Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

eschatology

Hellrazed? The Book!

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Five years have passed since Kevin Miller’s provocative documentary Hellbound? was released. The film explores concepts of the afterlife (in particular, the doctrine of eternal conscious torment), and how they shape the life and belief of the church here and now. I met Kevin at that time as I had the privilege of hosting the film’s […]

TWU Today Archives Part 2: A Defense of Annihilationism

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This article, published in the TWU Today Newspaper on January 23, 1996, represents one of my first forays into theological writing. Provocatively titled “Who in hell lives forever?”, the article provides a succinct summary and defense of the case for annihilationism, the doctrine that the reprobate cease to exist in hell.

Hell and Mr. Fudge: A Review

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Twenty years ago I took a course in apologetics at Trinity Western University. The main assignment was a debate in front of the class at the end of the semester. My friend and I were given the task of defending annihilationism — the view that hell constitutes the final destruction of the unregenerate — over-against […]

10. The 59-Second Apologist: Will we have free will in heaven?

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Mark Twain once quipped: “Let us swear while we may, for in heaven it will not be allowed.” That piece of advice, however questionable it may be, does raise an interesting philosophical question: when a person becomes unable to sin, must they give up their free will? Some theologians have supposed so. To note one […]

Easter and the Resurrection to Judgment

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This morning at our Easter service the pastor quoted Frederick Buechner: “Resurrection means the worst thing is never the last thing.” It’s a great quote which eloquently summarizes the Christian hope in resurrection. In other words, Christ as the firstfruits of resurrection provides the down-payment for that future resurrection that will embrace all God’s people. Thus, […]

Love has no shelf life: The goodness of life forever

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I’d like to live forever, and under the right conditions I hope I can. I discuss that wish (and rebut those who look askance at the prospect) here. So I always remain puzzled by atheists/skeptics/naturalists etc. who insist that they really don’t want to live forever, even under the most ideal of conditions. Soren Kierkegaard […]

My heaven interview with a Bold Cup of Coffee

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I recently had the opportunity to sit down with the folks at boldcupofcoffee.com to talk about some of my recent work on heaven, apologetics, and dialogue. This is the first of three interviews and it focused on the topic of my book What on Earth Do we Know About Heaven? You can visit the accompanying Bold Cup of […]

“Heaven is for Real” A Review

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Last night I saw “Heaven is for Real” available to rent at Redbox. Having read the book, and presented seminars critiquing it, and having written a sixty page book proposal titled What on Earth Happened to Colton Burpo? which was rejected by the publishers because they were worried that I (and they) would appear to […]

Damning the disordered? An argument against eternal conscious torment

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Paul Bernardo is one of Canada’s most infamous rapists and serial killers. While his litany of crimes is too extensive to list here, the court evidence against the man was absolutely overwhelming and included video tapes of the crimes he filmed with the help of his equally psychopathic wife. Suffice it to say, anybody with a […]