Can you please give me three reasons why you cannot accept the theory of annihilation and why therefore you believe that the references to hell indicate conscious punishment?
This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1991.
If you ask me to choose three reasons for not accepting the theory of annihilation, I would choose the following:
Reason 1
The word for punishment in Matthew 25:46 is kolasis. The formation of the word—that is its ending 'sis'—shows that it is an active noun meaning the process of punishing and not simply punishment. Compare the Greek word praxis, which means 'a making', with pragma, which means 'a thing made'. 'Eternal punishment' might be consistent with annihilation; but 'eternal punishing' cannot be held to describe annihilation. Advocates of annihilation sometimes express themselves as believing in eternal punishment, but not in eternal punishing. But, as I understand it, kolasis means punishing. That is why Bauer's Lexicon lists examples from secular Greek in which kolasis means 'torture'. One of its citations is very much to the point hē epimonos kolasis, meaning long-continued torture.
Reason 2
Revelation 14:10–11 warns that the one who takes the mark of the beast will be 'tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever'. It might be possible to argue that this smoke going up for ever and ever is like the smoke of Sodom and Gomorrah, indicating that the city and all its inhabitants have been annihilated. But the argument is not sound, for verse 11 goes on to say that 'they have no rest day and night'; and this phrase must refer to the experience of those who are undergoing this torment. John Stott argues that one cannot deduce the eternal torment of individual people from the phrase in Revelation 19:20, which declares that 'the beast and the false prophet will be cast into the lake of fire', where 'they will be tormented day and night for ever' (20:10), because, according to John Stott, the beast and the false prophet are not individuals but institutions. But Revelation 14:9--11 explicitly speaks of individuals: 'if anyone worships the beast. . .'.
Reason 3
Philosophically and theologically I cannot see that the case for annihilation—or at least John Stott's version of it—is either just or merciful (see pp. 312–331 in David L. Edwards and John Stott, Essentials, Hodder and Stoughton, 1988). He agrees that the impenitent will be judged according to their works; and that must mean that there will be degrees of punishment. Indeed, our Lord informed us that it will be more tolerable for the men of Sodom and Gomorrah than for those of Capernaum. To hold that the impenitent who appear before the great white throne will be immediately annihilated, means that all sinners, whatever the degree of their sinning, will suffer the same punishment. Indeed, instantaneous annihilation is scarcely a punishment at all and, therefore, people like John Stott have to admit that the impenitent will not be instantaneously annihilated, but first punished and then annihilated. But in most civilized countries a man who is to be executed for murder is not first tortured and then executed—that would be regarded as a very savage thing. If the man is to pay the supreme penalty, then he is not submitted to any preliminary torture before being executed. On John Stott's theory, then, the impenitent will first be punished for a finite period and then annihilated. That suggests to me that he imagines that, by this finite period of punishment, they pay the penalty for their sins; and when the penalty is exhausted, they are then annihilated.
That, to my mind, raises two very big questions: Is it possible for a human being to exhaust the penalty of his sins in a finite period of time? And if it is, why is that human being not set free upon the completion of the penalty? In English Law the criminal who has suffered the penalty for his crime is regarded as being thereby justified. I assume that John Stott's reply to this would be that the finite period of punishment is on account of the man's individual sins; but when he has paid that penalty he is annihilated because he is still unrepentant towards God and refuses to believe in the Saviour. Annihilation, therefore, is the punishment for the one sin of rejecting the Saviour—not so much for rejecting his sacrifice, because, having suffered for his own sins and being thereby justified, the man needs no sacrifice. He is annihilated simply for his wrong attitude of heart towards the Divine Persons. If that is so, then—excuse my apparent antinomianism—free will is not what it appears to be. God turns out, after all, to be like Mr Henry Ford, who told his customers that they could have any colour of car they wished, so long as it was black! A God who gives his creatures irretrievable free will and, even when they persist in using it to reject him, still honours the gift he has given them, is to my mind far greater than a God who gives his creatures free will only as long as they do not use that free will to decide against him.
So then, these are the first three reasons that would occur to me, off the top of my head so to speak.
The Lord grant you great wisdom, grace and strength in writing your book. John Stott's brief remarks in Essentials seem to have opened a steam valve, for I notice that nowadays other evangelical scholars are coming out with the fact that they do not believe in eternal punishing either.
With warmest greetings,
Ever truly yours,
