What is annihilationism / conditional immortality? - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 39

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So welcome to the Got Questions podcast, your questions, biblical answers. So some of you may know a few episodes ago, we had an episode on whether hell is eternal suffering.

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And in that episode, I mentioned that I have a friend that I was thinking about having on where we could have him present the viewpoint known as annihilationism or conditionalism or conditional immortality.

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Well today is that episode. So on today's show, I have with me Chris Date. He is a well -known evangelical

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Christian representative of a global movement known as Rethinking Hell. He's a recognized specialist in the area of hell and conditional immortality.

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He is the co -editor of Rethinking Hell, Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism, and a contributing co -editor of the

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Consuming Passion Essays on Hell and Immortality. So Chris, welcome to the show.

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Thanks, Jay. It's a real honor to be here. I really appreciate it. So on gotquestions .org, we have several articles that deal with the subject, and one of them is a positive presentation of annihilationism, conditionalism written by Chris.

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So you can check out that article. We'll include a link to that as well as to some of his materials. So you can research this further.

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So just to let you all know, the main purpose of today's show is to expose you to a viewpoint you may not be that familiar with.

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I just want to say up front, I do not hold to annihilationism. At the same time, I've discussed it enough with friends who do hold it, and I've researched enough that I find it to be a biblically plausible viewpoint.

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And many Christians I know have never really heard it presented in a positive way. So that's what

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Chris is going to be doing today. I'm going to be asking him some questions about how annihilationists view the theology of it and also the scriptures that are involved.

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So Chris, my opening question for you, I guess, why are you an annihilationist?

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Quite simply because I think that the scriptures teach it about as clearly as the scriptures teach anything.

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So if I thought that the biblical texts were sort of ambiguous, if I thought that it could go either way,

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I might side with what has dominated historically, what is the so -called traditional view, for no other reason than that it is the traditional view.

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But because I have become convinced that the scripture from cover to cover, literally, in as many ways as possible and as clearly as possible, teaches annihilationism and not the doctrine of eternal torment,

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I have to submit to it. I learned very early on in my faith that if I'm going to have any sort of consistent

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Christian faith, I've got to make the scriptures my authority. And even when following it will cost me jobs or opportunities or relationships,

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I've got to do so. And indeed, all those things I have lost as a result of it, but I've got to follow where I think scripture is leading.

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For sure. So give us a quick breakdown. What do you believe are the strongest biblical arguments for annihilationism or conditionalism?

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And which of those terms do you prefer? Well, let me answer the second part of that first. I maybe slightly prefer conditional immortality, but it's not because I think there's anything inherently wrong with the term annihilationism.

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Annihilationism does tend to give people the wrong impression. We conditionalists don't think that the final punishment of the damned is the cessation of their existence.

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We can get to that. And I think annihilationism can tend to lead people to think that that's what we're saying.

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But no, the main reason why I prefer conditional immortality is because it better captures the larger set of beliefs that inform annihilationism.

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And that'll transition nicely into me answering the first part of your question, which are, you know, what are some of the texts that motivate this view?

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Well, first of all, consider that in the doctrine of eternal torment, it's not disembodied souls suffering in hell.

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It's resurrected immortals, not just immortal in soul, but immortal in body as well, at least biologically immortal.

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We can discuss whether, you know, there's some sort of a qualitative meaning of immortal in the doctrine of eternal torment that is something only the righteous receive.

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That's fine. But at the very least, biological immortality is something that the resurrected lost have forever in the doctrine of eternal torment.

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Well, one of the categories of biblical texts that I find very persuasive are texts that make it very clear that biological immortality is something that is achieved only through Christ, through faith, saving faith in Christ.

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So for example, in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve sin, they are kicked out of the garden for an express purpose.

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God says it is so that they cannot reach and take from the tree of life and eat and thereby live forever.

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So by excluding their, revoking their access to the tree of life, God guarantees their eventual biological death.

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Well, that tree of life reappears at the other end of Scripture. That's why I say it's literally cover to cover. In Revelation 22, that tree of life reappears, but only the saved have access to its fruit.

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And this seems consistent with, say, Luke 20, 35 and 36, where Jesus says that those considered worthy to attain to the resurrection, they will be unable to die anymore because they are children of God, children of the resurrection.

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Well, what does that imply? It implies those not counted worthy will be able to die. So that's one category of texts.

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I could go on, but I know you wanted more probably of a brief answer to that question. So the one other thing

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I'll add are texts that seem very clearly to talk about the final biological deaths of the wicked.

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So in Matthew 10, 28, for example, Jesus says, don't fear men who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul.

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Rather fear God, well, the one, but it's clearly God, who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.

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And that Greek word destroy, well, translated destroy, it's the Greek word apollone, whenever it's used in the synoptic gospels in the way that Jesus uses it there, namely it's in what grammarians call the act of voice and it's transitive.

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It's what one person does to another. Whenever it's used in that way in Matthew, Mark and Luke and other places of the

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Bible as well, it means to slay or to kill. So for example, Herod wants to apollone the baby

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Jesus and nobody thinks that he wanted to ruin, waste or lose the baby Jesus. No, he wanted to kill him. Same thing with the

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Pharisees. They wanted to apollone the adult Jesus. They wanted to slay or kill him. So Matthew 10, 28 is a good example where of many, many, many, many, many texts that indicate that in hell, the wicked will literally die a second death, not die in some other metaphorical or spiritual sense.

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I could go on and on, but those are some of the most powerful texts, I suppose, for a case for conditionalism.

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So one discussion I had with the annihilationist one time was really eye -opening for me is discussing in the sense, and I'm sure you could explain this way better than me, but essentially viewing what

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Jesus' death was, viewing that as the payment for our sins, if we're saying that the punishment for our sins is eternal suffering, well,

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Jesus did not suffer eternally. So how can we say that Jesus paid the price for our sins if he didn't suffer eternally?

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Is that another line of argument that you– In a roundabout sort of way, yeah.

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So the whole idea that he didn't suffer eternal suffering, that I don't find all that particularly compelling as an argument for my view because number one, we conditionalists would face the exact same problem because Jesus didn't remain dead forever either, right?

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Whereas we think the wicked will be killed in hell and never live again. But more importantly, or as importantly,

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Jesus isn't just an ordinary man. He's the God -man. And as such, he is of infinite value, of infinite worth.

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And so I think that it's at least plausible that whatever he endured or whatever consequence he faced that was finite in duration is qualitatively the equivalent of an eternity of that kind of fate.

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And I think that makes sense. Here's the problem, though. When you apply that reasoning to his suffering on the cross, then what that means is that by the time his suffering exhausted the everlasting suffering that was coming to his people, that penalty was paid.

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Once he finished suffering, the equivalent of the eternal suffering, the payment was done. So why did he go on to die?

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There would have been no further penalty left to pay with his death. And certainly God–it's not as if the suffering necessitated his death on that view because God could have just supernaturally healed him.

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So by saying that the infinitude of his value or worth as the

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God -man allows his finite duration of suffering to be the equivalent of an eternity of suffering, that actually renders his death something of an arbitrary afterthought, and I think that's very dangerous.

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If, on the other hand, you apply that reasoning of him being the infinite God -man, if you apply that reasoning to the time he was dead, well then what you have is

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Jesus' death being that in which he substituted for us.

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And isn't that kind of what we already typically believe when we're not talking about hell? You know, we say, Jesus died for me.

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We say, you know, in our evangelistic efforts, we don't typically say, hey, did you know that Jesus suffered for hours on the cross for you and just leave it there?

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No, we say he suffered and died for you. So we all instinctively know that Jesus' death is fundamental to his substitutionary atoning work, but I think the doctrine of eternal torment makes his death at best an arbitrary afterthought, whereas conditional immortality locates his substitutionary work directly in his death, his not being alive.

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So anyway, there you go, yeah. Yeah, well said. That was – what you were getting at was how

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I was very clumsily trying to explain, so thank you for that. Sure. So let's jump in just to a few scripture passages because I know in our episode, a few episodes ago, we threw out the most common scriptures that people who believe in eternal suffering will point to.

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And so I'd just like you to give our listeners how a conditionalist would typically interpret these.

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So the first one, so Matthew 25, 46, I'm sure you're very familiar with this, where it says, speaking of the wicked, they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

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So this seems to be saying that the punishment of the wicked is just as eternal as the life of the righteous.

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So how does an annihilationist interpret this verse? Well, I think what you said is exactly right.

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It seems pretty clear that the everlasting punishment is as everlasting as the everlasting life of the righteous.

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And that's why I actually part ways with those annihilationists who think that eternal there and in other places like, or like the forever and ever in the book of Revelation, which we'll get to as well.

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When they try to say that those expressions just mean for a very long time, I think they're off their rocker.

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I think it's pretty clear that no, they mean everlasting just as much as everlasting life is everlasting. So a lot of us conditionalists, at least those of us at Rethinking Hell and those who identify with us, they agree, we agree that the punishment of the wicked in hell is everlasting.

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Every bit is everlasting as the life of the righteous, the life to which they rise. The question, however, the debate between our two views is what is the nature of that punishment?

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If one thinks that the nature of that final punishment is some sort of consciously experienced misery, well then, definitionally, in order to be everlasting, that misery must go on forever.

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If, however, you think that the wages of sin is death, you know, not having life anymore, then if that's the punishment, then if the wicked rise to be judged and are killed and never live again, then their punishment, that is death, not the event of dying, but the result of that event of being dead, then that punishment, by definition, lasts forever.

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It is everlasting punishment. And notice, by the way, just how, at least on the surface, how obvious that seems to be the contrast to the fate of the righteous.

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Because what is eternal punishment the alternative to? Everlasting life.

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So a natural contrast to that would be everlasting death, provided that that death is inflicted by, you know, in a judicial, as a judicial punishment.

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Now, if people have a problem accepting that eternal punishment could refer to the outcome of a process that is finite in duration, right?

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A killing process is short, but the outcome of it is everlasting. Lest anybody think that that's a problem with the phrase eternal punishment, just go look at the author of Hebrews, where he speaks of everlasting redemption and everlasting salvation.

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No matter how you slice it, Jesus is not and will not be forever saving anybody or forever redeeming anybody.

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In fact, the author of Hebrews says that he accomplished those things, everlasting salvation, everlasting redemption, when he was crucified.

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So what that means then is that the salvation and redemption in those phrases in Hebrews refer to the result of the saving process, the result of the redeeming process.

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And it's the result or the outcome that is described as everlasting. Well, we're saying the same thing. The wicked face a finite process of punishing, a process of execution, of capital punishment.

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But the result of that, the outcome of it, which is they're not being alive anymore, that lasts for all eternity and is therefore an everlasting punishment.

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And one last thing I'll just say here really quickly is that even St. Augustine, no friend to our view, my view of annihilationism, even he acknowledges in City of God that governments measure the duration of capital punishment not in the time that it takes to die, but in the time that one remains dead.

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So if the wicked rise to be judged and are killed and never live again, their punishment of death is an everlasting punishment.

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So it's not that the punishment lasts forever in the sense of the person is eternally being punished as in tormented, but the punishment is death, that death lasts forever as in once they receive that punishment, they're dead eternally.

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Yes. Yeah. And I know you quoted Romans 6 .23, and obviously it says for the wages of sin is death.

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It does not say the wages of sin is eternal suffering. Well, and not only that, but lest somebody think that he means something different than ordinary death when he says the wages of sin is death, you need only go one and two verses later.

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Remember, as you know, Shea, the biblical authors didn't separate their writings into verse and chapters, right?

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Well, so just within one or two verses of saying the wages of sin is death, what does

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Paul say? He says that a spouse is obligated to remain married to his spouse or her spouse until he dies.

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Just verses later, a verse or two later from saying the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our

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Lord, he uses the exact same language of life and death, clearly meaning just ordinary life and death.

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So to say that in the span of just a few words, he radically changes what he means by life and death, that strikes me as unlikely.

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So let's jump to another scripture because there's several we want to get through today. So with Matthew 8, 12, and then there's numerous other scriptures where it seems to refer to eternity for the wicked as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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Well, if they were just annihilated, how could there be weeping and gnashing of teeth? Well, there's a short answer to this and a longer answer.

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Let's go with the medium answer. Well, okay, I'll tell you what, I'll go with a short and then a somewhat medium answer.

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The short answer is this. If you imagine somebody being burned at the stake, that person being burned at the stake as the fire starts to inflict the most severe pain it does on their way out the door, so to speak, they are going to do whatever one might think weeping and gnashing is, right?

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If you've seen movies where somebody dies by being burned to death, they scream and they yell, and if that's what weeping and gnashing refers to, that fits what

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I've described here perfectly well. After all, Matthew 8, 12, and in fact, none of the places where weeping and gnashing or outer darkness are mentioned, none of them say that that goes on forever.

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So there's nothing there on the surface even that seems to contradict our view, but there is a little bit more that could be said, which is that this language of weeping and gnashing and outer darkness isn't primarily unpacked here.

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It's primarily unpacked in other places where Jesus gives this lengthy parable of a kingdom, of a banquet hall where an improperly dressed guest is bound hand and foot and thrown into the darkness outside.

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Outer darkness isn't some metaphysical location. It's just the darkness outside the brightly lit wedding hall in Jesus' parable, and if you throw somebody bound hand and foot into the dark night wilderness of Judea and nobody comes along to rescue them, then they're going to either die of exposure or by scavenging beasts and birds or by robbers.

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But also, the other place where this language of weeping and gnashing features is in Matthew 13.

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In the first part of Matthew 13, right around verse 30, Jesus gives this parable at the which a guy tells his servants to bind up the weeds and throw them into the furnace to be burned.

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And the word burned is katakayo. It means to completely burn up, to render ashes, reduced ashes.

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Well, in Matthew 13 .40, Jesus is interpreting that parable, and he says, just as the weeds are burned in fire, so will the wicked be thrown into the furnace of fire.

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There, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So, the picture of weeds being reduced to ashes is the parabolic picture of the wicked being destroyed.

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And in fact, that furnace of fire comes straight from Daniel where Nebuchadnezzar had the furnace heated so hot that yeah, a few people survived that fire, but it wasn't the wicked.

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It was the righteous. It was Daniel and his friends. So anyway, all of that imagery seems to be consistent with the final punishment of the wicked being death, not life.

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All right. So, Luke chapter 16, the parable of, or depending on how you interpret it, whether it's a parable or what, but Lazarus and the rich man.

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So, the rich man cries out to Abraham saying, send Lazarus to heaven, bring me just even a drop of water because I am in agony in this fire, seems to be communicating an ongoing torment rather than just a extinguishment of life.

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That's right, it does. But it also has nothing whatsoever to do with hell. Even if you take

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Luke 16 as a straightforward historical narrative, and there are some Christians who take it that way, the text explicitly says that it's taking place in Hades, the

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New Testament Greek equivalent of Sheol in the Hebrew Old Testament. It's the place of the dead. And that's why the rich man pleads with Abraham, go and warn my still living brothers because they don't know what fate awaits them.

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Well, think about it. If this is the final judgment, there's nobody being – while one person is being judged, there's nobody else that's blissfully unaware of their impending doom.

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So, this is a scene set in the intermediate state, we theologians call it, the state between death and resurrection.

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So, even if you take it as a literal historical narrative, it has everything to do with intermediate state and nothing at all to do with what happens after people are resurrected out of that intermediate state.

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Okay, excellent. Good explanation. I think I've heard that before, but you put it very well. I know there's a lot more we want to cover.

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I just want to jump to maybe one more. Revelation 20 .10 refers to, I believe,

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Satan, the antichrist, and the false prophet, and it says they will be – I don't want to misquote the scripture here, but they're tortured or tormented day and night forever and ever.

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And in the Greek, you could say that's for ages and ages. So, how do annihilationists view that verse?

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I think there's one or two more in Revelation that talks about forever and ever or for ages and ages.

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Yeah, the other one is Revelation 14, 9 to 11. Yeah, so the fundamental mistake

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I think a lot of Christians make, not just on this topic, but on a lot of other topics that are debated from the

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Book of Revelation, the mistake they make is thinking that what John, the author of this epistle and the one who saw the vision, the mistake they make is that what he is seeing is the future, as if there were a camera in the future that recorded what would happen and then the recording was sent back in time to John on a

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Blu -ray disc or a thumb drive or something like that. I would like to see that Blu -ray. So would

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I, very much so. Unfortunately, I don't think it exists. But no, that is decidedly not how these kinds of visions work.

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If you go back all the way to Genesis 40 with Joseph and the dreams of the

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Pharaoh's baker and cupbearer and Pharaoh himself, you can go also to Daniel and his interpretations of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the angel's interpretation of Daniel's dream.

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Even John's own vision is interpreted as symbolic by an angel that talks to him, right?

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So for example, in Revelation 17, the angel says, the seven heads of the beast are seven kings, five of whom have fallen and the sixth now is, right?

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This is an example or earlier when Jesus says that the lampstands are churches and the bowls of incense are the prayers of the saints, right?

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The way this kind of prophetic vision works all throughout Scripture is that the future is foretold to the seer by perplexing symbols.

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Once we grasp that, then the question we have to ask ourselves when we come to Revelation 20 is what does the symbolism mean in reality when

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John sees this red dragon that is interpreted to mean Satan, a seven -headed ten -horned beast and a two -horned beast called the false prophet, what does it mean that they suffer forever and ever and ever and ever and ever in the lake of fire in John's vision?

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Well, it's not as if that question isn't answered for us by the text itself. You see, just a few verses later, death and Hades are also thrown in the lake of fire.

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But death and Hades in John's vision are just as much conscious entities as the seven -headed ten -horned beast, the red dragon that is

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Satan, etc. If you go back to Revelation 6, death and Hades are the fourth horseman of the apocalypse and his squire who follow after him.

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Well, so what does it mean when John sees this horseman and his squire, death and Hades, thrown into the same lake of fire that the devil, the beast, and the false prophet were thrown into?

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Presumably, these conscious beings are being tormented forever and ever just like the other ones thrown into that river. So what does it symbolize?

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Revelation 21, 4, death shall be no more. First Corinthians 15, 26, death is the last enemy to be destroyed.

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Katargeo is the Greek word there, and it means to cause to cease to happen. Both of those two passages,

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First Corinthians 15 and Revelation 21, 4, are alluding to Isaiah 25, 8, which says Yahweh will swallow up death forever.

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So death and Hades being thrown into the lake of fire symbolizes the annihilation of death itself.

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So I contend that if you – that and several other indicators show that the symbolism here is symbolism for annihilation.

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And that's why when John and God both interpret the lake of fire, they say it symbolizes the second death using a phrase that in the

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Aramaic Targums consistently means dying a second time and not participating in the life to come.

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So in short, this is symbolism that has to be interpreted very carefully. And when you let the text itself tell you what the symbolism means, it means the annihilation of the things whose visionary counterparts are thrown into the lake of fire and tormented forever and ever.

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So excellent explanation. Just a quick question kind of related to several things we've discussed. So I've heard different answers from different annihilationists on this.

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Do you believe that the amount of time before a person is annihilated can vary based on their life circumstances?

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So someone who was extremely wicked may suffer a little while before they're extinguished while someone, say, the quote -unquote person who's never heard the gospel will be extinguished quicker.

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Is that a common debate in annihilationism? And which position do you take? It is a debate.

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We are very varied in how we answer that question. I do think it is possible that something like you're describing could be the case, but not in the sense of them being punished with pain for a longer period of time and then they're killed.

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Rather, think about the different ways we inflict capital punishment. There are very brief, merciful ways of killing people.

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The firing squad, for example. My understanding is if you have a dozen trained shooters all fire a rifle bullet into the heart of a criminal at the same time, that death happens instantaneously.

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But contrast that with something like the electric chair, which is violent and brutal if only for a few seconds.

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Or contrast that with, say, crucifixion, which is violent and brutal and even longer.

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But notice that in each of these cases, the punishment is the same. In every case, the punishment is the death.

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But the means by which that punishment is inflicted can vary in how much pain is inflicted and for how long.

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So, yes, I think that's possible. But I also think there's another way to account for degrees of punishment. I think we can also account for it by how much contempt any given wicked person who is annihilated is remembered in for all eternity.

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When Daniel 12 .2 says, some will rise to shame and everlasting contempt, shame refers to their conscious experience, the wicked's conscious experience of being shameful, sensing their own shame on the day of judgment.

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But contempt refers to how they are conceived, perceived by everybody else.

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And it says that contempt will be everlasting. Well, so you might have somebody who's never heard the gospel and is a sinner, but nevertheless is what we might call a good person.

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They help people, they love people, whatever. That person might be remembered somewhat fondly by some saints for eternity in the eschaton.

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But Judas Iscariot, Hitler, Pol Pot, a lot of these people will be remembered forever in abject contempt.

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And they will be made known that on the day of judgment. And that, I think, can contribute to the degrees of punishment as well.

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In other words, there's a number of different ways I think that that can be accounted for. Sure. That's excellent. So, Chris, we're running short on time.

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I'm sorry. No, not your fault at all. I'm enjoying this conversation very much. So tell us a little bit about the

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Two Views book that's coming out hopefully soon and about your co -author. Yeah, thanks for letting me do that.

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I appreciate it. My co -editor, Paul Kopan, whom I suspect many of your viewers will have heard of, he and I just recently landed a deal with IVP Academic, InterVarsity Press Academic.

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And what we're going to be doing is publishing a Two Views book on Hell. It'll probably get published,

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I'm guessing, late 2022, late next year. But the cool thing about it is it's going to bring something new to the table that not just the

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Hell multi -view books, but all multi -view books are really lacking something that our book is going to remedy.

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And that is all other multi -view books, any given view is presented by one single author.

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And the problem with that is that in the academy, we tend to divide up by specialty or by discipline.

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So you'll have one single, let's say, systematic theologian presenting a case for a view that really has philosophical elements, historical elements, exegetical elements.

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So what our Two Views book is doing is bringing six scholars together on each of both sides of the debate.

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And those six scholars will represent six fields, biblical theology, exegesis, systematic theology, historical theology, philosophy, and pastoral theology.

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And each of the six authors on the two sides will then have an opportunity to respond to their counterpart on the other side of the debate.

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So I think this is going to be a really groundbreaking format for the genre. And I think it will be a really helpful addition to the literature on this debate that will help evangelicals continue to make progress as we hash this issue out moving forward.

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That's awesome. I wish it was coming out late this year instead of next year. So obviously, we'll include more information about Chris and his ministry,

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Rethinking Hell, and different things he's written. They'll be in the show notes. They'll be in podcast .gotquestions

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.org and also in the description field on YouTube so you can learn more about Chris. My encouragement, the whole purpose in this episode, like I said in the beginning, is

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I want our listeners to study this issue, to at least consider what do the

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Scriptures say about eternal suffering versus annihilationism. And I believe annihilationism is a viable, plausible view that Christians can hold.

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And so pray about it. Pray for wisdom. But above all, study the

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Scriptures and see what Scriptures truly say about this because Chris and I may not entirely agree on this issue, but we don't divide over it.

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We don't view each other as teaching false doctrine or heresy or anything like that. This is something that Christians can disagree about.

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Whatever the fate of the wicked, it is a horrible fate. And maybe we can conclude this just briefly talking about we want people to come to faith in Christ.

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We do not want anyone to be eternally separated from God, whether that means eternal conscious suffering and torment, whether that means being completely extinguished from life.

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Neither of those is a fate we should wish on anyone, whether it's our best friend to our worst enemy.

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Chris, just talk briefly about that. Well, you said it very well. You ask any two

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Christians which fate they think is more terrifying, eternal torment or annihilation.

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In fact, not just two Christians. Ask two human beings on the planet Earth which of those fate is terrifying, and you might be surprised to hear two different answers.

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Many people think eternal torment is the most terrifying fate, but there's actually a lot of history where humans, and I'm one of them, think that annihilation is the more terrifying fate.

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But here's the thing. That's a subjective determination. Either way, whichever one is worse, either one is terrible.

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And the beauty of the church moving past our tendency to divide over this topic is that once we can accept and tolerate charitably our differences on this question, then we can go arm -in -arm to this dying world that so desperately needs the life that's available in Jesus Christ.

32:27

We don't have to figure out which of these is clearly the case. We can go to the dying world and tell them, look, either one of these fates is absolutely horrific, and the solution is found in Christ and in Christ alone.

32:41

And if we can take that message to the world arm -in -arm rather than separated from one another, divided from one another,

32:48

I think that our mission will be much more successful. So yeah, that's what I would encourage people to do.

32:54

Amen. So well said. Thank you for that. So this has been the God Questions podcast discussion on annihilationism.

33:01

And again, our conclusion, study the scriptures, but then go out and evangelize either of these eternal destinies is to be avoided.

33:12

And either is a powerful motivation to sharing the good news that eternal life is available through Jesus Christ.

33:19

So again, this has been the God Questions podcast. God Questions, the Bible has answers, and we'll help you find them.