Speaker 1: Life Audio.
Speaker 2: There's a whole lot of thinkers over the centuries who
Speaker 2: thought about this.
Speaker 3: The idea here is the damned in Hell are not
Speaker 3: eternally in conscious existence. Annihilationists will just say death means
Speaker 3: death and they cease to exist.
Speaker 2: Maybe just kind of briefly tell us why you are
Speaker 2: not an annihilation.
Speaker 3: When I look at the whole of scripture, I don't
Speaker 3: think the annihilationist view is the best way to take
Speaker 3: the texts. From a personal standpoint, my heart kind of
Speaker 3: goes out to Kirk Cameron in the situation he's in
Speaker 3: where there's a lot of reactivity on the Internet that
Speaker 3: shapes how these conversations play out.
Speaker 2: Actor and evangelist Kirk Cameron has stirred up quite the
Speaker 2: online controversy by asking if we have gotten the doctrine
Speaker 2: of hell wrong. He's adopted a controversial view known as
Speaker 2: annihilationism or conditionalism, which we will define and discuss. Cameron
Speaker 2: has responded to the criticism and let's just say things
Speaker 2: have gotten even more heated here to discuss with me
Speaker 2: what a wise, measured and biblical response might look like
Speaker 2: is doctor Gavin Ortland. Gavin, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1: Hey, looking forward to it. Thanks for having me, Sean.
Speaker 2: I want to have you on for a number of reason,
Speaker 2: but one being both of us were recently guests on
Speaker 2: his podcast. We are friends of Kirk Cameron and care
Speaker 2: about theological issues, but also how these conversations take place
Speaker 2: just in the wider Internet and beyond. So we're going
Speaker 2: to get into that. We're going to focus on really
Speaker 2: three questions today. Is annihilationism a heretical view, is this
Speaker 2: an indication of a slippery slope? And how can we
Speaker 2: best respond going forward? But with that said, a few
Speaker 2: preliminary issues, just kind of to catch people up to speed.
Speaker 2: Some people might not be familiar with the term annihilationism
Speaker 2: or conditionalism. Essentially, I explain it this way, that those
Speaker 2: who do not believe in Jesus after death, at some point,
Speaker 2: rather than living with eternal conscious torment, they will be
Speaker 2: snuffed out or annihilated in some sense and sees to exist. Agreed, disagree,
Speaker 2: expand on that definition in any way.
Speaker 1: No, I think that's good.
Speaker 3: I think the idea here is the damned in hell
Speaker 3: are not eternally in conscious existence, but they know they'll
Speaker 3: Annihilationists will just say death means death, and they cease
Speaker 3: to exist. There's variation on the details of that, though,
Speaker 3: so some annihilationists will still think there's a long duration
Speaker 3: of conscious suffering prior to annihilation. And the only other
Speaker 3: thing I might throw on the table is the label
Speaker 3: conditional immortality is sometimes one that our annihilationist friends prefer,
Speaker 3: and one of the ways sometimes they'll explain it is
Speaker 3: to say that immortality belongs properly to God alone. And
Speaker 3: so the way they might tease this out is not
Speaker 3: even with the word annihilation, but just to say only
Speaker 3: the righteous in Heaven are given immortality, and so they'll
Speaker 3: make the appeal, you know, what would keep some a
Speaker 3: damned soul alive in hell?
Speaker 1: What would cause it to endure?
Speaker 3: So that's another I'm just throwing that out as a
Speaker 3: label and as a way they might explicate their view.
Speaker 2: Very helpful clarification. I appreciate that now you have a
Speaker 2: whole video on this you did before this controversy erupted,
Speaker 2: and this conversation we're having right now is not going
Speaker 2: to be a biblical point counterpoint or debate about it,
Speaker 2: But maybe just kind of briefly tell us why you
Speaker 2: are not an annihilationist.
Speaker 1: Sure, the long answer of course, would be my video.
Speaker 3: The summary here will be that while I think and
Speaker 3: as I try to carefully consider this idea, I think
Speaker 3: there are some theological appeals that have force in its favor,
Speaker 3: and some biblical texts that can be interpreted in an
Speaker 3: annihilationist way when I look at the whole picture, especially
Speaker 3: the whole of scripture. So when I'm approaching a topic
Speaker 3: like this, I'm not looking to my own wisdom because
Speaker 3: I don't know what God is going to do, So
Speaker 3: I have to lean on divine revelation and say, what
Speaker 3: is God revealed of what will be the ultimate fate
Speaker 3: of those who are cast away into the outer darkness?
Speaker 3: And when I look at the whole of scripture, I
Speaker 3: don't think the annihilationist view is the best way to
Speaker 3: take the texts. And in my video on this, I
Speaker 3: put a lot of emphasis on Revelation twenty in Revelation fourteen.
Speaker 3: These are two texts where it seems to me that
Speaker 3: the idea of torment is explicit. I think that is
Speaker 3: explicit in Revelation twenty ten, and then in Revelation fourteen
Speaker 3: the language of no rest day or night. But I
Speaker 3: wouldn't say those are the only two texts. There are
Speaker 3: other texts that I think are suggestive that the fire
Speaker 3: of Hell is not just to destroy and extinguish life.
Speaker 3: Another would be Mark nine forty seven to forty nine,
Speaker 3: where Jesus says, and boy, I just want to acknowledge
Speaker 3: talking about this topic is painful and sad, and so
Speaker 3: here I am talking about fire and so forth, and
Speaker 3: we want to acknowledge this is a difficult doctrine. Let's
Speaker 3: let the I think it's designed to kind of shatter
Speaker 3: our hearts in a way, and so let's allow it
Speaker 3: to have that effect upon us and cause us to
Speaker 3: grieve and be sobered at the reality of evil and
Speaker 3: God's justice.
Speaker 1: But Jesus says.
Speaker 3: Mark nine forty nine, everyone will be salted with fire.
Speaker 3: This doesn't sound so a lot of these earlier texts
Speaker 3: before you get to revelation seems suggestive that there's an
Speaker 3: experience going on in Hell, and I just find that
Speaker 3: a tough passage to interpret in an annihilationist framework. So
Speaker 3: the full case for this is in my video. But
Speaker 3: what I'm just trying to lay out here is the
Speaker 3: best interpretation of the Bible as a whole seems to
Speaker 3: me to point toward Yeah, there is an ongoing experience
Speaker 3: for the damned in hell.
Speaker 2: And as far as you understand, this is what can
Speaker 2: be called the tradition or the classic view of Hell
Speaker 2: across even like Orthodox and Protestant and Catholic views. And
Speaker 2: so there may be some annihilationist type positions held in
Speaker 2: the past and in the somewhat present, people like F. F.
Speaker 2: Bruce and John Stott, but these are very much minority voices.
Speaker 2: This is what I've heard. I haven't done a deep
Speaker 2: dive on it.
Speaker 3: Is that your understanding, I would probably say minority voices,
Speaker 3: but not very much minority voices.
Speaker 1: So in other words, I do.
Speaker 3: Think actually the early Church, the Patristic era, first five
Speaker 3: hundred years or so of church history roughly, is a
Speaker 3: little more diverse.
Speaker 1: Once you get after Augustine.
Speaker 3: I think you get ect or eternal conscious torment as
Speaker 3: pretty much the backbone or the mainstream view.
Speaker 1: But in the early Church it does look more scattershot
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 3: You've got explicit affirmations of annihilationism from Christians like Arnobius,
Speaker 3: and then you have a lot of Christians who are
Speaker 3: a little bit underdetermined in their language. It's debated a
Speaker 3: little bit how to read them, but they seem more
Speaker 3: pushing it toward an annihilationist view in the way they
Speaker 3: speak of immortality and the way they speak of death
Speaker 3: with respect to the final state. So I would think
Speaker 3: of Irenaeus in that category, for example. So I'm not
Speaker 3: trying to remove all the ambiguities from the interpretation of
Speaker 3: some of these figures, but I would say I would
Speaker 3: say annihilationism is a minority report in the tradition, but
Speaker 3: it is present, especially in the early Church, so far
Speaker 3: as I can see.
Speaker 2: This is an important distinction because when you take issues
Speaker 2: like the current in the past fifty years redefinition of marriage,
Speaker 2: there was not any debate whatsoever in the history of
Speaker 2: the Church about this until modern times. There are no
Speaker 2: voices arguing that we should change the definition of marriage
Speaker 2: to be non gendered. When it comes to annihilationism, this
Speaker 2: is not a new debate. This debate has existed in
Speaker 2: the Church in various ways throughout its history. Now it
Speaker 2: feels new, and between you and I, I didn't have
Speaker 2: on my Bengal card this year that Kirk Cameron was
Speaker 2: to video in favor of annihilationism. I think I was
Speaker 2: about as surprised as anybody, but it feels new to
Speaker 2: us in this moment, but there's precedent in the church
Speaker 2: wrestling with this question going way back. Now, with that said,
Speaker 2: part of what stirred this in his response video, I
Speaker 2: think Kirk framed for everybody why he ended up really
Speaker 2: what started this conversation for him, and it was a
Speaker 2: conversation with his son about the fate of non Christians,
Speaker 2: the fate of those who are damned. And he said, basically,
Speaker 2: you know if he asks right, opening in only the
Speaker 2: way that like somebody who's good on camera can draw
Speaker 2: you in with drama, like he's so good painting the picture.
Speaker 2: He's like, what would you do to the audience if
Speaker 2: your son or daughter came to you and asked you
Speaker 2: what you believe the Bible says and will non Christians
Speaker 2: experience eternal conscience torment? He framed it that way. So
Speaker 2: I'm really curious. I'm going to give my two cents
Speaker 2: in a second, but how would you respond if one
Speaker 2: of your own kids came to you and asked you
Speaker 2: that question?
Speaker 3: It depends upon which child and which age, because I
Speaker 3: have five kids ages three to twelve, and the truth
Speaker 3: of scripture would not change from one child to another,
Speaker 3: but the language I would use and the way I
Speaker 3: would interface with them would be different for the.
Speaker 1: Three year old, the five year old, the twelve year old, etc.
Speaker 3: I think we can be I just think we want
Speaker 3: to be sensitive to the age dynamics there in terms
Speaker 3: of how we unfold a biblical view. Now, I would
Speaker 3: teach them about the debate, Okay, I would talk. I
Speaker 3: don't want them to go through their whole life and
Speaker 3: never learn about this discussion and then suddenly hear about
Speaker 3: it later on. So I'd want to talk them through
Speaker 3: where Christians are disagreeing on these topics, and then I
Speaker 3: would just invite them to study the scripture with me.
Speaker 3: I actually do have a lot of theological conversations like
Speaker 3: this with my kids, especially around the bedtime routine as
Speaker 3: I'm putting them to bed and we talk theology. Sometimes
Speaker 3: they're trying to prolong bedtime by exactly.
Speaker 1: But I'll still go there and we'll talk.
Speaker 3: And so one thing I've found helpful is to invite
Speaker 3: them into the study of scripture and try to model
Speaker 3: for them. Hey, dad doesn't have all the answers, but
Speaker 3: let's study the scripture and here's what I'm doing. I'm
Speaker 3: looking to what God has revealed about this, and then
Speaker 3: what I'm trying to do is model this sense of
Speaker 3: discipleship in our theology. That to be a theologian doesn't
Speaker 3: mean I'm sort of dictating the shots based on my
Speaker 3: intuitions and my feeling. But I'm looking to the scripture
Speaker 3: and I'm seeking to follow and submit to what God
Speaker 3: has revealed best I can. I want to model that
Speaker 3: to my kids, and then we talk through the arguments,
Speaker 3: and I'll try to, of course, shepherd them along that
Speaker 3: process as we work through text by text.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great model. What you're doing for
Speaker 2: your family. We can do in the larger body of
Speaker 2: Christ and the Church family. But we'll come back to that.
Speaker 2: For me, one thing I would do is, and again
Speaker 2: it does depend upon the age. My kids are a
Speaker 2: little older thirteen, eighteen twenty one. But the first thing
Speaker 2: I would not do is show any fear. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: show any disgust. I wouldn't show any anger. I would
Speaker 2: not show that I'm threatened by this. In fact, if anything,
Speaker 2: I'd try to show that I love that my kids
Speaker 2: are asking theological biblical questions I would invite it from
Speaker 2: my kids. One of the things we see from kids
Speaker 2: leaving the faith is not questions and doubts, but when
Speaker 2: they have unexpressed questions and doubt. So creating a culture
Speaker 2: in our immediate families. And I would argue the larger church,
Speaker 2: where we're not threatened by questions and we invite questions,
Speaker 2: I think can help limit the deconstruction slash deconversion story
Speaker 2: we've heard so frequently from people who have questions that
Speaker 2: were really shut down. Then I would ask back. One
Speaker 2: thing my kids will learn is I often ask when
Speaker 2: I'm asked a question, I ask a question back. So
Speaker 2: I would say, well, that's a really interesting question. I
Speaker 2: will tell you what I think, But why do you
Speaker 2: ask that question? I want to know the story behind
Speaker 2: why you know? Again, a six year old is going
Speaker 2: to be different than a twelve year old versus a
Speaker 2: twenty one year old. Why is that question bothering you
Speaker 2: right now? Is it a debate you saw online? Are
Speaker 2: you troubled by loved ones? Is it emotional? Is an electual?
Speaker 2: Like what's driving this? I want the story beneath the story.
Speaker 2: And then i'd probably third say tell me what your
Speaker 2: view is again, I'll give you my two cents, but
Speaker 2: if you had to articulate what you think about this,
Speaker 2: what you say, and then finally I'd say, let's go
Speaker 2: to the Bible, let's have this conversation, and then we
Speaker 2: would jump into the text. That's how I would navigate this.
Speaker 2: And like you, I've had many of these conversations with
Speaker 2: my kids. And one thing that's been lost here is
Speaker 2: that I haven't heard many people say good for Kirk
Speaker 2: Cameron for having the kind of relationship with his son
Speaker 2: that as his son is older, he wants to come
Speaker 2: with him and ask him questions, he wants to discuss
Speaker 2: theology with him. Kirk has clearly done something right in
Speaker 2: his family to have that kind of dialogue, and to me,
Speaker 2: that's vital and lost amidst some of the craziness of
Speaker 2: how people have responded. Now that said, we're not going
Speaker 2: to do so much a deep dive on this, but
Speaker 2: i'd love your take on three questions, and I'm gonna
Speaker 2: give my two cents. Is this question this issue of
Speaker 2: conditionalism annihilationism? Is it a heretical view? What's your take, Kevin?
Speaker 3: Before I answer that, I just want to say one
Speaker 3: adding on your answer to this last question helped me
Speaker 3: think this through even a little more fully because I
Speaker 3: love what you're saying. Of this non fear based response,
Speaker 3: I found this to be so helpful. Sometimes Christians we
Speaker 3: feel on our heels when a question comes up, and
Speaker 3: I think this idea of calm curiosity to draw out
Speaker 3: the question, and then I just the one thing I
Speaker 3: wanted to say is I believe Christianity is intellectually robust
Speaker 3: and it has answers to these difficult questions, and the
Speaker 3: doctrine of hell is very difficult, but there are strong
Speaker 3: defenses for why this is a rational thing to believe.
Speaker 3: One of the embasies in scripture is the justice of God.
Speaker 3: Hell is not an arbitrary torture chamber. Hell is God's
Speaker 3: just response to unrepentant evil. And the reason it is
Speaker 3: so terrible is because God is so good. If God
Speaker 3: is the light, hell is the darkness. And so the
Speaker 3: reason there's a hell is because of the glory of
Speaker 3: God and the possibility of being banished from it. I
Speaker 3: just want to So that's the other thing with my
Speaker 3: kids is I want to shepherd them toward the truth
Speaker 3: of the Gospel with a non fear based response, commending
Speaker 3: the truth of Christ, but without a sense of panic
Speaker 3: or fear. That's just something that was in my heart
Speaker 3: there as you.
Speaker 1: Were a love responding well.
Speaker 3: So well said, now to your question about heresy, I'll
Speaker 3: lay out my thoughts here and welcome any pushback from you.
Speaker 3: I would give three appeals for why I don't see
Speaker 3: it as.
Speaker 1: Heretical by heresy.
Speaker 3: The way I use this term is as a first
Speaker 3: rank issue that separates Christian orthodoxy from that which is
Speaker 3: outside of Christianity. And we have to have some category
Speaker 3: for that because Christianity is a definite, specific religion. It's
Speaker 3: not just this amorphous entity that can be a shape shifter.
Speaker 3: So there's boundaries about what Christianity is and isn't. But
Speaker 3: of course the key here is out putting every doctrinal
Speaker 3: disagreement on that fault line, because there's lots of in
Speaker 3: house debates and even second and third rank. I find
Speaker 3: Christians are often very black and white, all or nothing
Speaker 3: in thinking about things. So it's either heresy or it's unimportant.
Speaker 3: And I wrote a book Finding the Right Hills to
Speaker 3: Die on trying to lay out a schema or a
Speaker 3: spectrum of different rankings, because some doctrines can be very
Speaker 3: important but not heretical. You can be a genuine believer
Speaker 3: even if we say this really matters about who's right
Speaker 3: who's wrong. But the three appeals I would give would
Speaker 3: be scripture, church history, and then a pragmatic appeal, saym
Speaker 3: each in one sentence.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 3: Biblically, I think this is a legitimate issue of the
Speaker 3: interpretation of scripture, not one side rejecting the authority of Scripture. Second,
Speaker 3: church history wise, I think there's precedent for both sides
Speaker 3: in the.
Speaker 1: History of the church. We've mentioned that before.
Speaker 3: And Third, pragmatically, this is not something that has that
Speaker 3: requires division in terms of its practical consequence in church life.
Speaker 3: It's not like church government where you kind of just
Speaker 3: have to decide something one way or another just for
Speaker 3: unity and the way the church is going. It's not
Speaker 3: gonna be something that is as obviously showing up in
Speaker 3: the actual day by day, Sunday by sunday worship of
Speaker 3: a church.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a little bit more.
Speaker 3: I don't want to say it's theoretical, but it's just
Speaker 3: not as consequential at the street level.
Speaker 1: And if I could say one more sentence on the
Speaker 1: biblical biblical issue.
Speaker 3: There while some Christians will, especially if they're not familiar
Speaker 3: with the discussion, say well, obviously it's not a legitimate
Speaker 3: issue of interpreting the Bible. The Bible is so clear
Speaker 3: about eternal punishment. I would love to encourage them to
Speaker 3: wrestle with the best arguments from the other side to
Speaker 3: understand this is more complicated, and to wrestle with versus
Speaker 3: like Jude seven, which use is the language of eternal
Speaker 3: punishment for a historical judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah and
Speaker 3: says Sodom and Gomorra suffered the fire of eternal punishment.
Speaker 3: So the language of eternal punishment can be used for
Speaker 3: the consequence of a judgment, not necessarily the punishment itself ongoing.
Speaker 3: And that's just one example the kind of issue we
Speaker 3: need to be careful about.
Speaker 2: That's great. I went back and listened to a number
Speaker 2: of voices on this just to see where other people
Speaker 2: were landing, people like Wes Huff, Greg Cocheal Calvinist scholar
Speaker 2: James White, and none of them placed it in a
Speaker 2: first tier issue that if somebody embraces annihilationism, they are
Speaker 2: outside the fold of the faith. James White distinctly said,
Speaker 2: I don't think Stott went to Hell or F F. Bruce,
Speaker 2: and I agree with him, and so that it should
Speaker 2: not be a first tier issue such as the trinity,
Speaker 2: the deity of Jesus, this salvation by faith alone, that
Speaker 2: Jesus was human and divine. Of course, it's not a
Speaker 2: first tier issue on that level. James Watte also says
Speaker 2: something really interesting, and this is my words, but I
Speaker 2: think it's the point he was making. He says, there's
Speaker 2: no other issue for which people hold the traditional view
Speaker 2: so firmly without justification. In other words, people hold this
Speaker 2: view so passionately and yet haven't really thought through and
Speaker 2: wrestled with why they hold it. And some of this
Speaker 2: might be we don't preach on Hell a ton, we
Speaker 2: don't walk through these passages and make the case because
Speaker 2: it's so widely held the standard view within the church,
Speaker 2: so it's not explained. But I think about my own life,
Speaker 2: Gavin and I have not done as much of a
Speaker 2: deep dive on this, as I have some other issues
Speaker 2: as well, and so I try to hold my level
Speaker 2: of confidence for this based on the study that I've done,
Speaker 2: and so I love your pushback to say we got
Speaker 2: to go to the text. It's not a first tier issue.
Speaker 2: This is something one of my colleagues, Eric Taunas, wrote
Speaker 2: about in theology. He put a piece that's in ESV
Speaker 2: study Bible, and there's like certain first tier core essentials
Speaker 2: that if you compromise those, you were talking about a
Speaker 2: different faith, not another denomination, literally a different faith. And
Speaker 2: that's not what's at stake here when it comes to annihilation.
Speaker 2: I viewed it not perfectly, but a little bit more
Speaker 2: like debates over origin for example, so Biola. We hold
Speaker 2: to ect eternal conscious torment at Talbot specifically, but we
Speaker 2: don't think people who are annihilationists are necessarily heretics. We
Speaker 2: just disagree with that and don't hold that it's a
Speaker 2: part of our doctrinal commitment. Well, the same as too
Speaker 2: with creation. We do not teach or accept evolutionary creation
Speaker 2: within Talbot School of theology. We're not convinced biblically or scientifically,
Speaker 2: but we don't think that people who embrace that are
Speaker 2: necessarily heretics. Outside of the fold, the key issue at
Speaker 2: stake is will God judge are the unborn damned? That's
Speaker 2: kind of at stake with the issue of annihilationism, although
Speaker 2: the details of how he does so are important. When
Speaker 2: it comes to creation, the core issue is is God
Speaker 2: the creator? The secondary question, which is important is how
Speaker 2: did God create? Now by saying that, does that make
Speaker 2: annihilationism therefore not that significant? And I think both you
Speaker 2: and I would say no, time out a lot matters.
Speaker 2: It's important, like you said, for the character of God,
Speaker 2: how we under stand the scriptures, And honestly, I would argue.
Speaker 2: I was talking with an atheist recently who was like,
Speaker 2: I don't fear death at all because I didn't exist
Speaker 2: before I came along and had no suffering, and so
Speaker 2: I won't exist afterwards. And I thought, well, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Could you make the same kind of argument against annihilationism.
Speaker 2: I don't fear God or as judgment as much because
Speaker 2: I didn't exist before.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Of course there's responses to that, but my only point
Speaker 2: is to agree with you. It's not an essential doctrine
Speaker 2: that divides whether you're following Jesus or not, But that
Speaker 2: doesn't make it unimportant and not worthy of thinking about anything.
Speaker 2: You agree disagree challenge about that, I'd love to hear.
Speaker 2: Feel free to disagree.
Speaker 3: No, I think we're both saying this isn't a first
Speaker 3: strank issue, and we and you know, from a personal standpoint,
Speaker 3: my heart kind of goes out to Kirk Cameron in
Speaker 3: the situation he's in, where there's a lot of reactivity
Speaker 3: on the Internet that shapes how these conversations play out,
Speaker 3: where frankly, I don't think now I will say, I
Speaker 3: think a lot of the responses are saying, you know,
Speaker 3: Kirk is still our brother, but here's.
Speaker 1: Why we disagree.
Speaker 3: So you do see that a lot, but there's also
Speaker 3: a lot of charging of heresy, and even beyond that,
Speaker 3: I would say, just a kind of reactivity that doesn't
Speaker 3: seem to practice.
Speaker 1: In my response video, I called it intellectual.
Speaker 3: Hospitality, which is one way of trying to get this idea,
Speaker 3: of really courting an idea, listening, welcoming the idea, and
Speaker 3: listening to the best arguments and then responding thoughtfully. I think,
Speaker 3: and this is true of all sides, in all directions
Speaker 3: and so many issues. The Internet increases an impulsive reaction,
Speaker 3: and it sometimes even rewards impulsive reactions. And one of
Speaker 3: my biggest concerns in this conversation is that we practice
Speaker 3: charity and thoughtfulness in how we conduct disagreements as followers
Speaker 3: of Christ. That is not soft, that is not compromise,
Speaker 3: That is a matter of following the character of Christ.
Speaker 3: To be good listeners James says, to be slow to
Speaker 3: speak and quick to listen. The internet really has incentives
Speaker 3: against that, and so I just think in this conversation,
Speaker 3: the fact that it's not a first rank issue means
Speaker 3: we're talking as fellow Christians that we're going to be
Speaker 3: in heaven together, and therefore there needs to be charity
Speaker 3: in our hearts with the people on the other side,
Speaker 3: and charity means really listening to their argument. And I'm
Speaker 3: concerned sometimes on this issue there's not enough careful listening
Speaker 3: to the exegetical appeals that are being made in the
Speaker 3: theological arguments as well.
Speaker 2: I totally agree. Now there's a reason why I didn't
Speaker 2: do an initial response fitty to this, and one reason
Speaker 2: is I'm not the response guy. I'm not always two
Speaker 2: in response videos. But second, I want to think about it,
Speaker 2: I want to see the conversation. It's okay. Viewers and
Speaker 2: listeners just sometimes say, you know what, I need to
Speaker 2: think on this and need to get some advice on this.
Speaker 2: I need to brew on this. There's a whole lot
Speaker 2: of wisdom in pausing and not just react quickly. We'll
Speaker 2: come back to some of that, but I'm really curious
Speaker 2: if you think this is an indication of a slippery slope.
Speaker 2: This is less about Kirk Cameron in particular, but if
Speaker 2: somebody adopts annihilationism, should there be concern of a slippery slope?
Speaker 3: This would be an area where I think it'd be
Speaker 3: wise to have exactly that careful listening what you described
Speaker 3: relting to your children, of drawing out you tell me
Speaker 3: where this question comes from, let me hear more. I
Speaker 3: think those kinds of questions would be necessary before we
Speaker 3: could have any idea in any particular case whether something
Speaker 3: is a slippery slope. So, in other words, I would
Speaker 3: say not necessarily. I think it can be if someone
Speaker 3: is saying if we understand their reasoning, and they're basically saying, well,
Speaker 3: I kind of admit the Bible teaches this, but I
Speaker 3: just am uncomfortable with that and it doesn't seem right
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 1: That is more concerning.
Speaker 3: But in other cases, I think there are our legitimate
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters in Christ who are wrestling with the
Speaker 3: text of scripture. And because I'm not God, I'm not
Speaker 3: going to judge their motives. But from everything I can tell,
Speaker 3: they are sincere in their efforts to follow the scripture.
Speaker 3: That's my honest opinion. And it's thinking me a while
Speaker 3: of studying this issue to come to really appreciate how
Speaker 3: they're looking at some of these texts. I have some
Speaker 3: great annihilation ast friends and I'm listening to them and
Speaker 3: I'm asking them, tell me more of how do you
Speaker 3: read Revelation twenty? Tell me about this? And I'm trying
Speaker 3: to and as I listen to them, I think they're
Speaker 3: being good faith.
Speaker 1: I don't think.
Speaker 3: There's an effort to throw off the authority of the Bible.
Speaker 3: I think this is a legitimate exegetical disagreement, and therefore
Speaker 3: I don't think this is necessarily a slippery slope in
Speaker 3: the way that it is when we start to reject
Speaker 3: the authority of scripture.
Speaker 2: The way you that so, the way you word it
Speaker 2: is exactly where I would put. It's not necessarily an
Speaker 2: indication of a slippery slope. It could be. There's often
Speaker 2: stories of people that I know who have deconstructed and
Speaker 2: deconverted their faith and started by questioning a traditional view
Speaker 2: of hell. That was one of the open doors that
Speaker 2: led to it. So it can be. But is it
Speaker 2: necessarily the answers, No, it wasn't for Stott, it's not
Speaker 2: for other annihilationist friends of mine as well. So I
Speaker 2: think we can err on the side of going ah
Speaker 2: slivery slope rejecting the Bible. This is going to completely
Speaker 2: follow this trajectory of deconstruction. Well, not necessarily, but I
Speaker 2: think also we ought to have our ears perked and
Speaker 2: just say, what's the story behind this, what's motivating this?
Speaker 2: Either biblically or emotionally or practically, Let's get to the
Speaker 2: story behind the story. And in some sense, to me,
Speaker 2: more than anything else, it's just a reminder to always
Speaker 2: be biblically vigilant, always assess everything that's said. We see
Speaker 2: this in the scriptures over and over again. Make sure
Speaker 2: our teaching is sound, make sure the Bible is our authority.
Speaker 2: And so I'm certainly not going to accuse kirk Camera
Speaker 2: to being on a slippery slope. I would not say
Speaker 2: that for a number of reasons. But I do think
Speaker 2: we should always be theologically vigilant. Go back to the
Speaker 2: text and this is a reminder of the importance to
Speaker 2: do that for all of us. My last question for
Speaker 2: you is moving forward, What do you think we can
Speaker 2: best do? What do we learn from this? How do
Speaker 2: we best move forward on this topic and others in
Speaker 2: the church? And inevitably, this isn't the last time hell
Speaker 2: is going to come up, and it's certainly not the
Speaker 2: last time another controversial doctrine will come up.
Speaker 3: This is one of the main concerns on my heart
Speaker 3: in relation to this episode, and something I addressed in
Speaker 3: my video response, and that is I think we would
Speaker 3: do well to give a lot of thought to how
Speaker 3: our discourse is taking place in the body of Christ,
Speaker 3: especially through the influence of the Internet and even more
Speaker 3: specifically through social media. And I won't use it. I
Speaker 3: won't try to label this or use exact words that
Speaker 3: could narrow it down too much. But I'll just say
Speaker 3: something seems unhealthy about much Christian discourse on the Internet.
Speaker 3: And it's not just because if I were to say, well,
Speaker 3: it's the reactivity or it's the lack of charity that
Speaker 3: would limit it too much. There's a lot of things involved,
Speaker 3: and I don't even understand them all. I just know
Speaker 3: that the culture we are creating in the way we
Speaker 3: disagree with one another seems to me to fall short
Speaker 3: of what the New Testament calls us toward. In so
Speaker 3: many cases, there's some great counter examples. I'm so thankful
Speaker 3: for your channel. There's other great Christian YouTubers, there's other
Speaker 3: great Christians on social media who doing such great work.
Speaker 3: So I'm not saying it's always this way, but there's
Speaker 3: a lot of unhealthy discourse. And if we were to
Speaker 3: go through the New Testament and look at all the
Speaker 3: verses about how we are to talk to each other
Speaker 3: in the body of Christ. I mean, there's one thing
Speaker 3: that is absolutely crystal clear in the New Testament, and
Speaker 3: that Christians are to show love to other Christians and
Speaker 3: to all people as well. But there's this particular kind
Speaker 3: of love we have for those for whom Jesus shed
Speaker 3: his blood, and I would just love to encourage us
Speaker 3: to think about what does that look like when we
Speaker 3: have a disagreement. How do we show love of its disagreement.
Speaker 3: That's not compromise, that's not softness. That's part of how
Speaker 3: we bear testimony to the truth of the Gospel. What
Speaker 3: if there's somebody out there watching this and they're really
Speaker 3: not sure what they believe, and they're really wrestling with this,
Speaker 3: but they see us talking to each other in a
Speaker 3: way that they say, Wow, that feels like a healthy
Speaker 3: way of disagreeing. That feels like genuine love without any
Speaker 3: slackening of conviction. But nonetheless, the presence of love and
Speaker 3: respect in our discourse, that itself is a part of
Speaker 3: how I think we bear testimony to the truth of
Speaker 3: the Gospel. So I see that as a first order
Speaker 3: issue that we show love for others, and so, of
Speaker 3: course we'll fall short and not do that perfectly. But
Speaker 3: I would just to your question of how where do
Speaker 3: we go forward? I would love to see more careful
Speaker 3: engagement with the arguments continued, wrestling with the issue continued.
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to shut down disagreement, continued arguments for
Speaker 3: the truth, but more attention to love in discourse, and
Speaker 3: more attention to the overall culture we're shaping and the
Speaker 3: way we talk to each other. Because the Internet is
Speaker 3: a very complicated thing and it's affecting us in ways
Speaker 3: we need to pay very careful attention to.
Speaker 2: I love it, really, really well said, I agree with everything,
Speaker 2: and I love you said, the way we respond is
Speaker 2: a first order issue because they will know us by
Speaker 2: our love, and of course love means speaking truth boldly,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it means having a prophetic voice calling out
Speaker 2: heresy boldly. But this is clearly not the time, given
Speaker 2: what we've talked about and others have as well. I'd
Speaker 2: say a few things. I just tell people. I say,
Speaker 2: don't be afraid of questions. A professor, and I'm I
Speaker 2: try to teach my students and my kids how to think.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes we're afraid of questions because of our
Speaker 2: own insecurities, and I think that's sometimes controversies like this
Speaker 2: reveal what lack of theological depth that we have, because
Speaker 2: we tend to be more fear based and threatened when
Speaker 2: we don't know what we believe and why we believe it.
Speaker 2: So don't be afraid of questions, invite questions in make
Speaker 2: scripture our guide when it's all said and done, not emotions.
Speaker 2: And this is a whole cyber conversation we could have.
Speaker 2: But part of what I think the appeal of annihilationism
Speaker 2: is is the horror of eternal conscious torment and just
Speaker 2: thinking about our loved ones there is it gives me
Speaker 2: chills great cocoal at standar Reason this week, He's like
Speaker 2: on his commentary, was like, I don't like the doctrine
Speaker 2: of hell, and I agree with that one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: I don't like it. It may be uncomfortable, I don't
Speaker 2: prefer it. But am I gonna fit the scriptures into
Speaker 2: what I prefer? Or am I gonna shift my emotions
Speaker 2: to what the scriptures teach? And I'm preaching to myself
Speaker 2: more than anybody else here, But that would be my
Speaker 2: encouragement moving forward. Make scripture our guide? And the question
Speaker 2: is what did Jesus teach? He's the only one who
Speaker 2: was sinless who had clarity about the world and God
Speaker 2: and the scriptures. What did he teach? So don't be
Speaker 2: afraid of questions. Make scripture our guide. Forth, slow down
Speaker 2: and act, don't react, give it some time, process it.
Speaker 2: Last thing I would say, and yeah, but I want
Speaker 2: you to comment on this, I would say, I think
Speaker 2: annihilationists carry a certain level of burden of proof here.
Speaker 2: If I don't, if I haven't studied a certain doctrine,
Speaker 2: I'm going to say, you know what, probably if the
Speaker 2: church has had large unanimity on this, there's a whole
Speaker 2: lot of thinkers over the centuries who thought about this.
Speaker 2: I better have good reasons to reject. And I know
Speaker 2: this is your criteria of church history. I would say
Speaker 2: there's a certain level of burden of proof on annihilationists.
Speaker 2: I don't want to raise it so high that it's impossible.
Speaker 2: But if we're going to go with a small minority
Speaker 2: of scholars, they better make the case pretty solid to me,
Speaker 2: agree or disagree with that.
Speaker 3: I agree, and one or two sentences on that to say,
Speaker 3: as I think about this, I'm looking at the scripture.
Speaker 3: I'm aware I'm going to give an account to the
Speaker 3: Lord for my teaching one day men, and so I
Speaker 3: don't think I could stand before the Lord and say,
Speaker 3: there's Revelation twenty, there's Revelation fourteen. But I taught this
Speaker 3: this for me, that's where it boils down. I couldn't
Speaker 3: do that. And so that's where this sense of submitting
Speaker 3: to the scriptures but also the scriptures as interpreted by
Speaker 3: the majority of the tradition, seems like the wisest and
Speaker 3: most godly response that I can take to the issue.
Speaker 3: And like you say, I don't like hell either. It
Speaker 3: really troubles me. But I'm trying to submit to the truth,
Speaker 3: and I think that's a rational thing to do because
Speaker 3: we believe the scriptures are trustworthy. Our Lord is trustworthy.
Speaker 3: He knows more than us. So yeah, I think that
Speaker 3: sense of submission is something we need to think through.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying a particular annihilation. This is not also
Speaker 3: doing that, But I'm just saying that is how the
Speaker 3: tradition impresses itself upon my conscience.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: I'd ask one more question, people watching this, how many
Speaker 2: of you before you reacted took the time to watch
Speaker 2: his whole first video and his response video versus just
Speaker 2: reacting from a TikTok video or an Instagram reel or
Speaker 2: a comment somebody else made. If not, I think that
Speaker 2: might be reason to repent and reflect and go back.
Speaker 2: Now you might have been right in your reaction. I
Speaker 2: don't know, but let's just move away from reacting so
Speaker 2: quickly without the context and giving a brother like Kirk
Speaker 2: the benefit of the doubt initially, whereas, of course, always
Speaker 2: taking those questions back to scripture. So, Kirk, if you
Speaker 2: happen to watch this, love you, Grateful for you and
Speaker 2: your voice. I know you're bringing on scholars to talk
Speaker 2: about this. I will be watching very interested to see
Speaker 2: the kind of conversations that you host, and hope you'll
Speaker 2: bring on the best from all sides of this conversation
Speaker 2: and walk people through how to follow it. I've never
Speaker 2: done a deep dive on hell on this channel. I
Speaker 2: had emails going back just a few weeks ago about
Speaker 2: doing an in depth conversation in twenty twenty six between
Speaker 2: annihilationist and some who supports eternal conscious torment. So that's
Speaker 2: coming on my channel. But for now, Kirk, we will
Speaker 2: be eagerly waiting to see who you bring on and hopefully,
Speaker 2: and I trust that you will, you can help us
Speaker 2: think this through biblically and land well. Check out Gavin
Speaker 2: orleans book Hills to Die On is excellent. His video
Speaker 2: if you want a critique of annihilationism just to start,
Speaker 2: His video on his YouTube channel is also excellent in
Speaker 2: that regard. Let me know here if these kind of
Speaker 2: response type videos, either myself or with somebody else are
Speaker 2: helpful and light of an issue like this that drops
Speaker 2: culturally takes a good amount of time to think through
Speaker 2: and respond. I want to do it if it's helpful
Speaker 2: to you, so please let me know. Make sure you
Speaker 2: hit subscribe. We've got a lot of other topics coming
Speaker 2: up you won't want to miss, that's for sure, including
Speaker 2: things like reincarnation, a deep dive critique on this and
Speaker 2: if you thought of by studying apologetics, we would love
Speaker 2: to have you at Tavischool Theology. There's information below. Gavin.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you and this conversation. We'll do it again soon.
Speaker 1: Thanks Sean. Great to be with you.
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