Annihilation - Part 3
I apologize very sincerely for my delay in getting back to this topic. Since the last post, I’ve had to wipe my computer clean, reformat my hard drive, take a trip to
We talked last time of the traditional view of hell, and the philosophical and scriptural basis for that view. In this post, I’d like to present an alternative view that is in direct contrast to many of the points that the traditionalists raise in their favor. Last time, we discussed the innate immortality of the human soul, the justice of God requiring eternal torment, and the specific Scriptures used to prove and defend these ideas. In contrast to these traditional lynchpins, the conditionalist (annhiliationist) states that the human soul is conditionally immortal, that the justice of God does not require eternal torment, and that the Scriptures used are not being understood in light of their Old Testament background, and therefore are not being understood correctly. It’s a lot to chew on, so we’ll chew slowly.
Conditional Immortality is the idea that humans are not immortal and eternal by nature, but have the capacity to become immortal by God’s intervention. I will attempt to prove this biblically and philosophically. To fully understand this, let’s go way back in time.
The Garden of Eden had many trees which Adam and Eve could freely eat, including the tree of life. Remember, they were only restricted from eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because the tree of life was in the garden, and because they were allowed to eat of every tree but the one, the implication (though it is never stated) is that they ate from the tree of life. When God kicked them out of the garden, one of the reasons he did so was to prevent the humans from eating off of the tree of life, and thus live forever. He promised them that they would die if they ate from the forbidden tree, and being cut off from the tree of life was how God would ensure that they would surely die. In other words, their immortality was conditioned on their continued eating from the tree of life. Cut off from it, they would not remain forever.
Is this all speculation, and a poor basis for my argument? Sure. This is not my entire biblical argument, believe me; I just thought that it was very interesting. Once you clear the cobwebs off of a told and retold story like Adam and Eve, you realize that you were making a lot of assumptions that the story didn’t make for you. Like, Adam and Eve never ate from the tree of life. Or like, you only had to eat from the tree of life once to live forever. I challenge these notions based on what the story says and doesn’t say and on Revelation 22:2. There, in the new earth, “on each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.” If this is a direct allusion to the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, we can make some interesting parallels. Why does the tree of life bear its fruit every month, if we only need to eat of it once to live forever? The constant bearing of fruit implies that we are constantly eating its fruit, which implies that we need to eat of it continually to receive its benefits.
So what is the point of all this? Simply to prove that even Adam and Eve did not have immortality and life in themselves, that even in the Garden of Eden they had to continually partake from the tree of life to remain immortal. That is why God put it there in the first place, to ensure that his special creations would endure forever. Does this sound like innate immortality or conditional immortality?
Here is the main case for Conditional Immortality:
1. The Unique God: 1 Timothy 6:15-16 “…the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power…”
God alone has immortality? Than why do traditionalists argue that man has immortality from the moment he is conceived? Does it seem like a direct contradiction to their position, or is it just me? Now, some might say, “it contradicts your position as well, because you claim some humans can have immortality to.” But wait just a second; hopefully it will be clearer in a few points.
2. The Pursuit of Immortality: Romans 2:7 “eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor and immortality…”
We have to seek for immortality? Why must we seek what is intrinsic to our very nature? The answer seem obvious: humans do not inherently possess immortality.
3. The gospel is the means to immortality: 2 Timothy 1:10 “…but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel…"
4. The Partakers of the Divine Nature: 2 Peter 1:4 and 1 Corinthians 15:50-55
Gosh, I wish I had more room for these studies! These are exciting points I wish to share, but as I read through them I cannot animate them enough to show you how cool these ideas really are!
2 Peter 1:4 “…by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
How many times do we read this stuff over without blinking! Peter says that we are becoming partakers of the divine nature. I think that the meaning is two-fold. We are becoming like God in our character (as 2 Peter 1:1-3 admonishes us) and even more we are sharing his immortality, taking a piece of that divine nature which endures forever. How do I know he’s speaking of this second point? Notice that he is contrasting being a partaker of the divine nature with having escaped the corruption that is in the world. Now, normally we think of corruption as gross sins, general nastiness. But in the Bible corruption speaks more specifically of frail and perishable humanity, or in other words, mortality. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:53: “for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”
So, corruption/mortality is juxtaposed with incorruption/immortality. 2 Peter is therefore claiming we have escaped corruption (mortality) and become partakers of the divine nature (immortality)! By believing in the gospel, we have been infused with an immortality that was formerly not a part of us. We are a partaker of God’s immortality, which He alone possesses but has chosen to freely give to those who believe in His Son. Left to ourselves, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the
“The Bible teaches conditionalism: God created humans mortal with a capacity for life everlasting, but it is not their inherent possession. Immortality is a gift God offers us in the gospel, not an inalienable possession.” Clark Pinnock, Four Views On Hell, pg. 148
Of all the points the annihilationist can make, I think conditional immortality is the most easily proved biblically. The Bible speaks nowhere of humans inherent immortality but speaks again and again of our mortality, of which we have no escape unless the only immortal one chooses to share with us a piece of Himself. There is no verse in the Bible that speaks of the intrinsic eternal nature of a human, and therefore, we should drop that doctrine in favor of a more biblical anthropology.
This doctrine makes sense philosophically as well. Remember the movie slogan to the Matrix
Revolutions? “Everything that has a beginning has an end.” I bet you didn’t know that they actually stole this line from John Calvin. That’s right, Calvin himself said “everything which has a beginning can also have an end, can perish” while speaking specifically of man’s immortal soul. If a human soul is created by God, and has a logical beginning, then it follows that it has at least the potential of having an end. A human soul, left to itself, will go the way of all creation and diminish. Infused by God’s immortality, we can endure forever.
Why go to such lengths to prove the conditional immortality of humans? Remember, the innate immortality of the human soul is the lynchpin of the traditionalist doctrine. If a soul by its nature endures forever, than it must do so in either heaven or hell, forever. If a soul does not endure forever on its own, but must receive something outside of itself to become immortal, then it can end without any illogical or metaphysical violence. God can extinguish the soul should he choose to. The question that remains is, does he choose to kill the soul of the unrepentant? Or does he infuse it with supernatural life that he may torment it forever? That is a question for next time, as we will look at the justice of God and answer the specific scriptures brought to the table by the traditionalists.
posted by Team Kerbel @ 10:18 AM
9 Comments:
Maybe it's in the word "immortal" that we're misunderstanding the doctrine of eternal hell. "Mortar" must come from the latin word "to die", (I'm guessing this from just the little Spanish I know. "Morir" means to die. ) "Im-mortal" would mean "without death". So, immortal means "without death".
Now, when God told Adam to not eat from that fruit, he said, "When you eat of it, you will surely die." Adam ate of it, died, (for God said he surely would) yet he didn't drop, unconscience on the spot. Could this mean that you can die, yet still be conscience? He also promises us new, immortal life that we don't seem to see, in fact believers seem to die.
So, perhaps, "immortal" may not mean, simply to be conscience forever, but to live forever. To be "mortal" may be to die forever.
I'm examining this word because your argument seems to weigh heavily on it.
The word "immortal" in the Greek is "athanasia", and its etymology is pretty easy: "thanatos", meaning death, and "a", a negative. So the word literally means "without death", just like you assumed.
What was the "death" that Adam received when he ate of the fruit? There are of course two ways to look at it. One, it meant spiritual death, separation from God. Two, it meant physical death. (I guess three would be it meant both). I am inclined to believe that God was referring to future physical death when he said, "you shall surely die." Remember God's curse of man: "for dust you are, and to dust you will return."
By kicking man out of the garden and thus out of the reach of the tree of life he was effectively passing a death sentence on Adam and Eve, as well as future mankind. In the Bible it's important to note that when someone says "you're gonna die" or "you are dead" that in many instances it means "you are doomed to death" or "keep it up and you're dead." In Genesis 20:3, we see God visiting Abimelech and saying "indeed you are a dead man because of the woman you have taken..." But we all know Abimelech didn't die. So was God wrong? No, he was using an Hebrew idiom (which the NIV correctly reflects "you are as good as dead..."). So, "on the day you eat of it, you will surely die" can reasonably mean "on the day you eat of it, you will have doomed yourself to death."
But I guess this is a side issue. Read the NT verses, they speak for themselves. We are mortal until we put on immortality...
2 Cor 5:4
For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
NIV
By the way, sorry if I'm hogging the airwaves. I promise I'll let a few others post before I return.
Simon,
I wouldn't hang your hat on the idea that being deprived of fruit from the Tree of Life was the reason Adam and Eve weren't immortal. There's nothing in the text that explicitly or implicitly says that. It's possible, but it's also possible that I could fly of my own volition, even though I never have. I've never tried and failed, right?
Besides, I don't think you can really call immortality "inherent" that was contingent on them remaining in the garden and eating three square meals a day of Tree-of-Life fruit. That sounds very conditional to me, but you contrast that with an even more conditional immortality.
If you ask me, a notion of inherent immortality that is consistent with Genesis (and must be squared against your NT passages) would be that Adam and Eve were immortal apart from any of their acts in the created world, before they ever were given the choice of eating from one tree or another. (Notice that I am not arguing for pre-existence, which is clearly an unscriptural, platonistic idea.) Having transgressed, they were banished and thus deprived of the express benefits of eating fruit from the Tree of Life. It may have been life-sustaining fruit, but I don't think that means that without it they would die. I say this hesitantly, because I don't want to put fruit from the Tree of Life on par with brussels sprouts, which probably are good for me, but without which I certainly will not die.
Simply put, I don't think God starved Adam and Eve to death, as if He just "withheld" life. I think His curse had teeth to it, meaning that He actually caused them to die as a result of their transgression. He reversed Himself, effectively overriding His original design for immortality.
That said, I still need to engage with your NT verses, which are very compelling. I just don't think you can put as much stock in the Tree of Life as you did here.
Foolish Man,
This is totally off topic. I just wanted to say that I read your comment on the Fish Bowl about the Rod and I loved it. I think you are truly blessed with teaching.
Simon, I don't think you're getting what I said. This isn't your fault, in re-reading my post, I wasn't very articulate.
What I meant was, appearantly, to God "life" and "death" are not "conscienceness" or "unconscienceness". "Life", to God, is His spirit in you, the abscence of this seems to be "death". And, as the New Testement tells us, we need this life to see Him, we must be born again, and if we don't receive this life, through faith, ("Yet to as many as received Him, to those who believe on His name, He gave the right to become sons of God, who were not born of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God") we are still dead, and won't see Him, will be abandoned by Him, this being Hell, and dead forever.
Thanks for the comments everybody:
Michael: You're right, I shouldn't hang my hat on the Genesis passage, and in fact I try very hard not to. In all truth, the first few chapters of Genesis are difficult for me to understand, specifically the fall and the results of the fall. So I try very hard not to put too much into or pull too much out of that text. I agree with you on that. Even if what you are saying is right, however, that humans were immortal until the fall when God pronounced death upon them, that would not conflict with conditional immortality. "As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive." Every human, when they sin, receives the death sentence, to be realized in the future. It is only through Christ that we can hope to escape that sentence and so live forever.
Crystal: Thanks so much for the compliment. I really appreciate your kind words. Let me tell you, I had a great time writing that spanking comment.
Michele: I think I'm getting your point. To you, the Bible speaks of death not as the cessation of existence but as the absence of God's presence within and without, and thus when it speaks of the unbeliever's destiny as death that could be understood within the context of an eternal existence in torment. I would somewhat agree with that, but not completely. I think there are a few times in the Scripture where "death" is used figuratively, but the overwhelming majority of cases are talking about physical death or the end of life. Now, we might actually be splitting hairs here. I think the Bible sees man not as a separation of body and soul but as a unity. So when we speak of death, if you imply that it is spiritual, and I imply that it is physical, we can both be right. I think death is best understood as both physical and spiritual death. Does that make sense? Hopefully it will at the end of our discussion...
The font you used is too small. I'm interested to read your article, but I'm afraid of going blind just by reading it!
Or maybe it's just the devil telling me to don't bother..
God Bless!
If you get a chance could you please say a prayer for a little girl named "Rebekah" who has cancer. God knows who you will be praying about! Thank you so much!
Trying to rally some good Christian Prayer for her and her family!
I just prayed for her and I will continue to pray for this little girl. My 8 year old daughter Emily has some lumps one her neck and may have to have biopsy to rule out Lymphoma. I know the fear that this family is facing.
Post a Comment
<< Home