Does belief in annihilationism automatically mean someone who affirms it is not Christian? Though I believe annihilationism is false, I do not believe that it disqualifies anyone from being a Christian since it does not violate any essential doctrine of the Christian faith. If, however, someone has an argument from which they want to assert that anyone who holds to annihilationism (conditional immortality) of the wicked, is not a Christian, I would be interested in reviewing it.

I have written a lot about the essentials of the Christian faith. I break them up into primary and secondary essentials. The primary essentials are those doctrines where the Scriptures explicitly state that we must believe and cannot be denied because there is a warning associated with them. The secondary essentials are those doctrines based on the primary ones but are not explicitly stated as being necessary. Let me explain.

Primary Essentials

Jesus said in John 8:24, “…unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.” Therefore, you must believe that Jesus Christ is God in flesh (See, John 8:58; Exodus 3:14-15) or you will die in your sins. Likewise, Paul said in 1 Cor. 15:14 that if Christ is not raised from the dead, then our faith is in vain. This would mean that the physical resurrection of Christ is an essential doctrine of the Christian faith. To deny it is to deny Christianity. So, in these two quick examples, you can see that there is a qualification is made, by Scripture, about the necessity of particular teaching. This also follows with other “primary” essentials of the Christian faith such as salvation by grace (Ephesians 2:8-9; Galatians 5:1-4), the gospel (1 Cor. 15:1-4 with Galatians 1: 8-9), and monotheism (Exodus 20:3; Isaiah 43:10; 44:6, 8).

Secondary Essentials

The secondary essentials are still necessary to the Christian faith but are not explicitly stated in Scripture as being essential in that there is no warning stated in the text with their denial. For example, Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way the truth and the life and no one goes to the Father but through me.”  There is no explicit warning about not believing this, but it is an essential nonetheless.  Jesus’ virgin birth is also a necessary doctrine of Christianity because without it the justification of the incarnation where Christ has two distinct natures, divine and human, cannot be well defended. And finally, the Trinity, though a proper description of the revelation of God in the Old and New Testaments, was never stated explicitly as being necessary for salvation – though I would doubt the salvation of anyone who would deny it. For more information on this see the article “Essential Doctrines of Christianity.”

Nothing that I have found in Scripture states that someone must believe in eternal conscious torment in order to be a true Christian. Nor have I found a statement in Scripture that says if you deny it you can’t be a Christian. Though I believe annihilationism is an aberration and not correct, I do not believe that those who hold to it are automatically not Christians.

Conclusion

So, what makes us Christians is God’s regenerative work in us, not our doctrinal affirmations. We believe the essentials of the Christian faith because the Holy Spirit is living in us and He Is the spirit of truth (John 15:26). Though we Christians don’t always believe exactly the same thing. We affirm the essentials of the faith, and in them, we have unity and fellowship. Therefore, as Jesus said in John 13:35, the world will know that we are his disciples by the love we bear for another. So, let’s be gracious to one another in our disagreements.