Awakening G,
I appreciate your graciousness to all, especially as a couple of us well-meaning and ultimately loving folk get a bit prickly from time to time. 
Confession time – there was something about your post that rankled me a bit too, only I’m not sure exactly what it was. I think it had to do with the whole “Nothing is as important to God as His glory” theme. Not that you said precisely THAT, in so many words. I’m all for God being glorified, but I kind of cringe at the idea of Him as some kind of glory monger who cares more for His renown than for anything else. I don’t think that was what you were saying, but I’ve heard it so many times that I do tend to read that in, if I’m not careful.
Regarding the idea of annihilation as a loving alternative to ECT, I would agree – conditionally. If God could do no better, He would face the sad prospect of destroying some of His creatures. If God cannot save, I do think that, in order to be consistent to His nature, He must make an end.
Someone else at the forum once put forth the example of Ol’ Yeller. In case you’re not familiar with the story, Yeller is a heroic dog who’s injured in protecting his family from a rabid wolf. In the end, the family is forced to put him down because of course there’s no cure for rabies. It’s the merciful thing to do. BUT if they could have cured him and refused to do so, we would be indignant! After all the dog has meant to them and done for them, HOW could they DO such a thing??!! The family did the best they could for their beloved companion. They couldn’t save him; they were obligated to put him out of his misery. But what about God? Can’t God do anything He desires to do?
I believe that He can, and because He can, He is, in a sense, obligated by His very nature to do the best He can do for His creation and especially for His children. CAN He save? If He CAN, then He must – not necessarily because of any obligation to us, but because of His obligation to Himself – His obligation to be who He is.
Granted, we haven’t (unlike Ol’ Yeller for his family) done much at all for our Father, and in the long run the most we can do is to reflect back to Him and to one another some of the loving light He bathes us in, thus displaying His glory for all to see. We are His image-bearers. I don’t think for a moment that either you or I (or even the both of us) could in any way approach a successful display of God’s glorious being – that we could display a complete image of God. It takes the whole of creation to do that, and even then I suppose we’ll come up short. I don’t see God so much as jealous of His glory as He is keen to be known by His creatures. To know Him and make Him known IS to give Him glory. On God’s side of the equation, His glory is to save – He is mighty to save, can save, will save. Not only those who see their need, but also those who rush heedless to destruction, need saving.
I once heard an analogy concerning glory, involving an apple tree. The preacher said that when the apple tree is in full bloom, it is displaying all that it is for the world to see – it is in its glory. I disagree. The apple tree in bloom is indeed glorious, but that is certainly not ALL of its glory. It is glorious in the summer with its welcoming shade and its protection and nurturing of its fruit, enfolding it in sheltering leaves and branches, and feeding it from its own substance – from its own body. In the fall with all its glowing bounty, the apple tree shares its fruit with anyone who desires it, and in the process, propagates itself far and wide. Even in its seasonal death, the apple tree is beautiful with billows of golden and flame foliage. The bones of the apple tree as it waits through the dead of winter for its resurrection, form a fantastic fractal sculpture, sometimes playing host to delicate riming of frost, other times adorned with a cloak of soft snow. I think the analogy very apt – the minister simply didn’t take it far enough. It requires all seasons to fully display the glory of the apple tree, but the winter is not eternal (metaphorically speaking). One day there will be spring, summer and fall at once – but no more winter – no more night – no more death.
And that last is a second part of the annihilation of the annihilation argument. Death (not only the first but also the second death – the last of enemies) shall be destroyed. Unless Father will destroy either our memories of, or our love toward those He has commanded us to love, there can be no true joy for us – and no true joy for Him either, who unchanging, loves all the world and who cannot and will not forget them. True joy cannot be, until all those He loves are restored and are reconciled to Him and to one another.
Because of this, I find annihilation an absurdity. (I don’t mean that those who believe it are absurd – just the concept itself is absurd, only they don’t yet see it that way.) The possibility that we, and that God, will cease to love our enemies, I dismiss out of hand. I can’t imagine that even requires a rebuttal in the present company. Regarding memory: obliteration of memory, whilst retaining the identity of the person, is not a thing that can be done. It’s in the same class as the sillygisms (to rob Lewis Carrol) such as asking God to make a rock so heavy He can’t lift it. If He only excised the memories concerning the persons annihilated, how many holes would there be, even in the life of a single person? The problem increases exponentially when we add the relationships between persons and other persons and other persons. I think it would quickly reach critical mass and destroy the whole memories of all the saved, sparing nothing, and that this would not be a thing that God could remedy – just as He couldn’t make an unliftable rock. Ultimately, it was this conundrum that forced the RCC to posit that there is no remembrance in heaven. The only alternative – that Father could and would save them all – was not to be countenanced. Unfortunately, destroying our memories would, it seems to me, require the destruction of all we’ve learned and all the things that make us who we are. We would become a troop of mindless (though benign) zombie idiots. I can’t imagine such people as the sons of God for whose revelation all creation waits with eager anticipation.
Even considering these things, annihilation would indeed be the best solution for God in dealing with those He cannot save – if there were any He could not save. It wouldn’t do, though, to make us, His true children, unloving – or to destroy our minds. It would be better by far to leave us sorrowing in concert with our Father’s own sorrow. If however He CAN save us all, then to posit that annihilation would be an option compatible with divine love is, I believe, ultimately an absurdity.
He’s stepped over the line and I’m bringing it up with the other mods…