Truth Unites - Annihilationism: Why I'm Not Convinced

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Gavin Ortlund reflects on annihilationism, also called conditional immortality, in contrast to other views of hell.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

This video is about annihilationism. Sometimes this view is called conditional immortality, and this is the idea that those who are damned to hell don't have unending eternal conscious torment in hell, but are ultimately destroyed at some point or killed or they cease to exist. The main goal of this video is not to convince everyone to agree with me in all the little details, as much as to encourage careful reflection about this and triage about this issue. I want to give my life to the promotion of Christianity, and one of the things that I think I can do that I think is needed, that I want to try to serve to the best of my ability, is helping understanding wisdom, peaceable dialogue about areas where Christians

disagree with another. This is one of those topics. And it also, and I will address at the end, some pastoral concerns for onlookers from outside the Christian faith. Let's do four things here. First, let's triage this issue. That's to try to rank how important it is. Second, let's steelman annihilationism as best we can. That just steel manning means representing something as best you can, giving it, putting its best armor on, so forth. And then third, I'll explain why I'm not convinced of annihilationism at this point in my study and I'll give my reasons for that. And then lastly, we'll have some pastoral reflections, especially for those who struggle with the whole idea of hell. That'll be more where we can all, all Christians can come together on that at the end.

Quick caveat before we dive in. This is my provisional, at this point in my study. As I've studied this, it's like anything else. You pull on one thread and you realize there's this massive ocean you have to wade through. So I think when we get to that point, we can just acknowledge our limitations and say, I'm still researching this. There's lots of books I haven't yet read, lots of topics I haven't yet studied. But I've done as best as I can to arrive to a point where I think I can offer something. It could be helpful. But see this as my state of the union update on my own thinking about this, not as the final authoritative verdict getting beamed down, okay? This is the notes of a fellow pilgrim, sharing, hoping they are helpful,

not the theological Jedi, you know, just dictating the truth about something like this. That's where I'm at in my own current study about this. Also, this video will be a brief overview, not exhaustive. If that disappoints you, sorry for that, more of a quick flyover. But I share it hoping it can help and encourage others wrestling with this topic and just promote understanding about this. So please receive this video in the more limited and modest goal for which it is designed. First, let's triage this issue. I'm never going to stop believing in theological triage. It's really important. On this, what I would like to say is that the debate between annihilationists and those who think that the suffering of hell is eternal conscious torment, that ECT will use that for this view over here.

And of course, there's more views than just annihilationism and ECT. But the debate between those two camps is not a matter of orthodoxy versus heresy, Christianity versus something outside of Christianity. Rather, both sides can affirm that gospel message can trust in Jesus for salvation and can see each other as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. That might seem basic to some. I've learned it's really important to say this, okay? Among those who hold the traditional, on lots of issues.

Now, those who hold the traditional view, sometimes there can be a feeling of even a kind of stigma associated with annihilationism. Even though I am not an annihilationist, I really want to push against that. I don't think that's helpful. There's this kind of reactionary feeling like, well, obviously, people over there just don't believe the Bible. They're just anti-Scripture. They don't believe in hell. You'll hear this language. Annihilationists reject hell. And as I've studied this topic, I've come to think this is really not fair. First of all, so let's canvas this just a little bit. First of all, it's important to say annihilationism is not a newfangled idea. This is an ancient view.

You can find this all throughout church history, especially, well, in the early church, I think it kind of fades a bit after you get through Augustine and you're going into the medieval era, although it comes back in the modern era. But especially in the early church, you can find people, and it's not that they're, they don't believe in hell. They're giving dire warnings about hell. I'll put up an example from Arnobius, writing right around the turn of the fourth century, and you can see he's giving a warning about the punishment of hell and the fire of hell,

but he just ultimately thinks it's a place of annihilation and punishment, but not infinite and eternal punishment. Other Christian leaders early on are often interpreted as annihilationists. That would be true of Justin Martyr and Iranes, for example, though those are disputed. That's an open question. People debate that. But certainly this view is there. It's a minority report in the tradition, but it is not a modern, innovation. It is an ancient view. Also, in more recent times, you can find evangelical and conservative

theologians like John Stott expressing openness to annihilationism as a legitimate interpretation of Scripture. And I think the key point here that I would like to put forward and encourage people to consider is that this is a question of interpreting scripture and the nature of hell. Although I'm not persuaded of this view, it can legitimately result from a sincere effort to interpret the imagery of Scripture, especially the fire and the destruction and the death and so on and so forth. We'll get into that now. I think the best way to show that, to show that this isn't someone chucking the Bible out the window. I mean, it could be that. Anything could be that.

But it is not necessarily that, but rather it can result from a sincere in good faith attempt to exegete the texts is to just get into it and try to steal man the view. Let's do that. There are many references to eternal fire, eternal death, eternal punishment, and eternal contempt, and other things like this throughout the scripture. We'll go through some of the most difficult as we go in this video. To give one example to start off with from 2nd Thesslonians 1, Paul speaks of eternal destruction for the enemies of God at the second coming of Christ. Or you might think of the conclusion to the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, where our Lord speaks of two destinations, death and life, both of which have this adjective eternal appended to them. Now, some people think that that just settles the debate.

And here's where I'd like to try to steal man the annihilationist view and encourage, may I say that this is not intended in a spirit to jab at someone or to insult anyone, but I think a weakness of evangelical Christians in my context here in the United States, for example, is simple-minded hermeneutics. And I see this in other areas, and I'd like to just, you know, this doesn't apply to everybody, but we need to be aware of this, that sometimes we just thumped the Bible and say, the Bible clearly says this, and we've not appreciated some of the complexities. This is an area where I think we need to get into the complexities a little more, and sometimes we glide over them. And so let's get into this word eternal. This is to steal man this view and

understand why some sincere Christians are really persuaded of a different view than eternal conscious torment. Let's try to get into the arguments here. and there are two considerations that mean that incline us to be very careful at interpreting the word eternal. One is just what the Hebrew and Greek terms mean. They don't always mean literally eternal. They can often mean enduring or perpetual or ongoing in a more qualified way. So the Greek word Ionios will often mean pertaining to the age to come. The Hebrew word Olam will often refer to, for example, things that are just clearly not literally eternal. For example, aspects of Israelite cultic practice that are not literally eternal, like the Passover, for example, and many, many other things.

Or you can find language about everlasting or eternal hills, for example. That's the same Hebrew word there. So the language does not always mean perpetual metaphysical duration in kind of this like more philosophical sense. So you have to look at the context. Sometimes it can mean that. I'm just saying you got to get into that. But there's a second reason that's actually, I think, the more tricky issue here, and that is sometimes it is not the entity being punished in hell that is portrayed as eternal. Rather, it is the entity serving that punishment or the consequence or effect of that punishment or the nature of that punishment in some other way. Different annihilationists might word this little differently, but the easiest way to see this is just a note where this same, exact biblical language can be used for historical judgments. So, for example, Jude 7 references

Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of judgment because these cities undergo a punishment of eternal fire. Now think about this. Look at that verse. I'll put it on the screen. I'll leave it up for a second. You've got these cities serving as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Now, obviously, the fire that God rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah is not an eternal fire literally. Sometimes the adjective eternal can refer to the consequences of the action, not the action itself. Other examples, Jesus can speak of eternal sin. The book of Hebrews can speak of eternal judgment and eternal redemption. Now clearly in these passages, it's not the act of judging or the act of redeeming that is eternal. Rather, it is the consequence that flows out of that

action that is eternal. So you can speak of an eternal redemption and use that language to speak of a redemption that is eternal in its results, not in the actual redeeming. Okay. So hopefully, and you can say the same for eternal sin or eternal punishment. Don't go to, don't get ahead of me here. I'm simply pleading for self-awareness and caution and thoughtfulness in our exegesis of biblical texts. What we're trying to highlight here is the importance of paying close attention to these linguistic conventions of scripture and understanding. Honestly, biblical harmonetics is complicated, and we need patience for the task, and sometimes Christians don't have enough patience. So this should kind of halt a lot of the easy and complacent drive-by shootings at annihilationism, where people simply quote the word eternal with reference to final judgment, or eternal with reference to hell, destruction, contempt, death, etc.

think that sort of settles the matter, you have to get into the nature of the death, and what is the sense in which the word eternal is being used. However, whether annihilationism is the best way to account for all the texts is another matter to be returned to in just a moment. But let me give another example of a text that is representative of this exegetical reality, that the language of everlasting judgment and everlasting fire can be used to reference historical judgments, especially from the Old Testament, and that they're clearly not actually everlasting, literally. For example, in Exodus, or excuse me, in Isaiah 34, we have an oracle of judgment against Edom. I'll start here at verse 9. The streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, her soil into

sulfur, her land shall become burning pitch, night and day, it shall not be quenched, its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation, it shall lie waste, none shall pass through it forever and ever. So you have language of forever here and then night and day. But obviously the Edomites are not actually experiencing an ongoing judgment forever. The judgment here is with respect to its consequence. So if you're not an annihilationist, we have to wrestle with this, and I'm going to give my own response to that, but that's just, I'm trying to encourage reflection. Now, one other, so that's one consideration in the steel manning effort. Another, big argument for annihilationism or conditional immortality. I think some people prefer that label,

and that'll come up here, that I think is a really good argument. It has some real teeth to it that we all need to wrestle with, is a kind of ontological appeal. If God is the source of all being and a damned soul is cast away from God into the outer darkness, what would sustain that damned soul in existence? What is it that will cause it to endure? does it separation from God imply deprivation of all goodness and therefore of all life and existence? Life and existence are a good. And isn't that sort of implied by the term death? This is one of the appeals that is made from the annihilationist camp, and I think is a pretty good

argument, even if it's not ultimately the knockdown to end all other arguments. So basically the concern here is, have we imported an idea from Greek philosophy about an eternal soul onto the biblical text. Doesn't the scripture portray immortality as a gift from God? For example, in Romans 2, verse 7, it's to those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. This seems to imply that immortality or perpetual existence is not an automatic or inherent feature of creaturely reality. It's something given to creatures by God. It's not just, we're not just, we're not. We're not. We're your soul isn't just automatically eternal going to rumble on forever. That's one of the issues

in here that we have to wrestle with. I think that's a good argument that we need to give a response to. I'll do so in a second. What else? There's lots of other arguments for annihilationism. You get in, again, limited video. I'm going to disappoint people because I'm not going to hit on this point or that point, and I'll probably oversimplify trying to give an overview. But maybe just for the sake of our purposes here, we could mention the big one. And that is, Far and away, the overwhelming majority of images for hell and damnation involve death and destruction, both images that convey death and destruction and just explicit language about death and destruction. All throughout the scripture were told that the wicked will perish,

and they will be cut off from the land, and they will be no more, and so on and so forth. Here's an interesting text from Psalm 49 that needs to be worked through. It's not decisive, but it's just representative of how language of destruction and death is very present all throughout the Old Testament, for example. And annihilationism has as a strength to be able to take this language of face value and basically say death means death. Destruction means destruction means to be no more, means to be no more, you know. And annihilationists that I know of are really wrestling with this language. and they're saying the imagery of fire and suffering is unto the end of death. And, you know, this is the thing.

Sometimes you'll hear this really bad argument against annihilationism that basically, well, that makes hell too nice and therefore it's not effective for evangelism. Like we need to make hell really, really scary in order to, you know, that people will not want to go there enough so that they will become a Christian. And I don't think this is a good argument. The reality is you can be an annihilationist and still think of hell as the most gruesome and horrific, imaginable fate. It doesn't need to be eternal to be dreadful and fearsome.

And honestly, the motive for annihilationism isn't to make hell nice. At least not for all. I mean, some people I think struggle with that. That might be a feature of argumentation here and there. But a lot of the annihilationsists I know are honestly wrestling with. the biblical text and the biblical imagery. So that's not everything that could be said to steal man, but a few considerations to appeal to others to be patient and consider. Third section, why am I not persuaded of this then as the best way to read the biblical text, even if it's one that someone can

have as a good faith effort? Well, I would say, and first, let me start, my presupposition as I approach this, is not that I have the answers here. I basically approach this as, I basically approach this as I am not smart enough to figure out metaphysical reality on my own, in my own speculative thinking. So I am looking to divine revelation, and especially that means I'm looking to Holy Scripture. Theology is more than just reading biblical texts and trying to interpret them, but it's not less than that, and you can go a long way just doing that. And so the approach that I take to this whole question is, I have my feelings about it. I struggle personally with the doctrine of hell. I'll talk about that at the end here in the fourth point.

But I basically am trying to exeat scripture and submit to scripture because I think that's a reasonable posture for simply what I'm going to adhere to because of what scripture is, namely revelation from God, who knows more than us about all of this. So with that in mind, when it comes to annihilationism, I think it can explain some of the texts, but I'm not persuaded it coheres with all of them. Before I explain that, respond to some of these points, the language of death and destruction. That is true that that is very common imagery for damnation. However, it's unclear that that always means non-existence. Some cases for annihilationism assume death means non-existence. But you have to look at the language to see how it's functioning. The most obvious way to see that death and life throughout the scripture are more than just existence and non-existence is to consider the nature of eternal life as the parallel opposite fate of eternal death. Eternal life involves the quality

of one's existence, not just ongoing existence. Similarly, the imagery of being cut off, taken away, destroyed, killed, dying, you have to sort of look at the context to say, well, what specifically does that mean? Throughout the Old Testament, this is often referring to the ending of your life in this world and then translation unto judgment by God. And in each particular text, it might look different. So you have to look at the texts in question to settle the nature of what does this death mean. And so this is just a responsive point, very modest point saying, yeah, we've got a lot a death and destruction language, but that language in and of itself is underdetermined. We have to look at the nature of the death and the nature of the destruction. It might not mean non-existence or cessation

of conscious awareness or something like that. Depends upon the context. We've got to look at the text. We'll do that in a second. A second point is on this sort of ontological appeal about the immortality of the soul and that an intrusion from Greek philosophy, I think that's a valid concern for some aspects of church history, but the eternal conscious torment view is not reducible to that influence, because the biblical text is explicit about the resurrection of the body, including for both the righteous and the unrighteous, put up some passages showing this, in connection to the last judgment. So we can at least say this much that the biblical teaching is not explicitly based on anything about the nature of the soul. If eternal conscious torment is wrong, it's not wrong,

for making that its foundation. The foundation is rather final resurrection, final judgment, and then simply how the scripture portrays the nature of that judgment. So to get into that, I essentially would say a lot of the texts are underdetermined. They're not going to give us enough information to know with confidence. So we can read about everlasting destruction, everlasting contempt, everlasting fire. You think of Daniel 12, 2, you think of some of the other passages I've cited. And they make it very clear. There is a real house. and it is fearsome and terrifying, but they don't, they're not as clear for telling you specifically what the experience of hell is like.

You might say in Matthew 25 that it's implied that annihilationism is false because the same Greek word is used to refer to the destiny of both the wicked and the righteous, and so by means of parallelism, the most natural way to take it is whether it's eternal or of the age, it's going to be the same for both. and so you could read that differently, but you might say that implies something against annihilationism. The annihilationist will say, yeah, it is eternal death. It is the same for both, or they can say that. But the question arises is, is the most natural way to take Jesus's words that, okay, it's eternal in the sense of conscious existence for life over here, but it's eternal in the sense of sort of its consequence or something other.

than conscious existence over here. Now, with something like that, though, I don't place a lot of weight in it because maybe I'm just reading it through my traditional ECT framework, and it just seems like that because that's what I've believed most of my life and been taught most of my life. So let's leave Matthew 25 off the table, because I know there's other responses. I know, you know, I can just imagine right now annihilationists could give me three paragraphs to just rebut what I just said. But here's, let me put where I think, I get to a point where it's more decisive in my thinking, and I say, you know what, I can't reconcile these passages with annihilationism. And that would be Revelation 14 and Revelation 20, combined with Revelation 22. In the first of these passages, you have a

description of the fate of those who worship the beast, and it's described as torment, they have no rest day or night, and it's the words forever and ever are in reference to the smoke of their torment going up. Then in Revelation 20, the beast, the false prophet, and the devil are said to be tormented day and night forever and ever. They're thrown into the lake of fire, and then verse 10, they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. And I think the key here is that we don't merely have the language of forever or eternality in connection to death or contempt or punishment, but in connection to torment and lack of rest. Okay, that is the key point of the whole video if you're wondering where it funnels down to and it kind of tips the scales this way for me.

Saying they have no rest day or night doesn't sound like it means they're no longer consciously existent. We don't say of dead bodies in a graveyard, they have no rest day or night. We often, sometimes we'll talk about they are resting. They've gone to their resting place or something like that. Similarly, they will be tormented forever sounds at face value like an assertion of ECT. If I wanted to express eternal conscious torment saying they're tormented forever is basically how you do it. That's probably the first English terminology I would use. Now, the Greek word torment here does not mean death or distinction. Greg Beale notes that this word that is used in chapter 14 is nowhere used in Revelation or elsewhere in

the Bible in the sense of annihilation, and the verb form of the same word is used in in chapter 20 of Revelation. Some would say, well, in Revelation 20, this is one counterargument that the three entities here are not persons, but their personifications of evil institutions or something like that. I don't agree with that. I do tend to see, especially Satan. That's especially difficult for Satan. I believe in a personal Satan. And especially when you read it in parallel with chapter 14, that becomes difficult. Nor is this the only place. I mean, it would be one thing if someone said, well, this is the only place you ever get the idea of eternal torment. But I think outside of the Bible, in other literature from this time, you find the language

of eternal torment, for example, in Fourth Maccabees, you find similar language of eternal torment for the evil figure Antiochus. Now, you might say, yeah, but death and Hades themselves are thrown into the lake of fire just after. And I'm trying to listen to this one. Ultimately, though, that really doesn't, that is not conclusive in the other direction for me, because the lake of fire itself is not ended. So this is a symbol for the cessation of death, not the cessation of the suffering of those in the lake of fire just depicted. And I think there are ways to read that that cohere with a traditional view, which can agree that death ceases. People are not dying anymore. but that does not require that the actual fate of the people in the lake of fire is ended.

And the reason I too inclined to see it that way is look at the end of the book, where when all is said and done, you have those who have washed their robes and they are eating of the tree of life, but then outside the city, outside the New Jerusalem are these evil people. And that's at the very end of the book, Chapter 22, after all this. So if the second death and the throwing of death into the lake of fire symbolizes extinction, to me, it seems very strange that then you'd have after that point reference to these evildoers who are outside in the present tense. Now another possible response is to emphasize that revelation conveys truth through symbols, and so this is not literal. In the Zondervin counterpoint's book, this is how John Stackhouse puts it. The language of apocalyptic is typically extravagant, poetical, and elusive.

we ought not to press the language of everlasting torment into a metaphysical construction of an actual state of affairs in which these strange beings suffer forever. Now, I agree that we need to have great caution in interpreting the unique literature of Revelation. This is a very unique and difficult book, and there are symbols all throughout here, the Lake of Fire. It's a symbol. But at the end of the day, endless torment doesn't seem to, I mean, that's just more plain language. The word torment is not a symbol, it's a noun. Okay, so the context in which the endless torment is happening has symbols, but why would John use that language if he didn't mean to convey that actually Satan will have endless torment? It just seems like odd language and odd terms to use if he doesn't actually believe that. In other words, just appealing to the symbolic nature of the text and the difficulty of the

genre of Revelation is not decisive unless a more specific proposal is given on that basis. Because someone could just say, well, yeah, Revelation 21, verse 4 says there's no more pain on the new earth, but it's symbolic. But the fact that there's a lot of symbols in Revelation 21 doesn't mean that there actually will be pain, right? So I'm trying to say here to me, I'm looking at it. I'm saying, look, Revelation 20, tormented forever. Revelation 21, no more pain. They're both filled with symbols, but in both cases, I still think tormented means tormented, forever means forever, and no more pain means no more pain. The symbolic

nature of things doesn't disrupt those specific terms and their natural reading. Now, I do acknowledge that this is complicated. Revelation is a difficult book. I'm not trying to say this is as clear as other things in scripture. But I am trying to be responsive to the text, and I feel as though I could stand before Christ one day and give an account of my teaching and say, look, this is what I taught. I taught that hell is eternal conscious torment because I thought that's what Revelation 2010 is saying. It just looks like, I mean, they will be tormented forever. It sounds like eternal conscious torment, right? I'm not, I know there are a whole range, a whole arsenal of other arguments that annihilationists will give on that. But that seems, but,

but ultimately, I'm trying to give you the basic overview here. This text just doesn't look like it's teaching annihilationism. I wish it was. I wish it was. Again, I'm submitting to the truth here. This is the fourth section of the video now. Let's go into this. This is where I'm not arguing against annihilationism.

Now we're sort of working. What do we do with all this? I wish it was. From my very fallible subjective standpoint as a human being and as a Christian, I wish annihilationism was true rather than ECT. Maybe I'm wrong for wishing that. I know some of my Christian friends will act like it's wrong to even say that. I don't really see that.

I think I don't understand why that would be wrong, but I know they'll think that. But point is, I'm not going by what I want here. If I could just summarize my, because someone will say at this point, eternal conscious torment is terrible, and I agree. I am actually very dismayed at the calloused feeling that you get from many Christians when they talk about hell. I hope I've not done that here. I mean, just to get into this now, this is brutal. I mean, it really is.

There is just no way around it. If you're asking me, like, for example, if someone says to me, how can you believe in eternal conscious torment? My answer to that is, this is, the subject matter is beyond my expertise, and so I trust Jesus. And that means I'm following scripture. That's the best of my ability. My interpretations are fallible. I'm putting them out there. I'll read the comments and consider. But someone's going to say, how can you believe in something so terrible? Well, let's talk about that, pastorally, because I know others feel this too. Like, how can I really believe that. I mean, just to think about it, ongoing forever and ever suffering. If you really think about

hell, honestly, if you don't struggle with this, I sort of question how can you not? Do you have any compassion at all? This is really tough. And I could summarize my response to this with one word, submission. I submit to my religion. If my religion never bothered me. So I do not make peace with the doctrine of hell. I live in tension with it. I struggle with it. It kind of, gets into me and I bring it to the Lord and I say, help me understand this. This is sad. This is brutal. We should have tears about this. We should never be gleeful about this. But if my religion never corrected me, then I wouldn't be a good practitioner of it. I am called to submit to the authority and the authority is God. And it's a basic part of being a Christian to say, I'm not in control.

and that includes my theology. And it's rational to do that because God is God and we are not. But let's try to make sense of it as best we can, knowing we are submitting to God. Let's try to make sense of it. Someone says, that means Christianity just can't be true. You shouldn't submit to something like this. Let's try to respond to that. First of all, there's a lot of caricatures of hell that we need to work through.

A lot of people think of hell as a torture chamber that God built, and then he sends people there. that is not the way to think about hell. I wrote a whole academic article on C.S. Lewis's view of hell. One of the things I tried to emphasize in there is that God is the source of all good. So what can it be but hell if you reject God? The best way to think about hell is in relation to God. You will not understand heaven or hell if you think of them as places abstracted out from God. Okay, God is the reason hell is what it is.

It's like saying, if you say, well, how could hell be so terrible? It's like saying, you know, well, how can I go hungry when I stop eating food? What can it be about hell if you reject God? The second thing, and I'll come back to that, the other thing to emphasize about all scriptural teaching about hell is that it is just as a response to evil. Even in Revelation 20, what we've just seen with this phrase, according to what they have done. This is a theme all throughout the scripture.

God judges people according to what they have done. So hell is not arbitrary. hell is a proportionate response to evil. For example, there are very strong biblical reasons to suppose that hell will be different for different people. Just to give one example, our Lord speaks of the day of judgment as more bearable for this entity than for that entity. And that suggests, that's Matthew 10, you can see on the screen there, that suggests that God's judgment is suited unto, it's a sort of proportionate and personal response to someone's life. It's not arbitrary. Now, and we, what we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we we have to reckon with is there is real, unrepentant evil in this world that goes down. Are there going to be people who go down into hell shaking their fist at God saying, I will not repent even now, yes. There is real evil in this world. I regret that that is so. It is. You know, study human history. Now, you might wonder, but why does it have to be eternal? You know, why does it have to be so bad? But remember, we have no reason to think that the damned are perfected and made righteous as they're going to hell.

Those in hell remain in a state of wretchedness, remain in a state of enmity and unrepentance. So we have good reason to think that, again, some people are going down, shaking their fist at God. Who are we to say that that won't happen? How do we know? Right? Now, someone might say, yeah, but why does it have to be so terrible? I think the best response to this is what I was saying from C.S. Louis. Again, let's avoid the caricature of an arbitrary torture chamber that God builds.

No, God is the source of all light. God is the source of all happiness. What can it be but hell to lose God? That's the best way to put it. I have a whole video on that to unpack that. Let me just state it from the C.S. Lewis quote, In the long run, the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell is itself a question, what are you asking God to do?

To wipe out all their past sins and at all costs to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help, but he has done so on Calvary. To forgive them, they will not be forgiven, to leave them alone, alas, I'm afraid that that is what he does. By the way, I'm talking about things right now that annihilationists and ECT folks can agree on, okay? This is not an argument against annihilism anymore. Now, you might say, oh, God leaving them alone, that's too soft a view of hell. This is what my academic article is trying to push against. I'm trying to say, now, God leaving people to themselves is compatible. with the imagery of God damning and judging and sending people to hell.

Those are the same thing. To be left outside in the outer darkness, to be cast off from God is hell. That's not arbitrary. It's just basically, I don't think it's too soft to put it like this, that the way to understand hell is God says to people, okay. If you reject me, then okay. I don't think that's a soft way of putting it because of who God is. And that's a way maybe that can help some of us understand why this is not

an arbitrary or harsh punishment. It's simply God giving people what they want. And again, the scriptural imagery, if you ever think of hell as just monstrous and unfair, we probably have a caricature because this consistent teaching of scripture is that hell is a just response to evil. I don't know much, but let's emphasize that point. Okay. God is a just judge. He is good. He is faithful. But there is a hell. We've got to reckon with that. We need to be humbled under it. So the last thing I'll say is this. We do not know exactly how many people will go to hell. My position is that what we're told in Scripture is that there is an urgent need to advance

the gospel. Okay. We need to help people respond to Christ. But we can also leave the details of how that's going to work out to God. And so what we can emphasize with is not speculation about everything. I think we know enough about the character of God from how he's revealed himself in Christ. to be able to say in the final analysis, he will be seen to be just and good. And we can just trust him with that, even if we don't know how it's all going to play out.

But here's the thing we need to emphasize is that now is the day of salvation. The reason I'm so concerned not to avoid the topic of hell is because part of it seems designed to be, we don't want to scare people too much with lurid imagery, but then again, the Bible itself has a lot of these dire warnings. and so we need to recognize there's a real possibility of severance from God. That's a real possibility. I mean, think of it like this. Christianity is saying to you, your soul matters. You matter.

God made you. God loves you. You have this kind of enduring aspect to your existence. And it should be a frightful thing to reject God and to reject the light and to run the other direction. And so what that, in other words, the practical cash value of all, all this is repent, fight evil in your own heart and around you. Seek goodness, follow Jesus, surrender your life fully to him. And that's why I just can't emphasize it enough. We know the

character of our God to the cross of Christ. No one needs to go to hell. God has provided a full method of salvation, as C.S. Lewis said, he's done everything that needed to be done. He took it all upon himself. So to speak, we can say, God took hell onto himself. That's a particular figurative way to say, Jesus went to the cross on our behalf. He endured the punishment of our sins in our place. That's one way to put it, one way to talk about atonement. And it's a reason to say, that's the thing to focus on, that's the thing to respond to. So these are my very, hopefully you feel the sense of pastoral from my heart, the theology I'm wrestling with, measure everything I'm saying by scripture and hold it and seek the truth on yourself.

And this is just one video in the larger dialectic of seeking truth. So I will listen to the responses. Let me know what you think. Longer than I thought. 40 minute video. I'm probably going to avoid this topic for any. So don't expect another real quick video. But I'll keep learning over the years.

We'll keep the conversation going. Next several videos are going to be back on more basics and apologetics topics. I'm excited to put out a video on the resurrection of Christ soon. Thanks for watching, everybody.