Athenagoras was a Christian philosopher from Athens who
lived from about 130 – 190 AD. We have copies of only two of his works, Apology and On the Resurrection of the Dead. He may be the first Christian
author to explicitly and consistently write in favor of the now traditional
view that the unrighteous will live forever and will forever consciously suffer punishment
from God. Athenagoras believed in un-conditional immortality. In other words,
he believed that everyone would live forever, regardless of whether they were
saved by faith in Christ or not. He anchors his arguments for this in
philosophy rather than in biblical exegesis. Ironically, he also
provides some strong evidence in favor of a view he did not hold, namely
annihilationism.
The type of evidence that Athenagoras unintentionally provides for
annihilationism (aka conditional immortality) is linguistic in nature, rather than philosophical.
Athenagoras helps us to answer the question, “What words might an
ancient Greek Christian living near the time of Christ have used to describe
the view that we call annihilationism in English?” In order to answer this
question, we will look at two quotes from Athenagoras. We will then compare the
language in each of these quotes with what the inspired biblical authors wrote.
Quote #1,
from Apology by Athenagoras, Chapter
31
“. . . for God has
not made us as sheep or beasts of burden, a mere by-work, and that we should
perish (apollumi) and be annihilated
(aphanizo).”
In the context of his writing, it is quite clear that
Athenagoras here is arguing against a form of annihilationism where the
complete person ceases to exist. Athenagoras uses three ways to express the
concept of annihilation. In each case, Athenagoras is saying that no person
will experience annihilation. As you will see, inspired biblical authors
directly contradict Athenagoras. The biblical authors use the same three ways to express the fate
of the unrighteous.
1. Athenagoras says people do not perish the same way
that beasts do. The inspired authors of Psalm 49 say that the unrighteous will
perish like beasts:
Man
in his pomp will not remain; he is like the beasts that perish.
(Psalm 49:12, ESV)
Man
in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.
(Psalm 49:20, ESV)
2. One of the Greek words Athenagoras uses to mean what
we mean by annihilation is apollumi.
Athenagoras says that people will not apollumi.
Our Lord (as recorded in the gospels) along with Paul, James, and Peter all use apollumi to refer to the final fate of the unrighteous. There is no
reason to think that they used apollumi with
a different meaning from Athenagoras. In fact, the context in verses like John
3:16, where the alternative to apollumi
is to have eternal life, strongly supports the reasonable conclusion that when
the New Testament authors used this word they were teaching annihilationism.
3. The other Greek word Athenagoras uses to refer to
annihilation is aphanizō. It is actually translated “be
annihilated” in the English translation above. When Paul proclaimed the good
news about salvation in Jesus Christ, people reacted in different ways. Some believed
and joyfully accepted the message. Others scoffed and opposed it. On one occasion,
Paul warned the scoffers what their eventual fate would be:
Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets
should come about: "'Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish (aphanizō); for I am doing a work in
your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to
you.'" (Acts 13:40-41 ESV)
Athenagoras and
Paul were not the only ones who used the Greek word aphanizō to refer to annihilation. The Sadducees believed in a type
of annihilation. Like Paul, Josephus was a Jew who wrote in Greek during the
first century. Josephus described the annihilationist view of the Sadducees this way:
“But the
doctrine of the Sadducees is this: That souls die with (sun + aphanizo) the bodies . . .”
(Josephus, Antiquities, Book 18 Section 16)
It is reasonable to conclude that Paul was warning of annihilationism as the fate of those who reject Christ.
The next quote
from Athenagoras provides even more evidence that the biblical language used
for the fate of the unrighteous refers to annihilation.
Quote #2, from Apology
by Athenagoras, Chapter 36
On the
contrary, it is reasonable to suppose, that those who think they shall have no
account to give of the present life, ill or well spent, and that there is no
resurrection, but calculate on the soul perishing with (sunapollumi) the body, and being
as it were quenched in it, will refrain from no deed of daring; but as for
those who are persuaded that nothing will escape the scrutiny of God, but that
even the body which has ministered to the irrational impulses of the soul, and
to its desires, will be punished along with it, it is not likely that they will
commit even the smallest sin.
Before looking at how this quote from Athenagoras compares to
biblical language, it will help to quickly review a difference between Greek
and English.
In English if we want to say that somebody does something with
someone else, we add the word “with.” In Greek they often add the prefix sun- to the verb. A few examples will clear
this up:
I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the
Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, (Rom. 15:30 ESV)
In English, “strive together with” is three
words, but in Greek they added sun- to
the verb meaning “to strive” and came up with one compound word that means
"strive together with", namely sunagōnizomai.
Here’s a wonderful passage where sun-
is added to two different verbs:
The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit
that we are God's children, and if children, also heirs-- heirs of God and
coheirs with Christ-- if indeed we suffer with (suffer with = sun + paschō) him so that we may also be glorified with
(glorified with =sun + doxazō) him. (Rom. 8:16-17 CSB17)
So when
Athenagoras uses sunapollumi this is just a Greek way of saying “perish
with.” It does not change the meaning of the root apollumi.
Athenagoras was
arguing against those who count on “the soul perishing with (sunapollumi) the body.” In the context
of his writings and his philosophy, this was one of the ways he referred to
what we now call the doctrine of annihilationism. Now compare his words to the
words of our Lord Jesus Christ:
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill
the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy (apollumi)
both soul and body in hell. (Matt. 10:28 ESV)
Jesus taught annihilationism. What Athenagoras argued
would not happen is precisely what our Lord teaches God will do to the unrighteous
in hell.
But what about the argument that Athenagoras was making?
Athenagoras was arguing that if people are annihilated then there is no
motivation to live a good, moral life and avoid evil deals. But Athenagoras was
making some wrong assumptions.
1. In his
argument, Athenagoras was assuming that if annihilationism is true then everyone
would be equally annihilated. But this is not what happens. There is instead
the possibility of living forever in a perfect world full of joy and fellowship
with God and other redeemed people. Only the unrighteous who never accept
Christ are annihilated.
2. Athenagoras assumes that annihilation would occur
immediately and permanently upon death. But the Bible teaches that the unrighteous will be
raised to face a terrifying judgment first. They will have to give an account
of their deeds.
3. Related to the assumption above, Athenagoras assumes
that there will be no additional suffering for the unrighteous prior to final
annihilation. The Bible teaches that God will pay back sinners for their
sin. Biblical annihilation allows for whatever finite amount of conscious
suffering is appropriate prior to or as part of the process of final
annihilation.
Conclusion,
Further Study, and Resources
Because Greek authors like Plato, Plutarch, Josephus, and
Athenagoras wrote clearly and explicitly about annihilationism, we do not have to guess what words
and language in Greek are good choices to describe annihilationism. When we
look at the Bible, we find that the words and language the biblical authors consistently
and repeatedly use to describe the final fate of the unrighteous are precisely
the Greek words and language that are the best choices to refer to
annihilationism.
It is therefore time to discard the error of eternal
torment. It appears likely that this error was first introduced into Christian
theology by men like Athenagoras who were influenced by the philosophy of Plato.
Plato taught that all human souls are intrinsically immortal. If you believe
this and also believe that some people never accept Christ and thus can never
be with Him, it quickly leads to belief in eternal conscious torment. Later,
Christians found a handful of verses which, taken out of the context of the
rest of Scripture, can appear to teach eternal torment. But a careful study of
these supposedly eternal torment texts show that they either are not referring to the
final fate of the wicked at all or else that they actually are teaching conditional
immortality.
Here are some resources for further study on this topic:
1. In a previous blog post I explored the words that Plato
and Plutrach used to refer to annihilationism. You may read that here: Words of Annihilation, Plato and Plutarch, Peter and Paul
2. The best free places I could find to read Athenagoras’s
Apology are:
For English:
For Greek (ignore the Russian translation on the right,
unless you speak Russian!):
3. To read the quote from Josephus above in both English and
Greek, this site is helpful (the Perseus site is a rich resource for ancient
Greek texts and it is fairly easy to use and well organized):
4. To find more blog posts, some videos, and links for
further study about conditional immortality, look here: Mark’s Resources on Hell
5. For an in depth book on this topic (which I used in
preparing this blog post), I highly recommend Edward Fudge’s The Fire that Consumes.
May the Lord open our minds to understand His Word (Luke
24:45).
Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .
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