My First ET/CI/UR thread :)

[Guest]

I thought the conditional immortality view holds that the wicked will be punished, as warranted, in hell and then ultimately, when their punishment is complete, they will be snuffed out. This answers the "why raise them just to put them out of existence" dilemma. if it were otherwise, and the unbelieving dead would have the exact same punishment, which doesnt seem to square with scripture.

In other words, under this view, someone like Hitler would be punished longer before being snuffed out than a good Jew that never accepted Christ.

TK

Hey TK

Just so I make sure I understand, are you saying that some take the view that:

1. Wicked person dies
2. Wicked person is unconscious
3. Wicked person is part of general resurrection
4. Wicked person is punished in lake of fire for a duration of time fitting their crime
5. Wicked person is snuffed out

[Guest]

exactly!

I think that was edward fudge's view (he believes in CI)- he wrote a paper called "the final end of the wicked" or something like that which used to be available online, but i dont think it is free any longer.

it is less "offensive" than the idea of eternal torment because there is an end to it, and allows for propertionate punishment.

not that i want to believe something just because it is less offensive, but the CI view does make sense to me.

TK

[Guest]

Here's a good lecture series:
In- and Out-of-the-Body Experiences:
A Biblical Perspective on Bodies, Heaven, and the Christian Hope
a Fall 2007 Faith & Life Lecture Series
by Bill Wilder

Wilder's series on N.T. Wright's view of justification are really good too.

This series covers O.T., intertestamental, and N.T. beliefs and then discusses theological and philosophical implications. If I remember it right, his ideas on nephesh (Hebrew, "soul") from the O.T. lecture were okay, but he missed that it has to do with the throat (root word) and, thus, "breathing." I think he kind of corrects this later.

One thing. They didn't mic the people asking questions so you have periods of silence (and don't turn up the volume to hear them or your ears will get blown up when Bill talks again)!

Unfortunately, this series is only about the hope of believers, as the title says. The same can be said about N.T. Wright when he talks about these things (though I haven't read his major works). That is, about all you hear about unbelievers is from anyone, "They won't share the kingdom with us."

I guess people just don't want to talk much about the fate of unbelievers these days....

[Guest]

I thought the conditional immortality view holds that the wicked will be punished, as warranted, in hell and then ultimately, when their punishment is complete, they will be snuffed out. This answers the "why raise them just to put them out of existence" dilemma. if it were otherwise, and the unbelieving dead would have the exact same punishment, which doesnt seem to square with scripture.

In other words, under this view, someone like Hitler would be punished longer before being snuffed out than a good Jew that never accepted Christ.

TK

Hey TK

Just so I make sure I understand, are you saying that some take the view that:

1. Wicked person dies
2. Wicked person is unconscious
3. Wicked person is part of general resurrection
4. Wicked person is punished in lake of fire for a duration of time fitting their crime
5. Wicked person is snuffed out

Just to throw in my 2 cents on this idea....

While I understand the reasoning behind this view, it still seems very unlikely to me. I can see no point to resurrecting someone just to punish them and then destroy them again. Where is the mercy in that? It seems to me that the Father of Mercies would simply judge someone unworthy of resurrection rather than follow that scenario. But that's just my opinion.

However, I do believe that all will be resurrected and that all will share in the glorious liberty with the sons of God per Rom 8:21.

Todd

[_Sean]

While I'm not totally convinced of what happens to the wicked when they die, it seems that the view that they are reserved (possibly in a conscious state) under punishment/chastisement either before or until the day of final judgment could be here:

2Pe 2:1 But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.
2Pe 2:2 And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.
2Pe 2:3 By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.
2Pe 2:4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;
2Pe 2:5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;
2Pe 2:6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly;
2Pe 2:7 and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked
2Pe 2:8 (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)—
2Pe 2:9 then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment,

It could be that just as the angels are held until judgment, the same may be the case for the unjust.

[Guest]

Some apocryphal and non-canonical sources that may help:

2 Esdras 7:36-38, (NRSV):
36The pit of torment shall appear, and opposite it shall be the place of rest; and the furnace of hell shall be disclosed, and opposite it the paradise of delight. 37Then the Most High will say to the nations that have been raised from the dead, "Look now, and understand whom you have denied, whom you have not served, whose commandments you have despised. 38Look on this side and on that; here are delight and rest, and there are fire and torments." Thus he will speak to them on the day of judgment.

1 Enoch 22:
1. From thence I [Enoch transported into the heavens] proceeded to another spot, where I saw on the west a great and lofty mountain, a strong rock, and four delightful places…3. Then Raphael, one of the holy angels who were with me, answered and said: "These are the delightful places where the spirits, the souls of the dead, will be collected; for them were they formed; and here will be collected all the souls of the sons of men. 4. These places, in which they dwell, shall they occupy until the day of judgment, and until their appointed period"… 9. …[Enoch asked] "Why is one separated from another?" He answered: "Three separations have been made between the spirits of the dead, and thus have the spirits of the righteous been separated. 10. Namely, by a chasm, by water, and by light above it. 11. And in the same way likewise are sinners separated when they die, and are buried in the earth; judgment not overtaking them in their lifetime. 12. Here their souls are separated. Moreover abundant is their suffering until the time of the great judgment, the castigation {severely punished}, and the torment of those who eternally execrate {are loathful, repugnant, anathema}, whose souls are punished and bounded there forever."

1 Enoch describes the final disposition of Satan.
1 Enoch, 10:4a-6 (Nickelsburg/Vanderkam translation):
To Raphael [a holy angel] he [the Most High God] said,
"Go, Raphael, and bind Asael [Satan] hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness...And lay beneath him sharp and jagged stones. And cover him with darkness, and let him dwell there for an exceedingly long time. Cover up his face, that he may see no light. And on the day of the great judgment, he will be led away to the great conflagration {"shall be cast into the fire" in Laurence's translation}.

What will happen to Satan/Asael's followers [fallen/evil angels]:
“…bind them for seventy generations underneath the earth, even to the day of judgment, and of consummation, until the judgment, the effect of which will last forever…” (1 Enoch, 10:15, Laurence translation)

(From Homer's Iliad 8:13-16) Tartarus is:
"far below, where the uttermost depth of the pit lies under the earth, where there are gates of iron and a brazen doorstone, as far beneath the house of Hades as from earth the sky lies." (in 2 Peter 2:4 tartarus is translated as "hell").

1 Enoch 18:11:
I saw a deep pit with heavenly fire on its pillars.... The angel said, "This is the prison house for the stars and the powers of heaven" [evil angels].

Canonical, Revelation 20:2-3
And he [an angel] seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended. After that he must be loosed for a little while.
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Sean,

Your 2 Peter section of text could be a really good study, comparing it with Jesus' teaching, the OT, etc. I have to go now though, ZZZzzzz.....