The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Annihilation places huge doubt on Universalism

Evangelical Universalism Arguments against Evangelical Universalism
#1

Hi everyone,
I have been reading the writings of Beecher, Hanson, Farrar and Schaff in relation to the history of opinions of hell by the Church fathers who were linked with the apostles. I understand that people like Clement of Alexandria seemed to sway towards universalism as well as Origen but the problem is it’s very hard to track their line of thought back to the apostles.

Wheras with the teaching Annihilation it is very easy to trace it. Polycarp and St Ignatius were apparently annihilationists and they were disciples and contemporaries of I believe Peter and John the Apostles. Another big name to be attributed towards this view is Barnabas. Irenaeus apparently a disciple of Polycarp believed in annihilation. There are many other names who believe in this concept like Justin Martyr. It appears to be quite a strong consensus, a consensus which pre-dates universalistic writings by a significant number of years.

Doesn’t the fact that a large range of people who knew or were linked with the apostles place a huge amount of doubt on universalism? I can’t imagine knowing this fact and having confidence in it. Combine this with the numerous annihilation scriptures there are all of a sudden, annihilation looks like stronger alternative.

I think universalists perhaps have spent too much time trying to disprove eternal punishment and not enough time on annihilation which is in harmony which quite a few universalistic passages and doesn’t propose a problem to the whole aion/aionion debate.

Happy to be hear and discuss this topic with you all
Thanks!

Edit: I realise there is a similar topic but this one is more specific

#2

Hi UEC
You Say…

As a former Annihilationist I never spent much time considering Eternal Hell as an alternative until I was already fairly convinced of UR, and was looking at various arguments for or against that frequently involve discussion of aion/aionion.

You may be right that too much time has been spent in that area or perhaps more accurately more time should be spent with the Annihilationist particularly as I think that belief is gaining ground in some areas as an alternative to ECT.

Whilst it certainly is a better prospect than ECT it still raises the same philosophical problems as ECT and still poses problems with the concept of a Loving God etc; even if torment isn’t on the menu.

I cant comment on the Early Church father and their beliefs I’ll leave that to someone with more specific knowledge; but I’m wondering what you mean here:-

Could you give a few examples of what you mean.

Cheers S

#3

Mostly I spend time apologizing in favor of universalism rather than against ECT, or against anni for that matter. :slight_smile:

I figure I spend about equal amounts of time against each, though: generally one argument against hopeless punishment turns out to be good, in my experience, against either kind of hopeless punishment. Hopeless punishment is hopeless punishment at the end of the day; conceptually there isn’t much difference between God acting finally against fulfilling fair-togetherness between people, and God acting finally against fulfilling fair-togetherness between people, only differences in superficial details (such as whether the person continues existing or not. It’s still a hopeless and unrighteous punishment either way.)

As to the early patristics, I don’t lean on them anyway, whereas I frequently find Christ warning His followers against a tendency to believe God hopelessly punishes people; so if the apostles themselves had problems with accepting universal salvation, that would explain why a belief in one or another kind of hopeless punishment seems more attested to afterward. The threats of scary punishment get the attention and the focus, not so much the explanations and conditions. I still see it nowadays whenever a preacher or teacher or author brings up GosMark 9 all the way to verse 48 and then just stops, or stumbles around trying to disconnect verses 49-50 from their narrative and thematic contexts to the preceding material. Or when, over in the GosMatt parallel, they treat the subsequent parable about the unforgiving servant as meaning the servant handed over to the tormenters is annihilated (which the gist of the parable directly rebuts) or anyway that what the king requires from the servant to be set free is the money (which he can never repay while in prison) instead of a proper attitude toward other people. “You wicked slave” and “so shall your father in the heavens do to you all” was aimed at St. Peter and the apostles for being the sort of people who look for a finally hopeless situation where no more forgiveness of their enemies has to be required.

That sort of attitude might also explain why God wasn’t satisfied with the 12th apostle chosen (right on the heels of Peter and the surviving apostles fostering the sort of attitude toward the sadly penitent Judas that Christ had explicitly warned them not to have) and called St. Paul instead, the apostle whose writings even non-universalists tend to recognize as coming closest to universal salvation. (Including the annihilationist C. S. Lewis, of whose ‘school’ I am. :slight_smile: )

So, yeah, I’m never surprised that the only surviving earliest patristics, and the majority of Fathers afterward, go with a type of hopeless punishment. Like modern annihilationists whom I’ve read and discussed things with, they might have even thought they were being more merciful thereby, and so fulfilling Christ’s strenuous warnings and admonitions against being hopelessly unmerciful and unforgiving toward enemies.

But hopelessness is still hopelessness, regardless of the flavor.

#4

To be honest from a personal point of view I consider annihilationism to be more reasonable than universalism, I am convinced that the Bible teaches universalism though.

I feel no personal or moral objection against annihilationism to such degree that I would take the effort to oppose it.

I could further imagine that universalism was only revealed to Paul, did not Paul broke with the other apostles, especially Barnabas later?

#5

I believe in annihilation ONLY in terms of it applying to this temporal life BUT NOT in terms of one’s eternal existence, or thus the lack thereof, i.e., annihilation simply refers to the destruction of one’s PHYSICAL existence, no more and no less. Thus the many annihilationistic type texts found in the bible simply point to the devastation of judgement that would befall the disobedient… and usually THAT was pertinent to God’s unfaithful covenant people, otherwise called “the wicked” Ezek 33:11].

I have some further thoughts on the anathema of annihilation HERE.

#6

“for you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”

God has spoken another creative word into the chaos of the Deep. Mankind has been born a second time. In Adam, we’re all born of water (the dark water of Gen 1). In Christ, we’re all reborn of the Spirit. This is supremely good news.

When Jesus said, “Be perfect!”, it was a creative command, no different to “Let there be light!” Later, Jesus told his disciples that they were already clean by the word he had spoken to them. The wheels of re-creation were turning. Given our new ontological status as people born of the Spirit, we’re exhorted to believe the news and act accordingly. Unfortunately, many of us are mere spiritual babies, dominated by our old selves, our “body of death”. Our task as believers is to let the light of this new reality shine in the darkness, to be priests mediating heaven to earth.

“Behold, I make all things new!” says Christ in John’s vision. The Adam in us, the old self, will be annihilated along with the rest of the old order. The Christ in us, the new self, will be saved. ie. Evil will disappear forever. The Good will remain.

#7

I am quite suprised that universalism is still confidently believed in despite the weight of evidence pointing to the apostles who Jesus personally taught were teaching annihilation. I am not thinking that universalists would altogether drop their belief based on this but I would have thought it would be impossible to hold onto it **confidently.**I would still like to keep on hearing how you all are able to reason with this because if I could get past this huge hurdle I would definately consider universalism to be a strong chance.

I was thinking of the passage like 1 Cor 15 and “All in all” if the wicked no longer exist then God can still be All in all.
The verses near the end of Rev regarding the people outside the gates have been used by universalists for their own cause and against annihilation because the sinners are still therein existance and weren’t annihilated right after the Great White Throne Judgment but this doesn’t mean the wicked can’t at a later time be annihilated after eons and eons of being punished.

Thanks for sharing how you rationalize it, but it must take truck load of confidence to rely on that in opposition to the views of important people I’ve mentioned. I guess the idea that all these patristics immedietly after the apostles are wrong and the fact universalism was explicitly mentioned until almost the 3rd century is still quite a heavy burden to put away.

Problem here. I’m sure we can all agree the destiny of the wicked is a very important issue and is something one would imagine would have been an integral part of preaching and the gospel message. I think it would be extreme to think Paul was at odds with the other apostles in regards to such a significant issue and that the apostles like Peter and John were teaching the wrong ideas to their disciples of whos writings we have and from what I’ve shown annihilation was the view of people taught by them. It would seem much more likely that Paul also believed in annihilation. The idea of the apostles being split on such an important topic is very hard to take.

#8

The destiny of the wicked is annihilation, pure and simple, and we’re all wicked. There is none righteous, no not one.

But on the other hand, no one is utterly wicked, or else there would be no point declaring the good news. (An utterly wicked person would utterly reject it.) This means there’s good in each of us, and this will not be annihilated. God will not give his glory to another.

“Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” Paul clearly distinguishes his new self (“me”) from his old self (“body of death”).

How can he be liberated from his own wickedness?

“Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

#9

By the same token, if the wicked no longer exist, then while all are dying in Adam not all shall be made alive in Christ, and death shall not be the last enemy abolished, and Christ does not subject all enemies under Him as the Son is subjected to the Father Who (if God annihilates the wicked or authoritatively allows them to be annihilated which amounts to the same thing) does not subject “the all” to Him so that God may be all in all. Moreover, Christians should not be be steadfast, unmovable and superabounding in the work of the Lord (which is evangelism), on the ground that our toil is for nothing in the Lord; and concerning the repentance and salvation of rebel Israel and rebel Gentiles (via Hosea and Isaiah respectively), punitive death would not be swallowed up in victory but would have an utter and everlasting sting and victory instead.

But 1 Cor 15 says otherwise in every case. :slight_smile: It doesn’t only say that God shall be altogether in all.

Admittedly, if 1 Cor 15 didn’t say all those other things it does say, but only said that God would be altogether in all, I would agree that that would fit annihilation as well as universalism. But it does say those other things, too.

At which time the gates that shall never be closed (21:25) would be permanently closed, i.e. the New Jerusalem, being the Bride of Christ and thus the Church, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, would stop admitting people inside and close her doors against them. Moreover, Christ would not be making all things new as the first things pass away in wiping away all evil. Nor shall all sinners come to fear God and glorify His name, worshiping Him loyally for His mighty and benign justice (since if they did that they would not have to be annihilated after all).

But RevJohn says otherwise.

Not heavy for me. “All these patristics” are after all, what?–five or six authors (out of the dozen or so whose texts survived from the 2nd century) who specifically seem to be talking about final perdition?

Sure, I’m willing to assume for sake of argument that these represent the strong majority (if not the unanimity) of Christian teaching in the 2nd century (although then it becomes impossible to explain why the 2nd and 3rd leaders of what was at the time the only Christian catechetical university in the world believed in and taught universal salvation: catechetical instruction is not something that just throws away prior majority beliefs! (And the founder and his successor of the 2nd catechetical school, in Antioch, did likewise on different grounds than those of the Alexandrian school.)

But even assuming 2nd century super-majority belief of Christian authorities was annihilationistic (which would be pressing our scanty 2nd century evidence very far in the face of what the people who taught other people how to instruct new Christians believed from the early 3rd century onward), I don’t actually have trouble believing the apostles had trouble accepting universal salvation, because I find evidence of them having trouble with that (and related concepts) in the canonical scriptures.

Except that by evidence of Acts the destiny of the wicked wasn’t much of an integral part of preaching and the gospel message in the days of the apostles. It was, one way or another, an integral part of the evangelization of Jesus, so the relative silence of it (aside from a couple of vague references about judgment) in Acts is one of the curious puzzles of the scriptures–and is a key evidence in favor of Acts reporting primitive apostolic history, by the way, as the author of Acts certainly knew if not also authored the Gospel According to Luke, so if he had had a motive to change things one way or another it would have been to comport the apostles with Jesus.

This is also thus another scriptural evidence that the apostles did have some kind of trouble, one way or another, propagating what Jesus taught about the final fate of the wicked.

And yet the scriptures (both Acts and the epistles) indicate Paul was certainly at odds with at least some of the other apostles (including Peter himself) on a different evangelical issue, i.e. how far Gentiles should be converted into being observant Jews.

It might be very hard to take that the apostles were split on such an important topic, since circumcision and other kosher rules were a great stumbling block to Gentiles (and Jesus by report of all four canonical sources never taught such an expectation from Gentile conversions), but there it is.

Fortunately we actually have more writings from Paul (and about Paul) than of any other apostle, so we don’t have to make guesses based on what early patristics said; we can actually look for ourselves and try to figure out what he was teaching. :slight_smile:

#10

Wasn’t Peter shocked that also gentiles received the Holy Spirit somewhere in acts?

You’re speaking about the so called church fathers here? It might go too far to claim Jesus taught them personally, where do the apostles themselve teach annihilationism?

#11

btw, Welcome to the forum, UEC. I look forward to getting to know you and growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord.

As to the assertion that “Annihilation places huge doubt on Universalism”, I don’t think it does. And concerning the writings of the church fathers, personally, I’ve never relied on them as a foundational source of my faith. I tend to rely much more upon scripture, reason, and experience than upon tradition. In the Weslyan quadrilateral, tradition is the one I least trust in, and I’d place the writings of the church fathers in the tradition category.

I came to believe in UR through studying scripture and finding so many passages that either specifically affirm UR or set UR as a grand goal. What brings my faith in Jesus for the salvation of all into question mostly is the fact that most Christian leaders whom I respect do not believe in UR. For me though:

  1. Scripture as I understand it affirms UR
  2. Reason affirms UR
  3. Experience affirms UR.

So though 4) Majority Tradition does not affirm UR, I am compelled to believe in UR because of my understanding (or misunderstanding) of scripture, UR makes sense to me considering the character of God, and my experience of God and salvation certainly confirms UR to me. I know it was God who choose me, not I Him, and I’ve found the grace and love of God to be completely irresistable; like gravity, one can fight it but all eventually come to rest in it!

#12

Thanks everyone for your input I do appreciate seeing how people deal with this
Thanks for the kind welcome Sherman!

Thanks alot Jason! This is great stuff, certainly looks like a very strong way of disproving annihilation here. My only issue is that in a previous post in regards to this verse you said:

**"The Son’s subjection to the Father cannot be that of hypocritical subjection to mere force; the subjection of all to Him in the Father must be subjection of the same kind as the Son’s subjection to the Father, or God could hardly be said to be all in all.

(Annihilationists can get around this in a way, if all rebels are eventually wiped out of existence so that only loyalists remain; but this doesn’t fit very well with the close contextual notion that the final enemy to be destroyed is death itself"**

Here you appealed to the contextual notion of death being destroyed but then in another post you said that it was most likely that physical death (I can bring it up for you if you like) is not what is being referred to as the last enemy, instead you believed it was most likely that the last enemy to be destroyed is “satan” which would fit in with annihilation much more. God’s enemies being abolished and destroyed with satan being the last one to be destroyed then God will finally be ALL IN ALL. By saying that satan is being destroyed you have brought annihilation into the verse.

Interesting, I have nothing to add or rebut this. Will certainly take this onboard. Neither do I have much more to add in regards to your comments about the beliefs and understanding of the apostles obviously you are extremely confident in the scriptural proof of universalism that you aren’t concerned about other writings, fair enough. I might have more to add later as I often get new thoughts coming to mind on these topics.

Thanks!

#13

I suspect I said more than that in the other thread you’re referring to. :wink:

If annihilationists are going to regard the verb at verse 26 as “destroyed” in the sense of annihilation, then naturally they’ll have to regard “the death” there as a reference to Satan (since logically it couldn’t possibly refer to the event of death which God would be enacting by final annihilation); and I readily acknowledge that “the death” may in fact be a reference to Satan. I’ll even allow that the verb there sometimes is used in a sense elsewhere in the NT congruent with annihilation, although also sometimes not – strictly speaking it means to be powered-down or de-energized, as we would say nowadays, and could mean to be thrown away.

However there are still two major problems with regarding this as the annihilation of Satan.

1.) If Satan is being called “the death”, then by annihilating him God is doing that which Satan is being nicknamed for. God turns out to be the real greatest hopeless death, not Satan who was only a pretender to that title. This does not seem to be an improvement thematically. :wink:

2.) More importantly, the verse occurs directly, with thematic linkage, between statements that the Son must reign until He puts all enemies under His feet (in some way in which they are not already under His feet), for He subjects all under His feet, this subjection being connected to the abolishment or nullification of every sovereignty, authority and power, the final enemy thus depowered being Satan. At that point all will be finally subjected to Christ in some way which they were not subject before despite Christ reigning over them in overt power. Then, all having been finally subjected to the Son, the Son shall subject Himself to the Father Who subjected all things to the Son, that God may be all in all.

There is no break in this sequence for annihilation. The Son is not subjected to the Father by being annihilated out of existence along with everyone subjected to Him!–the Son subjects all to the Father in cooperation with His own subjection to the Father. The subjections are parallel, the only difference being that the Son has never rebelled. When St. Paul explains “the last enemy is being abolished, the death” by saying “for He [the Son] subjects all under His feet”, he connects the subjection of the Son to the Father with the ending of His reign of subjection over His enemies for His enemies, even “the death”, have become subject to Him.

Since this would imply the salvation of the final and greatest rebel (certainly not his annihilation), that would be universal salvation. However, not everyone allows or recognizes that “the death” would refer to Satan, so I work along whichever line they’re willing to grant. I do try to argue that “the death” refers to Satan as an illustration of just how far the universal salvation of the textual evidence goes, but that’s a point subordinate to my overall argument for 1 Cor 15. I don’t have to have it actually mean Satan.

In other words, my total argument for this chapter works (or not) regardless of whether “the death” refers to Satan. That interpretation adds a detail within the framework of the argument, but the argument stands without it: Christ must reign until He subjects all His enemies under His feet, down to the final enemy; and whenever He has finally subjected the final enemy, He will subject Himself to the Father with all who are subject to Him, thus presenting all, even the final enemy, to the Father so that God may be all in all. Naturally that implies Satan as the greatest thus the final enemy anyway; but giving eonian life to Satan and thus vivifying him means the final enemy being abolished is “death” more generally, too.

For what it’s worth, I’m not only not-especially-concerned with post-apostolic authority in regard to various forms of non-universalism, I’m not-especially-concerned with post-apostolic authority in favor of various forms of universalism, too. :slight_smile: I think it’s interesting, and I more-or-less respect all ancient post-canonical sources equally, but I don’t try to hold a selection of them to greater inherent authority than others. If they make sense in what they’re saying, great; if not, I move along and don’t bother myself about it. That’s just as true for the universalistic authors as the non-universalists – I don’t accept a universalistic author’s arguments on universalism either if I don’t believe they make sense (and I sometimes don’t!)

#14

Origen thought that “death” referred to Satan. Yet, he believed that Satan would ultimately be reconciled to God.

#15

I like this point. 1 Cor 15 remains the strongest prooftext for UR imo.

On the point of death, I would like to know if death being thrown into the lake of fire means that souls ceasing to exist cannot happen. Does this mean that the people outside the New Jerusalem are now immortal?

I wish I was able to fully attain that type of mindset. If it was a case of scripture clearly having no proof of annihilation it would be simple to just ignore the writings of those who came right after the apostles but there are just so many annihilation proof texts. Like in Thess 1:9 where it speaks of destruction/olethron, James 5:20 where it talks about saving a sinners soul from death and other passages regarding the possibility of body and soul being destroyed and perishing being the opposite of having eternal life. When I read explanations for some of these passages by people who believe in UR it really feels like universalism is being read into it especially when I hear reasons such as “It’s talking about sin and our old nature being annihilated”.

#16

There certainly isn’t any point to death being thrown with hades (and Satan, btw, so death doesn’t mean Satan there) into the lake of fire if the lake of fire involves annihilation in the sense held by annihilationists: if death is annihilated, that’s another way of saying God has decided not to kill anyone again (and/or send them to the spiritual state of hades).

I prefer not to regard the people outside the NJ as “immortal”, though, unless you mean “conditionally immortal”. They don’t have eonian life yet.

Which definitely refers to hopeful punishment (and expected salvation in the same day of the Lord to come), not annihilation, when Paul uses it to talk about handing the Stepmom-Sleeping Guy over to Satan for the whole-destruction of the flesh in 1 Cor 5:5.

Paul compares it to a birth-pang, which is dangerous but hardly hopeless annihilation (and is generally regarded as very hopeful) at 1 Thess 5:3 (talking about the same day to come).

Paul uses the term to describe people killed by God in the past at 1 Cor 10:10, which can hardly be annihilation unless the resurrection of the evil as well as the good is denied.

2 Thess 1:9 uses phrases similar to those found in Isaiah 2, talking about the same coming event, which is part of a block of prophecy where those wholly ruined aren’t annihilated, but eventually repent of their sins and go to the “survivors” of God’s wrath to be reconciled to God, which God accepts washing them clean with spirit and with fire. (Isaiah 4.) Again, far from a result of hopeless annihilation.

2 Thess 1 is actually one of my scriptural testimonies for universal salvation. :wink:

Which need not mean anything more specific than post-mortem punishment. The term translated “soul” there refers to what we might call the physical soul, the psukos, not the spiritual soul, or pneumas. (Although admittedly the former is sometimes used in ways analogous to the latter.) The same term is used when talking about the bod

The passages I have in mind when I recall the possibility of body and soul being destroyed, involve comparisons of God’s power to those of creaturely enemies, not comparisons with having eternal life. Do not fear those who can only destroy the body and thereafter have nothing more they can do, but fear the one Who can destroy both body and soul in hades/sheol, yes fear Him! (But also in the same sermon, do not fear Him, for you are worth more than the flowers which are here today and tomorrow thrown into the fire. That’s practically testimony against hopeless annihilation: God values people more than that. Nevertheless, if it comes to a fear for our lives, and only to that, we would still do better to fear God more.)

Since the term for destruction there can and does refer to people who are afterward saved (such as in the parable of the prodigal son), and is actually weaker than the related term Paul uses at 2 Thess 1:9, which we know from his other usage at 1 Cor 5:5 he means hopeful punishment by, the term itself is no certain testimony to hopeless punishment of any kind.

Insofar as “perishing” being contrasted to having eonian life, people and their souls are “perishing” now. It is in fact just the same word as being “lost” (which is hardly a hopeless condition), or “destroy” (also demonstrably not a hopeless condition), except in middle-voice form.

I don’t usually appeal to such an explanation, only if the local contexts demonstrably point that way. When there are no specific contexts, the terms for destruction themselves feature such a wide degree of usage where there are contexts, that their meaning should either be left indeterminate or assessed by extended contexts elsewhere. Which is probably why you hear universalists reading the belief into the term usage; annihilationists and ECT proponents are (in principle) doing the same thing, from meanings they think they’ve established elsewhere. They aren’t necessarily doing the wrong thing in principle, depending on their rationales elsewhere; universalists aren’t necessarily either, by the same token. (But being very picky I try not to read the belief in from extended contexts, preferring an indeterminate generalization where local contexts are lacking. I don’t have to specify the specifics of what “zorching” means, to recognize its general thrust of meaning. :slight_smile: )