Position · 426

Eternal Conscious Torment

The view that those who die separated from God remain conscious and suffer punishment forever.

Holders point to Jesus’ words about “eternal punishment” alongside “eternal life”, and to the images of unquenchable fire in the Gospels and Revelation. Augustine defended it at length in The City of God (completed c. 426), and it became the standard teaching of the Western church. It is affirmed in Catholic teaching and in Reformation confessions such as the Westminster Confession. It became openly contested among evangelicals in the late twentieth century, when John Stott and others argued for Annihilationism. Critics object that endless punishment for finite sins is hard to reconcile with God’s justice and love.