Carson: On Banishing The Lake Of Fire

[roofus]

Because this is only a brief discussion, certain elements of the topic will be skipped over lightly or entirely ignored.

(1) I do not intend to provide complex taxonomies of the various positions. For example, some hold that the unrepentant are instantly annihilated at death. In this way, punishment is unending, but never experienced as conscious suffering. More commonly among evangelicals, it is held that the unrepentant suffer consciously for a while, and are then annihilated. In this view, punishment is unending, but the conscious suffering is temporary. Some speculate that there will be new opportunities to repent during this period of suffering; others deny it. Those who hold to the possibility usually do so by inferences from the love of God. They then divide as to whether this further opportunity to repent will sooner or later be taken by all, thus emptying hell. The more conservative of those who espouse annihilation find such theories not only overly speculative, but impossible to sustain in the light of specific texts of Scripture.

Interestingly he is admitting here that both annihilationists and universalists can still be evangelicals! Like Packer, he sees the main (only?) argument is from the love of God. Whilst obviously I agree that’s a major argument, I also think it’s one of many. It’s interesting he then says only universalism “overly speculative” and “impossible to sustain in the light of specific texts of Scripture”

I’d say there are “specific texts” and entire Biblical themes, that are make ECT “impossible to sustain”

I read it as him saying the these are annihilationist categories. When he speaks of “this period of suffering” he is referring to those that hold to the view that: “the unrepentant suffer consciously for a while, and are then annihilated”.
I don’t see any reference to universalists here.

[Alex_Smith]

I don’t see any reference to universalists here.

this further opportunity to **repent **will sooner or later be taken by all, thus emptying hell.

If everyone has repented and hell is empty, doesn’t that mean everyone has been saved and universal reconciliation has been achieved?

[roofus]

I don’t see any reference to universalists here.

this further opportunity to **repent **

will sooner or later be taken by all, thus emptying hell. If everyone has repented and hell is empty, doesn’t that mean everyone has been saved and universal reconciliation has been achieved?

Yea, I see what you mean, but it’s a different spin- these folks in this scenario are under threat of annihilation, not ECT.

[Alex_Smith]

a different spin- these folks in this scenario are under threat of annihilation, not ECT.

I agree, his main focus here is annihilationists and universalists just get a quick whack.

[Alex_Smith]

treatments [of early discussions of hell] which for different purposes chart the decline in the serious mention of hell in sermons and books today

I think it’s good that the Bible translations have improved in this area, as it means less biasing of readers and makes it easier to see ECT doesn’t fit Scripture.

I shall not here embark on the larger question of the fate of those who have never heard the gospel. That subject I addressed in part 2, especially chapter 7.

That’s a shame, as it’s very much related, and another argument why EU is true and ECT false. i.e. by most people’s sense of justice, sending billions (including abortions, miscarriages, babies, people with mental disabilities, people before Christ, people in areas not yet reached by gospel) to Hell for not believing something they never heard, isn’t Just (I know the issue is complicated by original sin, but the shear number of people involved… I guess that’s why pre-Calvin(?), they had the concept of mitigation or post-death salvation)

I shall not address at any length a number of important synthetic questions about how the Bible’s teaching on hell, however understood, relates to God’s sovereignty, foreknowledge, and omnipotence, and to human responsibility. This is not because the questions are unimportant, but because they take us farther away from the first-order questions I am primarily addressing in this chapter. Moreover, some of the relevant issues have already been briefly discussed earlier in this book (chaps. 5 and 6) and, from some-what different perspectives, by Simon Chan and Paul Helm.

I agree they are important questions.

[Alex_Smith]

Recent writers who have defended conditional immortality do not invariably do so for the same reasons, or with the same degree of certainty. But their principal arguments may be fairly summarized as follows:

Whilst I don’t hold “conditional immortality”, some of the points discussed are relevant to EU.

(1) A number of biblical passages speak of the destruction of the wicked (e.g., Phil. 3:19; 1 Thess. 1:9; 2 Peter 3:7). Fair exegesis of the words involved suggests total destruction, i.e., cessation of existence.

Funny, that came up today over on my Should we form universalist congregations? thread too At least ECTers and EUs can both oppose this together.

(2) Even the imagery of fire suggests that which devours and utterly destroys. In other words, the focus of fire is not the pain that it causes, but the destruction it exacts: the Judge burns up the chaff with unquenchable fire (Matt. 3:12).

It depends on which approach is taken: either the fire devours and utterly destroys the evilness in a person (e.g. purification) or the fire is just a metaphor for the pain, as Carson suggests. Anyway, I don’t think it’s annihilationism.

(3) The Greek word commonly rendered “forever” (aionios and cognates) properly mean “age”. Even if in some contexts this “age” may be endless, why must we assume that this is the case in passages describing hell? Why take the harshest view?

“Age” is better than rendering it “eternity”, although I’d go even further and say it’s best rendered “beyond sight”. I certainly agree with the questions posed.

[Alex_Smith]

(4) Even in passages where the same word is used to describe both “eternal life” and “eternal punishment” in parallel (e.g., Matt. 25:46), demanding therefore that the one last as long as the other, the eternality of the punishment need not be construed as consisting in self-conscious punishment. If the wicked suffer conscious pain for a period of time, and then are annihilated without hope of reprieve or restoration, their punishment can still rightly be said to be “eternal.”

I agree the life and the punishment don’t have to be the same duration as I believe aionios (the word mistranslated as “eternal”) is an undefined period of time beyond sight, rather an infinity. I’d also be disappointed if God permanently lost even one of His children, and I imagine He would be too, as He has a much bigger heart than me.

(5) Surely an eternal hell full of conscious torment is irreconcilable with what the Bible says about the love of God, even about the justice of God. Assuming that we take what the Bible says seriously, surely any exegesis that avoids such blatant and eternal cruelty is to be preferred to the traditional view.

I totally agree, however, I find annihilationism only a slightly better fit, as God still looses many people I love, and billions more that He loves even more than the ones I love most dearly.

[Luke]

aonios (the word mistranslated as “eternal”)

That’s a bold and somewhat suspect claim.

[Alex_Smith]

aonios (the word mistranslated as “eternal”)

That’s a bold and somewhat suspect claim.

[Alex_Smith]

This particular point [5] is held with various degrees of passion. At one end is Pinnock:

Let me say at the outset that I consider the concept of hell as endless torment in body and mind an outrageous doctrine, a theological and moral enormity, a bad doctrine of the tradition which needs to be changed. How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been. Surely a God who would do such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God, at least by any ordinary moral standards, and by the gospel itself… Does the one who told us to love our enemies intend to wreak vengeance on his own enemies for all eternity? As H. Kung appropriately ask, “What would we think of a human being who satisfied his thirst for revenge so implacably and insatiably?”… [E]verlasting torment is intolerable from a moral point of view because it makes God into a bloodthirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for victims whom he does not even allow to die.

Exactly!

[SLJ]

Well said, Pinnock!

Sonia

[Alex_Smith]

By contrast, John Stott, who like Pinnock defends conditional immortality, does so with much more caution:

I find the concept[of eternal conscious punishment in hell] intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterising their feelings or cracking under the strain. But our emotions are a fluctuating, unreliable guide to truth and must not be exalted to the place of supreme authority in determining it. As a committed Evangelical, my question must be - and is - not what does my heart tell me, but what does God’s word say?

We ought to try to worship God with heart, mind and spirit, which is always hard. If one aspect, in this case the heart, is missing, it is much harder, some say impossible, to authentically do that. i.e. ideally the Bible, conscience & reason should align.

[Alex_Smith]

(6) Along the same lines, one must surely question whether the notion of an eternal hell of conscious torment is fair. No matter how grievous the offense, no matter how wretched the sinner - a Hitler, perhaps - is eternal hell appropriate? Searing pain that goes on and on, for billions of years, and then more billions of years, and never stops, because all of those billions of years are as a drop in the ocean?

No

[revdrew61]

Just noticed this thread and wondered if Don Carson has changed his views since 1996. I know he laid into McLaren, Chalke and others fairly fiercely in his 2005 book “Becoming conversant with the emerging church”, but I wonder if he has published any response to Talbott’s “The Inescapable Love of God” or MacDonald (Parry)'s “The Evangelical Universalist”.

[Alex_Smith]

That’s an excellent question! I shall attempt to find out, maybe Joe will know

[Alex_Smith]

Unfortunately Joe doesn’t know of anything more recent. Funny thing is if you Google “Don Carson universalism” you get Luke’s blog and the video he posted of Carson for me (evangelicaluniversalist.com comes 2nd & 3rd)

I’ve asked Luke the above question too, and am still looking myself.

[Luke]

I imagine Carson would find Talbott’s attack on Calvinism off-putting but I reckon Parry is on his radar.

[revdrew61]

Don Carson is worthy of respect and if he is indeed speaking about universalism and exclusivism at the upcoming Gospel Coalition Conference - see separate thread - it will be interesting to see if he responds to Robin’s proposal. It would be a shame if he didn’t.

[JasonPratt]

If I end up attending his panel at the Chicago conference in April (the week before Easter week), I’ll definitely be reading and digesting this chapter first as well as any related material from DC I can get my hands on in the limited time available beforehand.

[Alex_Smith]

(7) Does not the notion of a continuing hell with conscious suffering inmates jar against the image of the new heaven and the new earth, created to reflect God’s glory and extol his perfections? Would not an ongoing hell mar heaven?

Totally, not just asthetically (the stench of burning flesh, the incessant screaming, the ugly billowing black smoke outside the open front gates) but also emotionally, given that 90% of humanity would be in it, including family, friends and love ones. Even if God annihilated all of them, unless He then brainwashes the believers (which is problematic on multiple levels), there would be a huge problem of our immortal memories

Biblical and Theological Responses
Without here attempting to list every passage and itemize every metaphor, we should remind ourselves of representative terms and passages.

Whilst there are some passage which may appear, on initial reading, to be a response, I think there are many more that support EU and that the overall theme of the Bible is God creating, us rebelling and Him bringing everything back to Himself, for His glory and our good.

Sheol in the Old Testament and Hades in the New have roughly the same semantic range and overtones.

I don’t know if this is correct or not, I’d have to ask someone like Bob Wilson who has researched this.