The Justice Of Annihilationism

One of the most basic truths about values that a person can learn is that our feelings and preferences have nothing to do with whether or not a moral claim is true.  Someone can feel like an evil thing is good, and someone can feel like a good thing is evil.  Feelings are intrinsically unreliable by their very nature when it comes to epistemological pursuits.  When I see people discussing annihilationism, I sometimes see believers in eternal conscious torment (ECT) saying that they don't think annihilationism is just because it only involves limited suffering at most.

First of all, even if God were to immediately annihilate people, body and soul/mind (Matthew 10:28), without any period of torment beforehand, those annihilated would still have suffered a great punishment: permanent exclusion from God's presence and salvation.  This alone is no small punishment in itself, but annihilation also involves extinction of consciousness and destruction of the body.  It is an enormously, incalculably less torturous fate, but it is not a small thing to be exiled from both God and from existence on both a conscious and material level.  Some people may even fear death more than eternal torture--which I do not understand, but this only shows the subjective nature of fear and deterrence appeal.  Regardless of which one people fear more, though, eternal conscious torment is objectively harsher, more agonizing, and lengthier.

With the genuine punishment in annihilation affirmed, I want to remind people that whether or not someone feels like eternal conscious torment, limited torment leading to annihilation, or only annihilation is just is entirely irrelevant to discussing ECT and annihilationism.  Annihilationism is just not because someone prefers it to eternal torture.  As with all other moral truths, which include truths about justice, God must reveal them to humans for humans to know them.  Ultimate annihilation is just because it matches God's nature and because eternal conscious torment of humans contradicts it [1], and there can be no moral authority other than God.  When someone tries to insist that annihilationism is unjust because they can't imagine such a truth deterring people, they are arguing not from Biblical grounds, and not even from rational grounds at all, but are appealing to their subjective preferences and feelings instead.

Likewise, it does not matter what someone feels towards the Biblically true doctrine of conditional immortality--the (correct) position that in a post-fall world neither the human body nor the conscious human soul/mind will live forever apart from restoration to God (1 Timothy 6:16) is unaffected by their emotions.  Some may feel less valuable once they recognize their fallen natures as inevitably mortal, but conditional immortality only makes the gift of eternal life all the more significant.  Christ's promise of eternal life for those who believe in him is not cheapened by conditional immortality; it is only all the more precious because of it.

Just as the Bible teaches that it is unjust to give someone more than an absolute maximum of 40 lashes (Deuteronomy 25:1-3), because someone can't deserve more regardless of the perceived deterrence of additional lashes, it is unjust to torment people forever for finite sins--although Satan, the beast, and the false prophet, if the latter two are literal figures, are said to suffer eternally, the same is not said about general unsaved humans [2] (Revelation 20:10-15).  Annihilationism stands or falls on whether it accurately represents God's nature, not on whether or not humans approve or disapprove of it.  And Scripture is rather clear that it does represent God's nature.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-truth-of-annihilationism.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/revelation-20-and-annihilationism.html