Mar 11
23
Rob Bell – Love Wins (6) Edward Fudge
“This ungodly furor [over what Rob Bell 
might believe about hell] presents an ideal time for everyone to examine the CENTRIST (and biblical, we insist!) view of hell — right there between the unbiblical extremes of unending conscious torment on the one hand, and universalism on the other hand. For resources of all sorts on “the view in the middle,” the view that “sounds more like God,” the view that reads “the wages of sin is death” and doesn’t have to explain it away, click here.” –Edward Fudge
“Eternal conscious torment is either true or it is not. God’s Word gives the only authoritative answer. Both the OT and NT instead clearly teach a resurrection of the wicked for divine judgment, the fearful anticipation of a consuming fire, irrevocable expulsion from God’s presence into a place where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth, such conscious suffering as the divine justice individually requires—and finally, the total, everlasting extinction of the wicked with no hope of resurrection, restoration or recovery.
Now we stand on that, on the authority of the Word of God. This case rests finally on Scripture. Only Scripture can prove it wrong.” -Edward Fudge, The Final End of the Wicked Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 27/3 (September 1984)
Fudge, writing in support of Annihilationism suggests that:” The fact is that the Bible does not teach the traditional view of final punishment. Scripture nowhere suggests that God is an eternal torturer. It never says the damned will writhe in ceaseless torment or that the glories of heaven will forever be blighted by the screams from hell. The idea of conscious everlasting torment was a grievous mistake, a horrible error, a gross slander against the heavenly Father, whose character we truly see in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.” -E.W. Fudge & R.A. Peterson, Two views of Hell: A biblical and theological dialog, InterVarsity Press, (2000), Page 21.
Questions:
- Is the answer of annihilationism believable, absurd or inconsistent?
- What does its answer say about what God is like?
- Is there another question behind the question?
See also: The Hermeneutics of Annihilationism: The Theological Method of Edward Fudge, Robert A. Peterson. Presbyterion: Covenant Seminary Review, Vol. XXI, No. 1, Spring 1995 for an opposing view.
The Fire that Consumes was published in 1982 by Edward Fudge of the Churches of Christ. It was described as “the best book” by Clark Pinnock, as of a decade later. John Gerstner called it “the ablest critique of hell by a believer in the inspiration of the Bible.” Clark Pinnock of McMaster Divinity College has defended annihilation. Earlier, Atkinson had self-published the book Life and Immortality. Theologians from Cambridge have been influential in supporting the annihilationist position, particularly Atkinson. – Annihilationism, Wikipedia,
Image: Justin Martyr (d. 165) held a form of conditional immortality.