In Christianity, annihilationism (also known as extinctionism or destructionism)[1] is the belief that after the Last Judgment, all damned humans and fallen angels including Satan will be totally destroyed and their consciousness extinguished.
Seventh-day Adventists posit that living in eternal hell is a false doctrine of pagan origin, as the wicked will perish in the lake of fire.
[9][10] It experienced a resurgence in the 1980s when several prominent theologians including John Stott[11] argued that it could be held as a legitimate interpretation of biblical texts by those who give supreme authority to scripture.
[17] Annihilationists base their belief on their exegesis of scripture, some early church writings, historical criticism of the doctrine of Hell, and the concept of God as too loving to torment his creations forever.
They claim that the popular conceptions of Hell stem from Jewish speculation during the intertestamental period,[18] belief in an immortal soul which originated in Greek philosophy and influenced Christian theologians, and also graphic and imaginative medieval art and poetry.
[19] Similarly, the New Testament teaches that the wicked will justly suffer for their sins, but the end result will be their destruction (cf.
Early forms of annihilationism or conditional immortality are claimed to be found in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch[10][20] (d. 108/140), Justin Martyr[21][22] (d. 165), and Irenaeus[10][23] (d. 202), among others.
[10] One quote, in particular, stands out in Arnobius' second book Against the Heathen: Your interests are in jeopardy,—the salvation, I mean, of your souls; and unless you give yourselves to seek to know the Supreme God, a cruel death awaits you when freed from the bonds of body, not bringing sudden annihilation, but destroying by the bitterness of its grievous and long-protracted punishment.
The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
In 1945 a report by the Archbishops' Commission on Evangelism, Towards the conversion of England, caused controversy with statements including that "Judgment is the ultimate separation of the evil from the good, with the consequent destruction of all that opposes itself to God's will.
(The Millerite movement consisted of 50,000 to 100,000 people in the United States who eagerly expected the soon return of Jesus, and originated around William Miller.)
The dominant group, which published the Advent Herald, adopted the traditional position of the immortal soul, and became the American Evangelical Adventist Conference.
Later, the main advocate of conditionalism became the World's Crisis publication, which started in the early 1850s, and played a key part in the origin of the Advent Christian Church.
[36] The Seventh-day Adventist Church view of Hell is held to be as annihilation rather than eternal burning of the wicked, and it is one of its distinctive tenets.
Her husband James White, along with Joseph Bates, formerly belonged to the conditionalist Christian Connection, and hinted at this belief in early publications.
[36][38][39] A publication with a noticeable impact in the wider Christian world was The Conditionalist Faith of our Fathers (2 vols, 1965–1966) by Le Roy Froom.
Robert Brinsmead, an Australian and former Seventh-day Adventist best known for his Present Truth Magazine, originally sponsored Edward Fudge to write The Fire that Consumes.
[54] Stott wrote, "Well, emotionally, I find the concept [of eternal suffering] intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain.
[57] Fundamentally, though, Stott argues that an eternal punishment for finite crimes would be incompatible with "the belief that God will judge people 'according to what they [have] done' (e.g.
I believe that the ultimate annihilation of the wicked should at least be accepted as a legitimate, biblically founded alternative to their eternal conscious torment.
The report, entitled "The Mystery of Salvation" states, "Christians have professed appalling theologies which made God into a sadistic monster.
... Hell is not eternal torment, but it is the final and irrevocable choosing of that which is opposed to God so completely and so absolutely that the only end is total non-being.
"[80] He wrote: But I notice that Our Lord, while stressing the terror of hell with unsparing severity usually emphasizes the idea not of duration but of finality.
In the Collect (opening prayer) for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost in the Tridentine missal, we find the words "qui sine te esse non possumus", meaning "we who without Thee cannot be (or exist)".
But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows.Other annihilationists, who understand that a loving God would not gratuitously cause the dead to suffer, believe this verse refers to those living through the tribulation([2]).
[citation needed] Annihilationism is based on passages that speak of the unsaved as perishing (John 3:16) or being destroyed (Matthew 10:28).
Annihilationists are quick to point out that spiritual death happens the moment one sins and that it is illogical to believe further separation from God can take place.
[86] Ralph Bowles argues the word order of the verse was chosen to fit a chiastic structure, and does not support eternal punishment.
[91][92] Verses that seem to contradict the tradition of complete damnation and come up in arguments also include Lamentations 3:31–33 (NIV), "For no one is cast off by the Lord forever.
Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love",[93] and 1 Timothy 4:10 (NIV), "We have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.