William Lane Craig's Views On Death And Punishment

William Lane Craig also agrees with this concept as it is impossible for anyone to commit an infinite number of sins in this earthly life. However, “in the afterlife one could commit at least potentially infinitely many sins, if one just keeps on sinning forever.” Craig continues to explain that the wicked will never repent in hell, for as they are being punished by God, “they grow more implacable in their hatred and rejection of God.” He also explains that: Sin cannot go unpunished, since God is perfectly just, and so these sins in the afterlife must also be punished. Hence, because sinning goes on forever, so does the punishment. So even if we concede that every sin deserves only a finite punishment, hell is unceasingly self-perpetuating.

In the Epistle of Methetes to Diognetus (130 AD), the author speaks of “real death” which was to be reserved for those “condemned to eternal fire.” The writer of the Epistle of Barnabas (80-120 AD) mentions “eternal death” and then links it with “punishment.” Another early document, The Pastor of Hermas (100-160 AD), speaks of sinners being “consumed” and “burnt as wood.” Ignatius (d. 110) keeps a similar language and speaks of false teachers going “into hell” and experiencing “unquenchable fire.” Polycarp (d. 155), in one of his letters, speaks of “eternal fire which is never quenched.” Justin Martyr (d. 165) repeatedly spoke of “everlasting punishment” and thought that this punishment consisted of being scorched with “fire.” Irenaeus (d. 200) also mentioned “eternal fire” and spoke of the damned getting casted “into the lake of fire.” Tertullian (d. 230), defending the immortality of the soul against heresies, contended that the Bible’s language of “destruction” had to be understood as a literal punishment in “hell.” Evidently, during the first three centuries of Christianity the language undoubtedly supports the doctrine of conscious, everlasting punishment. This is also true in the following