Q. I agree with you (and against various other Pauline scholars) that Paul is no universalist when it comes to salvation. It is interesting how little he says about what might be called the negative afterlife. Here near the end of Galatians he talks about those who will not enter the final Kingdom and obtain everlasting life in the form of resurrection here on earth, but instead will suffer ‘corruption’. What do you think that means? Annihilation? Decay into nothingness, ala Sheol? More certainly Paul does not use the term Gehenna, but he does refer at least once to everlasting destruction in Thessalonians. I can see how life can be everlasting, but how can destruction be everlasting? Can you help us sort out what Paul thinks happens to those who don’t enter the kingdom?
A. I am glad Paul isn’t very explicit here. I don’t think we have good language for all that, and we are not helped (a) by the mediaeval legacy and (b) by the American legacy (‘sinners in the hands of an angry God’ etc.).
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