The entire essay is available here.
Getting Greek
Next, we need to deal with some of the key words used in Scripture to describe hell. This will get a bit more technical, but I encourage you to stick it out. If we believe that God inspired the very words of Scripture, we must be concerned with the specific meanings of those words. Much of the Conditional Immortality framework depends on subtle redefinitions of language.
There are three Greek words that most stubbornly resist Conditional Immortality, and thus must be redefined by Conditional Immortality proponents to make room for their alternate viewpoint. These are: apollymi, asbestos, and aionios. Apollymi is usually translated “destruction.” Asbestos means “unquenchable.” Aionios is the most significant of the three. It is the word translated “eternal” and “everlasting.” It is the standard word for eternity throughout the New Testament. Given that we are talking about the eternality of hell, our understanding of this word is crucial.
But each in its order. Let’s look first at apollymi. This is the word translated “destroy” in Matthew 10:28: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” This is perhaps the central text of the annihilationist framework. If apollymi always meant “cease to exist,” this text would be nearly irrefutable. But the word, as most Greek words, has several nuances of meaning. It can also mean “ruin” or “render useless.”[1] Walter Bauer’s lexicon says of this verse, “While ‘destroy’ is sometimes taken to mean annihilation, it does not necessarily have to imply that here.”[2] Thayer’s lexicon says that in this context, apollymi means “to devote or give over to eternal misery.”[3] Since interpretations other than “destruction” are acceptable, and are in keeping with the aforementioned Scriptures that indicate eternal conscious torment in hell, it seems better to take this in light of the other texts and not the other way around. The destruction spoken of here is a commitment to absolute ruin—eternal misery in hell.
Second, asbestos. Yes, this is the word used to name that familiar substance that was used extensively in building materials in the 20th century. The substance gained the name asbestos in the 1600s when it was used to make “incombustible” fabric – fabric that couldn’t be burned.[4] That’s a bit of a misnomer, though, since the first century meaning of the Greek word was “inextinguishable” (unable to be put out) instead of “incombustible” (unable to be burned). Asbestos is formed from “a-” (not) and “sbestos” (verbal adjective from sbennynai “to quench”).[5] Thus it means “not quenchable.”
Asbestos is used four times in the gospels, all four in reference to hell. Matthew 3:12 and Luke 3:17 both record Jesus using asbestos pyr (unquenchable fire) to describe the judgment of the wicked. Mark 9 uses the phrase twice, both times saying that hell (geenna) is a “fire that shall never be quenched” (pyr ho asbestos). If this means that the fires of hell will never go out, it definitely means hell itself is eternal, and indicates that the sufferings of hell are likely eternal as well.
But Fudge disagrees. He defines asbestos, not as eternally unquenchable, but rather as irresistible. He says the fires of hell “cannot be put out or resisted.”[6] In this sense, he believes the judgment of hell is inescapable for the wicked, not that the fire will continue eternally. But is that what this means?
It is incorrect to define asbestos as “irresistible” rather than “unquenchable.” The sense given in Mark 9:43-45 is the correct understanding: “The fire that shall never be quenched.” “Never be quenched” indicates an eternally enduring flame, not an unstoppable flame. This understanding is further enforced when we notice the companion phrase in Mark 9: “Their worm does not die.” If the worm does not die, then it follows that the fire spoken of will burn eternally. Asbestos is best understood as unending fire, not irresistible fire.
Aionios, as I said, is the most significant of the three words. It occurs 71 times in the New Testament and is usually translated “eternal” and “everlasting” (67 of 71 times).[7] In its most essential definition, it means “time out of mind” or “beyond the boundaries of time.” It is used three ways: of time without end, of time without beginning, or of time without beginning or end. Romans 16:26 describes God as “the everlasting God” (aionios theos). He is the one who always was and always will be. From eternity past He has existed; He will exist until eternity future. Aionios is used with the second meaning in 2 Timothy 1:9 when the Apostle Paul speaks of the “grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus from before time began.” God fixed His salvation plan before He framed the worlds. But aionios is used most frequently with the first meaning (time without end).
It is most often used of “eternal life” and “everlasting life.” It also used of “everlasting judgment,” “everlasting destruction,” “eternal fire,” and “eternal condemnation.” The word is used interchangeably throughout the synoptic gospels. Just the fact that the same word is used to describe the duration of both heaven and hell should lead us to conclude that they are parallel in extent. This is especially apparent in Matthew 25:46. “[The unrighteous] will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Here everlasting punishment (kolasis aionios) is contrasted with eternal life (zoe aionios). Why should we understand the judgment to eventually end while believing that life will continue for all eternity? There’s no good reason to understand them differently, unless we are determined to fit them into an annihilationist framework.
Fudge attempts to skirt the issue by shifting the definition of aionios. Rather than meaning “time out of mind,” he defines it as meaning “that which pertains to the age to come”[8] By defining it this way, he removes any connotation of time-measurement, using the term in a generic “next-life” sense. By this definition, aionios describes the things of the next age (like “heavenly”) rather than describing the duration of those things. He uses it as a characteristic rather than a time-bound measurement. But this does not fit with aionios, since it is a unit, not just a characteristic. Aionios, when used of heaven and hell, means that which continues unendingly. It does not simply mean “future things” but means “eternal, unending, everlasting things.”
He defines aionios also as “that which has unending results.” By this definition phrases like “everlasting destruction” are interpreted as total destruction or destruction from which there is no recovery. The effects of that destruction continue eternally.
But can the language bear that treatment? No. Aionios speaks of that which continues unendingly. “Everlasting destruction” should not be understood as irreversible destruction but rather as ongoing, unending destruction. It does not mean just that the effects are unending but that the punishment itself is meted unendingly.
Conditional Immortality is made plausible by some light-footed redefinitions of key Greek words, but those redefinitions only make sense if we are already committed to an that framework. But even if we take the above re-definitions proposed by Fudge, we run into interpretive issues throughout Scripture, as I’ve already attempted to show.
But I also see a bigger problem with Annihilationism. That is that no Scripture asserts that man ceases to exist in the judgment. No text of Scripture distinguishes for us between the eternal fires of hell and the eternal experience of the sinner. Yes, we can argue on the basis of what “destroy” or “death” mean, but we still don’t have a single text that tells us, “Sinners will be thrown into the eternal fires of hell, wherein their souls will cease to exist.” Hell is a significant idea in Scripture, so it seems that God would be careful to spell out for us exactly what we need to know. I believe He has. What is not spelled out is the central claim of Annihilationism: that sinners are eternally destroyed—annihilated—in hell.
Annihilationism injects ideas into Scripture rather than deducing them from Scripture. The question becomes, “Can I fit this into Scripture?” rather than “What is most clear in Scripture?” If we claim to be biblical Christians, our pursuit of the truth must be defined by the latter question, not the former. We must not fit Scripture into our claims; we submit all of our ideas to the truth of the word of God. Our obligation as believers is not to define the truth. God defines it; we submit to it. Yes, we should engage in developing systems of truth, in defining biblical truth. But ultimately, the Bible determines what is and is not true. In interpreting Scripture, our first obligation is to believe what is clearly taught. Subservient to this is our fitting those truths into a reasonable framework. We accept it before we seek to understand it. When we reject the truth until we understand it, we elevate human reason over the clear teaching of God’s word.
[1] Thayer, Joseph Henry. Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2019. 64.
[2] Bauer, Walter. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature. 3rd edition. Revised and edited by F/W Daker. Translated by W.F. Arndt, F.W. Danker. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2000. As quoted in the NET Bible, Full Notes Edition. Biblical Studies Press, 2019,
[3] Thayer, 64.
[4] “Asbestos”. Etymonline.com. Accessed January 3, 2023. https://www.etymonline.com/word/asbestos.
[5] Ibid.
[6] “Edward Fudge, The Fire that Consumes”
[7] “Aionios”. Blue Letter Bible. Accessed January 3, 2023. https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g166.
[8] “Edward Fudge, The Fire that Consumes”