The doctrine of hell has long occupied a central and often troubling place within Christian theology. For many in the Western tradition, hell has been understood as a state of eternal conscious torment (ECT)—a never-ending experience of pain and separation from God for the unredeemed. Yet in recent decades, an increasing number of evangelical scholars, pastors, and theologians have revisited the biblical and theological foundations of this claim and found it wanting. What has emerged in its place is not a denial of judgment, but a re-articulation of it: conditional immortality, sometimes called annihilationism—the belief that only those united to Christ are granted everlasting life, while the wicked ultimately perish.
This reconsideration is not driven by sentimentality, nor by a desire to soften the hard edges of the gospel. Rather, it arises from a more careful reading of Scripture, a renewed attention to the character of God revealed in Christ, and a philosophical concern for coherence between divine justice, goodness, and ontology.
The Biblical Story: Life, Death, and the Gift of Immortality
When Scripture speaks of the final destiny of humanity, it overwhelmingly frames the issue in terms of life versus death, not life versus eternal torment. This is not merely rhetorical; it reflects the entire narrative arc of the Bible.
From the opening chapters of Genesis, life is depicted as something contingent upon God’s sustaining presence. Humanity is formed from dust and animated by divine breath (Gen. 2:7). The warning in Genesis 2:17—“in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die”—introduces death as the fundamental consequence of rebellion. This same framework carries through the canon.
The New Testament reiterates this contrast with remarkable consistency:
- “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
- “Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
- “God can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” (Matt. 10:28).
The language of perishing, destruction, and death appears not as a metaphor for endless conscious suffering, but as its own category of final judgment. Conditionalists argue that this lexical pattern cannot be dismissed as figurative without collapsing the plain meaning of Scripture’s central categories.
Even in apocalyptic passages often cited in support of ECT, the imagery is consistent with consumption and finality. Revelation 20:14 calls the lake of fire “the second death.” The Old Testament background for such imagery (e.g., Malachi 4:1–3) describes the wicked being burned up like chaff, leaving neither root nor branch. The fire is eternal not because the suffering never ends, but because its effects are irreversible.
Exegetical Tensions in Key Prooftexts
Proponents of ECT frequently appeal to Matthew 25:46—“These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” The parallelism here is significant, yet the key question is what “eternal punishment” entails. Conditionalists argue that the phrase refers to a punishment whose result is eternal, namely the irreversible loss of life. The same adjective (aiōnios) modifies both “life” and “punishment,” but the nouns themselves differ in kind. Eternal life is ongoing existence; eternal punishment is a completed act with everlasting consequences.
Similarly, Revelation 14:11 speaks of the “smoke of their torment” rising forever. Yet this language echoes Isaiah 34:10, where the destruction of Edom is described in identical terms, even though Edom is not literally still burning today. The imagery communicates permanent devastation, not unending conscious experience.
Thus, when the full canonical context is considered, the cumulative weight of Scripture appears to favor a reading in which the final fate of the wicked is destruction, death, and exclusion from life, rather than perpetual conscious torment.
Likewise, in passages such as Matthew 25, conditional immortality frames the final judgment as a genuine contrast between life and death, while in ECT the contrast ultimately becomes one of location or experience—since both the righteous and the wicked are granted an everlasting conscious existence, differing only in where and how that existence is lived.
Anthropology and Ontology: Is the Soul Immortal by Nature?
At the heart of the debate lies a deeper ontological question: What is a human being? The doctrine of ECT typically assumes that the soul is inherently immortal and therefore must exist forever in either bliss or torment. This assumption, however, owes more to Platonic philosophy than to Hebrew anthropology.
Biblically, immortality is not an intrinsic human possession but a gift bestowed through union with Christ (1 Cor. 15:53–54; 2 Tim. 1:10). Humans are mortal creatures sustained by God’s life-giving presence. To be cut off from that presence is not to exist forever in torment, but to cease from life.
From an ontological perspective, conditional immortality better preserves the Creator-creature distinction. Only God “alone has immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16). Eternal life, therefore, is participation in God’s own life, not an automatic property of the human soul.
Christology and the Logic of the Atonement
The doctrine of hell must also be examined in light of the cross. The New Testament repeatedly states that Christ died for our sins (Rom. 5:8; 1 Cor. 15:3). If the penalty for sin is eternal conscious torment, then Christ did not bear that penalty, since he did not suffer eternally. But if the penalty is death—the loss of life—then the atonement is perfectly coherent: Christ entered into death, defeated it, and rose again to grant life to those united with him.
This Christological lens reveals the deep unity of the biblical message:
the gospel is fundamentally about deliverance from death and the gift of life, not escape from endless torture.
Divine Justice, Goodness, and Proportionality
Beyond exegesis and ontology lies the philosophical question of justice. Eternal conscious torment entails an infinite punishment for finite sins committed within a temporal life. This raises serious concerns about proportionality and the moral coherence of divine judgment.
Conditional immortality offers a resolution that preserves both justice and goodness. The final penalty for sin is severe—the loss of life itself—yet it is not disproportionate or morally unintelligible. It aligns with the biblical principle that “the soul who sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:20).
Moreover, the revelation of God in Jesus Christ presents a God who is self-giving love, who desires that none should perish (2 Pet. 3:9), and whose judgments are true and just. A doctrine of eternal torture sits uneasily within this framework, whereas conditionalism maintains both the seriousness of judgment and the goodness of God.
Pastoral and Theological Implications
In pastoral theology, our doctrine of hell inevitably shapes our proclamation of the gospel and our understanding of God’s character. Many pastors and scholars have found that conditional immortality restores clarity to the gospel message:
- Eternal life is truly a gift, not something all people possess by default.
- Judgment is real, sober, and final, but not morally incoherent.
- God’s ultimate purpose is the restoration of creation, not the perpetual preservation of evil in a chamber of eternal torment.
This does not diminish the urgency of repentance; if anything, it intensifies it. The warning is stark: apart from Christ, one forfeits the very gift of life.
It is also pastorally worth noting that within an Eternal Conscious Torment framework, sin is never truly eradicated from God’s creation but merely quarantined—confined eternally rather than finally defeated—whereas conditional immortality presents judgment as the ultimate abolition of sin itself, not its perpetual containment.
Conclusion: The Gospel as the Gift of Life
When the biblical witness, theological tradition, and philosophical reflection are brought into conversation, the case for conditional immortality emerges as both compelling and faithful. It preserves the seriousness of divine judgment, the integrity of biblical language, the coherence of Christ’s atoning work, and the goodness of God’s character.
In the end, the question of hell is inseparable from the question of the gospel itself. The good news is not merely that we are spared from suffering, but that we are invited into eternal life—the very life of God. To reject that gift is not to endure forever in torment, but to face the tragic and final consequence Scripture names with sobering clarity: death.
Written by Dr. Will Ryan and Dr. Matt Mouzakis for Expedition44
Discussion Questions
- How does the biblical theme of life versus death shape our interpretation of final judgment passages?
- In what ways might Greek philosophical assumptions about the soul have influenced traditional doctrines of hell?
- How does conditional immortality affect our understanding of Christ’s atoning death and resurrection?
- Can eternal conscious torment be reconciled with the biblical portrayal of God as just and loving?
- What pastoral implications arise from teaching hell as final destruction rather than endless torment?
Select Bibliography
Bradley, Jayson D. Rethinking Hell: A Beginner’s Guide to Conditionalism and Annihilationism.
Fudge, Edward. The Fire That Consumes. Cascade, 2011.
Peoples, Glenn. “The Case for Conditional Immortality.” Theology in the Raw.
Stott, John, and David Edwards. Evangelical Essentials. IVP, 1988.
Wenham, John. The Goodness of God. IVP, 1974.
Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope. HarperOne, 2008.
EXPEDITION 44 