The late exponent, or main character to re-ignite the “fire” of Conditionalism, Edward Fudge quoted Southern Seminary President Al Mohler as asking, “How did a doctrine so centrally enshrined in the system of theology suffer such a wholesale abandonment?”1
Of course, Mohler was talking about the traditional view of the demise of the unsaved or wicked, which is to suffer in torment, in hell, throughout eternity.
How is it possible that so many so-called “Christians” could just up and abandon the clear biblical teaching on the subject and then embrace what amounts to a heresy (Conditional Immortality) that has been regurgitated and refuted multiple times down through Christian church history?
Fudge again quotes Mohler as stating that it is because of “theological compromise.”
Perhaps to a certain extent that is true.
But, acting like many Jehovah’s Witnesses that I have dealt with throughout the years, Fudge slights Mohler and goes into Q&A mode minus any immediate answers, none of the questions I personally found persuasive.
Fudge, who was an attorney, cunningly asked, “What if they are mistaken…?” and “What if the biblical foundations…are less secure?,” or “What about a growing doubt” about God keeping the wicked alive just to torment them? are the real reasons?
What if they’re none of the above? What if Fudge’s presuppositions about hell and eternal torment are predicated upon a tragic event in his early childhood, and because he could never really trust God, his whole worldview was skewed from the get-go?
Joseph Smith (Mormonism), Charles Taze Russell (International Bible Students), Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science), and Ellen G. White (Seventh Day Adventism) come to mind, who had similar traumatic events occur in their lives that completely distorted their conceptions of not only reality, but of the Bible, God, Jesus, sin, salvation, et cetera.
To answer Mohler’s question, let me interject that when a vast majority of Protestant or Evangelical pastors do NOT have a biblical worldview, and their congregations hover around the 10% level of having a biblical worldview themselves, then both are going to be wide open to suck up just about anything the devil has to offer, whether it be Conditional Immortality or handing over millions of dollars Word-Faith quacks on the television to preach their health and wealth gospels.
When the apostle Paul admonished the Church at Ephesus to take up the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph 6:17), he was not making a party suggestion, just so those and future Christians would have something to do, once the punch and cookies ran out after a night of reveling at Trunk-or-Treat.
He was telling them that in order to combat the heresy (i.e. “schemes of the devil,” see vs. 11) a Christian must be be able to defend himself or know what he/she believes doctrinally, including what happens to the deceased who leave this world unregenerate.
That takes effort, commitment, and dedication to not only God, but the truth; effort, commitment, and dedication that continues to wane amid a climate of ecclesiastical apostasy, while the apostates think they are doing God a service, even if that means getting mean and nasty when confronted with their sloppiness.
Such is what I expect from those who have been sucked into believing that the damned are not immortal, much less will suffer throughout eternity for their sins against a holy God.
More to come.
- Fudge, Edward William. The Fire That Consumes (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011), pp. 2-3) [↩]
