The Truth Of Annihilationism

Finally--it's time to prove that the Bible does not teach that the unsaved will suffer forever in conscious agony in hell.  I have hinted at and explicitly stated that I am indeed an annihilationist several times before in previous posts, but never before have I provided any sort of elaborate or Biblical case for it.  But I have compiled a partial summary of the many reasons we can know that eternal conscious torment, the idea that the unsaved will exist in torment forever, is false, unbiblical, and even logically flawed, and the reasons by which we can know that the Bible clearly teaches annihilationism, the idea that after a finite amount of torment the unsaved wicked are vaporized in hell.

I have divided this post into portions marked by statements in bold for easier navigation and so that readers can read, pause, and resume at a particular place with ease.


Eternal Punishment Does Not Mean Eternal Conscious Torment

I am going to show the verse pointed to by pro-ECT (eternal conscious torment) theologians as the confirmation of their beliefs they perceive it as, and then I will prove that their understanding of it is hasty and assumptive, not rational and consistent with the remainder of Scripture.  The phrase "eternal punishment" does not mean what adherents of the "traditional" model of hell pretend and is thus not discarded by annihilationism.


Matthew 25:46--"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."


But doesn't this obviously prove eternal conscious torment, you might ask?  Before I explain, read the verse below.


Hebrews 5:9--". . . and, once made perfect, he (Jesus) became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him . . ."


As seen above, Hebrews 5:9 says that Christians have an eternal salvation.  But Christians will not be constantly in the process of being saved throughout eternity, but instead they are or will BE saved and the effects will last into eternity.  In the same way, just because the Bible occasionally--and I do mean occasionally, because it is easily provable that the phrase is used in one or two places at most--refers to the punishment of humans in hell as eternal punishment does NOT at all mean that humans will be in the everlasting process of being consciously tormented.  They will be tormented for differing lengths and severities according to their deeds, then they will be annihilated and the effects will last into all eternity.  But so far I haven't proven yet that the Bible teaches annihilationism, only that the phrase "eternal punishment" does not necessarily mean what many ascribe to it.


The Soul Is Not Inherently Immortal

The idea that the human soul possesses inherent immortality is not one defensible on Biblical grounds.  Other than the passage from Matthew 25 which I analyzed above, there is no verse advocates of eternal conscious torment can appeal to in order to argue for the innate immortality of the soul.  To verify the alternative, allow me to present several passages below.


Ezekiel 18:4--"For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son--both alike belong to me.  The soul who sins is the one that will die."


This verse specifically states that the soul that sins will die.  This sounds very similar to another more popular verse . . .


Romans 6:23--"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."


The eternal life Jesus offers is contrasted here with death.  Now, I have listened as people tell me that what "death" means in this verse is perpetual suffering in hell--but that is clearly not the meaning of the word death and no one would ever make this absurd claim unless he or she was defending the fallacious idea of eternal conscious torment.  Romans 6:23 blatantly teaches that there are two ultimate destinies for all humans--extinction or redemption and the eternal life it brings.


Romans 2:7--"To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he (God) will give eternal life."


How can God possible give immortality to people if all of them, saved and unsaved, will already live forever anyway?  Why would Jesus speak about people receiving eternal life if they commit themselves to him when they already have eternal life?  It would be impossible to give to someone eternal existence if they already have it.  But if people will not acknowledge the plain meaning of the verses I have quoted thus far, the one that follows proves very directly that the Bible does not teach innate immortality of the human soul.


1 Timothy 6:15-16--". . . God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light . . ."


It is impossible to legitimately dispute the meaning of these verses: God alone possesses inherent immortality and no human soul will live forever apart from the salvation that Christ revealed.  Without the salvation extended by God, our consciousness eventually dies in hell just as our physical bodies do.  Claims that "eternal life" refers to the "quality" of existence instead or its duration rely on a completely biased and non-objective understanding of the words "eternal life".  When one stops reading into words like perish and eternal life meanings that don't exist, it becomes much easier to detect that eternal conscious torment has no support or proof whatsoever.


Perish Means Perish, Not Eternal Conscious Torment

John 3:16--"'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."

Psalm 37:20--"But the wicked will perish . . ."


Does perish mean "suffer conscious agony without an ending point"?  No!  That is not the meaning of the word perish, and no one would interpret this or similar passages to mean perpetual suffering by the word "perish" unless he or she had already assumed that eternal conscious torment is true.


The Fate Of The Wicked Is Destruction

Here is a portion of the verses that undeniable say the wicked will be destroyed, not tortured forever.  Ironically, proponents of eternal conscious torment are often conservative theologians who lean towards interpreting the Bible literally (as they should) as opposed to in a forced and biased manner, yet a literal interpretation of the Bible leaves no room for the possibility of eternal conscious torment.


2 Thessalonians 1:9--"They will be punished with everlasting DESTRUCTION . . ."

Matthew 7:13--"Enter through the narrow gate.  For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to DESTRUCTION, and many enter through it."

Matthew 10:28--"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather, be afraid of the One who can DESTROY both soul and body in hell."

2 Peter 2:6--". . . if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them TO ASHES, and made them an example of what is GOING TO HAPPEN to the ungodly;"

2 Peter 3:7--"By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and DESTRUCTION OF UNGODLY MEN."

Revelation 21:8--". . . their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.  This is the SECOND DEATH."

Revelation 20:14--"Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  The lake of fire is the SECOND DEATH."


Traditionalists who denounce annihilationism have only two options when addressing these and other passages: 1) they can ignore them or 2) they can insist that they don't mean what they appear to.  However, both approaches amount to nothing more than irrationality.



The Bible is explicitly clear that those who are not saved will not be tortured endlessly.
While hell itself is described as "eternal fire" (Matthew 18:8), it does not logically
follow from the permanent existence of hell as a realm that humans will exist inside
it forever.  I will clarify this specific point in a future post at some time, but the
verses I have compiled in this post prove annihilationism already without the need for
additional evidence.  With this knowledge we must not ask if annihilationism
is true, only how certain Biblical ideas factor into it.

The Analogies Used For Hell Emphasize Temporality Of Punishment

Matthew 13:30--"At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned . . ."

Matthew 13:40--"As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age."


I am not claiming that these verses alone could ever serve as Biblical proof of annihilationism, but I am noting that these analogies have far more in common with annihilationism than with eternal conscious torment.  When weeds are burned they disintegrate even if the fire lives on; they do not burn forever without vanishing.  Not only do the explicit descriptions of what will happen to the unsaved clearly speak of annihilation, even the analogies can strongly suggest this.


Eternal Conscious Torment Unjust

Infinite torment for finite sins is absolutely illogical.  No matter how many sins someone committed and regardless of the severity of them, it is logically indefensible to say that it is just for God to torture people forever for a finite number of finite sins.  I know that there are some who elevate the Bible above logic (although if both are true neither is more true than the other and both testify to the same realities) and will not accept annihilationism on the basis of logic alone, so I wilI will also demonstrate the disproportionality of eternal conscious torment by proving that it contradicts the principles of justice that God himself revealed and embodies.

To demonstrate this I will reference several passages from God's moral revelation in Exodus and Deuteronomy.


Exodus 22:3--"A thief must certainly make restitution, but if he has nothing, he must be sold to pay for his theft."

Exodus 21:2--If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years.  But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything."


This is just one portion of Mosaic Law demonstrating that there are lines that cannot be crossed even in criminal punishment.  Involuntary servanthood was allowed in the case of a thief who could not make restitution, but the period of servanthood ended at six years.


Deuteronomy 25:2-3--"If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall make him lie down and have him flogged in his presence with the number of lashes his crime deserves, but he must not give him more than forty lashes.  If he is flogged more than that, your brother will be degraded in your eyes."


These verses establish the same point in a different way.  Corporal punishment via flogging was permitted by God, but the infliction of more than forty lashes was explicitly prohibited on a universal scale.  Eternal conscious torment is not compatible with the indisputable truth that certain tortures are inherently wicked and never justifiable or just--and if flogging someone with more than 40 lashes is immoral, how can the same God who revealed that decree torture men and women forever, without respite or a terminus?


Exodus 21:23-24--"But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot . . ."


While this passage is frequently misunderstood and miscommunicated by almost everyone who writes or speaks about it, it has some relevance here.  Yes, "eye for eye" was literal [1].  No, non-permanent injuries were not punished this way (Exodus 21:18-19) and other crimes besides infliction of permanent physical injury on someone were NOT punished in this manner (see the [1] for more information on this).  All of that aside, it would be evil under this standard for a civil agent to cut off both hands of someone who only removed one finger from his or her victim.  The concept of eternal conscious torment contradicts both the proportionality of justice and the fact that there are objective lines never to be crossed in any punishment.

If God will hold humans accountable for their excessive punishments of others, then it is impossible for him to violate that same morality because it is an immutable part of his nature.  As you can see from these verses I cited--verses which detail what terrestrial justice looks like in certain particular cases--proportionality in punishment is objectively just, meaning disproportionate punishment is inherently unjust, and there are certain things which people are universally prohibited from inflicting as punishments because those things are intrinsically unjust and wrong (more than 40 lashes, more than six years of involuntary servitude, etc).  God himself is just because justice is part of his nature; he himself revealed which specific punishments are just and which are unjust.  If God is good and if justice is good, then it is impossible for God to be unjust.  But proportionality is just and the Bible describes and condemns certain thresholds past which punishment is what Americans call "cruel and unusual".  So how can God punish people with eternal conscious torment when it violates these elements of justice which are an indispensable part of God's own nature?

Eternal conscious torment is the worst form of injustice one can imagine.  Ironically,
proponents of it often try to defend it by appealing to God's justice--the very thing
that stands opposed to their fallacious ideas.

Conclusion

I have not argued that because God is loving eternal conscious torment is impossible.  I have not appealed to emotion or subjective preference at all.  Instead I have relied solely on logic and Scripture in my argument for annihilationism, as any Christian theologian should.  Also, I never said that hell itself will cease to exist, only that unsaved humans will be destroyed, but that is a distinction that I will try to address another time.

An ironic fact is that a believer in ECT has to start with an inherited assumption of the meaning of Matthew 25:46 and interpret the other Biblical passages about the ultimate afterlife for the wicked in a forced, irrational, biased manner in order to attempt to reconcile them with his or her assumptions about the human soul; yet an annihilationist only needs to accept the literal language of the Bible and not invent fanciful meanings for words like "death" and "perish".

There is no true debate to be held.  There is not only no legitimate evidence for ECT and the doctrine of the "immortality of the soul" in the Bible, but logic itself proves ECT is irrational; there is not only no true Biblical evidence for ECT, but the truth of annihilationism waits blatantly in almost any verse speaking about the fate of the wicked.

If you have believed in ECT because you were taught it is true or because you cursorily inspected the Bible with the background knowledge that many Christians believe in ECT, please examine everything I have written if the concept of annihilationism is new to you.  Never again will you have to feel discomfort with God and the Bible over the issue of the destiny of the unsaved.  Never again will you have to conjure up wild and illogical defenses for ECT in your talks with nonbelievers.  You will not need to confront the criticisms that those outside of Christianity will hurl at ECT.  Simply abandon it altogether and replace it with something that is demonstrable from the Bible and logic, perhaps comforting and relieving yourself in the process.  After all, false doctrines like ECT have frightened and terrified many, and when people identify obviously fallacious and impossible concepts with real Christianity, they may reject truth because they have been told by others to accept as truth that which is a devastating falsehood.



Christians can often do a very poor and lazy job of safeguarding the doctrines
of the Bible from fallacious, extra-Biblical human-made absurdities.  If we
Christians ever find ourselves accepting a theological belief on the basis of
tradition or preference, we need to submit ourselves again to logic and
divine revelation.

[1].  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/bible-on-torture-part-2.html