Annihalationism/ is hell really eternal?

[anonymoushuman]

I am new here and had no idea where to put this thread. I looked in the debate/discussion section but everything was confusing me so imma just put this here. Moderators feel free to move it where it should be.

This thread is a result of the Baptist Portuguese commenting on this belief of mine in this thread:

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/a-few-first-time-dating-questions.7931350/

OK so a bit of background:
I was raised in the church of Christ which, as you probably know, it a very legalistic conservative denomination. I was always taught and I always believed in an eternal hell. I saw the contrast between heaven and hell as eternal paradise vs eternal torture. It's funny how when you are taught a specific doctrine since you are small, you don't even question or really look at the verses about it. You don't even think about it. I believed this until I was about 14½. Then we had a Skype call with my uncle in America and he said something along the lines of "my view of hell has changed completely from what I was always taught." And he didn't say much more. So at this point I was thinking "wWhat could he mean? I thought everyone believes in hell the same?"but I didn't really ask more.

My investigation:
So I decided to read a few verses on hell. I found this resource on Google: https://www.openbible.info/topics/hell
And I just started reading. I found it interesting that most of the verses said death vs eternal life rather than what I always believed which was eternal paradise vs eternal torture. It's not quite the same thing.

Note: I have excluded most references from Revelations. I love the book of Revelations but I think we can all agree that there is a lot of imagery and infinite interpretations of this imagery. So I will just be sticking to the other 65 books.
For example:

John 3:16-18 ESV
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Romans 6:23 ESV
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Matthew 7:13 ESV
Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.

Clearly the consequence of sin appears to be death. Destruction. Perishing. Something which is very hard to interpret as eternal. This strongly goes against the normal explanation of "Everyone has eternal life because the soul is by nature eternal. The only difference is where you decide to spend that eternal life"

But that's not too say that there are no verses implying an eternal suffering. There are some which seen to indicate this as well.
For example:

Matthew 25:46 ESV
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

2 Thessalonians 1:9 ESV
They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might

Matthew 18:8 ESV
And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.

However, I noted something interesting about these. They only refer to an eternal punishment, eternal fire, or eternal destruction. I can find no reference suggesting an eternal torture. There are so many different verses implying a destruction, a death, calling hell the second death, a furnace, a consuming fire(note the use of consuming), a worm, etc... These all imply a consummation. It would be difficult to interpret these as eternal. I mean, you will be thrown in a fire and will burn without ever being burned up? You will be eaten by a worm but through some strange way this worm will never finish eating you? I mean, this worn has a literally infinite amount of time to eat you but somehow you will regenerate or something as he eats you and as such will never actually die? You will be in a state of dying without ever achieving ultimate death? How does that make sense? You can die without dying? It's illogical.

If indeed everyone possesses a soul, and if, as most claim, a soul is by nature eternal, how could this verse be explained?

1 John 3:15—"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."

But... I thought everyone has an eternal soul abiding in them right? Do murderers not have souls? Are they not born with souls, or are their souls destroyed when they commit murder? Do murderers not suffer eternal hell but all other sinners do? That makes no sense. As I said, I find it extremely difficult to justify eternal hell with verses like these. Even those with the best verbal judo stumble when shown these verses. Take a look at this next one:

2 Peter 2:6by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;

They were turned to ashes. It didn't say they were thrown into an eternal fire. I mean, are they burning today? No. Of course not. They were burned up. Consumed. And according to this verse, this is exactly what will happen to the ungodly in hell. They will be turned to ashes. Was being turned into ashes painful for Sodom and Gomorra? Absolutely. They were undoubtedly in severe pain, and clearly their destruction was not instantaneous(remember that Lot's wife looked back while they were being destroyed and got turned into a lovely salt statue.) They were consumed over time. But it was not eternal. They were turned into ash.

Here are some more studies on the topic:
http://www.jeremyandchristine.com/articles/eternal.php
http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/questions/how-long-does-hell-burn
http://www.remnantofgod.org/hellfire.htm

I was not indoctrinated or convinced to believe this. I came to this by my own study. Hopefully I have opened the eyes of some others through this post. I know that many will refuse to believe this and that is fine. I will happily agree to disagree.

 

[The Portuguese Baptist]

I am new here and had no idea where to put this thread. I looked in the debate/discussion section but everything was confusing me so imma just put this here. Moderators feel free to move it where it should be.

This thread is a result of the Baptist Portuguese commenting on this belief of mine in this thread:

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/a-few-first-time-dating-questions.7931350/

OK so a bit of background:
I was raised in the church of Christ which, as you probably know, it a very legalistic conservative denomination. I was always taught and I always believed in an eternal hell. I saw the contrast between heaven and hell as eternal paradise vs eternal torture. It's funny how when you are taught a specific doctrine since you are small, you don't even question or really look at the verses about it. You don't even think about it. I believed this until I was about 14½. Then we had a Skype call with my uncle in America and he said something along the lines of "my view of hell has changed completely from what I was always taught." And he didn't say much more. So at this point I was thinking "wWhat could he mean? I thought everyone believes in hell the same?"but I didn't really ask more.

My investigation:
So I decided to read a few verses on hell. I found this resource on Google: https://www.openbible.info/topics/hell
And I just started reading. I found it interesting that most of the verses said death vs eternal life rather than what I always believed which was eternal paradise vs eternal torture. It's not quite the same thing.

Note: I have excluded most references from Revelations. I love the book of Revelations but I think we can all agree that there is a lot of imagery and infinite interpretations of this imagery. So I will just be sticking to the other 65 books.
For example:

John 3:16-18 ESV
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Romans 6:23 ESV
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Matthew 7:13 ESV
Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.

Clearly the consequence of sin appears to be death. Destruction. Perishing. Something which is very hard to interpret as eternal. This strongly goes against the normal explanation of "Everyone has eternal life because the soul is by nature eternal. The only difference is where you decide to spend that eternal life"

But that's not too say that there are no verses implying an eternal suffering. There are some which seen to indicate this as well.
For example:

Matthew 25:46 ESV
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

2 Thessalonians 1:9 ESV
They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might

Matthew 18:8 ESV
And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.

However, I noted something interesting about these. They only refer to an eternal punishment, eternal fire, or eternal destruction. I can find no reference suggesting an eternal torture. There are so many different verses implying a destruction, a death, calling hell the second death, a furnace, a consuming fire(note the use of consuming), a worm, etc... These all imply a consummation. It would be difficult to interpret these as eternal. I mean, you will be thrown in a fire and will burn without ever being burned up? You will be eaten by a worm but through some strange way this worm will never finish eating you? I mean, this worn has a literally infinite amount of time to eat you but somehow you will regenerate or something as he eats you and as such will never actually die? You will be in a state of dying without ever achieving ultimate death? How does that make sense? You can die without dying? It's illogical.

If indeed everyone possesses a soul, and if, as most claim, a soul is by nature eternal, how could this verse be explained?

1 John 3:15—"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."

But... I thought everyone has an eternal soul abiding in them right? Do murderers not have souls? Are they not born with souls, or are their souls destroyed when they commit murder? Do murderers not suffer eternal hell but all other sinners do? That makes no sense. As I said, I find it extremely difficult to justify eternal hell with verses like these. Even those with the best verbal judo stumble when shown these verses. Take a look at this next one:

2 Peter 2:6by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;

They were turned to ashes. It didn't say they were thrown into an eternal fire. I mean, are they burning today? No. Of course not. They were burned up. Consumed. And according to this verse, this is exactly what will happen to the ungodly in hell. They will be turned to ashes. Was being turned into ashes painful for Sodom and Gomorra? Absolutely. They were undoubtedly in severe pain, and clearly their destruction was not instantaneous(remember that Lot's wife looked back while they were being destroyed and got turned into a lovely salt statue.) They were consumed over time. But it was not eternal. They were turned into ash.

Here are some more studies on the topic:
http://www.jeremyandchristine.com/articles/eternal.php
http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/questions/how-long-does-hell-burn
http://www.remnantofgod.org/hellfire.htm

I was not indoctrinated or convinced to believe this. I came to this by my own study. Hopefully I have opened the eyes of some others through this post. I know that many will refuse to believe this and that is fine. I will happily agree to disagree.

Interesting exposition. My conviction, however, is still that Hell is eternal, and I would like to explain.

In my view, verses like Matthew 25:46 and 2 Thessalonians 1:9, which you have mentioned, are clear enough that Hell is eternal. Punishment cannot be eternal if you eventually actually die and stop feeling any pain. So, if it is eternal, it must mean that is goes on for ever.

What about those that talk about death? Well, there are two possible explanations for that: 1) that this ‘death’ is figurative, and that it is used as an opposition to ‘eternal life’, which is used to describe Heaven; or 2) that this ‘death’ is simply spiritual, and that it simply means that you die to God. Either way, it seems easier to redefine ‘death’ than to redefine ‘eternal’.

Annihilationism brings a few problems. Perhaps the worst of them is that it would imply that Christians would only be in Heaven for a certain amount of time — if Hell is only temporary, then, according to Matthew 25:46, Heaven should also only be temporary.

I also reject your idea that we cannot bring Revelation onto the table — surely, Revelation uses some symbolism, but I find little reason to believe that it would not also be an essentially literal book, like the others. Revelation is a book of prophecy, like those that were also written in the Old Testament, concerning Jesus — every single one of those prophecies was fulfilled literally, to the tiniest detail. Therefore, I would like to mention Revelation 14:10, which makes it clear that sinners will be tormented for ever. The same idea is conveyed by connecting Revelation 20:10 with Revelation 20:15.

 

[anonymoushuman]

Revelations 14:10 says poured out. To me this language implies a cup or container of some sort. This would imply a finite pouring. It's not infinite.

Revelations 20:10 does indeed say that three people will be eternally tormented in hell. I'm sure we can agree that the only one that could be referring to sinners is the false prophet. However, I don't think it does refer to sinners. I'm much more inclined to believe this explanation: http://biblelight.net/false.htm
Anyway, let's look at the rest of the chapter.

"And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog"I think we can agree that this is Satan deceiving the nonbelievers", to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, 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 20:7-10 ESV

As you can see, the nonbelievers were consumed. Destroyed. Then the evil deceiver (Satan) is to be thrown in the pit and tortured forever.

I don't see your point with Matthew 25:46. The kjv says an everlasting punishment. A punishment that lasts forever. The annihalation does last forever. You are annihilated permanently, but not consistently. The same verse contrasts this with life eternal.

Finally, you said something about how death cannot be eternal if it ends. For this, you need to understand the Greek. I'm just going to copy something out of one of those links I presented.

"When the adjective aionios, meaning everlasting is used in Greek with nouns of action it has reference to the result of the act, not the process. The phrase everlasting punishment is comparable to everlasting redemption and everlasting salvation, both Scriptural phrases. No one supposes that we are being redeemed or saved forever. We were redeemed and saved once for all by Christ with eternal results. In the same way the lost will not be passing through the process of punishment forever but will be punished once and for all with eternal results. On the other hand the noun 'life' is not a noun of action, but a noun expressing a state. Thus life itself is eternal."

You see, the punishment is eternal. The torture however, is not. The eternal punishment is death. When the soul is killed, it dies permanently. Eternally. But it is not in the process of dying eternally.

 

[GraceNationMIniss]

I also do agree with eternal Hell, however I have not extensively researched the topic, so my points may have no relevance. I think we can both agree however that if the soul dies, or if you are tortured forever, both of those suck, why? because of the absence of the presence of God. So I would take the stance of the absence of God, is in a sort, torture. However, I do not have a lot of knowledge on the topic to back it up. It is definitely an interesting topic and I am going to do some more research on it.
Also its not Revelations, its revelation, hahaha sorry its a pet peeve of mine xD.
Be Blessed!
-GNM

 

[anonymoushuman]

I also do agree with eternal Hell, however I have not extensively researched the topic, so my points may have no relevance. I think we can both agree however that if the soul dies, or if you are tortured forever, both of those suck, why? because of the absence of the presence of God. So I would take the stance of the absence of God, is in a sort, torture. However, I do not have a lot of knowledge on the topic to back it up. It is definitely an interesting topic and I am going to do some more research on it.
Also its not Revelations, its revelation, hahaha sorry its a pet peeve of mine xD.
Be Blessed!
-GNM

Yep. I agree with you there. It obviously would still suck, but it's not an eternal conscious punishment. It's more of a once off.

 

[The Portuguese Baptist]

Revelations 14:10 says poured out. To me this language implies a cup or container of some sort. This would imply a finite pouring. It's not infinite.

That is reading too much of your understanding into the verse. The verse does not say it is finite, nor does it suggest a cup (can you really hold all of God's wrath in a cup?). To be honest, however, I cannot remember why I brought up that verse.

Revelations 20:10 does indeed say that three people will be eternally tormented in hell. I'm sure we can agree that the only one that could be referring to sinners is the false prophet. However, I don't think it does refer to sinners. I'm much more inclined to believe this explanation: http://biblelight.net/false.htm

But verse 15 says that unbelievers will also be cast in the lake of fire, the same place as those three people, implying probably that punishment will be the same.

Anyway, let's look at the rest of the chapter.

"And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog"I think we can agree that this is Satan deceiving the nonbelievers", to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, 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 20:7-10 ESV

As you can see, the nonbelievers were consumed. Destroyed. Then the evil deceiver (Satan) is to be thrown in the pit and tortured forever.

Then how can they still be judged later in verses 11 to 15?

I don't see your point with Matthew 25:46. The kjv says an everlasting punishment. A punishment that lasts forever. The annihalation does last forever. You are annihilated permanently, but not consistently. The same verse contrasts this with life eternal.

That does not make sense. If you die, punishment is not eternal. When you are dead, you are unconscious and unaware of anything going on around you. How can you then be said to be punished? How are you punished when you are dead? It is like sleeping for ever!

My point with Matthew 25:46 was that the same adjective (‘eternal’) is used both for the fate of the unsaved (‘eternal punishment’) and for the reward of the saved (‘eternal life’). Therefore, if punishment for the wicked is to be only temporary, our life in Heaven will also only be temporary.

Finally, you said something about how death cannot be eternal if it ends. For this, you need to understand the Greek. I'm just going to copy something out of one of those links I presented.

"When the adjective aionios, meaning everlasting is used in Greek with nouns of action it has reference to the result of the act, not the process. The phrase everlasting punishment is comparable to everlasting redemption and everlasting salvation, both Scriptural phrases. No one supposes that we are being redeemed or saved forever. We were redeemed and saved once for all by Christ with eternal results. In the same way the lost will not be passing through the process of punishment forever but will be punished once and for all with eternal results. On the other hand the noun 'life' is not a noun of action, but a noun expressing a state. Thus life itself is eternal."

You see, the punishment is eternal. The torture however, is not. The eternal punishment is death. When the soul is killed, it dies permanently. Eternally. But it is not in the process of dying eternally.

That seems to me a bit like changing the meaning of the word ‘eternal’. If you say that something is ‘eternal’, it means that this thing itself last for ever, not that its consequences last for ever. And, of course, I will not easily believe a bunch of self-declared online Greek experts.

 

[The Portuguese Baptist]

If Hell is eternal that would mean that your finite transgression, no matter how great, was being met with infinite punishment, which by definition is infinitely more punishment than is just. This means that if God sends you to hell for eternity for something done in life he must be infinitely unjust.

Who said that our transgressions are finite?