Orientation

Case Map

The case for conditional immortality (CI) is cumulative. Six principal claims are argued separately and then taken together. This page shows which pages supply the evidence for which claim.

The diagram and the list below it carry the same information. The diagram is shown on wider screens; everywhere else, and for anyone using a screen reader or reading the printed page, the list is the map and loses nothing.

Rounded boxes group sections. Square boxes hold claims. The six-sided box holds the conclusion the claims are offered in support of. Shape and wording carry the distinction, so nothing depends on colour.

The same map as a list

Every node in the diagram appears below, and every section is a link to its page. The claims come first with the pages that argue them, then the groups with everything they contain.

The six principal claims and the pages behind them

Immortality is given by God, not automatically possessed by every human being.Scripture attributes immortality to God and describes it as something brought to light and given through Christ. Human life is presented throughout as dependent and perishable rather than inherently unending.Drawn from: Human mortality
The final wage of sin is death.From Eden to Romans, the stated penalty for sin is death. Because believers and unbelievers alike die physically, the death in view is the second death rather than the first.Drawn from: The penalty of sin
Scripture repeatedly describes the fate of the wicked as destruction, perishing, consumption, and extinction.This vocabulary is not occasional. It runs through the Psalms, the Prophets, the Gospels and the Epistles, and it is the ordinary language of the Bible on the subject.Drawn from: Destruction language
“Eternal punishment” can describe a permanent and irreversible result rather than an eternally continuing act of punishing.Eternal redemption, eternal judgment and eternal salvation all name something accomplished once whose effect stands for ever. Eternal punishment can be read the same way, and 2 Thessalonians 1:9 names the punishment as destruction.Drawn from: Difficult passages
Biblical patterns of judgment, including fire, Sodom and Gomorrah, sacrifice, Old Testament judgment, and Christ’s death, culminate in death or destruction.Where Scripture shows judgment rather than describing it, the shape is consistent: fire consumes, cities are reduced to ash, sacrifices die, and Christ died in our place.Drawn from: The penalty of sin, and Biblical judgment patterns
The principal passages used for eternal conscious torment can be read naturally within that broader biblical framework without requiring endless conscious torment for wicked human beings.Mark 9, Revelation 14, Revelation 20, Matthew 25, Luke 16 and the weeping-and-gnashing sayings are each examined in full, with the traditional reading stated from its own defenders first.Drawn from: Difficult passages

The six groups of sections

Human mortalitySupplies the evidence for claim 1.
The penalty of sinSupplies the evidence for claims 2 and 5.
Destruction languageSupplies the evidence for claim 3.
Difficult passagesSupplies the evidence for claims 4 and 6.
Biblical judgment patternsSupplies the evidence for claim 5.
Final-order coherence and objectionsTests and defends all six claims rather than supplying any one of them.

Sections that sit outside the six groups

These pages are part of the case without belonging to one of the six groups above. They set up the question, clear away obstacles to hearing it, or work through an illustration at length.

Where to go next

Start Here for the claims stated in full with a reading path.
Compare the Views for how eternal conscious torment, conditional immortality and universal reconciliation differ.
The Case to read the sections in their intended order.