What does Conditional Immortality affirm and deny?
As a Christian doctrinal position, conditional immortality affirms that immortality—living forever and never dying—is a gift from God given only to the saved (1 Tim 6:16; Rom 2:7; 2 Tim 1:10; 1 Cor 15:54; John 6:50-51; John 11:25-26; Luke 20:36).
It also tacitly rejects universal immortality, the view that all people ultimately will live forever. Since this is a tenet of both eternal torment and universal salvation, conditionalism necessarily denies those two positions.1Conditionalism therefore also rejects universal salvation’s stipulation of a universally-met condition for immortality. It does not technically deny the idea of an inherently immortal soul, since this is no guarantee of a person ultimately living forever (God is able to destroy body and soul in a final judgment).
Conditional immortality, or conditionalism, is expressed in terms of a reward of “eternal life” for the saved, and an “eternal punishment” for the finally unsaved (Matt 25:46). The punishment is an “eternal judgment” of death instead of life, since the wages of sin is death (Heb 6:2; Rom 6:23). This requires an “eternal destruction” of “body and soul” (2 Thess 1:9 cf. Matt 10:28).
Although the biblical label for that event is “the second death,” it can also be called annihilation (conditionalism and annihilationism may be used interchangeably). Whereas the concept of death indicates the forfeit of life but doesn’t specify duration, annihilation speaks of a death that is a permanent loss of life, and destruction of the whole person. Since God is the source and sustainer of life (Acts 17:25; Heb 1:3; Rev 2:7 cf. Gen 3:22), this kind of demise may be considered a consequence of eternal separation or severance from God.
| ￪1 | Conditionalism therefore also rejects universal salvation’s stipulation of a universally-met condition for immortality. |
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Rethinking Hell contributor Chris Date continues a series of special episodes celebrating last year’s publication of the ministry’s second book, A Consuming Passion: Essays on Hell and Immortality in Honor of Edward Fudge, by interviewing its authors. In this second episode of the series, Chris interviews Peter Grice and Glenn Peoples.