Hi Paidion,
You wrote:
"There will be a resurrection of the righteous and of the wicked (There is no scriptural evidence that the wicked will simply remain dead. This is what the term "conditional immortality" suggests to me.)"
I know you associate immortality only with the resurrection of the body, not the immortality of a "soul" separate from the body. In this belief most "extinctionists" (the term that Fudge now uses for the conditional immortality advocates) will agree with you.
Where they would differ with you is upon the question of whether the resurrected bodies of the unsaved are immortal, as are the bodies of the saved. Extinctionists (like yourself) usually do not believe in the survival of the soul after death. But, if I correctly understand the view, they do believe all people will rise in the resurrection. Thus, like you, they do not believe that "the wicked will simply remain dead."
You might be assuming (along with most people) that all resurrected bodies are
de facto immortal—a belief that leads traditionalists to consign the lost to eternal conscious torment, and leads universalists to postulate their eventual reconciliation to God. Thus, both traditionalists and universalists have an eternal conscious destiny in mind for all human beings. The extinctionists, by contrast, see a conscious eternal destiny only for those who have met the conditions (in this life) for immortality—namely, faith in Christ. The rest, after their resurrection, and, possibly, suitable punishment, are then rendered extinct.
Great sense of humour - I knew it would hold up!
... I was only kidding about the links....
