The Evangelical Universalist Forum

The Quality of Eternal Life/Damnation

Featured Writers Dr Thomas Talbott
#1

Tom,
Someone expressed interest in hearing comments on this so I thought I’d throw it back up on the table.

We often interpret “eternal” or “for ever” to be synonymous with infinity, which is without end. However I thought about this question and wondered if this might be helpful when trying to explain the quality of eternal life or eternal damnation.

I’ve lately been positing the idea that the words “eternal” damnation is somewhat fitting. I’m speaking in terms that indeed death is eternal (both first and second death) if God himself does not intervene. Even in this life, when one dies that is it, except God should raise him from the dead. Thus death is forever, unless God should give life back.

So when people quote that hell is forever (I don’t need to quote all the passages) might it help them to ask the following?

Before Adam and Eve had disobeyed did they have eternal life?
If they say yes, then the obvious response would be: How then can eternal life come to an end?
If they say no, then the obvious response would be: Then death was present before their act of disobedience?

If seems to force them to re-evaluate what “eternal” means.

Any thoughts?

Aug

#2

I’m thinking but I don’t know what the thoughts are yet. I have heard it said that “zoe” is actually a particular quality of life, but I’ve never checked into that claim.

#3

I think one could ask a similar question regarding King David.

…David did that which [is] right in the eyes of Jehovah, and turned not aside from all that He commanded him all days of his life – only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite ( 1 Kigs 15:5. )

In his youth he wrote the 23rd Psalm, slew Goliath, and God Himself called him “a man after mine own heart.”

At the time of his death he was a prophet, a devout king who looked forward to the coming of Messiah, and a son of Israel whose sins had been covered.

But during his mid-life crises, he committed adultery and murder.

He lost three sons ( and nearly lost his kingdom ), but the point is that he could not have had eternal life abiding in him at the time that he killed Uriah.

Every one that hates his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. ( 1 John 3:15. )

Those are all the thoughts I have right now, but I find this an interesting topic ( and I look forward to reading the thoughts of others. )

#4

You raise some important issues and make some good points, Auggy. As for the terms “eternal,” "everlasting,” and “forever,” I have set forth some of my own thoughts at the following URL:

But your remarks about how a term like “forever” does not always mean forever reminds me of a further point that I did not make there. When someone says, “The dreary after dinner speech dragged on forever,” we understand that the speech in fact came to an end at some point. And in a similar vein, Jonah could say, “I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me for ever; yet thou didst bring up my life from the Pit, O Lord my God” (Jonah 2:6). He could speak of the bars closing upon him forever, in other words, and still speak of deliverance in the very next sentence!

I also think you are on to something exceedingly important when you write:

There is, I think, an important argument here, one that, quite frankly, I have never explored, but one that definitely needs to be explored. This argument is also relevant to the “Open Theism and the Origin of Sin” thread. So thanks for calling it to my attention.

-Tom

#5

Auggy: Before Adam and Eve had disobeyed did they have eternal life? If they say yes, then the obvious response would be: How then can eternal life come to an end? If they say no, then the obvious response would be: Then death [both mortality and a degree of separation from God] was present before their act of disobedience.

TomT responds: There is, I think, an important argument here, one that, quite frankly, I have never explored, but one that definitely needs to be explored. This argument is also relevant to the “Open Theism and the Origin of Sin” thread. So thanks for calling it to my attention.

TomB: How’d I miss this thread? Got too much going on.

Great point Auggy, yes. If ‘eternal life’ (or ‘the fullness of communion with God’ or whatever terms we want to use to describe the end-state of fulfilled human existence) is God’s purpose for us, then it cannot be the case that we had THAT prior to the arrival of human sin onto the scene. That gets me a bit closer to an explanation of human mortality prior to the Fall (or the ‘Detour’, for Bob, if he’s reading!). And furthermore, if God didn’t start us out at the end (so to speak), but instead placed us in a risk-filled context, then it follows (assuming God is both perfectly loving and competent) that granting us freedom as a measure of “say-so” (with the risk that implies) is the only way God could get what it is he wants from creation.

TomB

#6

Oh yeah – he’s reading! This is great stuff…

May I ask for a brief clarification Auggy??

Are you saying that eternity with Christ is somehow not our final fate and destiny? ie to put it bluntly; our time with Jesus will stretch forward infinitely?
I do have a lot of liberal friends who think heaven is really only a quality of life here on earth – fully “living” in the awareness of God’s love and treating/engaging the entirety of our surroundings (people, environment etc) in that attitude of mutual respect/love, and has nothing to do with infinite awake/aware/sentient “time” with God. That’s not where you’re going right??

If it is where you are going, doesn’t that make UR kind of irrelevant? I mean why would God go to such an effort to make such His entire creation “got it” if their time with Him, quality as it might be once reconciled, is finite and temporary?

Again, just a question for clarification.

For myself, I see death as always a viable and real option – even after death, the final enemy, is destroyed. That is, it will always exist as a hypothetical possibility. It’s just that once the entire universe experiences the reconciliation of the Cross (Col 1:20) they would find choosing against God an impossibility given their now mature awareness of what’s at stake (contra the child-like and immature condition of Adam.) Since that maturity is permanent, death really is behind us.
What still bothers me however, is how any future new created beings (or will God simply stop with us? Or, is it in God’s nature to go on creating forever??) will bypass the whole process we went through? (sorry if I’m morphing back to the origin of sin thread…)

TotalVictory
Bobx3

#7

(Edited for clarity)

Bob,
No not at all. I do not mean to present the question in order to prove what eternal life is, but moreso what it’s not. I hope I can explain this clearly.

Many Christians believe that the Genesis story is literal. So that leaves them vulnerable to a possible false interpretation of “everlasting” or “forever”. The question raises an obvious pickle. How can they hold that A&E had eternal life and lost it but eternal death is infinity.

In my original post I stated that it might be fitting and proper to use “eternal” for hell. If no one can save themselves then that death is eternal unless God should intervene. Why should heaven/hell be any different? Hell is forever, until God (as in romans 9) chooses to have compassion and save them. In case this does not sound familiar, it’s our very own story (I think I could build a case from paul and John).

So to answer directly now, I would say eternal life has nothing to do with how many times the earth revolves around the sun but rather what kind of relationship one has with his creator. As Keith Green used to say…“You walk with Jesus, you walk with Eternal life…Walk away from Jesus, you walk away from eternal life”.

I think Tom is probably right that when those who enter the next age into heaven will repulse at the sins they committed because of the clarity they gain. When they see sin for what it is it will no longer appear as beneficial but as sewage (so to speak).

Aug

#8

An interesting dialogue, and here’s an interesting quote ( that would seem to fit well here )

Studies Subsidiary to the Works of Bishop Butler, by Ewart Gladstone.

P.S. I agree with Prof. Talbott’s Irenaean interpretation of Genesis, and I believe it fits as well with a literal reading as it does with a non-literal one ( as I think he himsef pointed out on another thread. )

#9

You might even be able to build a case for that from Dante, Aquinas, and a legend they both accepted ( and that was widely believed in the medieval Church. )

books.google.com/books?id=Wehqqv … t&resnum=5

Interesting, isn’t it?

It would appear that even midieval Catholic legend ( and scholastics like Aquinas ) left room for God to save damned souls from hell if He chose to do so.

#10

Correction: Though I believe he failed in the attempt, the above quote should read “…Thomas Aquinas, who cites this case of Gregory’s intercession for Trajan, attempts to reconcile it with the orthodox doctrine that prayer is of no avail for those in hell…”

Sorry for the scribal error ( but since you can’t copy and past from google books, I had to copy and type the whole thing manually. )

#11

There is also the question of the tree of life in the garden. If A & E (unfortunate initials now I look at them) already had unending life then their removal from the garden lest they eat of the other tree is nonsensical. Also I’ve always wondered why the serpent didn’t get them to eat from THAT tree first, then the tree of the knowledge (I bet a few London cabbies would love to attain the knowledge by just eating a fruit ha ha!).

#12

First Jeff, I’ll comment that I don’t think Genesis is really even addressing half the stuff we’re talking about. When I originally posted the question to Tom I had a small note that the bible is silent as to whether they had ever eaten from the tree of life or not. What it does say is after they sin they must not be allowed to eat from it again. Some assume that to eat once of it is to gain eternal life forever and never have to eat from it. If I’m correct thats an inference and scripture is completely silent on the dynamics of the tree of life (in relation to the creation and fall).

I’m mostly driving at the fact that many people take it literally just as they take hell literally (a deep lake of molten lava). This question may serve to help them by introducing them to a pickle which they cannot resolve by their literal interpretation. I realize Tom and most board memebers are immune to such a question because they do not read Gen. literally. But for the literalist, this question seems like it could serve to help them think outside of the box for the first time. You might say it’s a great way of introducing them to deeper meditation on the creation account. Once that ‘out of the box’ thinking begins, then they may be able to hear the EU idea that hell is temporal; or at least are on the road to being able to hear other ideas.

#13

Hi Auggy,

I agree that genesis is a bit of a tangent here but for me Genesis 3:22 ‘And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever,” implies that the tree of life had the same ‘one-time-eat one-time-effect’ as the other tree (albeit in a non literal story kind of a way :smiley: )

#14

I would say that it’s probably not accurate to tie eternal life to any time frame at all. Eternal life is by the scriptural definition a quality of relationship that is not bound by time, so we can certainly experience at least some aspects of it now as well as later. But Jesus must reign only until all enemies are placed under his feet, at which point the kingdom is surrendered and God becomes all in all. So in that sense, our time with Jesus in the kingdom is not even eternal, because the definition of eternal (in the modern English sense) is outside of time, not infinite time. Since we know that there is a point in time when Jesus will deliver up the kingdom to the Father, then technically eternity hasn’t “begun” yet from our perspective until we reach that point. All the while however, we may still have “eternal life” because of the scriptural definition.
The more I go along, the more it makes sense to me that aionios zoe does not have anything to do with time. We have different Greek words for immortal and incorruptible, which are more suggestive of eternity in the modern sense.

#15

Again, I would say you’re reading into the text. Yes they ate once from the tree of knowledge, which changed their perception. Yes if they eat from the tree they will live forever. But it might just be that perhaps they have to continue to eat from the tree in order to continue living forever. There is NOTHING in the text which discloses that they had NEVER eaten from the tree. Rather, what you do have is that there is one tree they cannot eat from and so it is more logical to conclude that they infact had eaten from the tree of life already; possibly this is what gave them the life everlasting (provided they continue to eat from it).

So did they have Life Everlasting (LE) or Eternal Life (EL)? I would argue yes most certainly because there was no death and so long as there was no death then the life was LE/EL. Of course this would raise the question if there was no death then why do they HAVE to eat from the tree of life. But who says they have to? Perhaps this is the very seperation that occurs naturally. They disobeyed, inviting death unto themselves and so the they cannot co-exist with the tree of life. God banishes them from the garden and they are not allowed to eat from the tree (no access). So saying “they HAD to eat” would only be assumed because of the assumption that they had not eaten from the tree of life at all. It could be rendered, since they were allowed to eat from the ToL, they did. Therefore there is a semantic or synonym here; eating from the tree of life and death not existing in the world.

This aligns nicely (I think) with my question. I am stating that “Forever” and “Everlasting” are literally fitting for hell. Just as the life that A&E shared was “Forever” and “Everlasting”. But the anomoly is that it did not last forever, in the sense of infinity, did it.

So I’m introducing two things here primarily.

  1. A conundrum to present to literalists in order to help them face the difficult question of scripture; what is “eternal”.
  2. EU is compatible with either definition of “forever” or “everlasting” no matter which way LE or EL is rendered.

I’m trying to develope proof: If hell is “everlasting” it can be argued from our position (via Romans 9) that God can have mercy on those in hell if he so chooses and theres not a cotton picking thing ANYONE can do about it. This would sustain that Hell is forever and can come to an end.

Hope I’m making sense.

#16

Hi Auggy,

Having gone back and read the first 3 chapters of Genesis again I can now see the point you are making. A&E were allowed to eat of any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge… so they weren’t prohibited from eating of the tree of life (though it doesn’t say that they had ever eaten of it ). So I’m happy to concede your point on that score :wink:

HOWEVER (you knew that was coming didn’t you :smiling_imp: )
On reading the alternative version of creation in Gen chapter 2 it almost seems like there is no garden at all as the man and the woman are told to go out into all the world that has been given to them - to eat of all the plants and animals. No prohibitions or restricted area (unless the whole earth is seen as being the garden or unless they were allowed to enter and leave the garden as the saw fit and after the ban they were not allowed to re-enter the garden - then again God must have actually physically removed the garden because there are no areas of the earth guarded by cherubim with flaming sword that I know of these days). Also why are they told to REplenish the earth if they are the first people??

#17

Jeff, There is quite of bit we can speculate on but one of the things that literalists take from Genesis’ creation account is that Adam and Eve were not dying before they disobeyed. So it’s helpful, in a way, to ask the question. I posed it to Tom because he writes and dialogues with scholars on these types of issues. I’m wondering how they might respond to such a question? Even for non-literalists it’s an interesting question. Even non literalists see the meanings of the account and the typologies in place.

As TGB states in the open theism thread:
**But still it seems to me that if we’re going to agree that God doesn’t cause sin/evil and that he ultimately “overcomes” it, that humanity’s becoming evil is at least a kind of “detour” or “setback,” whatever we need to call it to describe something’s having occurred which now needs to be OVERcome, otherwise, what’s “overcome” really mean? **

I’ve not dismissed the traditional values which are usually read from the creation account simply because they seem to me to be quite solid. Man was right with God; Man fell away from God. as TGB seems to draw out, if there was no fall then there is no reconciliation. If there is no fall then what does reconciliation really mean.

So if I take the account in a traditional sense, then Adam and Eve had eternal life and lost it and that to me would be devestating to the eteral damnation argument.

Auggy

#18

Tom, while I was cutting my lawn in the 101 temperature of sunny Southern California, I wondered more about this. I thought about your series of exchanges with WLC on your Universalism argument. If I recall he proposed that since DT (damnation thesis) was logicall possible (perhaps it was RH) then your argument for universalism failed as a proof. Forgive me if I am wrong about his rebuttal. As you know, I’m no philosopher.

But now consider this:
Suppose you take the coin toss analogy that over an infinite number of tosses eventually the number of times you seek will be met (eveuntually all will be saved).

And the question I raise Did Adam and Eve have eternal life, seems to draw out that Eternal or Everlasting or Forever can come to an end…

and couple this with Romans 9 that he can very well have mercy on whom he wants.

It seems WLC would have to at least conceed that Universalism is more likely.

If he conceed that Adam and Eve had eternal life, everlasting life or lived forever PROVIDED they obeyed God, then what is it in scripture that keeps God from having mercy on whom he wants (romans 9) if in fact he never said he would not save them from hell.

In other words, if hell is forever (we’ll posit here that it is for arguments sake) but forever can come to an end. And we have an infinite number of years of which hell COULD exist, then why would God continue to infinitely not have mercy on them if it’s possible that he can.

I’m not sure I’m even on to anything new, but I thought I’d drop that with you. Perhaps you can make more sense of my non-sense :slight_smile: LOL!

Aug

#19

First of all, doesn’t the word “eternal” already appear riddled with problems in this context? No one or thing is eternal except for God. No human can have eternal anything, for we all have a beginning. Now if we want to say “everlasting” or “un-ending” this is quite different. Some one or thing can last endlessly but still have a beginning.

But back to the word eternal. I would suggest that there are two “types” of eternity according to the nature of God. And these are distinctive in that one lasts forever (in actuality), and the other doesn’t. Now what do I mean by this?
God is love. And God’s love will last forever precisely because it is who He is. Love (and other aspects as well–truth, spirit, etc.) has no beginning and no end. And this is the “truest” eternality of God–more specifically, love is not based on a response from a creature. Truth also is not based on a response from a creature. However, justice, discipline, punishment, mercy, etc.; these all are eternal in the mind of God, but they will have an actual end. Likewise, these are all responses to actions by creatures. In actuality, God is not eternally just, merciful, punishing, etc. All of these had a beginning (not in the mind of God, but in actuality); they likewise will all have an end when the whole of creation is filled with the knowledge of God and His love.

#20

That’s a very interesting observation.

THANK YOU.