"I probably lean toward annihilationism, but I'm open to hearing a good argument from either side"

Mark Galli, senior managing editor for Christianity Today, will soon release a book called God Wins and Francis Chan has a new book in the pipeline called Erasing Hell. Both are responses to Rob Bell's dance with universalism called Love Wins. In Galli's CT interview with Chan, they turn to the subject of annihilationism--the view that beyond this life the unrepentant will be punished for a duration and then annihilated.

I share their attraction to--and caution against--the view.

Here's the section from the interview:

Galli: In your book you seem agnostic as to whether hell is a conscious eternal torment or annihilation.

Chan: That was one of the things I was a little surprised by: the language. I would definitely have to say that if I leaned a certain direction I would lean toward the conscious torment that's eternal. But I couldn't say I'm sure of that, because there are some passages that really seem to emphasize a destruction. And then I look in history and find that's not really a strange view. There are some good, godly men—and maybe even the majority—that seem to take the annihilation view. I was surprised because all I was brought up with was conscious torment. And I see that. I see that in Scripture and I would lean more that way but, I'm not ready to say okay I know it's this one. So say here "Here are a couple of views." I don't even remember if I wrote that I lean towards that, but maybe it comes across. I'm still open. And I hope that's because of my study and not because I'd rather have the annihilation view. I don't know what was harder, researching or keeping a check on my heart and making sure there are no weird, ungodly motives in everything I wrote.

Galli: I hadn't thought about it that much, but I probably leaned toward annihilationism and probably still do. But I read Randy Alcorn's book on heaven again and he made such a strong case for eternal conscious punishment I had to revise one chapter to give that view stronger resonance. In the end, I'm with you: I'm agnostic. I probably lean toward annihilationism, but I'm open to hearing a good argument from either side.

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