Defending the Traditional Doctrine of Hell: Part 3
Conditional Immortality
Conditional Immortality - or “conditionalism,” “annihilationism,” “extinctionism,” or “terminalism” - “is the term for the view that all who fail to obtain the gift of eternal life will eventually cease to exist.”[16] Immortality is not the default condition of human beings, but is “conditional” upon faith in Christ. In hell, the impenitent will only suffer punishment of kind and duration commensurate with their degree of sinfulness. Once they have completed their “sentence,” they will be annihilated, suffering the second (and final) death. Like traditionalism and universalism, annihilationism claims church fathers - like Barnabas, Mathetes and Hermas - for support. However, if they “were not advocates of ultimate annihilation, their choice of words to get across their beliefs was very infelicitous.”[17] In other words, their views were not necessarily laid out in strict, definitive terms.
Annihilationists believe traditionalists teach eternal punishment because they borrowed the concept of the immortal soul from Plato. Something immortal cannot be destroyed, thus traditionalists have backed themselves into a corner. “I am convinced,” says Clark Pinnock, “that the Hellenistic belief of the immortality of the soul has done more than anything else (specifically more than the Bible) to give credibility to the doctrine of everlasting conscious punishment of the wicked.” [18]
If only the saved have immortality, what is the fate (or state, as it were) of the damned in the interim between death and the final resurrection? Some conditionalists hold a view called soul-sleep. They believe that the consciousness of the deceased is suspended until the resurrection.[19] “Thus the soul ‘sleeps’ until it awakens in the resurrection on the last day.”[20]
However, not all annihilationists believe in the notion of “soul-sleep.” Edward William Fudge tells us, “No biblical character is ever said to have placed hope in philosophical notions of natural immortality, or to have supposed that human beings have some mysterious part that cannot die.”[21] In other words, there is no immortality for anyone, believer and non-believer alike, since there is no such thing as the soul. Fudge is a mortalist, and he “argues for annihilationism on the basis of his view that death means extinction of being rather than separation of soul from body.”[22] Each person is a physical being only and is recreated during the final resurrection to suffer his final fate at that time.
Problems with Conditional Immortality
Annihilationists use the biblical “vocabulary of destruction,” hellfire imagery, conditional immortality and the concept of God’s justice to support their view. As before, we will perform a cursory examination of these points to see how they hold up.
Matthew 10:28 warns believers to “be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount tells us that “broad is the road that leads to destruction” (Matt. 7:13-14). And even the most-quoted verse in Scripture, John 3:16, warns that those who do not believe in Christ will perish. If Scripture gave no other instruction than these and similar passages, extermination of the wicked might be implied. But one only has to look to Matthew 25:41, 46 to see that the damned will join Satan in the eternal fire and endure eternal punishment. Furthermore, Revelation 20:10 tells us the devil will be thrown into the “lake of burning sulfur” where they will be “tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Verses 13 and 15 then assure us each person will be judged according to his deeds and those whose names are not found in the book of life will be thrown into the lake of fire with Satan. Eternal punishment is clear in these verses.[23]
Annihilationists believe references to fire in the Bible are more accurately understood as destruction instead of pain. According to John Stott, “…the main function of fire is not to cause pain, but to secure destruction, as all the world’s incinerators bear witness. Hence the biblical expression ‘a consuming fire’ and John the Baptist’s picture of the Judge ‘burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire’ (Matthew 3:12, cf. Luke 3:17).”[24] Jesus’ parable of the weeds in Matthew 13:40-42 is a perfect example of why “fire” and “burning” do not always indicate destruction. Verse 42 speaks of “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” unmistakably indicating suffering and not destruction.
In laying out the definition of annihilationism at the beginning of this section, we have already presented the terminalist’s claim of conditional immortality. To wit, it “is the view that souls are not naturally immortal, but that immortality is a gift given by God only to the righteous, who, as a result, live forever. But the unrighteous, because they lack the gift of immortality, are annihilated and cease to exist.”[25] Annihilationists believe traditional views on hell are influenced by the pagan notion of immortality of the soul promoted by Plato. They are mistaken for several reasons. First, their claim that philosophy overly influenced the interpretation of Scripture is overrated. Those who have argued for the traditional view of hell have done so because they believed this is what the Bible teaches. Second, the traditionalist view of immortality is biblical, not Platonic. Plato thought the soul was inherently immortal. Traditionalists understand that God “alone is immortal” (1 Tim 6:16) and that He grants immortality to man. Finally, the traditional view of hell is not derived from the belief in the immortality of the soul, but the other way around. “The Bible clearly teaches everlasting dam-nation for the wicked and everlasting life for the righteous.” [26]
Annihilationists appeal to God’s justice in support of their doctrine as well. “Proportionality” figures prominently in their concept of justice. Essentially, their concern is that the punishment is proportional to the crime committed. While we may find ourselves skeptical that eternal punishment is a fitting price for a temporal offense, “we must learn of divine justice from the Bible itself. It will not do to protest God’s revealed judgments on the basis of what seems fair or unfair to us. Instead, we must adjust our thinking, including our view of God’s justice, to God’s revealed truth.”[27]
In our next post, we'll conclude with the traditional doctrine of hell and why I believe it best squares with Scripture, morality and logic.
[16] Greg, All You Want to Know About Hell, 195.
[17] Ibid., 115.
[18] Clark Pinock, “The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent,” Criswell Theological Review 4.2 (1990), 252, in Greg, All You Want to Know About Hell, 198, parenthetical remark in the original.
[19] Greg, All You Want to Know About Hell, 199.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Edward William Fudge and Robert A. Peterson, Two Views of Hell: A Biblical & Theological Dialogue (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000), 23.
[22] Ibid., 174.
[23] Peterson, Hell on Trial, 162-64 and Fudge and Peterson, Two Views of Hell, 110, synthesized and summarized.
[24] David L Edwards and John Stott, Evangelical Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1988), 316.
[25] Peterson, Hell on Trial, 177.
[26] Ibid., 178.
[27] Ibid., 173.