Theology in the Raw - 678: #678 - Can a married gay couple be included in your church? Why Christians don't need to be pro-Israel, and why William Lane Craig is terribly wrong in his view of hell.

Episode Date: July 2, 2018

On episode #678 of Theology in the Raw Preston answers questions submitted by listeners. Questions covered on the show included: 1) Can a married gay couple be included in your church? 2) Why Christians don't need to be pro-Israel. 3) Why William Lane Craig is terribly wrong in his view of hell. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Can a married gay couple with kids be included in your church? Why Christians don't need to be pro-Israel and why William Lane Craig is terribly wrong in his view of hell? I'm Preston Sprinkle and you are listening of Theology in the Raw. We've got a whole slew of really, really good questions. Some of these questions are going to require a very thorough answer, so we've got to jump in and get started. We are talking about hell.

We are talking about gay marriage. We are talking about hell. We are talking about gay marriage. We are talking about whether Christians should be pro-Israel and other things like resources on women and ministry and why some people who are committed to celibacy end up going back on that commitment. So let's dive into probably the toughest question that was thrown at me. And this has to do with a married gay couple who has a child. And my friend, and I'll just jump in here to his question, he says, I'm talking to my friend, this gay couple, about Jesus. At what point do they need to know my convictions? He says, this is where it gets complicated because the guy is already married with a kid. Do the biblical statements about homosexuality supersede the biblical statements about divorce

and the social evil of breaking up this family unit? I've talked to many who are dismissive saying things like, well, their marriage is never valid before God. So, you know, it's not going to be a divorce anyway. But I can't get around the reality that the marriage is real to them. Whatever theological nuance we want to give their family unit is not a technicality to them, and divorcing would bring division to the small family that they've created. If you were in my position, would you sit down with my friend and say, look, here's what it's going to cost you if you choose to follow Jesus?

Or would you continue to introduce him to Jesus and through loving discussions, allow him to form his own conclusion about what God wants him to do regarding his marriage? And then you ask for any other advice you can give. So a really tough situation, and I'm getting this question much more frequently because this is not a fringe scenario, but something that is quite frequent these days. So, you know, your first question here is, would you say this is what it's going to cost to follow Jesus, or would you sit down and continue to introduce him to Jesus? And I would probably lean towards the latter, that you should continue to introduce him to Jesus through loving discussions

and allow him to form his own conclusions about what God wants him to do regarding his marriage. And it's tough for me to lob that advice from a distance. And as you even say in this question, that advice from a distance. And as you, you know, you, you even say in this question that, you know, it's, it's tough for me to give, you know, concrete advice, not knowing the person, the situation and all these things. And that, and that's, this is the qualification I always give with these really tough situations is I, it's really, there's so many unique relational dynamics that need to be unpacked, that need to be thought through, that for me to give a concrete, you know, do this or do that type of advice from a distance is just not very helpful. But I can, you know, give you

some things to think through. I mean, so let me give you, I wrote down a few thoughts here, five different pieces of advice. So number one, yes, I do think that you should focus on Jesus way more than on the sexuality question. And I say that because, I mean, whatever you or they end up deciding to do, let's just say, you know, if they end up getting saved, this will flow from how high Christ is exalted in their life. In other words, radical conversions typically lead to radical obedience, and soft conversions typically lead to soft obedience. And I'm not saying, I'm not at all saying that the radical true obedience here

is for the couple to break up. I'm not necessarily saying that just yet, but I'm just saying as a general principle, whether somebody is going to take radical steps or do whatever it takes to follow Jesus will depend on how, for lack of better terms, how highly they have exalted Christ in their life. And so I would want to focus on Christ. I would want to focus on the gospel. I would want to focus on, you know, and praying towards this person coming to a radical conversion to where they, you know, like the man who found the pearl of great price saying, I want to sell everything and buy the field because that's where the treasure is,

where they have counted the cost and say they will do whatever it takes to follow Jesus, where they said, I will gladly pick up my cross and die with Jesus. I want to follow Jesus at all costs. You know, more and more in these conversations, I think we do need to revisit and linger on and marinate ourselves in the radical call of following Jesus. I mean, you read the New Testament, and it's just insane that people would leave their pagan ways, pick up their cross, and follow a crucified and risen Jewish Messiah to their death.

I mean, it's just the radicality of the Christian message, I think, needs to be brought to the fore in these type of conversations. And I know you know this. So the person who asked this question is a really good friend of mine. I won't say his name. He didn't give me permission, but I mean, super, super committed to the gospel, to the Bible, theologically conservative, and very knowledgeable. He's written books, and he's been a pastor for a number of years and so on and so forth. So, which is why I so appreciate this question. It's coming out of a place of genuine wrestling with a high view of scripture and also a real intense relational situation. Okay, number two, second point, trust the power of the gospel. I mean, God can give tons

of grace and wisdom and transform human hearts in just astounding ways, right? So again, with these situations, I think it's really easy for us to fall into seeing it just from a human perspective. Like, gosh, if conversion looks almost too radical to them, then they're going to be turned off by it. And I don't want to raise the bar so high that all of a sudden it's like, well, where's God's grace in all this? And sometimes we start to kind of parse out

the situation from a human perspective and we forget that God parts the seas and God speaks stars into existence and God creates faith through the power of the gospel. And people can do crazy radical things when their heart has been transformed by the creator. I've got a couple friends of mine. Both of them were in a committed, loving, gay relationship with their partner.

I think one was married, one wasn't. Um, and both of them had just radical, um, unilateral, like no human agency involved, uh, conversions where one couple, uh, two women in a lesbian relationship and a really loving, committed, like it was a great relationship. It's not like they were like totally, you know, you know, on, on drugs and promiscuous and all this stuff. No, it was like a really committed, loving relationship. They got along incredibly well. And both of them literally woke up one day in their beds, turned to each other and said, I think what we're doing is sin.

I think we should end this and follow Jesus. And neither of them had much of a Christian background at all. And they're both looking at each other. And it's just crazy that they would, that they would, you know, have this kind of radical conversion independently at the same time. And then what they told me is that they ended up going to church a few weeks later and showing up. and what they needed to hear was a radical call to Jesus. Like, when they showed up at the church, what they didn't need to hear is, oh, no,

your relationship's fine. You know, you can continue on. You know, you're already together, so we're not going to break that up. Because God had already been telling them, already together, so we're not going to break that up, because God had already been telling them, you need to end this relationship, and they had gladly embraced that. They had looked at each other and says, I love you, but I love Jesus more, and I want to follow Jesus wholeheartedly. And so God had already been doing this radical sort of spade work in their heart so that when they show up at the church, what they needed to hear, what they wanted to hear, what they joyfully embraced when they heard it is that God calls you to a radical life with Jesus. So now that's anecdotal. That's one situation. I do have another story that for the sake of time, I'll skip, but another similar situation where two guys who were partnered together, loved each other. They both

kind of woke up one day and Jesus invaded their lives. And they joyfully and gladly embraced it. Now, this does not mean that this couple that you're talking about is going to have a similar experience. Like, again, I don't know the situation. Who knows what God's going to do? Maybe if you got to a point where you even broached the subject of ending their sexual relationship, that that would just send them to the roof and cut off all future opportunities of them to consider Jesus. And yeah, so it's really tough. But at the end of the day, we need to trust the power of the gospel, not try to shoehorn

people into the kingdom. try to, you know, shoehorn people into the kingdom. Thirdly, I do agree that since this is not an actual marriage, that if they decided to end the relationship, that it wouldn't be a divorce. Yes, it's a legal marriage, but marriage by a Christian definition is a union between two sexually different people. Other humans, you know, can have a sexual relationship, they can have a faith relationship, they can have a committed relationship, they can have a loving relationship. But marriage is by definition, the coming together of two sexual different people, even if the state defines it differently. I mean, God invented marriage, not America. So now um, now I love what you say about this though. Like, okay, that sounds good on paper, but this is an actual couple. Like

these are actual people like parsing out the definition of marriage isn't, you know, it's not going to, it's not like it's going to be like, oh, okay. Oh, I guess this isn't a marriage and realize that thanks for letting me know. And now we're going to break it off because it's not a marriage. Like we got to be extra sensitive in which we formulate or understand the definition of marriage. But I think, so I'm not belittling the, I'm not being insensitive to the relational reality of this couple and their relationship. What I am saying, though, is I don't think we have an ethical dilemma between two evils. Like, gosh, if they stay together, then they're living in sexual immorality. But if they break it off, then it's a divorce and that's another evil.

And it's just a choice between two wrong decisions. Ethically, we don't have that dilemma here. If they decided to end the relationship, it would be simply a cessation of a sexual relationship that's not endorsed by God. It wouldn't be a divorce. Now, where the dilemma does come in is with the child, because if they did end the relationship and separated or whatever, got legally divorced, that could cause great harm in the child. I'm going to return to that point in a second. Number four, I do think you have an option. I'm not saying I agree with it, but you do have an option of what some people call a pastoral accommodation, where given the uniqueness of the situation and given the fact that no decision is going to be without its problems, then one option would be, because of the uniqueness of the situation, if they both get saved except Jesus, that you can say, in light of this unique

situation, there's a kid involved, they've been legally married by the state, that they do not need to break off this relationship. And we can make that accommodation while still saying, this is not ideal, this is not what we believe ethically in a sense, but because of the uniqueness of the situation, we're going to make an exception in this case. One example that is similar to this is I've got a friend, I haven't talked to him in years, but Charles Craft. Do you guys know the name Charles Craft? He was a professor at Fuller for many years, wrote a bunch of books on spiritual warfare. And Charles Craft, early on in his Christian ministry, was a missionary in northern Nigeria, I think in the early 60s. And when he went over to northern Nigeria, polygamy was just woven into the fabric of society.

I mean, it was just like, it's just the societal structure depended upon polygamy. And so when he went in and people started coming to Christ, like he had several people who were, you know, men with many wives who were coming to Jesus. And he's like, what do I do in this situation? Do I baptize them? Can they become members of a church? Can they become leaders of a church? Because first Timothy says that an elder has to be a one woman man, can't have more than one wife. And yet all the men getting saved who are elder qualified are polygamous. And it's not like they were like, I mean, that's all they've known. It's like, it's just, it's so written into the fabric of society just to say like, oh, they need to stop it like overnight like that's just not realistic it's not

it's it's way more complex than that so he his perspective was um that they should play the long game meaning that maybe over the next 10 20 30 50 years they should work towards creating a Christian culture and society where polygamy was no longer necessary or no longer even endorsed. But that's going to take many, many years with something that is so woven into the fabric of society. And in the case of polygamy, like, what do you do when, I mean, in that case, it is a legal marriage and polygamous relationships are so tied to economic security that if they ended up divorcing all their wives except for one, and how do you pick which one, your favorite one or whatever, then that would leave many women destitute and, you know, uncared for. And it would be, it really was a situation between, you know, multiple different evils that face them. So I think the decision they made was to maintain the legal marriage to the many wives and care for them financially and physically, but only have sexual relationships with one of those wives. That was kind of the best

kind of scenario they can think of. And again, in terms of ministering in a polygamous society, they played the long game. They said, let's just look more long-term here rather than just look for kind of overnight solutions. Some people compare the current acceptance of divorce in the church as another form of pastoral accommodation. And I would kind of agree with this. I think we are very lenient on divorce, especially if somebody has been divorced unbiblically and remarried unbiblically, and they show up at the church and we kind of say, well, yeah, you shouldn't have done that, but you know, what are you going to do now? Let's just carry on and try not to do that again. Well, could we not do the same thing for a gay married couple, especially if there's a kid

involved to say, well, we don't think you should have done that, but now you're a Christian and let's just kind of try not to do that again. It's a similar situation, except the only, I guess the one main difference I see is that if a couple has been unbiblically divorced and unbiblically remarried, that is still an actual marriage. So if you say they need to break up and get divorced, then that would actually be a divorce. It may have been an unbiblical marriage, but it's still a marriage. Whereas in the case of a gay married couple, it's not an actual marriage. So there are some differences, but I do think, I think it's very helpful to point out that we, whether you're kind of nervous about the pastoral accommodation perspective and no, we can't allow this, or why would you make an exception to this

area? The fact is, and it is a fact that most churches, like 98% of churches in America, do make pastoral accommodations in other areas. So yeah, I'm just pushing for consistency here. Again, I'm not saying this is the right path. I'm just saying that we need to be consistent. If we're going to make pastoral accommodations, and most churches do, then I think it is a valid option. Or you need to not make pastoral accommodations, and you do need to take some more radical steps toward people who have been through an unbiblical divorce. So what are the options? I see three general options here. Number one would be to end the sexual relationship and continue to care for the child as guardians. It is possible. Again, I'm not, I'll say it one more time.

I'm not saying that one of these options is the right answer and all the others are bad. I'm just going to explain them to you and let you wrestle with them. So number one, end the sexual relationship and continue to care for the child as guardians. So, I mean, they could still be roommates, best friends, caregivers for the child and not engage in a sexual relationship. I think this should be their decision. I don't think this should be like, I mean, imposed upon them. Like it has to be them who come to Jesus and say, Jesus is so beautiful and supreme and Lord in my life, and I want to pick up my cross and follow him, and I want to obey him on every level of my life. And if they see, you know, obedience to Jesus being ending the sexual relationship, then

yeah, that's, I would say that's a great thing. Praise God for that. I don't think it should be kind of a top down, like imposed by the church. Like this has to be an outflow of their radical conversion experience. So that would be a possibility. I think, okay, so personally, without knowing the couple, without knowing the situation, just from an abstract perspective, I think this would probably be the direction I would lean towards. Again, not imposing it upon them, but this would be something I would be praying towards. I think this, in a sense, the child could still be raised by the two parents, and yet it's not like the child is affected by whether or not the parents are having sex or not.

Number two, another option would be to stay together and become part of the church family as is with no restrictions and yet not be able to serve on leadership. And let me go ahead and list the third one because the second and third option here, they kind of go hand in hand. So option two is stay together, become part of the church family, but they would not be able to serve on leadership. The third option would be stay together and be able to serve on all levels of leadership.

In other words, you've made an accommodation for them and you've made an accommodation across the board. And I want to distinguish between these, the second and third option here, because some people just see the accommodation as just a general accommodation without any sort of specific nuances to that accommodation. But I do think there needs to be specific nuances to the accommodation. Because some people are going to say, no, they're married and it'd be too radical to say stop the relationship. And that's just, there's no way they're going to do that. And we accommodate to divorce people anyway. So we're just going to accommodate to this couple. We're going to include them. They can become members. And that's fine. That's one approach. But I still want to ask the question,

if down the road, this couple wanted to be pastors of your church, lead pastors, and they are still married and they have a kid, would you be okay with that? If not, then you need to back up and ask the question, why? And why would you be okay with them being, you know, involved on another level of service or membership? And why would you say they can't be leaders? If you're accommodating, I think you need to unpack exactly what you mean by that. Like, yes, this is sin, but we're going to accommodate it given the uniqueness of the situation. But because we still see it as wrong and not ideal, therefore leadership opportunities will not be open to them.

Or would you say, well, we're going to accommodate and accommodate across the board, and therefore there will be no restrictions of the level of their involvement. I think you do need to think through this before you start making decisions about on what level would you accept this couple into your church? Because I mean, yeah, you really want to think through this, like think through all the scenarios so that it's not like two years down the road, you're like, oh, actually we're going to introduce this restriction or, or, you know, this caveat, like you want to have that kind of worked out up front. But again, my big piece of advice is pay close attention to the work of God in their lives and be incredibly relationally sensitive to the unique situation and play the long game. I mean, what if you're in an ongoing Jesus conversation with them for five or ten years? Like, I don't think we should, I think we should play the long game. I think we should look long

term. I think we should just really marinate this relationship with Jesus-centeredness all around. Like, let's just linger on who Jesus is, how much Jesus loves them, how much Jesus values them, that Jesus created them, and he wants them to exist in his kingdom, and he wants them to tell many other people about the gospel. And so that needs to be communicated very, very clearly, thoroughly, so that they are just blown away at the love of Jesus. And then, that's primary. Everything else is secondary. Okay, next question. This comes from a person who is from, oh, where are you from? You're from, oh, shoot, where is it? I thought you're from Holland or something. Let me read this. It says, I hugely appreciate people to be loved. For some reason, I'm curious about how you make sense

of the Palestinian-Israel conflict and the modern state of Israel. It seems that in, oh, Norwegian Pentecostal free church circles to which he belongs. Okay, so this person is Norwegian. There's quite a big group that think the modern state of Israel is a fulfillment of prophecy and that as Christians, we should bless Israel that think the modern state of Israel is a fulfillment of prophecy and that as Christians, we should bless Israel and support the modern state of Israel.

Okay. This is gonna be really quick. I do not think that Christians need to support the modern state of Israel. I think that is a political decision that you can make. You can support the modern state of Israel. You can not support the modern state of Israel. You cannot support the modern state of Israel. There's nothing in the Bible that says Christians should support the modern state of Israel. This view that Christians should support the modern state of Israel is usually based on many Old Testament prophecies that talk about God's future restoration of Israel. I'm thinking of Ezekiel 38 and 39. I'm thinking of, I mean, several passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah, and most of the prophets do talk about some restoration of Israel. Now, in most cases, those Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ and the creation of the church. So, and I know, okay, so there's lots of debates about this. I'm just stating my position. I'm not

going to go through all the passages and defend it. I just want you to be aware of, yeah, how this, yeah, how the arguments go. So most people who say you should support the modern state of Israel look to these Old Testament prophecies and say those restoration passages are fulfilled in the modern state of Israel in the late 20th century. It was in 1948 when they became a state, and they defended that state through various wars. And now with the battle between Israel and Palestinians, we need to be on the side of Israel because the Bible mandates it. And that all goes back to prophecies about the restoration of Israel. However, again, to me, it's fairly clear, but some people don't see it this way, that in most of those cases, when it talks about, and when the Old Testament talks about God restoring Israel, that restoration came about through Jesus Christ.

And the creation of the church is viewed as the byproduct of God's restorative work toward the nation of Israel. That he sent his son, Jesus Christ, so that his people, the Jewish people, would accept their Jewish Messiah. Now, and several did, but many rejected the Jewish Messiah. Many Jewish people in the first century rejected the Jewish Messiah, and so God started to do a new work, the unfolding of the mystery, as Paul calls it in Ephesians and other passages, that God would include Gentiles as Gentiles into this Jewish kingdom. But again, the main focus is on a Jewish Messiah, Jesus, being sent to restore Israel in fulfillment of the Jewish passages in the Jewish Bible about the restoration of the Jewish people.

What is the restoration of the Jewish people? Sending them their Messiah, Jesus. Now, if they reject that, then they are living like the many Israelites in the Old Testament who were wicked and rejected Yahweh. And likewise, when Jews of the first century rejected their Jewish Messiah, then they too are living like the wicked Israelites and rejecting God's plan, God's work in the world. Now, yes, God opened up the doors to include Gentiles, but it's not like, you know, the Old Testament's focus on Israel and the New Testament's focus on Gentiles and, you know, these are kind of two different, you know, I don't know, dispensations. I do think there's a lot more unity to the work of God between Old

and New Testaments. So there are a couple passages maybe in the New Testament that do still talk about a yet future work of God toward the Jewish people. I'm thinking of Romans 11. Oh, I don't know, verses around 22 all the way through Romans 11 verse 30-ish. Well, I guess all the way to 32. I'm kind of going from memory here. The big verse is Romans 11, 26, where it says all Israel will be saved. I do still lean toward that being yet future. Like some people say, no, that's still talking about first century Jewish people getting saved.

That future, like some people say, no, that's still talking about first century Jewish people getting saved. I just, I've read this passage so many times asking myself, is this a future work from Paul's perspective? Or is Paul talking about the first century thing going on where you have, you know, Jews and Gentiles getting saved? And I still lean towards this being a future work where God is going to do a future work among the Jewish people. However, it is not talking about the creation of a secular non-Christian Jewish state in the Middle East.

It's talking about Jewish people embracing their Messiah. Now, if you go to Israel, there's very, very few Jewish people embracing their Messiah. Now, if you go to Israel, there's very, very few Jewish people embracing Jesus. In fact, Christians have a really hard time living in Israel. My brother-in-law lives there. My sister-in-law lives there. My sister-in-law is a Jewish Christian in Israel, and my brother-in-law has been living in Israel for 10 years.

He says it's very hard to be a Christian in Israel. There is, I mean, mild forms of persecution, and the Jewish state is not a, yes, they're pro-America because we give them tons of weapons and money, but they're not pro-Christian in a real specific sense. So no, the modern state of Israel is not living out the vision of Romans 11, where you have Jewish people following Jesus. And again, Romans 11 is not talking about the creation of a Jewish state. It's not talking politics here. It's not talking about the thing going on in the late 20th century with, you know, the creation of the Israeli state. It's talking about Jewish people coming to Jesus.

So even if you hold the view, well, even if you lean towards the view that I lean towards, that there are still, that we still should look forward to a future work of God among the Jewish people, it is not, that does not mean that we're talking about of God among the Jewish people. It is not. That does not mean that we're talking about the creation of a Jewish state. Okay, let's jump into, I got one, two, three questions about the annihilation of hell. And then we're going to talk about women in ministry. And then we're going to talk about celibacy. There's, yeah, three questions, almost half the questions had to do with the annihilation view of hell. So for those of you who are either tired of me talking about hell or maybe not familiar

with my view of hell, maybe you're pretty new to the podcast or new to just my work in ministry. Yeah, just kind of preface this. I do believe in what's called the annihilation view of hell. It's taken me a long time to formulate my view on this doctrine. And I know for some of you and for many evangelicals, this sounds very heretical, sounds unbiblical, but to be crystal, crystal clear, the reason why I believe in the so-called, so-called, I don't love the term, but the so-called annihilation view of hell or cessationism, not conditionalism, sorry, which is another term for the annihilation view of hell. The reason why I believe in this view of hell is because I've studied many, many hundreds of passages that

are relevant to this discussion. And I've seen the overwhelming majority of those passages and arguments that would support the annihilation view of hell. It's because of a rigorous study of the Bible, not because of emotions or because I just can't swallow the traditional view or because I'm trying to be edgy or whatever that I believe this. I believe it strictly because I have done a lot of exegetical study and I am overwhelmed with the evidence, the biblical evidence for annihilation. I don't say that in a condescending way to say, oh, those who believe in the traditional view or just aren't studying the Bible, or, you know, I'm not, I understand. I understand why people would believe in a traditional view

of hell. I get it. I was there for many, many years. My own personal journey has been rethinking that. And I do believe I'm much more compelled by the biblical arguments for annihilation. Okay, that's the summary. So I do get a lot of questions about the annihilation view of hell. And this one is a good one. And it's kind of a pushback. And it's a good pushback. It has to do with the language of death. You summarize here that in a recent podcast, I talked about the meaning of death as being a cessation of being and many other... Yeah, and then I kind of, well, just to summarize, I kind of critiqued those who see death as not final, as engaging in circular reasoning. Okay, so let me kind of go off script here, go off this question here to explain this.

So the Bible talks a lot about death as the final state of the wicked. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. So what do you do with that? I mean, death seems to be the cessation of life. But traditionalists, people who believe in eternal conscious torment, say, well, death means separation of God. It doesn't mean really the cessation of life. People do exist beyond death. And so you can't say that just because the Bible talks about death as the final state of unbelievers, that therefore they cannot continue on after death.

That's kind of how the argument is phrased. And it often then goes to, it often argues that death simply means separation from God. It doesn't mean the cessation of life or existence, okay? So this person points to Philippians 1, 20 to 23, So this person points to Philippians 1, 20 to 23, and verse 20 of Philippians chapter one uses the term thanatos or the generative form thanatu, and that's the Greek word for death. It says in Philippians chapter one, verse 20, that as it is, Paul says, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be

ashamed, but that with full courage now, as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. And then in verse 21, for to me, to live is Christ, to die is gain. He goes on to say, if I'm, you know, going to live on the flesh, that means labor for you. But if I die, I will be with Christ, which is far better in verse 23. So here you have somebody, namely Paul, existing past death. So that death wasn't the cessation of Paul's being, but was simply, you know, the ending of his earthly life. So this questioner goes on to say, it seems like saying that death means death, a cessation of being, this does not, it seems that when you say that,

this does not align with this passage. Would it be better to say that death is cessation of being in the present state, not just cessation of being? So that Paul says death is a cessation of his current state of living in the flesh on earth to a new state of being with Christ. Any clarification or thoughts would be appreciated. So yeah, several clarifications and thoughts. First of all, if I said cessation of being, that's not my choice phrase that I typically like. So if I did say that, let me correct that. I

typically use the phrase cessation of life. And there might be a slight difference there. The word death means that life has ceased. Like when you go to a funeral, their life has ceased. When you squash a bug, their life has ceased. When something dies, whatever life it had is no longer there. Now, this passage in Philippians 1 does talk about Paul's some sort of his existence after his earthly death. Now, there is a debate about whether Philippians 1 is looking forward to Paul's future resurrection, or whether

Paul is talking about some sort of immediate existence after death, what we often refer to as the intermediate state. Okay, so these are two different things. After a person dies, After a person dies, they might go to an intermediate state where their body is separated from their soul, if you want to word it that way. And they live, if you're a believer, you live in heaven. And if you're an unbeliever, you live in a place called Hades. And these are intermediate states, meaning it's not their final state. intermediate states, meaning it's not their final state. And then when Jesus returns, he raises the dead and those who are, you know, Christians will go to eternal life into the new creation and non-Christians will go to hell and they will also be raised from the dead

and they will be cast into hell. So we need to make a distinction between the resurrection and the intermediate state. These are two different aspects of the afterlife. Now, there is a debate about whether or not the intermediate state is even a thing. There's only a couple, I mean, maybe three, maybe a few more passages that talk about an intermediate state in the New Testament. This is one of them. Philippians 1 is one passage that people go to that talks about some sort of existence after death, but before Jesus returned, before resurrection. Philippians 1 is one passage. 2 Corinthians 5, 1-9 is another passage that might talk about some existence immediately after death, but before the resurrection. And then Revelation chapter 6, the passage about the souls crying out from the altar, vindicate our blood, O God, also is another

passage that might point to some sort of intermediate state existence for believers. And of course, Luke 16, the rich man and Lazarus, the parable, might talk about some existence for unbelievers in a so-called intermediate state. Now, you can kind of sense the hesitation in my argument here, because it is, these passages aren't, I mean, they're not crystal clear, and there is a debate within evangelicalism in between, you know, what's called an intermediate state or some sort of between what's called an intermediate state or some sort of existence, conscious existence immediately after death. But other evangelicals hold to a view

that is referred to as, some people call it soul sleep, or that you don't have conscious existence between death, your personal death, and your resurrection because we don't exist outside of our bodies, is kind of one of the arguments that, you know, the intermediate state, as is popularly conceived, talks about the separation of body and soul, and you just exist in your sort of disembodied state.

And some people say, well, that's just not a, that doesn't make sense. And the Bible doesn't really state it explicitly, is how the argument goes. Now, I would still lean towards an intermediate state. I think these passages that I listed, especially this one in Philippians 1, does point in that direction. But I'm willing to revisit that. And I don't think the idea of a soul sleep is, I don't think that's a ridiculous doctrine. What we do know is that future resurrection is by far the number one focus of attention when we talk about the afterlife. The focus of New Testament attention is not on the intermediate state. The focus is on

resurrection. Okay. So, but that's kind of a, all this is kind of a footnote to the main point here. Yes, Philippians 1 does talk about Paul existing, whether in an intermediate state or, you know, looking forward to his future resurrection. It does point to Paul existing after death. But the word death still means a cessation of life. All we're talking about here is given, you know, given a broader New Testament understanding of the afterlife, we know that death will not hold Paul down, that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, who has conquered death, who has conquered the cessation of life, that we now have hope on the other side of the grave, whether through, again, intermediate state

or resurrection or both and. But that's not built into the meaning of thanatos or death. Again, thanatos or death does still mean the cessation of life, but because of Jesus and because of the miracle of resurrection, we conquer that death. We are given new life after death, but the very idea of death does not intrinsically contain an ongoing existence, okay? And so when it comes to... So we're talking about Paul here, so this really doesn't quite, well, it kind of applies because it deals with just the raw meaning of death. Um, but we're talking about Paul, we're talking about a believer here. So the big, the big question is when the New Testament of the Bible talks about death for

non-believers, um, what do we do with that? Does death mean that they will continue to exist after death? Well, again, the same rules apply. In and of itself, death means a cessation of life. We have to look to other doctrines and passages and themes to say, do unbelievers exist after the state of death? Will they be given some form of new life after that their earthly life ceases? And the answer is yes. Again, let's just assume that unbelievers also have some sort of intermediate state. Luke 16, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, then we do see that after their life ceases, that they will experience some sort of ongoing existence after that.

That's not built into the meaning of thanatos or death. We get that from other passages that say that they will continue to live on in an intermediate state. Or even if you don't believe in an intermediate state for unbelievers, clearly John 5, Daniel 12, and other passages talk about a future resurrection to life of non-believers, but that resurrection of life for non-believers is so that they will face judgment, and upon receiving a negative verdict at that judgment, then they will be cast into hell where they will face final death. Okay. So, yes, all humans, believers and unbelievers, die. Their life is ceased.

And yes, believers and unbelievers will receive some sort of resurrection after that. But for unbelievers, when they are raised from the dead in that final state and face final judgment, and raised from the dead to face final judgment, and they are cast into hell, there are passages that talk about the result of that second, that verdict, that second coming to life as a final state of death, a final state of cessation of life. So the question is, when passages talk about the final state of death, is there anything else in New Testament theology that says that they will also again continue to exist on after that verdict on the final day? And there I would say the answer is no. So when Paul says in Romans 6, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is

eternal life, that first part, wages of sin is death, cannot be referring just to earthly death because he contrasts it with what's going to happen to believers. And guess what? Believers die too as far as their earthly death. So when he says the wages of sin is death, he has to be talking about, you know, you can maybe say, well, it's both and, and that's fine. It includes both, you know, the fact that all people physically die, but it's ultimately referring to a final state of death, the final state of the cessation of life. And unless we have another passage that says, oh, and in that, after that final state of death, they will be raised yet again, or given some sort of

new life after that first life, or in this case, the second life ceases, then we can go ahead and say, okay, there is still existence after death. But again, death intrinsically means the cessation of life. If there is existence after that, we need to justify that from scripture or scriptural themes. But when death is applied, not to the earthly death of believers or unbelievers, but when it's applied to the final state of unbelievers, it means the cessation of life. I hope that helps. You might need to go back and listen to that section at half speed because there's a lot of stuff being thrown around there. And if you're not familiar with this discussion, then that might've been a really confusing

five minutes of your life. But I hope that helps. That's my understanding of the term death. Again, the term death in and of itself means a cessation of life. If there hope that helps. That's my understanding of the term death. Again, the term death in and of itself means a cessation of life. If there's continuation of life after that, we get that from other themes, passages, or words. It's not intrinsic to the Greek word thanatos. Okay. All right. We got to spend some time on this next question because it has to do with with a question that one of my listeners sent to the great, the brilliant, but the ever so wrong William Lane Craig. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I said that. Dr. Craig, William Lane Craig, is one of the brightest humans I've ever heard. I mean, and yeah, he's got two earned doctorates, I think one in theology, one in philosophy, from highly credible institutions. I forgot what they are.

You can Google it. But I remember looking at his credentials many years ago and saying, oh my gosh, like I've done one earned doctorate at a very credible institution, Aberdeen University, a little shout out to Aberdeen University. A little shout out to Aberdeen U. And that almost killed me. I mean, that was just incredibly difficult. The thought of doing another earned doctorate. I'm not talking honorary doctorates where you plant a megachurch and you have 10,000 people and a bunch of institutions give you an honorary doctorate for doing really no scholarly work necessarily. That's not what I'm talking about. A lot of people have dozens of honorary doctorates, but doing an earned doctorate,

an earned PhD from a very credible institution is incredibly difficult to do. To do that twice in two different subjects is insane. And besides all that, I mean, he's just, the guy is just off the chart brilliant. Okay. So those are my qualifications of what I'm going to say, because I do think that he is very wrong in his response to this questioner about the doctrine of hell. So this questioner sent in a long, a somewhat long question to Dr. Craig about the annihilation view of hell. And Dr. Craig pretty much shot him down. Here's what I want to do. I want to skip for the sake of time, because it'd be too long to kind of read the person's question to Dr. Craig and then also read Dr. Craig's response. I want to rather, well, let me just summarize really briefly the question,

then I want to read Dr. Craig's response and work through that. So the questioner sent in a question to Dr. Craig saying, what do you think about the annihilation of hell? Or has he called it conditional immortality, another name for the annihilation of hell? And this questioner points to passages in the Old Testament that talk about final judgment being like the flood or like Sodom and Gomorrah, which talks about the destruction of the lost, not the everlasting

torment. Then he also points to passages like Romans 6.23 that I just read earlier about the wages of sin being death and John 3.16 saying those that have everlasting life will not perish. And a few other passages. So Dr. Craig responds, and I want to read this word for word and work through it. He says, it seems to me that the traditional view of hell implies eternal conscious torment. It seems that this is reasonably well attested in scripture. And then he quotes 2 Thessalonians 1.9. These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. So real quick, just citing 2 Corinthians 1.9 is incredibly inadequate. This is a well-known passage in the debate. It's been used by traditionalists to

support the eternal conscious torment view of hell. And it's also been refuted many times over by many annihilationists who argue, rightly so, I think, that this verse does not teach nor demand eternal conscious torment. There are two main exegetical issues here. Number one has to do with the phrase eternal destruction. I mean, the elephant in the room, if you have ears to hear, is the word destruction. So those who, which in its normal usage, widely attested in both Old and New Testaments, is that destruction refers to death, the cessation of life, that there is no ongoing existence after somebody is destroyed. I will, well, yeah, I will save you all the verses,

but there's so many, and I've done a massive word study on the Greek word alethros and apolumi, which are the two main words for destruction in the New Testament and in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. And in almost every single case, the word destruction, when it's applied to humans, means the cessation of life. There's no existence after the destruction. Now, the idea of eternal or everlasting destruction, according to the Greek language, can easily mean the ongoing results of destruction. Namely, that when something or somebody has been destroyed, that destruction, that cessation of life will not be reversed.

In other words, the phrase eternal destruction does not have to mean, in fact, I think it's unlikely, very unlikely that it means the everlasting act of destroying and yet never fully completing the act of destruction. It doesn't say eternal destroying here. It says eternal destruction. So the fact that he would simply cite this verse as if it's, you know, self-evident that this supports eternal conscious torment shows me that either he just doesn't have time to kind of, in this email, which I get, he doesn't have time to kind of go through all the arguments, whatever. That's one option. The other option is he's simply not aware of the many different annihilation arguments that say this verse is not at all, um, talking about eternal conscious torment. It's talking about a destruction that is eternal. Death is eternal. Death is never

reversed except for believers. We are given new life after death. Unbelievers aren't. And, uh, there's other exegetical issues with this verse, but I'll save you. I mean, it's, again, if you do any kind of reading in this conversation, you see that there's a lot more to this verse, but I'll save you. I mean, it's again, if you do any kind of reading in this conversation, you see that there's a lot more to this verse than what some people assume there is. Craig goes on to say, denials of this doctrine spring primarily, I believe, from emotional abhorrence and non-cogent philosophical objections. That's just flat out wrong. And that, again, shows me that Dr. Craig is not aware of many recent conversations about the annihilation view of hell. There has been a large resurgence of specifically reformed evangelical

scholars and thinkers and writers who are arguing for annihilation that explicitly do so not out of emotion. In fact, a lot of people arguing for, if I can say, a lot of people arguing for annihilation are kind of stereotypically non-emotional, hyper-logic, logical, like libertarian types, you know, or reform types that really aren't driven by emotion at all. People like my friend Chris Date or, oh gosh, there's several other people from the Rethinking Hell website or movement that would fall into this category of just being, you know, the personality is very much hyper-logical, non-emotional. And I would say personally that I am not at all. There's not really anything in me

that was drawn to the annihilation view of hell based on emotion. I would be kind of in this camp of not a very emotional, highly logical, kind of analytical kind of thinker. And I've said many times over that if God wants to torment people consciously in hell forever and ever, then so be it. God's God. My whole theology flows from the fact,

and it is a fact, that God is God. He does whatever he wants. My favorite verse is Psalm 153. Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases. And if it pleases God to torment people forever and ever and ever and ever and ever in hell, then he's creator. I'm the creation. And I don't have a right to say that that is not something God can do based on my sort of emotional sense of justice and injustice. That's insane. I'm a Christian because I submit to the lordship of my creator and his way of going about justice and punishment and judgment and so on and so forth. So if it's true, and perhaps it is true that some people are annihilationists because they just can't stomach the reality of eternal conscious torment, so be it. Yeah, maybe that's true for

some people. It's definitely not true for, I would say, the large number of more recent advocates, including myself, of annihilation. So this, again, just shows a lack of awareness of the current conversation about the annihilation view of hell. Craig goes on to say, I wouldn't pretend that exegetical arguments are not available to the annihilationists, but I find the arguments you mentioned to be fundamentally misconceived. Okay, that's fine. I mean, saying so doesn't make it so, but we'll look at his evidence here in a second. First, it's just bad hermeneutics, Craig says, to take Old Testament prototypes as the interpretive key to New Testament doctrine on the state of the damned after death. You risk imposing some accidental

feature of those stories onto New Testament teaching, which may be contrary to that feature. Those Old Testament judgments of people, of course, involve destruction of the people concerned in the sense of the termination of their earthly lives, like Sodom and Gomorrah, lest they still be around today, somehow preserved through the centuries in prison houses in Palestine. Moreover, what these prototypes essentially involve is the death of the person judged, and the New Testament doctrine of everlasting torment involves exactly the same thing. Okay, so Craig again is saying things that simply show an embarrassing lack of awareness on the actual argument being used. And to Craig's credit, the questioner who sent in this argument didn't really expand on it too well.

If you're listening, dear questioner, you kind of cited the Old Testament prototypes of final judgment being the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, resulting in the destruction of the lost, not their being tortured. Now that is true, but you should have expanded on that to show that it's not just Old Testament passages that talk about Sodom and Gomorrah. It is specifically the New Testament appropriation of those passages as referring to a prototype type of final judgment for unbelievers. That's the main point. Okay, so let me go into this in a bit more detail. So you have obviously the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18 and 19. You have the flood in Genesis 6 through 9.

And you have, and these are, you know, obviously the destruction of earthly wicked people. And Craig says, well, that's just talking about their earthly judgment and their cessation of earthly life. It's not talking about final judgment, but that is, yes, it's talking about their cessation of earthly life, the destruction of people on this earth. But what he misses, and I don't think you made this crystal clear, although I know you know it, but is that both later Old Testament passages and New Testament passages draw upon the flood and the destruction of Sodom, not just to say that God destroys wicked people on earth, but they draw upon those Old Testament stories as a prototype, a template, a picture of what

God will do in the future on on the final day, toward unbelievers. Linger on that for a second. You have several passages. I mean, if you want verses, Lamentations 4, 6, Isaiah 34, 9-10, Jeremiah 49, 17-18, Ezekiel 38, 22, and many other passages in the Old Testament that look back to what God did at Sodom, what God did at the flood, and say what God did then is going to kind of be like what he's going to do in the future toward unbelievers, which will result in their final state of destruction. will result in their final state of destruction.

So the, and I will say, annihilation of Sodom and Gomorrah, Old Testament authors say that will kind of be like what God's going to do in the future, on the final day towards unbelievers. Sodom is often referred to as, quote, an example by several New Testament writers and several early Jewish writers, an example of what God will do on the final day toward unbelievers. 2 Peter 2.6, Philo talks about this, Josephus talks about it.

A first century Jewish book called the Wisdom of Solomon talks about it. Romans 9.29 talks about Sodom being an example of what God's going to do in the future for unbelievers, 29 talks about Sodom being an example of what God's going to do in the future for unbelievers, toward unbelievers. And Luke 17, on a few occasions, talks about the destruction of Sodom and the flood as a picture of what God's going to do toward unbelievers on the final day. This is not talking, sorry, yes, the flood and Sodom happened in this earthly life, and it was the termination of the earthly life of unbelievers. If that's all we had, then Craig would be certainly correct. But he missed the, I mean, pervasive fact, and it is a fact, that the New Testament and other Old Testament references

use that picture to speak of the final state of unbelievers. So the Bible's consistent use of Sodom's destruction in the Bible highlights totality, finality, comprehensiveness, and irreversibility. There isn't a shred of evidence that God tortured or tormented the Sodomites. The flood in Sodom is not a picture of ongoing torment or ongoing torture. It is a picture of comprehensive, final, irreversible destruction. And so when New Testament writers appropriate that to speak of the final state of unbelievers, I think that is a decisive argument for annihilation. Let me give you one specific example. 2 Peter 2.6, Peter says that by reducing the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned them to extinction. The Greek word is katastrophe, and it means extinction.

Making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly, speaking about the final state, the final judgment. That's what 2 Peter chapter 2 is all about. It's all about making an argument for the final judgment. That's what 2 Peter chapter 2 is all about. It's all about making an argument for the final state of unbelievers. And here, Peter reaches back, like so many first century Jews did. They reach back and look at what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, explicitly reducing the city to ashes, condemning them to extinction, and says, yes, that's kind of like what's going to happen to ungodly people in the future, at the future judgment. So if you ask Peter, what's the final

state of non-believers going to look like? He's going to say it's going to look like God reducing Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes and condemning them to extinction, which is a, I don't, I mean, to extinction, which is a, I don't, I mean, the arguments to the contrary, the arguments that 2 Peter 2.6 is actually talking about eternal conscious torment are torturous. No pun intended. Nah, pun intended. I mean, it really is. It's just a complete reading a presupposition into what is just could not be more clear. Read 2 Peter 2.6. Go read 2 Peter 2.6. And this is one of hundreds of passages I can give you, but 2 Peter 2.6, read it and ask yourself the question, does this make more sense of the annihilation view of hell? Or sorry, does the annihilation view of hell better understand this passage or does this passage better support eternal conscious torment?

I'm very happy leaving it in your hands to make that call. Going back to William Lade Craig, he goes on to say that this, the whole thing with Sodom and Gomorrah forms a nice segue to the second point. The most fundamental failing of your argument is the failure to appreciate that everlasting existence is not the same as everlasting life. The damned in hell have everlasting existence, but not everlasting life. In the New Testament, everlasting life is not bios, which is a Greek word for physical life, but rather zoe, which refers to spiritual life. The damned, even if they have physical life, having been resurrection, do not have zoe, which refers to spiritual life. The damned, even if they have physical life, having been resurrection, do not have zoe. They are in fact spiritually dead and will remain so forever. So of course, eternal life is available only through Christ and is therefore conditional upon repentance and faith until annihilationists grasp the fact that a person can exist forever

and yet be spiritually dead, they will fundamentally misunderstand New Testament This is actually a good point. I appreciate this point. I think it's a point that needs to be made and wrestled with after all the relevant passages are wrestled with. relevant passages are wrestled with. Okay, so I mean, I think this is a discussion, the difference between potential bios and zoe for unbelievers, physical life and spiritual life for unbelievers. I think this is an interesting discussion to be made after the exegesis is settled. In other words, we need to work through all the passages that talk about the destruction of the wicked, and we need to work through the passage, sorry, that might talk about eternal conscious torment and weigh those against each other. We need to work through the nitty-gritty texts that are relevant to the question of what

does the final state of unbelievers look like, and then we could explore the question of Zoe versus Bios for unbelievers. But it's a good point. And I actually disagree mildly with my friend Chris Date, a fellow annihilationist, who doesn't really see much to this argument. I mean, his argument, if I understand it correctly as well, this is an interesting distinction between Bios and Zoe, but most traditionalists,

people who believe in eternal conscious torment, they don't make the distinction. They talk about the existence of unbelievers as eternal life, like, you know, the argument that, well, you're going to exist eternally somewhere, you're going to have eternal life somewhere, whether it's in heaven or hell is sort of your choice. I agree that I think traditionalists can be very sloppy and they actually do talk about immortality or the resurrected life of unbelievers in a similar category as the ongoing life of believers. that the argument, just because people articulate their view in somewhat sloppy ways doesn't mean that the argument itself doesn't hold some weight. So I would, my mild disagreement with Chris would be, I do think that in theory, you could have an ongoing existence, a bios of unbelievers that's not quite zoe or not quite is different from the New Testament vision for immortality or eternal life, which is not just

quantitatively different, meaning it goes on forever, but qualitatively different, that there is a higher quality to the ongoing existence of believers. Whereas in theory, again, in theory, an unbeliever could have ongoing bios and not ongoing zoe. And that could be what the New Testament, the distinction in the New Testament is making. So I do appreciate this argument from Dr. Craig. Unfortunately, my biggest argument against it is that the Bible never says it. That the Bible never says that non-believers will have bios but not Zoe. Like, that's not a biblical case being made. This is a theological explanation for or defense of the traditional view, but it assumes that the traditional view is correct. And then it has to go on to make sense of how unbelievers can continue on to exist.

And then you kind of make the distinction between Zoe and Bios. But there's nothing in the New Testament that says, oh yeah, non-believers will have Bios, but note. When talking about the ongoing final state of unbelievers, unbelievers, the pervasive testimony of the New Testament witness is that they will not cease to live, that they will have not bios but that they will have destruction, that they will have death, that they will be killed, that they will cease to live. I mean, this is, I mean, this could take a whole nother podcast episode, but there's just an overwhelming testimony of New Testament writers and Jesus himself that talks about the final state of believers being one where there is not any ongoing existence. Jesus, for instance, compared the future fate of the wicked

to burned up chaff or trees or weeds or branches being thrown into a fire. Matthew 3.12, Matthew 7.19, Matthew 13.40, John 15.6. Jesus often compared the ongoing existence, or sorry, the final state of unbelievers as a destroyed house, an uprooted plant, a chopped down tree. He even gets really graphic and somewhat, you know, violent when he compares the final state of the wicked to being ground up powder

or cut into pieces like Matthew 21, 41, 44, 24, 41. And there is many, many, many passages that talk about the final state of believers being a state of destruction, alethros, 1 Thessalonians 5.3, 2 Thessalonians 1.9, 1 Timothy 6.9, or thanatos, death, where the cessation of life is meant, Romans 1.32, 6.21-23.

He even uses words like disintegration or corruption, or the Greek word thora in Galatians 6.8, 2 Peter 1.2, 2 Peter 2.12. And other, there's many other words used to describe the final state of believers, like to die or to be dead in Luke 20, 36, John 11, 26, let alone the overwhelming testimony of the Old Testament that when the Old Testament speaks of the future final state of unbelievers, there is not a shred of evidence in the Old Testament, Isaiah 66 and Daniel 12 notwithstanding, that talk about the final future existence of unbelievers being one of death, destruction, annihilation, being burned up, consumed by the all-consuming fire of God. And there's many, many, many other passages we can go to. So once we work through all those passages, then we can ask questions about, or sorry,

if you go through all those passages and you're still like, no, those passages seem to talk about ongoing torment, you can make that argument. I mean, whether it's a good one or not is up for you, between you and God. But then if you still say, no, I think the New Testament talks about a, you know, eternal conscious torment for unbelievers, then, after all that, after all the exegetical work is done, then you need to try to make sense of the language of death and destruction and so on. And then you can maybe make the distinction between bios and zoe, saying, well, when the Bible says destruction or cessation of life, it's talking about the cessation of bios, not the cessation of zoe. Again, you have no

biblical evidence to go on. Now you're making sort of a theological distinction that is trying to make sense of the biblical evidence, but zoe and bios distinctions are not in and of themselves a sort of argument that the New Testament makes. So how could somebody as brilliant, I just want to end by saying William Lane Craig is just off the chart, like inhumanly brilliant, okay? So this can become really difficult. How do you take somebody so brilliant, so committed to the Word of God, and just dismiss his arguments. Well, I'm not dismissing his arguments. I'm dealing with them head on with counter arguments. So, I mean, just because somebody is brilliant does not mean that they are going to understand and doesn't mean

they're correct in everything. Okay. We have to evaluate a view based on the evidence for that view. And if you don't agree with said view, you have to both counter the evidence offered to support that view and offer more credible, more superior evidence for an alternative view. So the credibility of the view comes not with those who hold the view. We can't argue from authority. That's a logical fallacy. We have to evaluate the credibility of a view based on not only the evidence used to support that view, but more credible evidence for the counter view. Now, on a real practical level, I will say this. I do, well, how do I say this softly? I am intrigued by the, if I can say,

the psychological process by which people evaluate the annihilation view of hell. The psychological process by which people evaluate the, sorry, by which evangelical Christians evaluate the annihilation view of hell. And I'm intrigued by this process because I have been very much involved in this psychological process. And what I mean is this. When I was in seminary and I first heard about the annihilation view of hell, as I reflect on my psyche, what was going on in my heart, my mind, my psychological disposition, it went something like this. Step one. Step one. When I encountered the annihilation view of hell, step one was this. This is a very unbiblical, even

heretical doctrine. Like, I just, this is just my honest evaluation. When I heard annihilation view of hell, my immediate reaction was unbiblical, heretical, wrong. Okay, that was step one of my psychological process. Step two was I then evaluated the arguments with the assumption that they are wrong. Again, step one was pretty much written in stone. It's unbiblical. It's wrong. It's heretical. Step two is, okay, let's evaluate these arguments with the assumption that they are wrong. So when I was evaluating the arguments, I was not psychologically honestly considering them. I was not listening to understand them. I was listening to refute them. Why? Because of step one. I already had this assumption that it was already unbiblical and heretical. I just needed to, you know, make a case for it, but I already

believed it. So step two, evaluate the arguments with the assumption that they're wrong, okay? And then step three is, you know, give some evidence for why the arguments are wrong. The arguments for annihilation are wrong without actually refuting the evidence offered by the annihilationist argument. I would simply say, well, annihilation, it's wrong. And I know it's wrong. I just have to find reasons to show it's wrong. And well, there's that verse in, you know, Matthew 26 that contrasts eternal life with eternal death. So clearly, you know, if life is eternal, then the punishment is eternal as well. It says eternal punishment, not eternal death there. And then you start kind of building your case and reconvincing yourself without actually lingering on and genuinely considering the annihilationist position.

Why? Because you've already psychologically, consciously or unconsciously, but you've been committed to the view that it is wrong, unbiblical, heretical. wasn't until I honestly held out the annihilation view as a biblical possibility that maybe it's not heretical, that maybe it's worthy to be evaluated on its own ground, and I'm willing to believe it if the evidence supports it. Until I got to that place psychologically, there was nothing that was going to convince me that it might be entertained. As long as that step one of assuming that it's unbiblical, as long as that's set in stone, which for many evangelicals it is. I mean, it's written into our doctrinal statements of churches. And that's a pretty bold, like, you know, that's not open for debate.

Like when it's etched in stone in a doctrinal statement, you either agree with it or you get fired or you go find another church. That tells me that it's not really on the table to honestly evaluate. It's on the table to simply critique because of a prior assumption that it is wrong. So that would be my evaluation of Dr. Craig's defense of the eternal conscious torment view. And I have taken way too long on that question. I still have two more questions to get to. Okay. So the next question also has to do with hell, but this person, this will be a quick one. He's simply looking for some resources to evaluate the annihilation view of hell.

You say, I've been challenged by your last few podcasts which deal with this topic, and I'm a pastor of a church who holds to a traditional view of hell, but I have never been exposed to interpretations of scripture in the capacity that they were on your podcast. I want to read more books on it.

Can you point me to some resources? So first of all, well, first of all, I just want to say your perspective is amazing. I just, you're a pastor. It is written in your doctoral statement and you just in the short little, you know, question you raised here, you seem to be genuinely wanting to consider this. Not because of emotion or whatever, but because of biblical arguments, it seems that are, you know, somewhat persuasive. So going back to my last question, I think that this step one in the psychological process of evaluating annihilation, you are not assuming

that it's simply unbiblical or heretical. You are moving to evaluating the evidence on its own merit. And I just want to applaud you for that. I'm not even saying you must embrace annihilation if upon further honest studies, you're not convinced, then that's fine. I'm just, I'm completely admirable. I completely admire the fact that you are wanting to give this an honest shake. The first resource I'd point you to would be the Rethinking Hell website.

It's free. There's tons of articles on there. There's tons of podcasts on there. There's debates. There's resources. There's blogs. There's lengthy articles. There's books you can buy.

But there's, I mean, you can spend six months full time combing through all of the free and very good resources on the Rethinking Hell website. And that would answer probably 95% of your questions. So that's where I would start. If you do want a book, then Edward Fudge's The Fire Consumes is the kind of contemporary definitive work that defends annihilation. It's now in its third edition. I would recommend getting the third edition, not the first or second, because he's expanded on it.

And it's a long book. It's kind of a scholarly book, but it's kind of an intermediate book, I would say. It's clear. He doesn't deal a lot with Greek and Hebrew, if you don't know Greek and Hebrew. But I mean, you're a pastor. So I would say it's, yeah, if you're a pastor, then you're more than qualified to be able to work through this book.

But it is long. I think it's over 400 pages and it's not large print. So, I mean, it took me a long time to work through it, but it is the definitive work. So honestly, between those two resources, the Rethinking Hill website and Edward Fudge's The Fire Consumes, those would be more than sufficient. I would also highly recommend reading conservative critiques, sorry, traditional critiques of annihilation. Definitely, Critiques of Annihilation. Definitely, I read both sides of this debate.

So D.A. Carson in his book, The Gaggin' of God, has a long, no, it's probably like 20-page chapter critiquing annihilation. I would definitely read that. I think it's terribly argued, but that's for you to decide. There's also a book called Hell on Trial that also is written to defend the traditional view against annihilation view. There's also, oh gosh, well, there's the new Four Views book on hell that I edited that has an article on annihilation and an article by a traditionalist and they dialogue with each other. That would be a good place to go as well.

But again, the Rethinking Hell website fudges the fire consumes and then read some traditional critiques of annihilation. Next question, I'm looking for a good resource on complementarianism versus egalitarianism. Would really appreciate any suggestions you have. Again, these two words, complementarianism and egalitarianism, has to do with whether or not it's biblical for women to be ordained in the church, or to serve on a leadership level in the church, or to preach at church, or all the things that come with the distinction between leaders and non-leaders. And as I've said many times, this is an issue I have not worked through at much depth. I've read maybe a book or two on it, maybe three books on it, which is just barely

scratching the surface. I have not worked through the exegesis of, say, 1 Timothy 2 or 1 Corinthians 11 or other relevant passages very thoroughly. So all I can do is recommend some resources that I am aware of. I cannot say, oh, this book is great. This book is okay. Or you read this one. I've read it and you should read it too. I can, though, point you in maybe the direction of some books you should read. The book that I have read, this is probably 10 years ago, was The Two Views on Women in Ministry book put out by Zondervan. This is an excellent book. You have two essays defending complementarianism, two essays defending egalitarianism. All the contributors to that

book are incredibly good scholars. All of the essays are very persuasive. Tom Schreiner defends complementarianism. Craig Keener, I believe, defends egalitarianism. Both of them are top-notch scholars. I think Craig Blomberg is also an essayist in there. And there's one other person, gosh, I forgot her name, who defends egalitarianism. And then you can see how they interact with each other. I would say that would by far be my first step. Go to a two views book so you get both views from people who hold those views and you can see how they interact with each other. Then I might go to some other books that, you know, defend complementarianism and defend egalitarianism. I'm going to mention a few here. To be clear, I have not read these next

three books, but they do come highly recommended. They come from people that I know are really good scholars, so I can recommend them, even though I just want to say I had not read them. But Jesus, Justice, and Gender Roles by Kathy Keller. Yes, that is Tim Keller's wife, who, if I understand her journey correctly, she was heading to ministry, was on the side of women in ministry, and then through further study of the issue, she was more compelled by the complementarian view. So I think that gives a, I just, that's a very interesting trajectory, and Kathy Keller is super brilliant. And so even though I haven't read this book, I'm assuming that it's going to at least make a good case for complementarianism.

My friend Mike Bird wrote a book called A Bourgeois Babe's Bossy Wives and Bobby Haircuts. And if you know anything about Mike Bird, he is a crazy Australian biblical scholar. And I mean crazy in the best sense of the term. He is just, he's an amazing scholar. He's incredibly eccentric, funny. He's a great hang. And he let me stay at his house for five weeks

when I was in Australia this last December. So I got to give a shout out to his book. I have not read it. Mike, I'm so sorry. I've not read your book. I've heard great things about it. And the reason why I want to recommend this one is because Mike Bird used to be complementarian

and he changed to egalitarianism. And Mike Bird is a, I mean, everything that I read by Mike Bird is so convincing and we see eye to eye on so many issues, so many issues. So when I heard about this book, that he changed his view,

I was really intrigued. If and when I heard about this book, that he changed his view, I was really intrigued. If and when I do carve out time to really dig into this issue, this will probably be the first or second book I'm going to read. He's a brilliant scholar, sharp thinker, and evangelical thinker who loves authority of the Bible, I mean, all that stuff. So I'm really intrigued by what his argument is going to be. So I'd recommend that one. And then you have a book by Michelle Lee, who is a brilliant scholar. I think she teaches or used to taught at Biola University. And this book is called Neither Complementarian Nor Egalitarian. Again, I have not read it. I've heard great things about it. Apparently she takes some sort of both and or middle or neither nor view. And so

that's intriguing to me. So I would, again, yeah, read the Two Views book, read at least one or two books on each side of this defending complementarian egalitarian, and then, you know, look for some third way kind of middle of the road treatments, which I think Michelle Lee apparently does. And again, she's a very credible scholar. I have read half of Paul and Gender by Cynthia Westfall, which has been hailed as kind of the nail in the coffin for the, I got to word this right. Okay. She defends egalitarianism. And some people say it's the nail in the coffin to the debate. Like she pretty much settled it. You cannot read this book and not be egalitarian. It's so vigorously argued, yada, yada, yada. I was so intrigued that I bought it a couple of years ago, read it, and I couldn't get

through, well, I got through half of it and I thought it was so poorly argued that I couldn't finish it. Now, to be clear, that is not the view of almost everybody else who has read this book. For some reason, a lot of people read this book and they're so utterly convinced. When I read it, on almost every page, I was scribbling in the margins, false dichotomy, that's a leap, that's unsubstantiated, that's a straw man, where's your evidence, you overstated it, da-da- da, da, da, da. And I got so tired of scribbling in the margins, you know, just not being impressed with most of her arguments that I was, um, I, to be honest, that, that book almost pushed me back into the complementarian camp saying, well, if this is the best top, you know, uh, indisputable defense of egalitarianism, then either I'm out to lunch or everybody else is out to lunch or everybody else is

out to lunch or something's going on here, but I'm just utterly not convinced by this book. And I'm hoping that there's better arguments. As has been well known, if you listen to my podcast, I am kind of, the jury's out. I'm kind of officially agnostic on this question until I study it further. And I, yeah, at some point I need to work, you know, sit down and work through all these books for myself. Okay, last question. Celibacy for somebody who is gay. This questioner says, a family member who identifies as gay recently said that he has given up the idea of celibacy. From what I understand, he says he is unsure whether the Bible prohibits or allows same-sex relations, but cannot stand the thought of celibacy. His thought

is this, if it is wrong, I am under the blood of Jesus, so I will be forgiven. If it is not wrong, I won't be missing out on legitimate intimate relationship. Please speak to this. And what would you say to this person? Also, I'm wondering if you can speak to the role or ministry of the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender. Okay. This is a tough one because I very much resonate with the difficulty of somebody pursuing celibacy. And I'm always sensitive speaking to this issue as a married man who has what I would consider a really good marriage. I've got four children. They're healthy. I've got a good marriage

going on. Gosh, we just finished 17 years. 17 years? Has it been 17 years? Yeah. And I feel like marriage has gotten better over the years. And so I, so I, I'm very sensitive speaking out of my condition and my situation to somebody who would love to have that kind of life and to be told by somebody who has that life, you just need to be celibate is I'm sure it can be incredibly, um, difficult if not, um, yeah, worthy of producing tons of anger and bitterness and so on. So I want to tiptoe into this discussion. However, I do, well, just because I am in my situation and this person is in their situation does not mean that I have no right to evaluate the ethical or theological or biblical credibility of their logic, their reasoning. Okay, so I don't like the sort of other extreme of saying, if you're not in

my situation, you have no right to speak into it. That, I think, is a very dangerous path to go into, go down, you know. For instance, you know, I've been told many times over that because I'm a white straight male, I have no right speaking into issues about homosexuality or transgender related questions. And again, I receive that, I'm sensitive to that and I try to speak into this conversation as sensitively as I can.

But I will say I've never, I never said that I was trying to write like a memoir on homosexuality, you know, or what it's like to be gay. I've never said I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, trying to tell people what it's like to be gay. But on the flip side, just because you're gay doesn't automatically make you an expert in sexual ethics. It doesn't make you an expert in, you know, what the Bible or theology has to say about sexuality. It doesn't make you an expert in, you know, what the Bible or theology has to say about sexuality. It doesn't make you an expert on debates about the meaning and intention and design of marriage. So yes, absolutely, people who are not gay, who are experts in biblical ethics,

need to enter into that conversation with the utmost sensitivity, with a ton of relational awareness and relationships with people who are gay. But I don't think that the entire discussion about the ethics of same-sex sexual relations can only be made by people who are gay or lesbian or transgender or bisexual or queer. Yes, I think that if you are gay or lesbian or queer, you absolutely have something to contribute to this discussion. In particular, I mean, you can help people like me understand what it is like to be gay, to grow up in a church experiencing same-sex attraction and so on and so forth. But again, that doesn't necessarily mean you're an expert in sexual ethics. Okay, so with those caveats in view,

in my experience, I would say, I mean, gosh, 90% of people I know who have at one point pursued celibacy and given up on it do so not because they became convinced of theological arguments that say same-sex relationships are fine. In other words, it's not like they just, you know, came to these arguments and evaluated them, says, no, actually, I think the affirming argument is more powerful. It has nothing to do with the fact that I actually don't want to be celibate anymore. So most people that say, I can't do this anymore, or I'm not convinced of this anymore or I'm not convinced of this anymore I'm not convinced of the celibate life they're not doing so simply or primarily out of you know being

theologically persuaded by better arguments to the contrary they do so in my experience because of lack of support from their church family or let me just say more broadly, lack of support from people in their lives. And this is what tears me apart. I mean, we can live without sex. I mean, unless you buy into the Freudian narrative. I mean, you can live without sex, but you cannot live without love and intimacy. I've had many gay friends say those exact words saying, look, celibacy, yeah, it's hard. It's difficult. There's times of loneliness. There are times when I'm overwhelmed with sexual desire and it's so hard for me to live when I'm overwhelmed with this sexual desire. But overall, the celibate life is actually, can be a very fruitful, flourishing life if I am engaged in ongoing, deep, intimate, understanding, mutual relationships with other brothers and sisters in Christ. If I have a solid church family that loves me, that supports me, that includes me into their biological families, that

isn't scared of me, isn't like creeped out at me, or doesn't misunderstand me that I can say I'm gay or same-sex attracted and people don't freak out, that all levels of leadership are open to me because I am submitting to a biblical sexual ethic and I'm, you know, have relationships. And if I am feeling lonely, I've got, you know, 10 different people I can call and that will come right away and hang out with me and talk with me. When people are experiencing those kinds of relationships, when they are experiencing that kind of church environment, almost everybody I know that is celibate and gay and in that kind of environment say, look, I have a good life. Yes, there's struggles. Yes, there's difficulties, but that's just life.

I mean, there's struggles and difficulties of marriage. I know a lot of people that are married who would rather not be married. In fact, the high divorce rate among Christian couples proves that. The high use of porn by Christian men who are married shows that getting married doesn't satisfy all of your sexual urges, that with or without marriage, there will always be sexual temptation. The high rate of infidelity

and divorce and porn addiction among married couples shows that marriage doesn't solve all your problems. And biblically, there is nothing in the Bible, there's nothing in the gospel, there's nothing in the message of Jesus that says, if you come to Christ, I will guarantee to satisfy all of your marital longings and sexual urges. That is not part of the hope of the gospel. In fact, I don't like it when people even use the language of hope. And this person didn't actually, in the way this questioner summarized his friend's view. But I often see people talk about what hope is there for gay people in the church? What hope do we have? And we're not giving them hope. Well, do a quick, easy word search on the word hope in the New Testament, and hope is rarely

focused on satisfying your desires in this life. Hope is always, this life is going to bring suffering, but there is resurrection on the other side. This life is short and our hope is not in satisfying our urges or alleviating suffering. In this life, our hope, our, what is it? Elpis, is that the Greek word for hope? Is in God's future reconciliation of all things to himself, is in God's future resurrection and new creation and redemption and salvation

of my life with him in the new creation. That is where our hope is fixed. Our hope is not in, you know, not missing out on some intimate relationship in this life. That is not part of New Testament Christianity. Okay, there's, again, the hope, well, okay, so part of the earthly hope, the earthly hope is, you know, it comes in Mark 10, what is it, Mark 10, 28 and 29, that when you come to faith that you receive brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers in this life, meaning you receive a family of believers. There's no guarantee in the gospel, in the New Testament, that if you desire to be married, then just come to Jesus

and he will fulfill your desire if he's truly faithful to you. If Jesus truly cares for your well-being, he will provide a married partner. He will provide sexual fulfillment. That is not built into the gospel message. I don't want to belittle that desire. I don't want to say that, like, you know, and I don't want to say it's not all it's cracked up to be. You know, in some cases it's not. Some people will get married and it's a terrible situation. Some people get married and it's a wonderful situation. Some people are single and it's a bad situation. Some people are single and it's a wonderful situation. The fact is our

hope is in Jesus Christ and this life will bring suffering and trials and temptation. There is no guarantee in the New Testament, it's not part of the promise of the gospel, that God will fulfill all of your human relational longings. That is not part of New Testament Christianity. So I say that, and if I was to say that directly to this person, I would temper my rhetoric down, just so you know. Please don't play this podcast with this person. I'm simply speaking out of a place of evaluating the logic of this argument. I'm not speaking out of a place of, you know, how I would, you know, pastorally go about this situation. However, I would say that what I just said in the last five minutes does somehow with sensitivity, but with honesty,

need to be communicated to this person. Otherwise, they could be following a form of the gospel that is just simply not part of New Testament Christianity. We have gone really long. I didn't even time this episode, but I think it's been really long. So thank you for listening. If you're still listening, if you'd like to support this podcast, go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. You can support for as little as five bucks a month. Five bucks a month gives you access to free goodies like a once a month Patreon only podcast.

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