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Conclusion on Annihilationism

by | Oct 11, 2018 | Annihilationism, Minor Groups & Issues

Conditional immortality: Conclusion on annihilationism 

After spending about 250 hours or more reading books, articles, participating in discussion forums, having conversations, and examining God’s word, I have concluded that annihilationism (conditional immortality) is not the correct biblical position. I say this for several reasons.

First, I did numerous extensive word studies of those terms the annihilationists stated either necessitate or imply annihilation. I also looked at a lot of verses they said prove conditionalism. I discovered the only verses that clearly indicated something is destroyed in the sense of nonexistence was of objects, never of people. I thought this was important because if annihilationism is true, I would expect to see a specific declaration saying so regarding people. I did not find it.

Second, in my opinion, I found that annihilationists seemed to read their perspective into scriptures and did not allow for alternative explanations, i.e., Isaiah 66:23; Luke 16:19-31. However, when those alternative explanations were occasionally addressed, they were not done so very convincingly, or sometimes unfairly. In fact, many of the explanations were dismissive and incomplete. So, I found that their approach to Scripture routinely committed the fallacy of begging the question, which is assuming the position is true that you’re trying to prove. In my opinion, far too many of them were looking only for that evidence in Scripture that supports their position and ignoring or dismissing counter-evidence.

Third, I think the annihilationists have a point regarding the use of the word immortality in relation to Christians and not unbelievers. However, I believe that they stopped their analysis too soon after they found what they wanted. God often uses words differently than we do, and knowing this I sought to find what God means by various words and phrases. An example is in 1 Tim. 6:16, where annihilationists say that it proves God alone has immortality. But, when we examine the context, we find the text implies that God the Father is the subject, not Jesus – because Jesus was seen. Yet the text speaks of the One who dwells in unapproachable light whom no man has seen or can see. We’ve seen Jesus. So, it seems to be speaking of the Father. But how does the Father alone having immortality relate to Jesus? See the issue? Sometimes, the annihilationists seem to stop short of sufficient examination.  See the article, 1 Tim. 6:16, Annihilationism, and God alone has immortality as an example of their insufficient exegesis.  Furthermore, Jesus said angels never die (Luke 20:36) yet the word “immortality” is not used in reference to them.  I find this truth to undermine the conditionalist’s position.

Fourth, I thought the way they defined certain terms revealed a strong bias and not an objective examination of Scripture. For example, in some verses that mentioned the word ‘death,’ it was ofter forced fed the definition of either soul sleep or nonexistence. I found this to be a problem since many scriptures imply the contrary when speaking of someone being dead (Gen. 2:17; John 5:25; Luke 15:24; Rom. 6:13; 11:15; Eph. 2:1, 3, 5; Col. 2:13).

Fifth, conditionalists equate God’s eternal punishment with a person’s nonexistence. But this is difficult to maintain logically. For more information on the article Conditionalism and the challenge of conflating eternal punishment with non-existence

Sixth, verses like Isaiah 66:24 with Mark 9:48, Matthew 25:46, Revelation 14:11, and Revelation 20:10 were, in my opinion, more naturally interpreted to support eternal conscious torment. I thought how the annihilationists dealt with these verses was forced and incorrect. They seemed to take a passage of scripture meant to illustrate something, extract a technically accurate subpoint within it, and then interpret the whole passage in light of that subpoint. It was evident to me that they were looking for a means to justify their assumption rather than letting the texts speak for themselves.

Seventh, I encountered conditionalists who appeared to be more dedicated to defending annihilationism than in defending Christ, his work, and the necessity to spread the gospel. To me, when someone spends an excessive amount of time mastering a dogma that is not essential to the Christian faith, and then works hard to promote that dogma, that’s a concern. This was not the case with all of those who hold to conditional immortality. In fact, I would say it was the minority. But, it was there. Of course, my observation has no bearing on the truth or falsity of annihilationism.

In all, I was not convinced by their argumentation. If anything, my belief in eternal conscious torment was strengthened after examining their teachings, positions, and Scriptures.

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