Rethinking Hell contributors Chris Date and William Tanksley respond to the hosts of the Doctrine and Devotion podcast, who recently critiqued annihilationism in response to an emailer’s question. This episode contains part 2 of Chris and William’s response; listen to episode 143 for part 1.
Rethinking Hell contributor Chris Date debates traditionalist Ross Burns on Zac Sechler’s “Adherent Apologetics” YouTube channel, debating the question, “Will the Lost Remain Alive in Hell Forever?”
Rethinking Hell contributor Darren Clark and friend of the ministry Johnathan Pritchett (VP for Academics at Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary) join Chris Date to review his debate versus Tony Costa on Chris Arnzen’s “Iron Sharpens Iron” radio program. In this episode, Darren, Johnathan, and Chris discuss part 3 of the debate, in which Date and Costa field audience questions.
Rethinking Hell contributor Darren Clark and friend of the ministry Johnathan Pritchett (VP for Academics at Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary) join Chris Date to review his debate versus Tony Costa on Chris Arnzen’s “Iron Sharpens Iron” radio program. In this episode, Darren, Johnathan, and Chris discuss part 2 of the debate, in which Date and Costa debate the question, “Is conscious torment of the damned eternal?”
In a recent installment of Crossway’s “5 Myths” article series, Mark Jones attempts to debunk what he sees as “5 Myths about Hell.” In so doing, however, Jones misreads a host of biblical texts that support the doctrines of conditional immortality and annihilationism, mistakenly thinking they teach eternal torment. Along the way, he perpetuates five other popular myths about hell, which we at Rethinking Hell debunk below.
For years, I have said that two things convinced me of conditional immortality and annihilationism (hereafter, “conditionalism”) more than anything else. First and foremost, I discovered that, with virtually no exception, every proof-text historically cited in support of eternal torment proves upon closer examination to be better support for conditionalism. Second, I was shocked at how poorly thought out traditionalist arguments against conditionalism typically are. Matthew 25:41-46 is a case study in both phenomena, for it is surprisingly powerful support for conditionalism, but when traditionalists dig their heels in, they often resort to highly dubious arguments they wouldn’t countenance in virtually any other context, such as by claiming the Greek preposition εἰς (eis), translated “into,” rules out the annihilation of the finally impenitent.
Having examined the underwhelming biblical case for eternal torment over evangelical conditionalism based on degrees of punishment in Part 1, a number of philosophical questions about God’s justice remain. In Light of Eternity, Few Christians See Final Punishment As Truly Proportional The traditionalist case is that final punishment is really only just if a worse sinner has a worse fate than a less wicked sinner, and that worse fate continues to be worse throughout eternity. Annihilation, of course, does not meet that standard. However, this standard is not nearly as strong as it may sound at first. It is not a biblical view, so it does not have the firm, objective basis of scripture. Beyond that, eternal torment, within the framework of a Christian worldview, must concede more to the annihilationist view than many traditionalists realize. The effects of eternity and the concept of infinity take a lot of the force out of the traditionalist case here.
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