Debunking a Bad Argument for ECT

ECT (being the "Eternal Conscious Torment" view of Hell)

I am currently writing a book on the topic of Conditional Immortality. Ever since the 5th Century the view that Hell is everlasting or ever continuing torment has been the majority view. It comes as a surprise to many that the early church had more of a mixed set of views on the topic of Hell, it’s nature and duration.

In case you have never yet heard of “Conditionalism” or “Conditional Immortality”, the definition is basically that humans are not inherently immortal. Immortality is a gift, given only to those who believe in Christ for salvation. All humans will be raised — on the last day — to appear before the judgment of God. Those who trusted Christ will inherit eternal life, the remainder will be cast into Hell, where they will be destroyed.

The process of destruction may well be very different, dependent on the sins committed, but destruction is real, i.e. sinners will not have a “bad form of eternal life” in Hell, even if this is called “eternal death”. If I have whet your appetite for my book, then good. If I have caused you concern over your own views, I don’t want to apologise, but rather encourage you to search the scriptures for yourself on this topic.

Many well known and reputable Evangelicals throughout church history have held the Conditionalist position.

The main focus of my book is a thorough review of both the Old and New Testament passages on death, hell and the afterlife. Part of that review entails working through the views of the major authors on the topic today & providing alternative readings and review where I think this can help the sincere student.

I have been surprised at the number of philosophical arguments used by the proponents of Eternal Conscious Torment, or ECT in short. My aim in this short post is not to convince you one way or another, on the subject overall, but rather to demonstrate what I think is poor logic and advocate against the use of poor logical / philosophical arguments.

Poor arguments often backfire. Whilst they don’t prove your opponent is right, they certainly don’t help your case. Here is now this poor argument goes. You have likely come across this one before.

I hope to make you think.

Debunking a bad argument used to prove Eternal Conscious Torment:

A frequent argument used in favour of Eternal Conscious Torment in Hell, is that sinners will go on sinning once in hell.

All sin deserves to be punished. Since these sins — committed in Hell — also need to be punished, they therefore demand further punishment leading to an eternal state in hell.

My contention:

This argument is actually proving the Eternal Conscious Torment position is false. How so, I hear you ask? Well, hidden in the argument is an argument in favour of the Conditional Immortality position.

What?

The bible never says man is sent to hell for sins he commits in hell, we are judged at the final judgment (once for all) for the sins we committed in this life and then sent to hell.

(For the purpose of this short post, I shall leave the nature of the punishment in Hell open, I am just dealing with the question of duration)

In all my research I have never seen anyone on the Eternal Conscious Torment side, claim, the Bible says a sinner is sent to hell for sins he will commit in hell, i.e. claiming the Bible actually says so.

Nonetheless, many still reach to this argument, as if it helped their case!

Let’s formulate the argument as a formal syllogism. (including the premise raised in favour of hell earlier.

• P1: The punishment for sin in this life is to be judged, and then sent to hell in the next life.

• P2: The sinner goes on sinning in hell, hence accumulates more guilt requiring further punishment, thereby causing him to be in an endless loop of punishment

• C: THEREFORE: The Eternal Conscious Torment view of hell is true

If both of the premises P1 and P2 were true, then the conclusion would naturally appear to follow from the premises. Case closed. Not so quick, maybe P1 and or P2 are not true, after all?

An astute observer will already notice a contradiction between P1 and P2. If P1 is true then P2 cannot be true, or to say it the other way around of P2 is true P1 is not, or to be precise then P1 is not the whole story — at the very least!

To elaborate, or be more specific, we could say if P2 is true, then in order to necessitate the ongoing never ending loop of punishment in hell, hell as the punishment for sin, cannot be just a punishment for sins committed in this life, but must also be the punishment for all the ongoing sins committed in the next life, namely in hell.

Importantly, if therefore P2 is false then that naturally leads to the conclusion that the Eternal Conscious Torment view, is also false namely that the just punishment for a finite number of sins here on earth is logically also a finite amount of punishment in hell.

Therefore, logically hell must have an end, even if that end is different for each person, given that each person has committed a differing amount and degree of offenses.

In summary:

The proponent of Eternal Conscious Torment view, must prove that the punishment allotted to the sinner in the Bible is for sins he will commit not just in this life but also in the next, else the Eternal Conscious Torment view is false, well rather this argument in favour of the ECT view is false — at the very least.

Unless Eternal Conscious Torment can be proven from scripture, the logical conclusion from this argument is that Conditionalist position is true.

Being an ardent follower of Martin Luther, I am reminded of his famous words, before Cardinal Cajetan:

“Unless I am shown from scripture or logic & reason that I am wrong, I will not, I cannot recant.”

Proviso: I am not claiming that this short post proves Eternal Conscious Torment to be wrong. That needs to be determined from all the Bible passages from both the Old and New Testaments, i.e. a consistent and detailed exegesis is required.

What I have proven, I believe, is that the notion that “sinners will sin in hell” does not prove Eternal Conscious Torment is true or a necessary conclusion, rather this argument actually proves the contrary.

Have I got you thinking yet, I certainly hope to have..