The Case For Annihilation

[Guest]

Since a lot of you active forum members like Greg Boyd (some more than others, presumably), I decided start a topic here on this thread pointing you guys to an article by him. It's called "The Case for Annihilation," and is now available to read on his new website. If you are interested in reading it, go here. Though I won't be able to participate in whatever discussion may follow my/this opening post, it would still be nice to see what others here have to say in regards to the case Boyd presents.

[Priestly1]

There is no case for Biblical, Judeo-Christian notion of spiritual and physical annihilation (nonexistence). Linguistics and Second Temple perspectives rejects this......unless you are a Zadikim (i.e. Sadducee). The terms in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek translated traditionally into English as "perish" or "destruction" have no association with the modern notion of punishment by a return to nonexistence. If you break a Jars of clay they no longer serve their maker's intended purpose....but they all remain forever (ages unto ages) as busted Jars. Biblical Babylon and Rome both have perished according to Scriptural (Hebraic-Oriental) prophecy and yet remain very real to this very hour. Go to Italy or Iraq if you doubt me. Jerusalem was doomed to Destruction (i.e. no stone left undisturbed) and the Temple to Abandonment and ruin until they (i.e. Physical Israel) say," Blessed is he who comes in the Name of Jaho'weh."

This notion of final annihilation of wicked souls is an Arabian heresy recorded in the Eusebian "History of the Church." The Soul (Nefesh/Psyche) is composed of the body (i.e. the biological vehicle) which is governed by it's brain (i.e. the computer), as well as the human spirit (i.e. the User) who inhabits this material form and enables it's function and activities. The Soul is destroyed (i.e. dissolved , yet remains it it's parts) when the spirit (i.e the Personality/spirit of the Mind) is separated from the body....which is medically understood as Physical Death. Biblically this is revealed from the Torah (i.e. I Am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), the Prophets, the Writings and the Gospels etc.

The Zadokim (Sadducees) where Hellenists who accepted the Pentatuech alone....they, as did the Greeks...denied the Physical Resurrection or Angels, yet they did accept...as did the Greeks...life in Sheol/Hades after death. For the pagans the Just/Heros arrived in the Elysian Fields, and for the Zadokim it was Pardez (i.e. Paradise/Abraham's Bosom).....the wicked went to the pits of Tartarus for both.

Parashim (Pharasees), Hosheim (Essenes) and Natzraim (Nazaraeans) accepted the survival of the life (Nefesh/Psyche...spirit) within man in Pardez with Abraham....but they also accepted the future physical resurrection of the Just and later the unjust. They acknowledged the unseen world of the heavenly worlds and angelic heirarchies. Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles also recognized this as fact

To deny the spiritual/biological nature of mankind (i.e. "we are spirits in the material world.") is to deny the dual nature of Christ (i.e. Logos/Flesh)...a heresy. To deny that the human spirit, which is the Life (i.e. nefesh/psyche) of the flesh (i.e. which permiates the blood) is to deny the dual nature of Christ...a heresy. after His death on the cross Christ descended into Sheol/Hades to proclaim Liberty to the captives and represent them and us in heaven until our transformation or resurrection. To deny this is a heresy. To say that the Eternal Second Life or the Eternal Second Death is limited in duration is a heresy and a blatant rejection of the languages of Scripture or an ignorance brought about by human notions of fairness...a heresy.

The Apostles's (130 CE) and Nicaea-Constantinoplaean (321 - 381 CE) Credal Statements publically declare and define what has been believed and recieved from the beginning from Christ and his Apostles. Why the need for so mant credal statements? The persistant rejection and distortion of the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Do I sound blunt...yes. For I have no more sympathy for such notions. I once held to annihilation (nihilistism) and conditional existence of the human spirit...which is the life (nefesh/psyche) of the body. I held such historically late and non apostolic notions for very sentimental and materialistically human reasons..........but my knowlwdge of Biblical languages, second temple Hebrew thought, history and church writings refused to allow me to persist in this error...and God's Holy Spirit would not stop bugging me.

Anyone who thinks soul (nefesh/psyche) does not refer to the spirit nature in a majority of cases...unless specified with spirit (person), souls (mind) and body (biological form).....then why does God declare His Soul is tired, displeased or enraged with man in the Prophets?




+Rev Ken Huffman

[RND]

So Satan was right after all?

Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

The wages of sin is death, not eternal torture. Eternal life is a gift. Roasting, toasting and fricasseeing for eternity isn't a gift.

The Zadokim (Sadducees) where Hellenists who accepted the Pentatuech alone....they, as did the Greeks...denied the Physical Resurrection or Angels, yet they did accept...as did the Greeks...life in Sheol/Hades after death.

The Pharisees were Hellenistic and believed in the duality of man, which they adopted from the Greeks. The Sadducee's believed that when one died that was it, game over. No resurrection, no nothing. You're all over the map here. Jesus plainly tells the Pharisees in Luke 16 that there were adulterous towards the word of God.

[Glenn]

Do I sound blunt...yes. For I have no more sympathy for such notions.

It's fine to be blunt - if that bluntness is accompanied by a critique of the evidebnce for the view you are bluntly rejecting.

I once held to annihilation (nihilistism) and conditional existence of the human spirit...which is the life (nefesh/psyche) of the body.

"Nihilistism"? Annihilationism is the right word here. Nihilistism is not a word that I can find in any dictionary. It sounds a bit like "nihilism," which is definitely not annihilationism.

And the spirit is not the life of the body. The nephesh is the life of the body. That's why nephesh is also translated "life" (as well as "soul"). A minor quibble. And nephesh also refers to animals, to human bodies, and even to dead bodies! The language just isn't wooden. It's flexible. The Hebrew word for spirit is ruach or neshamah, and is also flexible.

These words can refer to the heart, mind, will, emotions, a whole range of things. But the issue is not the conditional existence of a separated part of a person. It's much bigger and simpler than that. It's about whether all people will liver forever or not. The Bible does not address us in complex metaphysical terms, it speaks in big bold language about life and death.

Would you mind sharing you biblical reasons for rejecting annihilationism?

[mattrose]

I don't really prefer the term 'annihilationism'
That word makes it sound like people were going to live forever, but God decides to snuff them out
I believe conditional immortality is more accurate
Eternal life is a gift, some don't receive it
Our immortality is under the condition of being 'in Christ'
We share in His immortality