Latest / Brandon Fogal Evolution / #207 - Kirk Cameron on Hell: Eternal Torment or Annihilation?

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#207 - Kirk Cameron on Hell: Eternal Torment or Annihilation? · Brandon Fogal Evolution

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  So Kirk Cameron has weighed in on the debate versus annihilationism versus eternal
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  conscious torment in hell.
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  And I just felt like I needed to kind of address this.
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  I know a lot of people have talked about this because I was caught off guard,
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  but it's becoming more mainstream that people are thinking that how could God
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  send people to hell for eternity for something that they have done in a small, finite life?
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  So I wanted to just, we're going to look at a couple of different clips of Kirk
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  Cameron and him bringing this up.
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  Here we go. This is the first one. He did a podcast.
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  He has a podcast and he talks about this. And I don't know if he's fully settled,
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  but he is leaning more and more towards this idea.
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  We can't have cruel and unusual punishments for people. But an eternal conscious
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  torment, that would by definition, in human terms, be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
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  Yeah. Right? Does God not have a merciful and compassionate way to mete out his justice?
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  Yeah, and I think that something just important for us to think about and understand
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  is God, throughout all of the scriptures, so many times he does enact judgment.
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  But he also shows mercy. God is not some megalomaniacal person in the sky who all he wants.
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  So it might seem a little bit jumbled because I'm kind of bouncing around.
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  And I got to actually keep this pretty short and sweet.
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  I'm not going to get into it too in depth, but I just wanted to give my immediate
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  thoughts and my immediate reactions when I saw this.
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  And the next clip is going to be about it as well, that he's going to just bring
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  up just this idea that he has to take into account the mercy of God.
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  And I think kind of just what I feel about this, it's you're putting yourself
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  in God's place and thinking that you're more merciful than he is.
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  Because to think, how could God do that? We don't know. We know a small fraction of anything in life.
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  How can, we know very little, very little about anything really.
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  But I think if we're gonna take what the scripture says seriously,
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  it's like we either gotta take it seriously or don't take it seriously.
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  And the way that it has is laid out pretty clearly is that if someone dies and
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  they do not trust in Christ, are they, or, you know, their sins aren't forgiven,
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  they haven't given their life to the Lord or surrendered.
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  I mean, there's the whole thing before Christ came, after Christ came,
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  and then everybody that's never heard of the name of Jesus, what all happens with that?
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  Setting all that aside, but just, I'm just thinking about like people that are,
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  there's, you could put two different classes. you're forgiven or you're not.
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  And if you're going to say that people that aren't forgiven, they...
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  They go to a place and then they become annihilated because I honestly.
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  I would actually want that to be the case. I would want that to be the case.
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  And that would give me a more peace of mind in this life if that were the case.
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  But I want to also be faithful to what the Bible says.
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  And right now, I think he is leaning more towards his compassion,
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  what he thinks God should be compassionate about and inserting himself.
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  But I want to hear more in his own words of how
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  he's come to this and just he's kind of arguing against
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  this whole idea this whole thought they're almost making god tyrannical
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  and evil for for doing this if this is the case that people go to eternal conscious
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  torment in hell and growing right so I'm open it's a new light if you guys have
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  a position that you can share with me I will gladly change my mind I used to
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  hold the position of conscious eternal torment because that's just what I was
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  taught by people that I love and trust.
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  I've learned that there are other positions and a very robust argument can be
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  made for conditionalism or annihilationism as Edward Fudge posits here.
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  And it fits the character of God in my understanding more than the conscious
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  eternal torment position because it brings in the mercy of God together with
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  the justice of God. It doesn't leave judgment out.
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  It is just, but it also fits with the Old Testament picture of the fate of the
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  wicked, which is to be destroyed.
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  It is to die and it is to perish, not live forever in an eternal barbecue.
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  And the classic verses that used to get me into eternal torment,
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  you know, the punishment, everlasting punishment, everlasting destruction fits
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  beautifully with a destruction, punishment, judgment that is irreversible and lasts forever.
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  That is the eternalness of that punishment and that destruction.
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  So that's where I am today.
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  How about you, James? What do you think? I agree. I think just like,
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  so that's, to me, that's very, very interesting that he has said that because
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  I mean, I think any Christian can go down these lines.
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  And I think even I've heard George Janko saying, and I might be wrong,
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  but I think I've heard him saying that he stands on this position as well,
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  that it is just, it's this annihilationism that people don't live forever if they go to hell.
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  The one verse I would reference is it's a Matthew 25, the very last,
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  like two verses of it in Matthew 25, 45 and 46.
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  It says, talking about Jesus, when he returns, he says, then he will answer
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  them saying, truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to the one of the least
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  of these, you did not do it to me.
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  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal
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  life. Same word for eternal.
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  I know we have to be very nuanced, but I just know that Jesus, he.
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  He talked more about hell and warning people about, so they didn't go there
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  than even heaven itself.
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  So I think we're just, we're watering down the message if we go by saying something
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  that might be more acceptable to people.
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  And I think people that don't, that want nothing to do with God,
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  want nothing to do with Christ, there's nothing you're going to do to make God
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  more appetizing or what is it? Palatable? I don't know.
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  More acceptable to them. You're not going to convince them one way or the other.
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  So I think it's smarter and more wise and more faithful to stand on what the
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  Bible declares and what it shows, even though it doesn't really fit.
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  I mean, if you really get down to it, there's so many things in the Bible that
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  do not fit our natural mind. We're not going to be like, yeah, I get that.
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  I so get why God commanded the Israelites to go in there and just wipe out certain
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  people in the Old Testament. I fully understand that.
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  I get that. I don't think anybody in their right mind gets that and understands that fully.
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  And it's tough, but it's like, it's what it shows. And we have to like.
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  If you go to the very center of the Bible, that is what, that is the very center
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  verse in the entire Bible is trust in God with all your heart and lean not on
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  your own understanding.
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  That is, that's what Job went through.
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  He had, he got just something outside of him that came into his life and just
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  like irreversibly altered his life.
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  His whole family, pretty much besides his wife was killed and removed.
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  And it was, he did not understand it, but he had to trust him.
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  And I think that we're not given a way of just escapism, but we're put through
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  things so that God can strengthen our faith.
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  And this was eternal conscious torment in hell.
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  I think that is being faithful to what the scripture says. If we take it and
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  we don't try to make it more appealing to our fallen human desires,
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  because we're really watering down the message to be saying,
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  sin is not that big of a deal.
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  It's not that bad. it's when it when
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  actuality it is the it's the most heinous
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  evil darkest thing imaginable it's
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  so bad it's terrible that's why the son
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  of god had the perfect human being had to go to
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  the cross and die for our sins that's why he had
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  to do it it's not because it's not that bad and it's
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  like if if you if you slap someone in their face you
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  know uh someone that maybe like is just a regular person it's it's
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  it's it's mean that's terrible to do but if
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  you like the the higher a person like if you go to a judge in
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  a courtroom and slap them you're probably going to get a more strict penalty
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  you know or the president or a king or whatever but to like this is a finite
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  creature sinning against an infinite god the the way that i can understand it
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  is that it the the only thing that satisfies it is eternal punishment attachment.
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  And that's why an eternal being had to come and pay for the wrongs done.
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  That's the way where I'm at. I think that Kirk Cameron, I think he's just,
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  I don't think he's just trying to gain people's approval.
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  I think he's seriously struggling in his heart about this.
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  But I think until we see the light completely and we understand everything,
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  I think the smartest thing to do, the wisest thing to do is to be faithful to
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  what the Bible describes and what it tells us.
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  And if you are faithful to that, it, it isn't annihilationism,
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  you know, I think that's just what we would like it to be.
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  Cause that's honestly, that's what I would like it to be, but I don't think
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  that's what it is. All right. We'll leave it at that.
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  Have a great day. See everyone.