I laughed to keep from crying as I read Al Mohler’s response to Kirk Cameron’s recent podcast in which he discussed the doctrine of hell.
Annhilationism is the notion that hell is not a place of eternal conscious torment for the wicked but is, instead, eternal non-existence. My reading of Mohler’s article in World magazine eventually evolved from laughter to the solemnity of the tragedy of spiritual stumbling blocks.`
Brad Bull
What do I mean by spiritual stumbling blocks? Mohler has been president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (my alma mater) since 1993. In his influential position, he has thrived not on steering American evangelicalism and politics into a more mature future but regressing them into a maudlin adolescence. For each person who praises Mohler for guarding “traditional” doctrines, many more are turned off to faith because they see it dripping not with grace but with sadistic dogmatism.
To them, I want to offer an alternative perspective. I also want to use Mohler’s typical and flawed style of argumentation to illustrate debate methods we must avoid using and being deceived by.
Around 1999, Mohler published an op-ed saying as splinter Baptist groups got numerically smaller, their letterheads got bigger. I wrote Mohler and said he was far too intelligent to commit the bandwagon fallacy — an argument that truth is found in the majority. I pointed out that in Scripture, it often is the “remnant” who are found to be faithful.
“Mohler never has met a logical fallacy he doesn’t like to use.”
In a distortion of Will Rogers, Mohler never has met a logical fallacy he doesn’t like to use. Most of us at least accidentally use logical fallacies. Mohler does it with particular recklessness, as he does in his response to Cameron. Let’s break them down.
Ad hominem / character attack: If a bank robber claims, “Two plus two equals four,” that’s true even if a seminary president says, “What does he know? He’s a bank robber.” Obviously, the doctrine of hell is less straightforward than the sum of two plus two.
Still, Mohler said, “Cameron is not a theologian or New Testament scholar, but he has been a prominent evangelical celebrity, based in his winsome personality and Hollywood experience, most famously as a teen actor in the series Growing Pains.” Wow. All these years when Cameron said things Mohler agreed with, Mohler never had a problem with Cameron being just an actor and not a biblical scholar. His attempt to discredit Cameron’s thoughts this way is cheap and ignores the number of biblical scholars who have influenced Cameron’s thinking.
During college, I first encountered a positive endorsement of annihilationism when I read a book by a famous preacher. I’m not claiming annihilationism is correct just because Billy Graham suggested it as a possibly legitimate interpretation of the Bible; I’m asserting that Mohler rhetorically cheats by manipulatively discounting annihilationism just because Cameron is an actor.
Amphiboly. A World War II poster infamously said, “Save gas and waste paper.” In this case, ambiguity is created by the syntax error of “wastepaper” being divided by a space. The message’s intent was not to waste paper. Meaning can also be lost in translation.
To defend the “traditional” belief in eternal conscious torment, Mohler uses Matthew 25:46: “And these will go away unto eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” However, the word “punishment” is ambiguous. It doesn’t define what the punishment is. Those arguing for annihilationism point out that 2 Thessalonians 1:9 says those who willfully reject God will be punished not with eternal suffering but with eternal “destruction.” Something destroyed ceases to exist.
Pot-Calling-the-Kettle-a-Pot fallacy. I just made up that label for how Mohler utilizes the mind projection fallacy. In the psychological form, this involves us hanging our own qualities on others.
Mohler calls Cameron arrogant for “trying to correct what has for so long been the faith upheld by the faithful.” It is the epitome of arrogance for Mohler to infer, “My interpretation of the word ‘punishment’ defines what Christian faith is.”
“It is the epitome of arrogance for Mohler to infer, ‘My interpretation of the word “punishment” defines what Christian faith is.’”
Bandwagon fallacy. We’ve come full circle back to that fallacy Mohler used back in the 1990s. Now he uses the fallacy to say Cameron is wrong because Cameron’s interpretation of Scripture is different than what most believe.
It was this very reasoning that led the Catholic Church to threaten Galileo with torture for teaching that the sun and not the earth is the center of the solar system. That doesn’t prove Mohler’s belief about hell is wrong; it just compares his method of argumentation to those history has shown to be manipulative and abusive.
Appeal to authority? I appreciate Mohler’s fellow conservatives who are calling out his fallacies. My favorite response came from conservative apologist Wes Huff who said on X: “To condemn conditionalism/annihilationism as heresy is to say that John Stott, Edward Fudge, F.F. Bruce, potentially even Athanasius of Alexandria, are all heretics. This is, with all due respect, ridiculous. While the position might be unorthodox it is not heresy.”
Some might say, at first blush, Huff’s argument represents the logical fallacy of appeal to authority. However, Huff isn’t saying these theological luminaries are correct because they are authorities. Earlier in his post he said he disagrees with the doctrine of annihilationism. He is subtly alluding to the notion that Scripture says we know true “prophets” by their fruit. These folks’ good fruit gives evidence not of heresy but of their fidelity to Christ, even if they, like all people, turn out to be imperfect in their beliefs.
Why does all this matter?
“Don’t growing pains imply, well, growth?”
There’s a thought-provoking sentiment of unknown origin that says, “If the you of five years ago doesn’t consider the you of today a heretic, you’re not growing spiritually.” What do we call something that is not growing and changing? Dead. Mohler has spent his career leading people to limit their faith to the illusion of safety in static dogma rather than experience the joy and liberation of a dynamic relationship with God.
Referring to Cameron having starred in the TV sitcom Growing Pains, Mohler derisively impugns Cameron’s expressed thoughts as “doctrinal growing pains.” It’s an interestingly flawed spin. Don’t growing pains imply, well, growth? Cameron is at least grappling with a tough issue, while the seminary president Mohler is still stuck in the Arrested Development of logical fallacies that have been the hallmark of his debate style since the 1990s.
Mohler says there is a “deadly danger of remodeling hell.” I will give him the benefit of the doubt that his set-in-stone interpretation of a complicated doctrine leads him to fear for the eternal well-being of people’s souls. However, his dogma gives little hope to the hell-on-earth in which many find themselves in the here and now.
While his opinion on hell is not completely without some biblical basis, the manner in which he insists on the correctness of his opinion creates a stumbling block for many observers. While the doctrine of hell has multiple interpretations, the Bible is much more clear on Jesus’ warning about not being a stumbling block.
If you’re one of those who despises faith because of dogma like that of Mohler the professional scholar, please remember you can enjoy driving your car even if a professional trucker is driving his own cement mixer like a reckless teenager. Just give such drivers a wide berth or maybe take a different road. But please consider taking Jesus as your GPS.
Brad Bull was senior class president of the December 1992 graduating class of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has served as a factory worker, UPS delivery helper, hospital chaplain, pastor, university professor, and therapist.
Related articles:
Heads spin as Kirk Cameron gives up eternal conscious torment | Analysis by Rick Pidcock
Heaven-or-hell theology may be simple, but it is neither biblical nor morally defensible. What’s the alternative? | Opinion by Alan Bean
Evangelical certainty and the God gap | Opinion by Alan Bean