Entire books on this subject have been written, as well as innumerable articles, with both sides claiming Bible verses to support their interpretation. And while this topic will likely be debated until Jesus returns, it is one that I feel I cannot be silent on as the very character of God is at stake. Please note that my goal was to succinctly expound on why I believe what I believe in as few words as possible, thus I have not covered every bit of evidence that exists, nor addressed every verse in the Bible that touches on this sensitive subject, or included a ton of sources. Rather, I wanted to focus on the history of the doctrines and how they developed.
A: Judaism has always held to annihilation for the wicked (kiluy neshama).
#1 – Old Testament
God: The soul that sins, it shall die. If a man is righteous and does what is just and right, he shall surely live. If he has a son who is violent (the passage continues to list several other evil deeds), he shall not live. But if a wicked person turns away from his sins, and does what is just and right, he shall surely live (Ezekiel 18). Obviously, this is not talking about the physical death of the body, as everyone, including the righteous, die physically.
#2 – The Talmud (commentary on Judaism written by Orthodox Jews)
Rosh Hashanah 17a: The bodies of those liable to [the penalty of] being “cut off” cease to exist. That is, the body’s strength or animal power ceases, and “their souls are burnt up.”
#3 –New Testament
Jesus (a Jew): For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him, will not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16). Jesus states that immortality (eternal life) is conditional on one’s belief. According to Strong’s Concordance, the definition of perish is: “destroy, put an end to, kill.”
Jesus: Do not fear those who can kill the body, but fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna (Matthew 10:28). If the Jews were wrong about believing in annihilation, then Jesus did a horrible job of trying to get them to see the error of their ways.
Paul (a Jew): Seek for glory and honour and immortality. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life (Rom 2:7 and 1 Timothy 6:12). Paul, a Jew, held to conditional immortality. If we are inherently immortal, there is no reason to seek it, or lay hold of it.
Paul also believed the wicked would be destroyed: those who disobey God “shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). According to Strong’s Concordance, the definition of destruction is: “ruin, destroy, death.”
B. The Greeks believed in the inherent immortality of the soul and eternal punishment.
#1 – Phaedo (also known to ancient readers as Plato’s On The Soul): One of the main themes in the Phaedo is the idea that the soul is immortal, in which Socrates offers four arguments for the soul’s immortality.
#2 – Josephus: The notion that “the souls are immortal, and continue forever” is “an unavoidable bait for such as have once had a taste for their [Greek] philosophy.” (War of the Jews 2, 8, 11)
#3 – Greek Religion: Hades, god of the underworld, tortured the souls of the wicked in fiery chambers. (This is where Christians get the false notion that Satan rules hell, when in fact, hell was created for Satan, and you don’t give the key to the jail to the highest maximum security prisoner, see Matt 25:41).
C: Lost in translation: Ancient definition of Greek and Hebrew words translated in English as “eternal.”
The problem we see today lies in the English definition/understanding of words translated “eternal / everlasting / forever” which is: “without beginning or end.” But the ancient definition of “eternal / everlasting / forever” is “without ceasing until the end.” There is much evidence of this, but here are two examples:
#1 – Many Ancient Greek scrolls contain numerous examples of Roman emperors being described as αιώνιος the Greek word translated “eternal” in English Bibles. But all that is meant is that they held their office for life — not that the emperor was immortal, or that his reign never ended.
#2 – Dead Sea Scrolls: the wicked will suffer “unending dread and shame without end, and of disgrace of destruction by fire of the region of darkness. And all their time from age to age are in most sorrowful chagrin and bitterest misfortune, in calamities of darkness till they are destroyed with none of them surviving or escaping” (1QS 4.11-14). Note that this is saying punishment in hell is without end until they are destroyed.
It should be noted that Jesus’ use of the words kill, perish, and destroy in Matt 10:28 and John 3:16), and Peter and Paul’s use of the word destruction in 2 Peter 2:12, Phil 1:28, and 2 Thess 1:9 (as well as countless scriptures stressing conditional immortality), demonstrates that the Greco-Roman belief in the inherent immortality of the soul was the inaccurate view, not the Jews’ belief in annihilation.
D: Combating Universalism.
So how did the early church, which believed in conditional immortality and annihilation, turn into a church that held to inherent immortality and eternal torture?
The early church was plagued with Gnosticism (John’s gospel and three epistles were written against Gnosticism) for centuries. Gnostics denied the resurrection. Some of them also held to universalism (the belief that everyone eventually goes to heaven). As universalism started to spread (and even adopted by some Church fathers such as Origen), other church fathers started writing against this heresy and stressing that the punishment does not end (i.e. it is final, there is no coming back; you go into Gehenna, you do not come out; there is no end to the punishment, thus God does not eventually allow everyone into heaven).
Since the Church Fathers (and all the newly-converted Gentile Christians) came from a Greco-Roman background, both philosophically (they believed in the inherent immortality of the soul) and religiously (they believed the souls of the wicked were tortured), it is quite easy to see how quickly conditional immortality and annihilation could simply evaporate into thin air. And by the time universalism was finally condemned several centuries later, eternal torment was the predominant belief of the church.
The Bible’s use of “eternal / everlasting / forever” denotes the finality of the punishment of sin, not the duration. The duration will likely be based on the particular individual as Jesus said the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah will fare better than Capernaum (Matthew 10:15), and that some would receive few “blows” and others “many” blows (Luke 12:48). And regardless of how long it takes the fires of Gehenna to burn one’s soul into nothing, there will be “wailing” and “gnashing of teeth.”
The Bible’s stress on the finality aspect of this punishment clearly denies the validity of universalism, and for good reason. Universalism is probably the most dangerous doctrine that could ever be purported, and if it had prevailed in the early church, would have been the death of true Christianity. But the doctrine of eternal torment, originating in paganism, also poses a threat to Christianity as it slanders the character of God, and—as atheists are quick to point out—makes Him into a moral monster.
Further Reading: Immortality or Resurrection by Samuele Bacchiocchi
I published a German equivalent to this article, having come to the same conclusions, may I use on my website (www.jenskaldewey.ch) your Picture of the fire with the face in it? Jens Kaldewey
10 Logical Arguments Against Hell
1. Just punishment should fit the crime. Hell is eternal torture, the likes of which are hard for me to imagine a crime that would warrant it.
2. Punishment should discourage bad behavior. Since Judgment Day comes as a surprise after our life is over, it doesn’t do much to discourage bad behavior.
3. Punishment should rehabilitate. Hell is eternal. There is no chance for parole. It’s only function is to torture.
4. The decision on who goes to Hell isn’t based on how good or evil you were in life but on whether or not you joined the right religion and held the correct set of unproven metaphysical beliefs. No matter how evil you were, Christ will forgive you if you convert. No matter how good you were, Christ will condemn you if you don’t convert. Therefore, Hell is not to punish wrongdoers but rather to torture wrong thinkers. This is not justice. This is a dictator tormenting non-loyal citizens.
5. No moral system of justice can allow an innocent person to take the place of a guilty criminal in punishment.
6. On earth, there is no way of knowing which Hell is the true Hell. Muslims never worry about the Christian Hell and vice versa. If life on earth is a “test”, Yahweh-Allah has done a lousy job of making sure to administer the test fairly, since passing the test will depend greatly on accident of birth.
7. If life is a “test” as Muslims and Christians alike often like to say, what is the test designed to do exactly? Normally, tests separate a population into groups according to their performance. It seems the criteria to pass this “test” is gullibility, accepting claims simply on the say-so of clerical figures. So what is Yahweh-Allah looking for? Gullible boot-licking sycophants it would seem.
8. If Hell is eternal, wouldn’t we get used to the pain eventually? After being on fire for 200 years, wouldn’t we get accustomed to the sensation? Wouldn’t our eyes adjust to the darkness? No matter how bad Hell is, humans would get used to it. Conversely with Heaven, humans would soften until the bliss became part of life.
9. What are Satan’s motivations exactly? Does he win if he gets enough souls? Why would he torture souls that were not loyal to Yahweh/Allah? Even if Satan’s motivation for torturing humans is revenge against Yahweh/Allah, what possible satisfaction could be achieved by torturing people that god had already turned his back on for all eternity?
10. What are Yahweh-Allah’s motivations exactly? If the criteria of entrance to Heaven are submission and gullibility, this suggests a highly egotistical god, if not a narcissistic one. Such a god would be expected to make regular appearances to his followers to bask in their devotion. Yet this same god hides? And this is the same god of their scriptures who regularly intervenes in overt ways? This is not a consistent, believable character.
Unfortunately JC mishandles the evidence so extensively on every point that I couldn’t really make a short comment out of it. I have responded more fully here:
http://bnonn.com/annihilationism-versus-eternal-torture/
http://jewishnotgreek.com/ci.pdf
http://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.com/documents/death/immortality-or-resurection/Immortality%20or%20Resurrection.pdf
Actually, while ainios can mean either eternal or of the age to come, it can also mean both and still support an Annihilationist position. In fact, most Annihilationists support the translation eternal in duration, because their disagreement is not on this word, but on the definition of the word ‘punishment.’ Does ‘eternal punishment’ mean eternal punishing, or an eternal outcome to the punishment, i.e. irreversible death?
I know that on first glance that may seem a strain, but consider this. When the bible talks of eternal redemption or justification, are these the outcome of an event or an ongoing process – is Jesus continuing to redeem us, or did he redeem us once for all time?
A second way to see that perhaps eternal punishment is talking of irreversible death is to see how 2 Thes 1:9 describes the punishment:
They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from his glorious power.(NLT)
Traditionalists understand this as “separation from god = destruction”, but how can destruction be ongoing and never finished? The better view of this his that they are ‘destroyed permanently, for eternity’ and thus, removed from the presence of God. Much more sensical, if you ask me.
So is eternal punishment = eternal punishing, or destroyed for eternity? That is the question.
Jacob, I think the point is to show that (a) the immortal soul is not found in scripture, and (b) is most likely an importation from Platonic dualism. The question arises, is the idea of the eternal soul (that must live somewhere, either heaven or hell) a biblical idea? And if not, does this weaken or confound the traditional view of eternal conscious torment? For example, look at Genesis 3:22
Then the Lord God said, “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!” (NLT)
Another problem with positing immortal souls is the necessary but awkward redefinition of death to mean ‘separated from God’ rather than ‘ceasing to exist,’ and the separation of ‘immortality’ from ‘life,’ since in the traditional view we have essentially the ‘immortal dead’ in hell, and the ‘immortal living’ in heaven. This awkward construct has little exegetical support, though plenty of traditional support, like the papacy or infant baptism. But that doesn’t necessarily commend it 😉
Personally, I don’t see the issue- the supposed redefinition of death seems to simply be what the Bible thinks of as death, and I don’t find awkward what you find awkward on the traditionalist reading. I also find the Platonic doctrine of the soul so radically different from the “traditional’ Biblical one that I’d be shocked if that were its source. I think often Christians on both sides of this issue assume a Platonic idea of the soul, and it becomes a kind of straw man. Once you get rid of the Platonism, the problems disappear.
I do agree that “immortal dead,” and “immortal soul” for that matter, are awkward constructions. “Imperishability” is probably better. The soul really dies when you die- but it’s still existent, and possibly conscious. Anyway, I wish I had time/energy to debate this more, but the main point I want to make is: you can have an eternal soul without substance dualism. In fact, I think substance dualism is just as contrary to Scripture as a perishable soul is. Just something to consider.
As for infant baptism, I, for one, it has much stronger exegetical support than the alternative. But I digress 🙂 Thanks for clarifying.
Also- “aionios” at least *can* mean “eternal,” since Jesus calls life in heaven “aionios” in parallelism with calling punishment in hell “ainoios.” Saying that the word simply means “without ceasing until the end” is, again, an inaccurate generalization.
Also- “eternal life” in 1 Tim 6:11 is “aioniou zoes.” But based on what you said, “aionios” doesn’t mean “eternal.” Could you clarify the role this verse plays in your argument?
I understand that you are working within limited space and not making your full argument, so maybe I’m being a little too hard. But for people who haven’t gotten into this debate these kinds of generalizations can be misleading. I’m sorry if I’ve been too nitpicky, though!
Hi Jacob, in response to: Also- “eternal life” in 1 Tim 6:11 is “aioniou zoes.” But based on what you said, “aionios” doesn’t mean “eternal.” Could you clarify the role this verse plays in your argument?
Because death is destroyed (Rev 20:14 & 1 Cor 15:26) there is no end to the “eternal” life that is granted believers. In other words, it is without ceasing because there is no death to end it.
That’s precisely my point. “Aionios” can mean “eternal” and saying it can’t is misleading. Whether you interpret it that way in a particular passage depends on your theological presuppositions.
Saying that “the Greeks” believed in an immortal soul is a gross generalization. Plato argued for it, but the fact that he *argued* for it shows that it was not a universal belief. The Stoics did not believe in an immortal soul, nor did the Epicureans, since both were materialists. Aristotelians did not believe in personal survival after death. Descriptions of Hades in, e.g., the Illiad are often unclear on whether the “shades” have full personhood in the manner of a Platonic soul. Actually, Platonism (and specifically dogmatic Platonism, not the Platonism of the later Academy) is the only school of Greek philosophy that I can think of that taught the immortality of the soul.