Is conditional immortality (CI) a
credible alternative to the traditional doctrine of hell?
By ROLAND CHIA
THE traditional doctrine of hell
has recently come under fire even from evangelical theologians.
In the past 20 years or so, an increasing number of evangelical
theologians have rejected the traditional understanding of hell
and eternal punishment and have forwarded a view known as conditional
immortality (CI), also known as annihilationism. Unable to accept
the teaching of eternal punishment which has prevailed in the
Church for two millennia, these theologians advocate instead the
idea of CI arguing that God punishes the wicked by annihilating
them after the last judgement.
The most serious objection to the traditional view of hell may
be stated as follows: How can the loving God of the Bible punish
sinners eternally in hell for sins they commit in time? Does not
the traditional doctrine of hell present a vindictive and tyrannical
God who is inimical to the God of the Bible?
CI did not suddenly burst on to the 20th century theological world.
Traces of this idea can be found among some patristic theologians
who wrote within the first 500 years of the history of the Christian
Church. The clearest example came from the pen of Arnobius, a
theologian in the 4th century, who wrote about the fate of the
wicked in this way: "They are cast in, and being annihilated,
pass away vainly in everlasting destruction … this, I say
is man's real death."
The re-emergence of CI in the 19th century in conservative circles
may be regarded as a response to the growing popularity of universalism,
which maintains that ultimately every human being will be saved.
CI is offered as an attractive middle path between the universalism
of liberal theology on the one hand and the crude and offensive
idea of eternal punishment on the other (especially in its medieval
depictions in literature and art).
In 1846, F. D. Maurice was dismissed from his chair at King's
College, London, for suggesting in his now famous Theological
Essays that eternal punishment has to do with the quality of God's
retribution for sins, and not with the duration.
The popularity of the view, however, has not abated. In 1974,
John Wenham wrote a careful study of this view in The Goodness
of God, and in 1982 Edward William Fudge presented perhaps the
most detailed study to date of this position in his The Fire that
Consumes: The Biblical Case for Conditional Immortality. In his
famous dialogue with liberal theologian David Edwards, John Stott
hinted at his tentative openness to annihilationism.
HOW should one respond to CI?
The New Testament clearly teaches that hell has to do with the
eternal punishment of the wicked even if its imagery concerning
eternal punishment is not uniform. Thus hell is depicted as eternal,
unquenchable fire (Matt 9:43), as darkness (Matt 25:30; 2 Pet
2:17), death (Rev 2:11) and exclusion from the presence of God
(Matt 7:21-23). But the New Testament clearly presents eternal
punishment as the converse of eternal life. In Matthew 24:46,
Jesus says that the wicked will "go away to eternal punishment,
but the righteous to eternal life". Augustine, the 5th century
theologian, argues for the traditional view by pointing to the
symmetry between "eternal life" and "eternal punishment".
In his commentary on Matthew 25:46, Augustine, as if replying
to the proponents of CI of his day, wrote: "How absurd it
is to interpret eternal punishment as meaning merely a fire of
long duration while believing eternal life to signify life without
end." For the Bishop of Hippo, to propose that eternal life
will be without end and eternal punishment will have an end "is
utterly ridiculous".
The Bible speaks not just of the
love of God but also of His holy wrath which will be unleashed
upon unrepentant sinners at the last judgement. Proponents of
CI do not reject the idea of divine wrath. They see the annihilation
of unrepentant sinners as a more fitting punishment than the eternal
punishment of the traditional teaching. The traditional view teaches
that sinners who commit temporal sins against God are punished
for all eternity. According to the annihilationist, this is an
affront to our understanding of justice because the punishment
far outweighs the crime.
Traditionalists respond by pointing out that Scripture is replete
with "disproportionate" punishment meted by God: Lot's
wife was turned into stone for glancing back at Sodom and Gomorrah
(Gen 19:26), Uzzah was struck dead for touching the ark (2 Sam
6:6-7), and Annanias and Sapphira were slain for lying (Acts 5:1-10).
Proponents of CI appear to have used the standards of justice
that obtain in this fallen world, which are not binding to God,
as their premise.
Theologians who hold the traditional view of hell also make the
distinction between sin committed against another human being
and that which is committed against God. The medieval theologian,
Thomas Aquinas, therefore maintains that "a sin that is against
God is infinite" on the basis that "the higher the person
against whom it is committed, the graver the sin". Thus,
Aquinas concludes: "Therefore an infinite punishment is deserved
for a sin committed against [God]."
Proponents of CI are right in saying that the loving God could
not possibly want his creatures to suffer eternally in hell. Hell
is therefore not something God wishes for his creatures. It is
the consequence of the creature's rejection of God's love.
As Bishop Kallistos Ware has so eloquently put it, "Divine
love is everywhere, and rejects no one. But we on our side are
free to reject divine love: we cannot, however, do so without
inflicting pain upon ourselves, and the more final our rejection
the more bitter our suffering."
Roland Chia is Dean of Postgraduate Studies and Lecturer in Historical and Systematic Theology at Trinity Theological College. He worships at the Fairfield Preaching Point in Woodlands.
QUOTE:
GOD'S LOVE
'Hell is therefore not something God wishes for his creatures.
It is the consequence of the creature's rejection of God's love.'