In lieu of writing that full fledged paper I’ve been saying I might write here is TF Torrance’s theo-logic contra Annihilationism. As we read Torrance what also is touched upon are God’s wrath, hell, theological anthropology, sin, and a few other superstructural doctrines. I have been alerted to the need to write contrariwise annihilationism primarily because of the movement of annihilationists among evangelicals that have come to collaborate at the ReThinking Hell think-tank. If Torrance’s theo-logic is ascribed to what the annihilationist or so called evangelical conditionalist bases their teaching on crumbles. In other words, if human being is inimically tied to Jesus’s vicarious human being for all of humanity; if Jesus is the image of God whence human beings are created (e.g. as ‘images of the Image’ cf. Col. 1.15; 3.10); then it is not possible for human being to be ‘annihilated’, since its reality is grounded in the indestructible life of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ.

Torrance writes at length:

The law as the primary sign of God’s grace and mercy — judgement within relation to God

That was the reason why the Jews regarded the law itself, with all its judgement, as the primary sign of God’s grace and mercy — they were the commandments and ordinances that presupposed the covenant of grace. But although wrath speaks also of God’s reclaiming of the perverted creature for himself, it speaks nonetheless of utter judgement, of damnation. God’s wrath says that man belongs to God body and soul; that is why even if the sinner in his or her ultimate reaction should deny God’s claim upon them, God’s judgement cannot be equated with annihilation, but only with utter and final judgement within existential relation to God.

That must be clearly understood as we look at sin in the light of the cross and look at the cross in the light of what it reveals of the terrible guilt and sin that is judged there in Jesus’ atoning sacrifice. The cross makes good God’s claim upon humanity and reveals the depth of sin within its relation to its creator. Sin in itself is not simply an act done by  man — it is sin against God. That is why the psalmist, in voicing confession, has to say, ‘Against thee, thee only have I sinned.’ The fact that sin against God means that sin takes its form and nature from being against God. It is not simply because it is against love or goodness or even against man, but because it is ultimately against God himself. As such sin is ‘cursed’ by God — it comes under his total ban.

(ii) The curse of God — banishment into outer darkness

But let us be clear about what the curse of God means. When the Bible speaks of curse, it means that the cursed is no longer within but without, outside the covenant of God. Without the covenant relation with God man is condemned to exist as one who does not belong to it, but is an outsider. Curse means the reprobation of the elect, the casting away of those whom God has made and loves; it means separation from the face of God, banishment from creation into outer darkness. That is what Paul calls the act of God in giving mankind up to their own uncleanness and to their own reprobate mind, to their own self-destruction. Cursing does not mean annihilation, the sending of the cursed into nothingness, into the nihil out of which man and woman were created, but a banishment to their own denial of their being in God, that is, into the very darkness upon which God has for ever turned his back in creation on the cross.

That is the import of the Old Testament sheol, existence in darkness behind God’s back, the darkness from which he has turned away in creation when he divided the light from the darkness. Sheol is existence in man’s self-chosen perversity and blindness. That curse lies upon all sinners as their destiny in their sin and it already casts its shadow over them. In the Old Testament sheol is, however, a sort of suspended darkness, a suspended existence behind the back of God, waiting for his final acts of judgement and or deliverance, although the final act will mean justification for those who cast themselves on his judgement, and utter banishment for those who choose to remain in their alienation. But the Old Testament saints were all aware that the curse is the ultimate and final judgement, and that preferable to that is to fall into the hands of the living God in his wrath and judgement.[1]

The theo-logic, the funding theoanthropology in Torrance’s thought should be apparent. But beyond that what we also see is that for Torrance God’s wrath is real, and requires a response. God’s wrath, though, for Torrance, has to do with God’s ever present love for his creatures; a wrath that is come to precisely because those he has pledged his love for in Christ have alienated themselves from the very reality, the very being for which God had originally created them for; for a life in joyful participation within God’s own self-given Triune life of love. This is the source of God’s wrath; he hates sin, it makes him angry precisely because such alienation from him destroys the bases from whence human creatures, and the creation in general, can flourish coram Deo. It is because of this love, this purpose which God created with, in, for, and from Christ, that God’s wrath has been kindled. It is because of this love that God had always already pledged his life and being for us (pro nobis) that it is not possible for human life to be snuffed out or annihilated; this would require that God’s life in the Son, God’s humanity be snuffed out, because his life, in Christ, is what humanity has always already been yesterday, today, and forever. In other words, God’s life in Christ necessarily rules out the possibility of human being, Christ’s for us, and any human after Christ (which is all of humanity) to be relegated to the oblivion of nothingness precisely because what it means to be human is always already generated from the humanity of God in Jesus Christ. Annihilate his humanity, and then the rest of humanity has the potential to be annihilated; but given the character and quality of what it means to be human (i.e. think Jesus), there is no such potency latent in human being that would ever allow for its being unspoken into non-existence. QED.

[1] Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 250-51.