When Eugene Peterson recommends a book on pastoring, you should listen. So when Peterson recommended David Hansen’s The Art of Pastoring, I eagerly picked it up.
Hansen’s book is an excellent account of his pastoral ministry in rural churches in Montana. What impressed me most about Hansen’s account is that he seems to have embodied Peterson’s priorities for ministry. Most, if not all of his time was spent in prayer, visitation and study. Bill Hybels would not approve.
Hansen gives a fascinating account of his theological wrestling with the doctrine of hell as a pastor. In seminary he latched on to John Calvin and his meditations on divine sovereignty. But, Hansen couldn’t quite stomach the thought of reprobation so he became an annihilationist, eventually becoming a full blown universalist. Hansen claims it almost destroyed his ministry. Read below:
There is an important place in the ministry for honest questioning over doctrinal issues. But I’m not proud of my tossing and turning over hell. Some pastors wear their agnosticism about hell as a badge of honor. I’ve tried it. I’ve acted as if struggling to believe our Lord’s words were a virtue. But I always found that when I became proud of my doubts, they suddenly became the sin of unbelief. For me, finally, waffling over hell became the sin of unbelief …
My newfound Calvinism threw a wrench into my doctrine of eternal punishment. Here before me was the ultimate horror: God choosing people to go to hell. I loved Calvinism but could not tolerate its dark side. I would not give up on Calvinism, so hell suffered in the balance. I ran into annihilationism. This teaches that there is no eternal hell; nonbelievers are simply annihilated at the last judgment. Annihilationism manages to steer clear of universalism and the offense of eternal hell. It lightens the burden on Calvinism, since souls not chosen do not suffer forever, they simply cease to exist. I embraced annihilationism wholeheartedly. But I couldn’t preach it. I accepted a call to a Baptist church where everybody believed in the existence of hell. I tried to explain my view to some people, but they got lost in my arguments. Annihilationism sounds logical; it is built on some points of biblical anthropology. But the big problem with annihilationism is that it isn’t really in the Bible. You can deduce it from some Bible texts, but it isn’t in plain sight. Biblically, universalism stands on steadier ground than annihilationism …
Barth is famous for denying throughout his life that he was a universalist. He knew that universalism is patently unscriptural. In his doctrine of predestination, however, he radically reinterprets the traditional Reformed doctrine of the predestination of individuals into the predestination of the One Man, Jesus Christ. For Barth, Jesus is the Elect Man. All persons are elect in him. This throws the possibility of universalism wide open. Although Barth denied being a universalist, in response to questions about the possibility of universal salvation he consistently replied: “Why not?” Barth’s happy “Why not?” metamorphosed in my mind to “Absolutely yes!” I began to see people in a different light. I began to see everyone around me as heavenbound. It felt good. It gave me a happy feeling. (That should have been a warning sign: my generation of theologians loves to believe doctrines that make us feel happy.) What was unhappy was that I was a secret universalist. I preached sermons hinting at the possibility of universalism, but I was too insecure, too unsure of my new theological view, to share it widely. Pastors don’t talk about it. I knew pastors with universalist ideas, but very few would talk openly about it; most were afraid to admit it. That confused me. Here’s this happy doctrine-everyone gains eternal salvation-but almost no one will talk about it. Why not? I couldn’t answer that question. All I knew was that I didn’t want to talk about it. Universalism relieved some of my theological tensions, but it made my ministry frivolous, pointless. I discovered firsthand in my pastoral work what J. S. Whale said about universalism in his book Christian Doctrine: “It is illogical to tell men that they must do the will of God and accept his gospel of grace, if you also tell them that the obligation has no eternal significance, and that nothing ultimately depends upon it. The curious modern heresy that everything is bound to come out right in the end is so frivolous I will not insult you by refuting it.” My faith devolved into a mild pantheistic pluralism, and I began to despise it. It was paltry, toothless. With the major paradoxes, like the doctrine of hell, taken out, my faith was as flabby as a week-old helium balloon. My ministry became futile and pathetic; I was of no use to anyone. Something happened I never expected. My anger toward my parishioners increased. I would have thought that dethroning the “angry” God of the Bible would have made me into a kinder, gentler pastor. Just the opposite actually occurred.
I became more resentful of people who hurt me. Pastors are like football quarterbacks: they need to be able to take a hard shot from their opponent and get up smiling. But I lost my durability. I got prickly over the normal bumps and bruises of pastoral work These bumps and bruises come most of the time from Christians. I didn’t think that because they were bumping heads with me they should go to hell. It’s just that there’s something about eliminating the God of judgment that makes us into judges. When I gave up on a God of vindication, I became my own self-appointed vigilante. The area of ministry that my new eschatology affected most was my preaching. At first it didn’t change much. I tried to continue preaching Christocentrically. But I became more and more interested in preaching psychological insights. It didn’t occur to me that I was becoming a syncretist. Yet slowly I edged Christ out of my preaching. I stopped preaching evangelistically and began to offer “relevant” social and psychological interpretations of the Scripture. The only reaction I got, even from my liberal listeners, was that my preaching was getting boring …
What I see at first is a crowd, a public gathering. What I’m looking for is an assembly of people made in the image of God, called by the Holy Spirit this very morning to hear the holy Word. That shift of vision from public crowd to holy assembly is the source of the energy to preach. The fire is lit in my belly as I see what the congregation really is, lost people, and what I really have to bring, the life-giving Word. With everyone saved, though, there was no longer a line to be crossed from death to life. All I could see and all I could preach was what we should be doing. We should love one another. We should free one another from dysfunctional entanglements. We should be less prejudiced. We should feed the poor. But all I could say was “We should.” I lost the ability to say “You must.” Since in the end it didn’t really make much difference how people lived, it didn’t make much difference what I preached, or if I even preached at all. My thinking had become frivolous, my theology one of wishful thinking. My words became inconsequential. My religion was reduced to a self-help methodology, a happy way to cope with life. I became a moralist, a counselor, a two-bit pop psychologist. I took serious steps to leave the ministry. But I felt as if I needed to think through my faith one more time before I junked it all …
So, what did he do next?
I just updated it.
He believes in hell, is still Calvinist (?) and appeals to mystery/paradox.
But the big problem with annihilationism is that it isn’t really in the Bible. You can deduce it from some Bible texts, but it isn’t in plain sight.
Apparently Hansen embraced and rejected a view without ever understanding it.
The fact is, there are many descriptions of the fate of the unsaved throughout the Bible and the overwhelming majority sound exactly like conditionalism (aka “annihilationism”). The biblical language consists primarily of expressions like die, perish, destroy, consume, wither, vanish, be no more, etc. The straightforward and obvious implication that these all signify an end must be explained away by the person who believed in eternal torment.
Ironically, it is the the eternal torment of the damned that is not once explicitly taught in any passage; it must be inferred. Not one verse ever predicates eternal torment, eternal suffering, or eternal pain to human beings. Isn’t that curious?
Isn’t that curious?
Actually, it’s false.
Feel free to indicate which verses explicitly predicate eternal torment to humans.
Revelation 20:7: “..and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”
Revelation 22:5: “…they will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”
If Rev 22:5 is talking about the eternal rest of God’s people then 20:7 has to mean that hell is a place that will exist forever. A friend has posted on this on another site and apparently the Greek phrasing is identical in both passages.
I could see someone then countering with the argument that although hell is eternal it will only be populated by the devil and his horde. The problem with this is in 14:11 and and 19:3 it’s clearly an eternal resting place for non-believers.
See here: http://ianhughclary.com/2011/03/16/hell-is-eternal/
Daniel 12:2 states that many who are in the earth will be raised, some to everlasting glory and others to evverlasting shame. This may not refer to everlasting conscious torment but it still refers to a resurrection state that doesn’t look like it has any reversible element to it. The contingent existence of humans who themselves cannot be immortal can be easily established from the overall scriptural testimony but it’s an extra step from that to annihiliationism and while Jesus said that in the trash heap of hell that the worm never dies and the fires don’t stop that doesn’t mean that you or I, if we get stuck there, will stop existing.
Now if I felt like being more or a smart-ass I could use a comment Mark Driscoll made about eschatology and say that we should be careful in how we talk about Revelation because we’re making declarative statements about things that haven’t happened yet. He doesn’t have that lack of confidence when talking about Hell by a long shot. Even if we set aside all of Revelation as subject to debate passages like Daniel 12 and Jesus’ teaching make it very difficult to assume annihilationism is can even be deduced from scripture. The everlasting shame referred to in Daniel 12:2 doesn’t seem like it could be everlasting if annihilationism were the literal fulfillment of what it refers to.
Brooks, I suppose you grant that the passages you mention do not explicitly say that humans will be tormented forever. You are connecting two passages and drawing an inference. Now, that’s fine, as far as it goes, and your inference could be correct (I don’t think it is) but my point stands unchallenged.
I’m not trying to be pedantic here. I think it is important for me to show why your reasoning and exegesis are faulty (and I’ll do that in another comment). Do you honestly not find it strange that, 1) this important doctrine is never just plainly and explicitly stated, and 2) the most powerful passages used in support for this doctrine are drawn from the this literary genre?
The genre of apocalypse would be the most appropriate genre in which to discuss such a doctrine, as it is about things from the heavenly perspective. Hell is not something directly evident to our senses.
And since Revelation says that Hell will be thrown into the lake of fire we might want to keep that in mind, too. Jeffrey Burton Russell and others have explained how the lake of fire and Hell got conflated in traditional Christian teaching and I’m not going to rehearse all of that but it may be useful to point out that an argument against “Hell” may not turn out to constitute a viable argument against the lake of fire.
Also, 14:11 does quite explicitly state the traditional doctrine of eternal punishment.
Andrew, it most certainly does not explicitly say that human beings will be tormented forever. The closest it gets is stating that “the smoke of their torment goes up forever.” That’s not to say that your inference is unreasonable. It might even be (if this were a different genre) a good inference. But it is an inference nonetheless–that much is beyond dispute.
The language from Revelation 14:11 is borrowed almost directly from Isaiah 34:10, which depicts the destruction of Edom. Note the similarities: Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.(emphasis mine)
Smoke rising forever is clearly what we might call apocalyptic hyperbole. Edom undoubtedly has not been on fire forever, and neither will people be tormented by fire forever. The imagery is not intended to convey such a thing. Or do you and other Christians in fact assert that Edom is burning to this day, and nobody has ever passed through it since?
I’ll respond to some of these other comments later this evening.
Wenatchee, the passage actually describes hades as being thrown into the lake of fire. The word most often translated “hell” in all modern English translations is gehenna. Every contemporary defender of both conditionalism and eternal torment that I’m aware of (and I think I’ve read most of them) identifies the lake of fire of Revelation 20 with gehenna (i.e. the place of final punishment).
Hades is equivalent to what the OT refers to as sheol. In fact, the LXX uses hades to translate sheol.
It’s probably the case that sheol, hades, gehenna, and tartarus should all be transliterated as opposed to translated, since they’re proper nouns, but translation committees are surprisingly beholden to traditional renderings.
I don’t see why that’s the case. Why couldn’t a biblical author just say “if you don’t repent, you will be tormented forever”? Modern preachers have no difficulty describing hell in straightforward terms like that.
Why would Paul not say, “the wages of sin is being tormented forever”? Why would Jesus not say, “that whoever believes in him should not be tormented forever, but have eternal life”? Instead they use straightforward, simple and unambiguous words like death and perish.
I don’t suppose that the original audience would ever come up with the contrived line of reasoning that traditionalists offer in response:
Well, death is “separation”, so that actually means that I’ll be separated from God forever–well actually, just separated from his goodness, because I’ll actually be in his wrathful presence, and so by “death”, Paul must actually mean endless existence in agony!
I think not.
Jesus said that in the trash heap of hell that the worm never dies and the fires don’t stop that doesn’t mean that you or I, if we get stuck there, will stop existing.
But if we’ve established the correct biblical anthropology that you mention, we would have no good reason to suppose that we won’t stop existing. It’s only because Christians have traditionally assumed a faulty view of innate or unconditional immortality that images of fire and worms are taken to mean anything other than consumption–even when the passage that this imagery is taken from (Isaiah 66:24), explicitly refers to corpses, and not living humans!
And for the record, the passage does not refer to worms that “never” die, and fires that “don’t stop.” This is not a minor quibble. The fires are said to be unquenchable. Unquenchable fire is used several times in the OT to describe judgement that cannot be resisted. It does not refer to fire that perpetually burns. Similarly, and in parallel fashion, it says that the worms will not die, not that they will never die (i.e. live forever). In context, it clearly refers to maggots that will not die until the corpses are consumed.
The everlasting shame referred to in Daniel 12:2 doesn’t seem like it could be everlasting if annihilationism were the literal fulfillment of what it refers to.
Actually, the passage refers to “shame and everlasting contempt.” What you say here would only be true if one supposes that contempt could only rightfully be used in reference to living humans, but I don’t see why we should think that. In fact, the exact same word that is translated “contempt” (deraone) is used only one other time in the OT, in the passage we mentioned above (Isaiah 66:24, there rendered as “abhorrence”). What is it used to refer to there? Corpses. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.
For the record, I don’t like the word “annihilationism” to describe my view, because I think it gives some people the impression that final punishment would just be this instantaneous “poofing out of existence”–whereas Scripture, I think, describes final punishment in quite violent terms.
p.s. I like your comment about Driscoll
Brooks, I’m surprised that you would mention Revelation 19:3, because the “forever and ever” there is almost never taken in a literal sense. Like Isaiah 34:10, it refers to the smoke rising from an obliterated city (the “she” of Rev 19:3 refers to Babylon, which is explicitly interpreted as being a city). Again, few, if any, Christians believe that cities will literally keep burning forever.
And yes, if the only passage that described the redeemed as living forever was found in Revelation 20, I would undoubtedly be reluctant to say that it should be interpreted in a strict, literal sense, the same way that I’m reluctant to take the thousand years of chapter 20 in a strict, literal sense.
Alright guys, I don’t want hijack this page with all my comments. Let me know if you’re fine with this discussion taking place here, because I obviously have a special interest in this issue and can therefore ramble on for a while, to put it lightly.
I’ve got no job and therefore have plenty of time but I can’t speak for Andrew or Brooks.
I’m curious as to what you make of Daniel 12:2. Even if I grant “apocalyptic hyperbole” why would Yahweh raised people from the dead just to annihilate them? I vaguely recall some Pharisees held that if you denied resurrection then you wouldn’t get resurrected so there’s at least some precedent for an interpretative direction within rabbinic thought that “could” get applied to Christian apocalyptic literature, I suppose, but that endless shame thing is contrasted with eternal glory.
My impression is that Jesus’ warnings about hell tend to be read on the subject of hell itself rather than as a warning about what disposition of the heart (hating your brother) will get you there. I’m not conversant in a lot of commentaries on the gospels, though, so I’m just throwing that out there as yet another rabbit trail.
Ronnie,
Well, insofar as the figure of speech of clear, it is explicit.
There certainly is an allusion to texts like Isaiah 34, but the point of comparison is the unceasing nature of the judgment. In the case of Edom, it is described in context as being destroyed in the way a city is destroyed, and the image of unending smoke rising is a way of hyperbolically stating that the punishment will not be reversed.
But in the Revelation text, the context is different. Firstly, the fire is in the presence of the Lamb and his angels. So this already suggests a context different from that of Edom’s destruction, which was clearly a garden-variety historical destruction. Secondly, in Isaiah the thing destroyed is a nation, understood as including its physical environment. In Revelation, the thing being burnt is explicitly *people*. So, again, this makes the contexts different. And further, there are two paralleled statements in 14:11 which should be interpreted together:
The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever,
and they have no rest, day or night.
The simplest way to interpret the smoke *of their torment* going up forever is to understand it as saying they will be burnt by the tormenting fire mentioned in the previous verse, forever. The latter part of the description just confirms this point: the phrase “day or night” implies a continuing process of revolving days and nights, not an immediate destruction.
But, more importantly, you’re doing something illicit here, and in another comment. You’re arguing that, because in another passage the unending smoke cannot be everlasting, that it can’t be shown to be so here. But the difference is this: in the other passages, there are contextual indicators that the smoke going up forever is hyperbolic. In this passage, the context indicates the opposite: the unending nature of the smoke is not hyperbolic. It probably even suggest that St. John saw the punishment of Edom as typological anticipation of the antitype of Hell. I think that one could make an argument that even Isaiah understood he was describing Edom that way: he was using the imagery of hell to describe a judgment that will resemble it in intensity.
“What you say here would only be true if one supposes that contempt could only rightfully be used in reference to living humans, but I don’t see why we should think that. In fact, the exact same word that is translated “contempt” (deraone) is used only one other time in the OT, in the passage we mentioned above (Isaiah 66:24, there rendered as “abhorrence”). What is it used to refer to there? Corpses. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”
If the term is only used twice, referring in one case to corpses and in another case in Daniel 12, we should not define the meaning strictly by reading Isaiah 66 and then force that meaning on Daniel 12. That would be an improper way to determine the meaning of words. Rather, we have to read both Isaiah and Daniel, and try to find a core meaning that can explain how they are used in both.
And in Daniel 12, the context indicates the people who are “contempted” are alive, because they have just been “awakened”. Thus, the core meaning of the term does not include the concept of contemptible-corpses, rather, it means just “contempt”, which is applied both to living people and to corpses.
Further, even in Isaiah 66 it is clear that the idea the contempt applies to corpses comes from the presence of the word for corpse, not from the word for contempt. This should make us reticent to assume “contempt”, in itself, automatically refers to corpses.
So you haven’t properly defeated Wenatchee’s argument here.
Also, Isaiah does seem to literally say, “their maggot will not die” and “their fire will not be quenched”. I even checked the Hebrew.
I didn’t say that it would be impossible for them to talk about hell in another context; I only said the apocalyptic would be the most fitting place for it to be discussed, since the apocalyptic is always about revealing things to us (present, spiritual things, or future things) which we cannot know by our senses. Hell is just the kind of thing that fits in with what apocalypses talk about.
But, of course, it could be discussed in other contexts, and I think many of the texts from the epistles that you would claim for conditionalism are actually referring to hell, so I believe it is also being referred to there.
Also, I have absolutely no problem believing they could reason in the way you think impossible re: “death”. The Psalms of full of descriptions of present life described in death-like terms, so there’s no reason to believe they could not imagine a kind of life-as-living-death.
And the connection isn’t necessarily between death and separation. For example:
Psa 30:1 A Psalm of David. A song at the dedication of the temple. I will extol you, O LORD, for you have drawn me up and have not let my foes rejoice over me.
Psa 30:2 O LORD my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
Psa 30:3 O LORD, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.
Psa 30:4 Sing praises to the LORD, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name.
Psa 30:5 For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
Psa 30:6 As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.”
Psa 30:7 By your favor, O LORD, you made my mountain stand strong; you hid your face; I was dismayed.
Psa 30:8 To you, O LORD, I cry, and to the Lord I plead for mercy:
Psa 30:9 “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?
Psa 30:10 Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me! O LORD, be my helper!”
Psa 30:11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,
Psa 30:12 that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!
Here, David describes himself as having been in Sheol while alive (3), and this is equated with being under the anger of God (5). From this it is obvious that death can be understood as being under God’s curse, and being in misery. And this makes sense from the a biblical perspective, since death was the original curse of God in the Garden. So the “death” is a kind of divinely-cursed-existence-experienced-as-misery.
Also, we might as well throw Matthew 25:46 into the mix.
Matthew 25:32 makes it quite clear what the terms “sheep” and “goats” are referring to: people. “Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” Further, this is clearly an eschatological text in the traditional sense: all the nations of the world are gathered together for judgment by God.
So here’s passage explicitly talking about people on the ultimate last day. And then we have 46:
“And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” There’s also the parallel in v. 41 with “eternal fire”.
So, while “eternal” can often mean “indefinitely” or “perpetually”, here the “eternal” punishment is contrast with “eternal life”, which is clearly unending in a Matthean/NT context. This is also specified further in vs 34, which talks of the kingdom prepared by the Father, obviously bringing Jewish eschatology, which saw the kingdom of the age to come as unending. This is paralleled with 41, thus again telling us the “eternal” should be seen as unending.
Thus the simplest reading of the text would be to see it as explicitly referring to unending punishment, since the two ends are in strict parallel here. There is no reason to see the “eternal” in punishment as less than forever, and there is contextual indication that it is forever.
Wenatchee,
There were several different options available for views on the afterlife, as you noted. Sadducess, I believe, were annihilationists for everybody. Pharisees believed in heaven and hell as we would understand it, but the Hillelites also had a purgatory. Some in the Qumran sects held to a double-predestinarian heaven and hell. So really, the only way we can determine what the Christians believed is by seeing what they actually said, since the context alone will not make the prediction for us.
I apologize for the horrendous grammar. I will fix this when I get a chance.
Good discussion guys. I’m glad we’ve been able to conduct it with civility. I’ll be content to let these final few comments stand as my last words, but I look forward to your responses. I’ll try to hit all the major points.
Wenathchee,
You ask why God would resurrect the unsaved only to destroy them. The answer is that he will raise all men in order to judge them according to their deeds. Apart from this, there would be no real justice. The wages of sin is death, but we should not think (and no ancient would assume) that an execution is painless or instantaneous. Neither should we assume that all deaths involve the same amount of suffering. Note that the traditionalist, due to his understanding of the intermediate state, needs to respond to the same challenge: “Why would God resurrect a person who was suffering in Hades, only to put him right back into a state of suffering in hell?”
Andrew,
My argument surely was not that because a word or expression means something in one passage that it must therefore mean the same thing in another. I said nothing of the sort, and if someone thinks I implied it, I certainly didn’t intend to. Regarding the Daniel passage, my point was that it would only rule out conditionalism if “contempt” is something that could only rightly be ascribed to living humans. I did not say that contempt automatically refers to corpses. Now, does the passage positively teach conditionalism? Of course not, I was just showing that it’s not incompatible with it, and I think I conclusively demonstrated that.
Interestingly, it is Brooks who makes the exact argument that you accuse me of making. He does so explicitly: If Rev 22:5 is talking about the eternal rest of God’s people then 20:7 has to mean that hell is a place that will exist forever. I don’t recall that you took exception to his line of reasoning.
Isaiah does seem to literally say, “their maggot will not die” and “their fire will not be quenched”. I even checked the Hebrew.
This was exactly my point. I believe you misread the exchange. I corrected Wenatchee who had paraphrased the verse as, “the worm never dies and the fires don’t stop.”
Yes, we can find contextual differences between Isaiah 34:10, Revelation 14:11 and Revelation 19:3, but you’ve provided no compelling exegetical reasons why the expression “smoke goes up forever” should be taken as a literal description of reality in only one of the three instances. This, I think, is a conspicuous example of interpretation being driven by prior doctrinal commitments.
You say that humans are in view and not cities, but how in the world does that fact lend itself to the conclusion that the smoke imagery should be taken literally? If anything it would be the opposite–as we typically think of burning cities as leaving long trails of smoke, but the same cannot be said of living humans being tortured by fire. Or how does the fact that the torment is done in the presence of the angels and the lamb in any way lead us to conclude that the smoke imagery should therefore be taken literally?
It’s interesting that you cite the expression “day or night” as evidence that the fiery torment spoken of is literally perpetual, when the Isaiah passage uses the same expression to describe the burning of Edom: “Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever.” I could quote your argument word for word, just replacing the content of Revelation 14:11 with that of Isaiah 34:10: The simplest way to interpret the smoke *of its destruction* going up forever is to understand it as saying the city will be burned by the fire mentioned in the same verse, forever. The latter part of the description just confirms this point: the phrase “night and day” implies a continuing process of revolving days and nights, not an immediate destruction. And for the record, I affirm that the destruction of Edom and Babylon involve a process and are not immediate. I affirm the same of the torment spoken of in Revelation 14:11. I just deny that in any of those cases, the burning is literally everlasting.
Revelation 14:11 does not even present itself as a judgment that is related to final punishment (as opposed to say, Revelation 20:10, Matthew 25:46 or even Daniel 12:2). For that reason, I’ve always thought this to be a particularly weak proof text for eternal torment. Hell (gehenna) is not mentioned, the lake of fire is not mentioned and this is an episode that takes place before the resurrection and final judgment.
I agree that NT authors see certain historical episodes of destruction (notably, the flood and Sodom) as types that prefigure future judgment. But there is no reason at all to think that while the historical type is one of complete destruction, the future fulfillment will be one of continued existence in misery. To assert that it is just begs the question that future punishment is, in fact, eternal torment.
It’s a stretch to assert that the 30th Psalm indicates that death can be understood as being in misery. David describes his anguish using highly figurative language. In Psalm 18, for example, he creates the image of being pulled down to the grave but being delivered by God. He makes the same point using drowning imagery in the same Psalm (“He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters”). I find it fascinating that you claim that “death” as used in a straightforward, didactic passage such as Romans 6:23 is rightfully understood in a figurative sense, while “smoke goes up forever” as used in book like Revelation should be interpreted literally!
As for Matthew 25, the passage speaks of “eternal punishment” and not eternal torment. Conditionalists affirm that the punishment will last forever, but that the punishment is, as many passages indicate, death. Traditionalists, in unguarded moments, have granted that irreversible death is a completely legitimate example of a punishment that lasts forever.
I do think that my original claim stands unchallenged; that Scripture never explicitly states that human beings will suffer eternal torment (your assertion that the figure of speech in Revelation 14:11 is clear and therefore explicit, notwithstanding). Of course, it doesn’t follow from this that the traditional teaching is false but it should, at the very least, lead one to question why that’s the case.
“Regarding the Daniel passage, my point was that it would only rule out conditionalism if “contempt” is something that could only rightly be ascribed to living humans.”
I’m not sure how the parallel proves anything, then. Surely WTH wasn’t using the “contempt” word to establish an everlasting torment, he was using “eternal” to do that. Your original argument now seems like a red-herring.
“Of course not, I was just showing that it’s not incompatible with it, and I think I conclusively demonstrated that.”
But the surface meaning of the text does not indicate any cessation of life at all. And the fact that the people have just been raised from the dead en masse would suggest immortal beings in the context of OT eschatology. God always intended immortality for us, as is evidenced by the effects the tree of life was said to have. The final resurrection obviously fits in with the theme in biblical theology of God wanting to complete the creative purposes he began with, to undo death, the opposite of his intentions, etc.. The allusive connection between Genesis 3′s imagery of “from dust you have come, and to dust you shall return”, and Daniel 12′s awakening of those “sleeping the dust” makes this thematic connection very likely: this is a reversal of the primordial judgment of death, which signals something unprecedented in biblical history. (This connection is only strengthened if Daniel and his audience knew of Ezekiel’s prophecy of the valley of dry bones, which is at least possible, if not probable.) Thus, without prejudicing the issue of what will happen in the final judgment, these indications alone would suggest immortality. And then immortal beings are said to experience everlasting shame. So the text, prima facie, stands against conditionalism.
“Interestingly, it is Brooks who makes the exact argument that you accuse me of making. He does so explicitly: If Rev 22:5 is talking about the eternal rest of God’s people then 20:7 has to mean that hell is a place that will exist forever. I don’t recall that you took exception to his line of reasoning.”
You miss my point. The reason I did not take exception to his argument, while I did to yours, is that his passages are in the *exact same context* (in the same Book, at the end of history, after death has been eliminated forever [see the context for 22:5 in 21:4]; you cannot escape the fact that 22:5′s forever and ever is obviously quite literal, as you said you would if it were the only text speaking of the eternal reward for the righteous), while yours are in very different ones (one in the middle of history, the other at the end).
“You say that humans are in view and not cities, but how in the world does that fact lend itself to the conclusion that the smoke imagery should be taken literally? If anything it would be the opposite–as we typically think of burning cities as leaving long trails of smoke, but the same cannot be said of living humans being tortured by fire. Or how does the fact that the torment is done in the presence of the angels and the lamb in any way lead us to conclude that the smoke imagery should therefore be taken literally?”
The fire being in the presence of the Lamb and the angels suggests two things: these people have already passed from earth, and are therefore probably dead (no one can see God and live, and certainly no one impure can enter the true holy of holies and live, but these people are doing just these things, even while being evil). The literary connections with the end of the book (torment, fire, “everlasting” language, mention of the beast, the presence of the Lamb enthroned) corroborate this reading. This is a post-mortem fire. Thus we immediately have lost a significant feature of the Isaiah text. We are agreed that Isaiah is describing a plain historical destruction; but this has a natural end: when all the people are physically dead, and the physical structures are destroyed. But there is no natural presumption that people already dead could even be destroyed by a fire that is said to torment. Also, being in the presence of God, the fire is automatically supernatural. This leaves open the possibility that this fire could have properties natural fire does not have.
Then, the “smoke of their torment”. Firstly, the fires in Isaiah existed to destroy a nation as a political structure; the fires in Revelation exist to torment. The former have a natural end, i.e., when the nation is destroyed in a politico-historical sense, whereas the latter do not, i.e. the natural end of tormenting fire is present torment, not anything else, especially in a supernatural, probably post-mortem, context. This again means that the indications in Isaiah that led to us reading the language as hyperbolic are not present in Revelation. Secondly, the phrase “the smoke of their torment goes up forever” (not present in Isaiah), is naturally connected with the tormenting fire that they experienced in the last verse. For, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”, and thus, where there is unending smoke, there would be unending fire. And this natural connection suggests the tormenting fire is experienced by them forever. The fact that, after this unending smoke is described, St. John then reiterates “and they will have no rest”, a state which is said to continue “day and night” (thus, with no end in sight, an expression obviously parallel to the unending smoke), makes this obvious connection even more likely. When the obvious contrast between torment and rest is recognized, and when it is seen that “rest” is exactly what the dead in Christ are promised two verses later (13), this is confirmed yet again. These connections are easy and natural to make. There is no pressing reason to limit the time-aspect of the text, as there was in Isaiah, and that is the fundamental difference.
“For that reason, I’ve always thought this to be a particularly weak proof text for eternal torment. Hell (gehenna) is not mentioned, the lake of fire is not mentioned and this is an episode that takes place before the resurrection and final judgment.”
A supernatural tormenting fire is mentioned; given that, in the NT context, hell was explicitly said to be created for the devil and his angels, and in Revelation this abode is called “the lake of fire”, makes the connection pretty likely. The clear literary parallels with the end of Revelation (not to mention, by extension, Matthew 25) suggest this is the same punishment as described there. Further, this text is speaking of a future judgment, making it compatible with being identical with the judgment described at the end of the book (about which Keith has given good independent evidence of its being literally everlasting). This reading is strengthened by the fact that the warning is flanked by an announcement of the gospel (14:6), encouragement to fear God and worship him (14:7), a call for endurance (14:12) and a statement that implies Christians are still dying (14:13). It also describes Babylon (either Jerusalem, Rome, or some future city, depending on your views) as presently destroyed, but, given all these other indicators, it seems likely this is using a kind of proleptic future to express the certainty of the outcome.
“It’s a stretch to assert that the 30th Psalm indicates that death can be understood as being in misery. David describes his anguish using highly figurative language. In Psalm 18, for example, he creates the image of being pulled down to the grave but being delivered by God. He makes the same point using drowning imagery in the same Psalm (“He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters”). I find it fascinating that you claim that “death” as used in a straightforward, didactic passage such as Romans 6:23 is rightfully understood in a figurative sense, while “smoke goes up forever” as used in book like Revelation should be interpreted literally!”
Your extra Psalms only serve to confirm my point; extreme misery can be described as a kind of living death. Also, given the constant biblical association between death and curse, and between curse and pain, it’s not a stretch at all. The exile of Israel is even analogized to death in various places, where people are very much alive, but under a curse and away from the “tree of life” (the blessings of the sanctuary). Paul also describes himself in a similar way, in a similar context: “2Co 4:8 We are afflicted in every way … 2Co 4:10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” But I’m glad you find my arguments fascinating. Romans discusses eschatological things, and death is not a uniquely eschatological occurrence, so it would not at all surprise me that Paul is using words in (well-established) metaphorical ways to describe eternal things. Further, I’m not persuaded by constant appeals to “a book like Revelation”. Revelation was written to be understood, and while it contains some symbolic imagery, it also contains quite literal descriptions as well (often, explicitly explaining the symbols). It was written to be understood by 1C Christian peasants. It’s not as difficult as learning quantum physics or brain surgery.
“As for Matthew 25, the passage speaks of “eternal punishment” and not eternal torment. Conditionalists affirm that the punishment will last forever, but that the punishment is, as many passages indicate, death. Traditionalists, in unguarded moments, have granted that irreversible death is a completely legitimate example of a punishment that lasts forever.”
An eternal fire that ends is not an eternal fire. It would be a less sensible interpretation of the eternal fire to see it burning with no one in it, than to see it as the means of eternal torment, as in Rev 14:11. Further, the parallel with the (known to be) unending kingdom would suggest an unending fire, especially when both the kingdom and the fire are said to be “prepared from the foundation of the world”, but the former which is presumed to be everlasting is not explicitly described that way, while the latter has the additional description of “eternal” added on. Again, the natural reading would suggest eternal torment.
Completely agree with Ronny. People who promote the view of an eternal Sadist who created 99.99% of humans to be forever tortured in a never-ending Abu Ghraib are themselves sadists. A deity who condemns any creature to endless torment is morally inferior to most sane and decent human beings who will find the idea of such ultimate atrocity utterly repugnant.
What exactly is the point of engaging in a discussion only to call one’s dialogue partners sadists?
Not only that, but you are clearly not talking about the same thing we are. We believe that some sinners have sinned and that the result (natural end) of sin is death, even eternal death in hell. God did not create anyone to sin. That is simply a misunderstanding and a failure to distinguish between divine creation and divine providence.
Oops, I didn’t know this was actually going to send my comments…please excuse the previous hi and HAAA….I just wanted to say in response to Angel’s comment that the people who believe that there is eternal punishment are not sadists. They are just believers of the Word of God. It is not up to us to decide what the truth is. It is God’s Word. Personally, I WISH hell was not a real place. I am the opposite of a sadist. I actually wont even kill a spider, I dont eat meat because I can’t stand an animal being killed. The thing is, we can be in denial about what God says, but that won’t make it not true. The fact that someone WARNS someone about hell makes them the OPPOSITE of a sadist because they are trying to stop them from going there. Being in denial won’t stop people from going to hell if it is real. Adam and Eve didn’t think God could let them die so they didn’t take him seriously and they ate the forbidden fruit….you should learn from their mistake. Afterall, a wise person learns from experience. A wiser person learns from somebody else’s experience!
Good conversation ladies and gentlemen. Both sides of this discussion are well represented and civil at the same time. I would like to point out that for a human to infer that God is a sadist because He would send someone to eternal punishment is stepping beyond his/her “pay-grade”. God is a soveign, omniscent, omnipresent and omnipotent God who can do whatever He chooses to do. He does not see things from a human perspective, will not judge according to the human values of judgement, and I for one am glad that He doesn’t, because if He did, I would be in serious trouble!