In a discussion about the nature of Hell, a topic which must be considered is the immortality or the soul. If the human soul is inherently immortal, then only two possibilities exist; either one must embrace some sort of Universalism in which God will ultimately heal and redeem every person who has ever existed, including figures such as Adolf Hitler and Ted Bundy, or one must admit that there are simply some individuals who are irredeemable and must therefore be banished from the presence of God, which necessitates some form Hell which includes eternal conscious torment.
Many other world religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism explicitly have beliefs centered around an eternal soul. In the Western world, Plato was one of the first to positivity state that the human soul was indeed immortal and he was drawing from Aristotle when he wrote that the soul was pre-existent as well as eternal. Many Christians who deny the immortality of the soul will claim that it was because of the influence of Greek philosophy that many early Christian thinkers adopted doctrines centered around inherit immortality which included forms of Universalism as well as eternal conscious torment. I think that the pre-existence of the soul like the Mormons teach can be easily ruled out as early as Genesis 2:7, but as to whether or not the life that God breathes into us is then eternal requires a bit more looking at.
The Biblical witness on this topic is subject to many differences of opinion. Frankly, from my reading of the Bible, eternal life seems to be a gift that God may grant to those who are in Him, but is not an inherit attribute of the human soul. Beginning in the earliest portions of Genesis, we see how Adam and Eve are driven out of the Garden of Eden lest they “take from the Tree of Life and live forever” (Genesis 3:22). This theme of eternal life being a gift granted or denied carries through the books of the Bible all the way to the end of Revelation where those thrown into the Lake of Fire are deemed to have undergone the “second death” (Revelation 20:14-15). In the middle of all of this we have Jesus clearly stating that God can indeed ‘destroy both body and soul in Gehenna” in Matthew 10:28.
When the Rich Young Ruler asks Jesus what he must do to “inherit eternal life” in Mark 10:17, Jesus does not tell him “Oh, you already have eternal life, what you need to worry about is Hell Fire”, but instead instructs him on what is needed to enter the Kingdom of God. Even the well-worn John 3:16 indicates that eternal life is what is at stake in believing in Jesus and that the alternative is to simply perish. Why does Jesus, in the vast bulk of His teachings, tell us that eternal life is what is at stake instead of Heaven and Hell? He does warn about Hell of course, but the nature and duration of Hell can be debated, as we have seen so far.
Paul too, never seems to assume that immortality is a given. In 1 Corinthians 15:54 Paul writes about a time where “this mortal will put on immortality” and writes to Timothy that God is “the only One who has immortality” (1 Tim. 6:15-16). Another interesting passage is Romans 2:6-8 which is reminiscent of Daniel 12:2-3.
“He will repay each one according to his works : eternal life to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but wrath and indignation to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth, but are obeying unrighteousness;”
Just like in Daniel, Paul states that the righteous will inherit eternal life and the wicked wrath and indignation. But notice that in neither of these passages does it explicitly state that the wicked will experience God’s wrath in a state of conciousness. At least in these passages it could be easily said that the wicked will not inherit eternal life or anything like it. And eternal indignation or contempt could easily mean the contempt of the memory of those who have long ago been destroyed in the Lake of Fire.
Of course, there are a small handful of passages which might seem to indicate eternity for the wicked, such as Matthew 25:46. I am going to look at these passages in another post sometime next week, as there are some keywords that need to be examined to determine whether eternal damnation was really in mind here.
When the overall biblical witness appears to state that eternal life is a gift, should we not approach those very few scriptures that seem to indicate otherwise in an attempt to see if we’re reading them incorrectly? I do not buy into those who state that the righteousness of God necessitates eternal punishment for the wicked. I can’t find sound reasoning or exegesis in that hypothesis at all. As I wrote a couple of days ago, I believe that God’s benevolence completely rules that out.
And if we’re talking about the doctrine of Conditional Mortality, I do not believe that adopting that stance necessitates Soul Sleep as many advocates of Conditional Mortality posit. In fact, although I think that conditional mortality screams from the scriptures, I do not think that soul sleep does. If anything, soul sleep whispers from the pages of the Bible, and I think that it is highly unlikely and requires the dispensing of and twisting of a large number of passages that indicate otherwise.
As I am not prone to Universalism (even though I would like to be pleasantly surprised), I would have to accept that there is indeed some sort of eternal “hell” of some sort in wait for those irredeemables if indeed it could be proven that the soul is inherently immortal. However, I think that the witness of scripture seems to indicate otherwise; that eternal life is a gift to be granted at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
Questioning Hell Main Page
http://home.earthlink.net/~rubyybur/The%20Eons%20or%20Ages.htm
Here is your answer about “eternal hell” but it takes a lot of clicking links and reading before the light turns on in your head… and, of course, if God wants to share the good news with you. In love… and I mean it.
Bob
Nice chart, thanks for sharing it.
Randy, what you see in the Scripture matches my conclusions. Years ago I asked my college Greek prof how, with the frequency of the eternal life/perish contrast in the NT, could they be talking about an everlasting punishment. All he could say was “Because….” (Just a note…there are a couple of times in the post when you have the word ‘inherit’ when what you mean is ‘inherent’.) Thanks for all the work!
I listened to a christian neurologist the other day explaining that the ‘disembodied soul’ that is commonly accepted amongst Christians was more of a greek heritage than anything in the old Testament.
This was new to me, but I think it is an interesting avenue to investigate -> we are not incarnated souls, we are self-conscious, thinking bodies. Of course, this doesn’t directly impact your discussion on hell (God could resurrect both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ people’s bodies for the final judgment), but I think it could shed some light in several areas.
I’ll throw that in to the discussion, let it stew
Job says that the poor and the wicked alike rest in death, Solomon says that the dead are without thought or knowledge or device, David says that the dead cannot praise the LORD and have no being, Jesus said the dead sleep, Paul said the dead sleep, and death is called “going down into silence” and associated with “darkness” … which are hardly terms that could be used to describe consciousness in any state.
The total cessation of consciousness in death is something that can be inferred from observing God’s creation (the invisible things of the world are clearly seen … Romans 1:20). This is not a whisper, but a screaming hammer that destroys any notion of an “immortal soul.” When death is allowed to mean “death” in the normal meaning of the word, the scriptures are very clear.
Where are a “large number of passages that indicate clearly otherwise?”