In discussions about hell, sometimes an appeal to personality and authority is made. After all, conditionalism is certainly a minority view, and so conditionalists find themselves disagreeing with many highly venerated theologians and leaders of the Christian faith throughout its history. To someone who isn’t really thinking about it, it can be rhetorically powerful to call out someone who would be so arrogant as to challenge great men of the faith on the topic of hell.1This is not the same are the simple numbers argument, the argument that surely the Holy Spirit wouldn’t allow so many Christians throughout time couldn’t be wrong about hell (the way he did with salvation by faith alone vs. works, according to Protestantism…). This numbers argument can be coupled with the authority argument (“surely this many great men throughout time couldn’t be wrong about hell!”), but the authority argument is in many ways its own element. It can also give some people pause to say that this or that theologian (or many of them) whom they highly respect was wrong on such an important matter of theology.
However, conditionalists don’t even have to make a good case that any given theologian or group of theologians was wrong in order to diffuse this argument. We just need to remind everyone that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
| ￪1 | This is not the same are the simple numbers argument, the argument that surely the Holy Spirit wouldn’t allow so many Christians throughout time couldn’t be wrong about hell (the way he did with salvation by faith alone vs. works, according to Protestantism…). This numbers argument can be coupled with the authority argument (“surely this many great men throughout time couldn’t be wrong about hell!”), but the authority argument is in many ways its own element. |
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