Category: Debates

In 2000 a book was published in which Edward Fudge and Robert Peterson conducted a debate over the question of whether the Bible supports CI (conditional immortality) or ECT (eternal conscious torment).¹Edward William Fudge and Robert A. Peterson, Two Views of Hell: A Biblical & Theological Dialogue, Kindle ed., (InterVarsity Press: 2000). The image at the top of this article is from the Kindle edition of the book I own. I am not intending to review the entire exchange between Peterson and Fudge. Rather, I will focus on three responses Peterson made to the following statement by Fudge.

The word punishment tells us that the destiny of the lost issues from a judicial sentence. They are sent away to this fate. The word punishment does not tell us the nature of the penalty, however, or of what it actually consists. In our own criminal justice system punishment has a wide variety of meanings. It might mean a monetary fine or perhaps a brief time in jail or even a life sentence to prison. The worst punishment of all, however, is capital punishment—although the actual act of execution lasts only a few minutes at most. We do not measure capital punishment by the time required to carry it out but in terms of its lasting consequences. We consider it the greatest punishment of all because it forever deprives its victims of the remainder of their anticipated lives.

Saint Augustine, whose endorsement of the traditional view of conscious, unending torment practically guaranteed its status as orthodox doctrine, had to admit that this is true of capital punishment. “Where a very serious crime is punished by death and the execution of the sentence takes only a minute, no laws consider that minute as the measure of the punishment but rather the fact that the criminal is forever removed from the community of the living.” In this light it will not surprise us to learn that the word translated “punishment” in Matthew 25 originally meant “to cut short.” By the time of Jesus it also meant “to prune” or “to cut down.” The Old Testament uses this word at times to describe punishment by death (1 Sam 25:31; Ezek 21:15).

This punishment is called “eternal” for two reasons. First, it is the punishment of the age to come, not a punishment meted out by either man or God in this present life. Second and more importantly, it is called “eternal” because it will last forever, as the apostle Paul later specifically details. When Jesus comes at the end of the world, Paul explains, he will punish the wicked with “everlasting destruction” (2 Thess 1:9). Once destroyed, they will be gone forever. Jesus mentions in Matthew 25 the fate of the wicked in the most general of terms (eternal punishment), but Paul tells us its specific nature (everlasting destruction). Even Jonathan Edwards, whose name is best known today for his vivid preaching about the torments of hell, concedes that irreversible extinction would properly be called “eternal punishment.”²Edward Fudge, ‘The Case for conditionalism’, in Two Views of Hell: A Biblical & Theological Dialogue, Kindle ed., (InterVarsity Press: 2000), Kindle loc., 666-685.

The main point Fudge is making here is the word ‘punishment’ is ambiguous: ‘The word punishment does not tell us the nature of the penalty, however, or of what it actually consists.’ The idea is, one cannot simply assume that the mere use of the word ‘punishment’ (κόλασις, kolasis) necessarily denotes the notion of experienced punishment even where that punishment is said to be eternal and so is everlasting. On at least three occasions during his response to this section of Fudge’s argument, Peterson went on tangents that do not at all address the main point of his interlocutor.

First, Peterson takes aim at Fudge’s brief discussion on how capital punishment is perceived in legal contexts.

He adds faulty logic to faulty linguistics when he draws a parallel from the criminal justice system to eternal destinies. He correctly points out that capital punishment is a worse punishment than life in prison. But he errs when he infers that because capital punishment is worse than life imprisonment so also annihilation is a worse punishment than eternal conscious torment (p. 45). This is absurd. I would rather spend life in prison than be executed. But who would choose everlasting torment over extinction of being? Annihilation means the end of suffering, not the worst possible punishment as Fudge insists.³Robert A. Peterson, ‘A Traditionalist Response to Conditionalism’, in Two Views of Hell: A Biblical & Theological Dialogue, Kindle ed., (InterVarsity Press: 2000), Kindle loc., 1581-1586.

Fudge did not mention his personal view regarding which punishment would feel worse to him personally. He was also not attempting to argue that eternal death or annihilation is a worse punishment than everlasting torment. Rather, Fudge’s contention was that the severity of a punishment is measured in terms of its lasting consequences. Peterson’s response misses this entirely. Instead, he moves to the question of whether everlasting torment is a worse punishment than extinction of being. He asks whether anyone would choose everlasting torment over extinction and then asserts that annihilation is the end of suffering so cannot be the worst possible punishment. There are ways in which one can respond to Peterson, such as pointing out Augustine’s comment that he knew of people who would choose eternal life in torment over extinction.⁴‘And truly the very fact of existing is by some natural spell so pleasant, that even the wretched are, for no other reason, unwilling to perish; and, when they feel that they are wretched, wish not that they themselves be annihilated, but that their misery be so. Take even those who, both in their own esteem, and in point of fact, are utterly wretched, and who are reckoned so, not only by wise men on account of their folly, but by those who count themselves blessed, and who think them wretched because they are poor and destitute—if any one should give these men an immortality, in which their misery should be deathless, and should offer the alternative, that if they shrank from existing eternally in the same misery they might be annihilated, and exist nowhere at all, nor in any condition, on the instant they would joyfully, nay exultantly, make election to exist always, even in such a condition, rather than not exist at all. The well-known feeling of such men witnesses to this. For when we see that they fear to die, and will rather live in such misfortune than end it by death, is it not obvious enough how nature shrinks from annihilation? And, accordingly, when they know that they must die, they seek, as a great boon, that this mercy be shown them, that they may a little longer live in the same misery, and delay to end it by death. And so they indubitably prove with what glad alacrity they would accept immortality, even though it secured to them endless destruction.’ This statement is from chapter 11 of Augustine’s City of God. It can be found here. However, my purpose here is to draw attention to how Peterson’s response fails to interact with Fudge’s argument at all. Regardless of what kind of punishment people might choose or the fact that extinction would end a person’s suffering, it is still true that permanent death and extinction has eternal consequences. It is still true that the severity of a punishment is measured by its lasting consequences and not the time taken to execute it. As such, Peterson’s lack of engagement with Fudge’s main argument means he merely side-stepped it.

Peterson also takes aim at Fudge’s comment about the meaning of κόλασις (kolasis) as ‘to cut short’, ‘to prune’, or ‘to cut down’. The reader may be surprised that I agree with Peterson’s denial that κόλασις (kolasis) had these meanings. Having investigated the claim, I came to the same conclusion as Peterson. Fudge’s claim about the meaning of κόλασις (kolasis) has no evidence to support it. Notwithstanding this, if one notes that Fudge’s comment is an aside that adds nothing to his main argument, then Peterson’s efforts at debunking Fudge on this claim does nothing to show the main argument of the paragraph is also false. Worse still, Peterson speculates about why Fudge mentioned the definition of κόλασις (kolasis).

The implications of Fudge’s argument are obvious. Because punishment originally meant “to cut short,” “eternal punishment” in Matthew 25:46 means an eternal cutting short, that is, annihilation. Because the same word is used in the Old Testament to describe punishment by death, “eternal punishment” in Matthew 25:46 means an eternal death, that is, annihilation.⁵Peterson, ‘A Traditionalist Response to Conditionalism’, Kindle loc., 1598-1602.

However, when read in context, it is clear that Fudge added the aside about the meaning of κόλασις (kolasis) because pruning or cutting are actions that take a moment yet can have enduring consequences. Peterson not only quibbles with an aside, but he also focuses on an argument that Fudge never had in mind – all while leaving the main argument unaddressed.

Finally, there is Peterson’s interaction with Fudge’s quote of Johnathan Edwards.

Jonathan Edwards on annihilation and eternal punishment. Fudge claims that Jonathan Edwards called annihilation eternal punishment. He writes, “Even Jonathan Edwards, whose name is best known today for his vivid preaching about the torments of hell, concedes that irreversible extinction would properly be called ‘eternal punishment’” (p. 46).

Anyone familiar with Jonathan Edwards’s views on hell knows that Fudge has made a mistake. I say this for two reasons. First, in his writings Edwards repeatedly affirms traditionalism and condemns annihilationism. Although I demonstrate this on pages 123-24, here I offer further evidence…..⁶Peterson, ‘A Traditionalist Response to Conditionalism’, Kindle loc., 1408-1415.

Peterson goes on to discuss in more detail why Edwards affirmed traditionalism and rejected annihilationism. Along the way, Peterson mistakes Edward’s comment “So this scheme overthrows itself” as a comment on annihilationism.⁷Peterson, ‘A Traditionalist Response to Conditionalism’, Kindle loc., 1430-1435. However, as Glenn Peoples points out, Peterson mistakenly read this as a comment on annihilationism when Edwards clearly had universalism in his sights.⁸The reader can read paragraphs 31 and 32 from Edwards’ work here to check how Peterson erred at this juncture. Fudge had already made it clear that Edwards was a traditionalist who ‘is best known today for his vivid preaching about the torments of hell’. His only point in citing Edwards was to show that even a traditionalist stalwart like Edwards could openly admit that a punishment of extinction fits the biblical language of ‘eternal punishment’. As such, Peterson’s response on this point is completely irrelevant.

When I first read Peterson’s response to Fudge in this book several years ago it appeared to me that he had his interlocutor’s measure. Peterson is so sure that Fudge erred that his certitude affected my perception of the strength of his rebuttal. On closer examination, it became clear to me that Peterson had not, in fact, interacted with Fudge’s main argument. To be sure, he had circled around it, firing arrows at peripheral issues. However, even as Peterson proved to be correct that Fudge had erred on the meaning of κόλασις (kolasis) he had only hit on an ancillary point made in that paragraph. Peterson had missed the main point, and this is why I eventually concluded he lost the debate to Fudge over what Matthew meant by ‘eternal punishment’. He erroneously continued to use the phrase ‘eternal punishment’ as if it could only be understood as meaning ‘everlasting punishing by torment’. This is just a small window into why conditionalists are generally unpersuaded by Peterson’s case against CI. Glenn Peoples has identified other fallacies utilized by Peterson in his interaction with Fudge’s argument.⁹Glenn has links to his original journal article, Peterson’s response to that article, and his rejoinder to Peterson, https://www.rightreason.org/articles/ I strongly encourage the reader to check out Glenn’s interaction with Peterson’s arguments, for he gives more reasons for why Peterson ultimately failed to rebut Fudge’s case for CI. This will show you why the Rethinking Hell team does not think Peterson’s case against CI is persuasive.