More From Dr. Peoples and Annihilationism

Glenn Peoples rejects an eternal hell in favor of extinction or annihilationism, which I wrote about previously. Glenn takes issue with what I had said. Here we go again...

I wrote:

One belief change of mine that allowed me to pursue my doubts about Christianity was the rejection of an eternal punishment in hell. This doctrine is completely barbaric. It is the biggest stick ever invented by man to keep believers from questioning their faith. Christian philosopher Dr. Glenn Peoples rejects this doctrine too in favor of annihilation, and says why in a recent post. Reject it like he does and you'll be freer to think about your faith.

Glenn recently responded to me, where he claimed

There’s one misconception here, in that I didn’t actually offer any arguments against the traditional view and in favour of annihilationism in that post.

Actually Glenn, I DO think the reason you embrace annihilationism was stated in your original post. That's how it works. First you find something abhorrent and then you look again at the Bible to try and make it something else. That's how it worked for the abolitionist movement, the feminist movement, and Preterism (although with Preterism it was merely a way to save Christianity from refutation). You should surely know this because you claim that giving up on an eternal hell will help Christianity. Glenn continues

The suggestion appears to be that believers are just too afraid to think critically about their faith, because they don’t want to get too sceptical and end up in hell forever. If believers stop teaching eternal torment, then the net result will be that more people will be inclined to give up their faith for lack of fear.

My experience was that once I gave up an eternal hell it was a relief to me. Claim differently all you want to. But it allowed me to consider that I might be wrong without the threat of an eternal punishment.

And Glenn argues that embracing annihilationism will be beneficial to Christianity. But without such a threat there is, well, no threat. It's not quite the same as universalism, but close. If all will be saved or if no one will suffer an eternal punishment then there is less motivation for missionary work or evangelism, and less of a need to preach correct doctrines rather than pop psychology which helps grow a church.

Without an eternal hell then another problem surfaces with the atonement. Typically the substitutionary doctrine says Jesus paid our punishment on the cross, but if there is less or no punishment, then why did Jesus need to do this at all? Why die to save human beings from extinction? To cease to exist is no punishment at all and therefore nothing to save anyone from.

I know he'll answer these questions to his satisfaction, but his answers don't satisfy me.

------------

When it comes to what the Bible teaches I don't usually get involved in telling Christians what it says, usually. I don't do it precisely because Christians themselves cannot agree. Whenever I try there is always some Christian who shows up and disagrees with me, because the Bible can be taken to mean so many different things.

Hell, if you get Donald McKim's massive 600+ page book, Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters, you'll see quite plainly that Christians cannot even agree on the proper methods for interpreting the Bible, much less on what it says!

To Christians who want to argue about the doctrine of hell I say this: Start a blog called "The Truth About Hell," and invite all Christians there. Debate it all you want to. Then come back here to report what your consensus is, and I'll debunk that.