Back]

Yes, the Lord spoke of everlasting (or eternal) punishment often enough to make finding passages about it easy. I wonder why those passages almost always get reduced to parables, visions, metaphor, or something else by those who teach Conditional immortality.

I agree. Why would Jesus warn of us of Hell if it wasn't a place of eternal damnation?

 

[Timothew]

Okay, I am back from my evening out and I am looking at your reply and how you quoted only the portion of my post shown in bold text in the quote above and it leaves me wondering are you in this discussion to deal with what your interlocutor says or not? I didn't write two paragraphs just to have them skimmed over as if they said nothing. I hoped you would interact with the content of those paragraphs and offer some sort of reasoned response but that is not what I see in your post. If you do not want to reply then okay, we can move on and I'll spend time chatting with people who are willing to deal with what issues raised. Even if you think what I raised was invalid you ought to at least have the courtesy to say so. It isn't as if my reply was vacuous nonsense or a troll or something.

Look again as I did respond in my response. I only quoted the first sentence of your post, but I responded to the whole post.

I think your statement is not correct, there are numerous detailed exegetical texts dealing with the question of hell and heaven, eternal punishment and eternal reward, the intermediate state and the resurrection and all of them deal with the texts in sacred scripture in detail and answer numerous objections raised by conditionalists over the ages.

What I see from the traditionalist side are claims made without proof. They don't offer any scripture that directly supports their view. They use passages that DON'T say that the lost go to hell for eternal torment and then say that they mean theat the lost DO go to hell for eternal torment. If even seen Traditionalists use passages that say the lost are destroyed to prove that the lost are NOT destroyed. 2 Thessalonians 1:9 is a ready example of this.

I myself have read and dealt with Leroy Edwin Frooms's The Conditionalist Faith of our Fathers which is a Seventh Day Adventist text (two volumes) dealing with the matter of conditional immortality as it is taught by Seventh Day Adventist theologians and their church. I haven't written any books that have been published as a formal reply but I have dealt with the issue in various forums and in teaching within my own church. It is not true that my side has not put forward a credible case, it is more that you do not acknowledge it.

I don't know what kind of response you want from me to this. I'm glad that you have read Froom. Have you read Fudge?

I wrote that second paragraph in the quote above to draw you out so that you would offer a response to the issue of differing interpretive frameworks and how they leave us with no definitive answers for this issue; yet you offered none except a blanket statement that dismisses all who hold a view supportive of eternal punishment and an eternal hell. Do you think that is a serious and worthwhile way to respond?

If you want, I can give you all of the scriptural support that I have found or my side, but I've done that many times before just to have Traditionalists ignore them all at once.



[

I]My side[/I] is people, not some kind of monolithic organisation that condemns you individually as a heretic. That's kind of poisoning the well isn't it? What I mean is that you're reply is attributing motives and actions to my side (whatever my side is alleged to be) which are not present in what I wrote, and by attributing motives to what I wrote which are absent from what I wrote you make it seem as if the very notion of heaven & hell as eternal realities is unworthy and wicked when such is not the case, thus the well is poisoned making the very mention of eternal hell become an accusation that you are a heretic and that is not the truth.

By "Your side" I only meant "those who are defending the traditional view in this argument". You are reading much more into "Your side" than I ever intended. What am I supposed to call your side? Those who agree withyou in this thread, is there a name for those who hold the doctrine of eternal conscious torment?

The point I made by bringing up the rich man and Lazarus as well as Samuel and saint Paul is that despite the presence of such passages in sacred scripture the doctrine of conditional immortality must read such passages as teaching either nothing about eternity and eternal punishment or as visions, parables, or something equally unimportant for the purposes of deciding if there is such a thing as eternal punishment and an eternal hell.

If you made a point about eternal conscious torment from the parable of Lazarus and Dives, the account of the Witch of Endor, or Paul's vision, it was very unclear what it was.

Your reply above is an example of doing exactly that. So, now that you've dismissed the passages I've raised

If you feel I've dismissed them prematurely, tell me why you think they apply to the question of the fate of the lost. I can't see it. Dives was not eternally tormented, so I don't see how his fate proves that anyone else is eternally tormented. Samuel was not tormented at all, so I don't see his fate proving the eternal torment of the lost, and Paul was talking about another issue entirely.

and I can equally dismiss the passages you've raised we are left exactly where I said we would be - in a mutual dismissal of one another's reading of scripture or a dismissal of one another as incompetent exegetes.

If I dismiss passages that say nothing about the eternal torment of the lost, how is that the same as you dismissing passages that directly state that the wicked will be destroyed? I don't understand that.

That was the point made in the second paragraph.Many of the Church Fathers taught an eternal hell with eternal punishment and those who were in the East were native speakers of Greek.

Many of the Church Fathers taught Conditional Immortality. I don't dismiss what they say.

Those who lived in the first four or five centuries of the Christian Era were native speakers (and readers) of the koine Greek of the new testament. Such men were serious exegetes and even if you do not agree with them they were nevertheless serious exegetes whose comments cannot be dismissed as ignorant and/or uninformed on this matter. And since those who wrote in the first four or five centuries were Early Church Fathers they were recording the Tradition that you've alleged is the basis for my beliefs. Surely they themselves were not blindly following a Traditional ready established unless the source for their Tradition was the Apostles themselves. I think their Tradition was Apostolic, I hazard the guess that you disagree, and if that is so then our dispute is not merely about what this and that passage in the bible says but also what the Apostles taught while they were alive and how that teaching was transmitted to the Church.

I've studied much of what the early church fathers said about this issue, and many of them supported Conditional Immortality, Irenaeus comes immediately to mind.

So once more I appeal to you to deal with the content of my earlier post and now I also appeal to you to deal with the content of this one. Think about what it means to say "you side is wrong and mine is right" without attaching significant reasons for saying so. Thus far the reasons you've indicated are not substantial in their current form.

I've given some of the many passages that support the doctrine of Conditional Immortality, I've shown you verses that say directly that the wicked will be destroyed, and you said that the Bible says all sorts of things. Well one thing it says it that the wicked will be destroyed, and you have never addressed that at all.

Jesus said many things including that the rich man looked up from his torments in Hades and appealed to Father Abraham for mercy.

Yes, Jesus said many things, he said be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna, he said "Unless you repent you will likewise perish", and he said that the road that leads to destruction is wide. Destruction, not eternal conscious torment. One thing Jesus never said, (as recorded in the Bible) is "people will go to hell when they die where they will be tormented alive forever".

It's not so easy to make the word "destruction" that's present in our English translations the foundation for the doctrine of Conditional Immortality.

The Bible as a whole is the basis for Conditional Immortality, not just the word destruction. Certainly the Bible describes the fate of the wicked as destruction, but also as being completely consumed by fire, burnt to ash, perishing, dying, being dead, being no more, and so on. All of which specifically and directly mean Destruction.

Destruction in the King James Version this word translates over 30 Hebrew words in the Old Testament, and 4 words in the New Testament. Of these the most interesting, as having a technical sense, is 'ăbhaddōn (from verb 'ābhadh, “to be lost,” “to perish”). It is found 6 times in the Wisdom Literature, and nowhere else in the Old Testament​

Since the "destruction" is also said to be everlasting destruction from his presence (2 Thessalonians 1:9) it is worth checking what the expression means.

Deswtuction doesn't mean "Never destroyed but kept alive forever intorment in hell".

who shall be punished with everlasting destruction Rather, men who will pay the penalty of eternal destruction. In these awful words the Apostle describes the retribution designed for godless men and rejecters of the Gospel.​

I'm happy that you can see that the penalty that they pay is destruction, but I am baffled at how you can use to try to prove that they are not destroyed.

His word for “penalty” (diké, the root of the words righteous and righteousness in Greek) brings to a climax the idea of justice developed in 2Th 1:5-8; see note on “vengeance.” But the clause while defining, qualifies the foregoing; for “who” is equal to such as, who with all like them. The threatening applies to the impious and malignant opposers who were seeking to crush the infant Church. Their sin corresponded to that which our Lord denounced as the sin against the Holy Spirit, the “eternal sin,” the “blasphemy against the Spirit which shall not be forgiven” (Mat 12:31-32; Mar 3:28-29, R. V.).

The problem is not with the word dike, but with destruction.

“Destruction,” as applied to man and his destiny in the N.T., signifies perdition, ruin, the utter loss of blessedness. It is opposed to “salvation” in Heb 10:39; 2Co 2:15, &c.; and “eternal destruction” is the antithesis of eternal life.” There is no sufficient reason for interpreting the destruction of the reprobate as signifying their annihilation, or extinction of being; they will be lost for ever—lost to God and goodness.

Do you want to seriously claim that apollumi never means destruction?
You might as well claim that "there is no sufficient reason for interpreting the destruction of the reprobate as signifying their destruction".

Nor can we limit the range of the word eternal in its relation to this fearful doom; it removes all limits of time, and is the express opposite of temporary (2Co 4:18). Seventy-two times the Greek original of the adjective is found in the N.T.: forty-four of these examples are repetitions of the phrase “eternal life;” it is arbitrary to suppose that in the opposite combination “eternal” bears a restricted sense. Christ’s judicial words in Mat 25:46 bar all attempts to minimize the penal effect of the sentence of the Last Day; “eternal punishment,” He says, and “eternal life.” Comp. Php 3:19, “whose end is destruction.”

I don't limit the range of the word eternal. This argument doesn't apply to me.
I believe the destruction of the lost is eternal, it lasts forever.

from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power Better, as in R. V., and without the comma, from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His might. Language borrowed from Isaiah 2, where it occurs thrice repeated, all but identically (Isa 2:10; Isa 2:19; Isa 2:21), in the prophet’s picture of Jehovah’s coming in judgement: “Enter into the rocks and hide yourselves in the earth from the face of the fear of the Lord and from the glory of His might, when He ariseth to shake the earth.” The words of Rev 6:15-16 are based on the same original: “They say to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.” The preposition here seems, however, after the word “destruction,” to signify coming from, rather than shrinking from the face of the Lord. The sight of their Judge and His Almightiness, robed in fire and attended by His host of angels, will drive these wretched men, terror-stricken, into ruin. Their destruction proceeds “from the face of the Lord;” in His look the evildoers read their fate. So we can imagine it will be with the murderers of Jesus, and with malicious persecutors of His people. Comp. Psa 34:16; Psa 76:7, “The face of the Lord is against them that do evil:” “Who may stand in Thy sight, when once Thou art angry?”

The answer is "No one may stand in they sight when once thou art angry", they don't survive this, the wicked perish in His sight, just as the Bible says. They are destroyed, just as the Bible says.

While the destruction of the persecutors and the deliverance of the persecuted are contrasted in themselves (2Th 1:6-7), they are identified in point of time. For justice will overtake the former—

(The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges)

Okay? The former receive justice, I don't see how this is an argument against the destruction of the wicked. They are destroyed, they receive the just penalty for their sins, they are destroyed.​

 

[Timothew]

I agree. Why would Jesus warn of us of Hell if it wasn't a place of eternal damnation?

Because it is a place of destruction. A place where the body and souls of the wicked will be destroyed. See Matthew 10:28

 

[By Faith Alone]

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.

OOOhhh. Did you forget the ...CARCASES... laying there? What the fire did not destroy the worms ate. Yum Yum.

Isa 66:24 And they shall go forth, and look upon the... carcases.... of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.

 

[Timothew]

Yes, the Lord spoke of everlasting (or eternal) punishment often enough to make finding passages about it easy. I wonder why those passages almost always get reduced to parables, visions, metaphor, or something else by those who teach Conditional immortality.

Jesus spoke of destruction in hell. I wonder why those passages always get changed to eternal torment in hell by those who teach eternal conscious torment?

Jesus said that the lost perish. Why doesn't that get mentioned by those who teach ECT?

 

[By Faith Alone]

Jesus spoke of destruction in hell. I wonder why those passages always get changed to eternal torment in hell by those who teach eternal conscious torment?

Jesus said that the lost perish. Why doesn't that get mentioned by those who teach ECT?

Just like wee weeing in the ocean trying to make the tide rise to get it across to them. It just don't happen. Convictions override the Truth.

 

[Timothew]

Just like wee weeing in the ocean trying to make the tide rise to get it across to them. It just don't happen. Convictions override the Truth.

I don't understand why this is so hard to understand:
But all sinners will be destroyed; there will be no future for the wicked.
Psalm 37:38

If I say "But all sinners will be destroyed", they say I am a heretic.
But the Bible says that all sinners will be destroyed, and they say "This means that all sinners will remain undestroyed in hell being tormented alive forever".

I don't understand why this is so difficult for them to accept. All sinners will be destroyed. That is precisely what the Bible says.

 

[Jonathan95]

So if a Christian did not believe that some people will stay in hell and be eternally punished/tortured, and instead believed in Annihiliationism or Universal Reconciliation, is that heretical thought?

Annihilationism and Universal Reconciliation are heresies, yes.

Or what if a Christian was not sure on which belief in hell to accept (and therefore was not 100% sure that an eternal hell exists)?

He has no excuse for not being sure, since the word of God is clear in this matter.

 

[Timothew]

Annihilationism and Universal Reconciliation are heresies, yes.



He has no excuse for not being sure, since the word of God is clear in this matter.

But all sinners will be destroyed; there will be no future for the wicked.
Psalm 37:38

You have no excuse for believing that sinners will not be destroyed. The Word of God is absolutely clear on this matter. The Bible supports annihilationism.

 

[Jonathan95]

I don't understand why this is so hard to understand:
But all sinners will be destroyed; there will be no future for the wicked.
Psalm 37:38

If I say "But all sinners will be destroyed", they say I am a heretic.
But the Bible says that all sinners will be destroyed, and they say "This means that all sinners will remain undestroyed in hell being tormented alive forever".

I don't understand why this is so difficult for them to accept. All sinners will be destroyed. That is precisely what the Bible says. Are they blind or something?

It's not literal. ESV says "cut off". However, destroy must not mean literally being destroyed in the sense of ceasing to exist.

You cannot base your doctrine upon that verse, when there are so many verses which talk about torment for the wicked after death.

Verse 10 says "the wicked will be no more" and 20 says the wicked will vanish. Well, so if we interpret it literally, one could interpret it to mean that they wont even die physically, if we take it that far.

Hebrews 9:27 NKJV says: "And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,"

How does it make sense that they'll die, be judged only to then be annihilated, when even a criminal on earth before an earthly judge (given that he's a just judge), gets his due punishment.

 

[shturt678s]

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.

Perfect!