Exploring Evangelical Conditionalism (Annihilationism)
Rethinking Hell contributors Peter Berthelsen and Mark Corbett join Chris Date for the eighth and last of a series of episodes reviewing Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment, edited by Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson. This eighth episode in the series reviews chapter 9, “Annihilationism: Will the Unsaved Be Punished Forever?” by Christopher Morgan. Continue reading “Episode 110: "Hell Under Fire" Under Fire, Part 8: Annihilationism Under Fire”
Part 7 of our series of episodes reviewing Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment, edited by Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson. This seventh episode in the series reviews chapter 8, “Universalism: Will Everyone Ultimately Be Saved?” by J. I. Packer
Part 6 of our series of episodes reviewing Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment, edited by Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson. This sixth episode in the series reviews chapter 10, “Pastoral Theology: The Preacher and Hell,” by Sinclair Ferguson. Continue reading “Episode 107: "Hell Under Fire" Under Fire, Part 6: The Preacher and Hell”
Rethinking Hell contributors Peter Berthelsen and Glenn Peoples join Chris Date for the fifth of a series of episodes reviewing Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment, edited by Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson. This fifth episode in the series reviews chapter 6, “Biblical Theology: Three Pictures of Hell,” by Christopher Morgan, and chapter 7, “Systematic Theology: Three Vantage Points of Hell,” by Robert Peterson. Continue reading “Episode 105: "Hell Under Fire" Under Fire, Part 5: Hell in Biblical and Systematic Theology”
Part 4 of our series of episodes of episodes reviewing Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment, edited by Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson. This fourth episode in the series reviews chapter 4, “Paul on Hell,” by Douglas Moo. Continue reading “Episode 104: "Hell Under Fire" Under Fire, Part 4: "Eternal Destruction" and Hell in Paul”
Rethinking Hell contributors William Tanksley and Daniel Sinclair join Chris Date for the third of a series of episodes reviewing Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment, edited by Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson. This third episode in the series reviews chapter 3, “Jesus on Hell,” by Robert Yarbrough. Continue reading “Episode 103: "Hell Under Fire" Under Fire, Part 3: Hell in the Teaching of Jesus”
Rethinking Hell contributors Joey Dear and William Tanksley join Chris Date for the second of a series of episodes reviewing Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment, edited by Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson. This second episode in the series reviews the second chapter, “The Old Testament on Hell,” by Daniel Block, and chapter 5, “The Revelation on Hell,” by G. K. Beale. Continue reading “Episode 102: "Hell Under Fire" Under Fire, Part 2: Progressive Revelation of Hell”
Part 1 of our series of episodes reviewing Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment, edited by Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson. This first episode in the series reviews the book’s introduction, as well as the first chapter, “Modern Theology: The Disappearance of Hell,” by Al Mohler. Continue reading “Episode 101: "Hell Under Fire" Under Fire, Part 1: The History of Hell”
Hey, if Dr. Robert Peterson can do it, so can I. Beg the question, that is, from my article’s outset—in its very title, “Everlasting Torment or Eternal Punishment?” By setting the traditional view of hell up against the biblical phrase “eternal punishment,” the question I ask in the title assumes that eternal torment is not the fate Jesus warned awaits the lost, and it subtly influences my readers to assume the same before they’ve had a chance to consider the case for the view I’m critiquing. But if Peterson is allowed to similarly beg the question and poison the well in his article, “Annihilation or Eternal Punishment?”, featured in the February 2014 issue of Tabletalk magazine, certainly I should be forgiven for doing it.
Continue reading “Everlasting Torment or Eternal Punishment?”
Critics of conditionalism often credit fourth-century apologist Arnobius of Sicca with being the first clear proponent of conditionalism. From Robert Peterson to John Blanchard to Robert Morey, there is an abundant tendency among traditionalists to indicate Arnobius as “the first name usually associated with” annihilationism and conditional immortality,1Blanchard, J. Whatever Happened to Hell? (Crossway, 1995). 211. who gave “the first clear expression of annihilationism,”2Peterson, R. Hell On Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1995). 104. that annihilationism “was first advanced by Arnobius, a 4th-century ‘Christian’ apologist, according to standard reference works such as Baker’s Dictionary of Theology.”3Morey, R. Death and the Afterlife (Bethany House, 1984). 199. Each of these authors is critical of Arnobius and his work; Morey is even hesitant to identify Arnobius as Christian, enclosing the term in scare quotes. The impression these authors apparently intend to leave their readers with is that conditionalism emerged hundreds of years after the writing of the New Testament, first espoused by a “less-than-careful thinker”4Peterson. Hell On Trial. 103. whose very faith is of questionable legitimacy. Continue reading “Deprived of continuance: Irenaeus the conditionalist”