In his recent influential theological work, Paul Griffiths, the esteemed Buddhism scholar and Anglican convert to Catholicism, proposes, among other things, that annihilationism is a viable option for Christians, including Catholics, despite apparent magisterial prohibition. He argues, in effect, that every creature must be naturally mortal because bodily, including the angels. Therefore, de facto immortal creatures are not immortal by nature, but by a positive act of God in addition to the creative act. Accordingly, it makes no sense to assert the existence of an eternal hell. Rather, since sin is fundamentally corrosive, those who opt to continue down the rabbit's hole of sin literally become nothing. Hell, then, is a no‐place and a no‐time. Hence, as long as the damned continue to exist, they have the opportunity for eventual redemption as for eventual self‐annihilation. Griffiths attempts to defend this thesis in dialogue with Augustine, in particular, to the neglect of Aquinas, except to argue that Aquinas’ own arguments for the natural immortality of the human soul are incoherent. I will argue instead that spiritual being exists, that it is naturally immortal, that Aquinas demonstrates both, and that even an Augustinian such as Joseph Ratzinger recognizes Aquinas’ theological insights and builds on them.

中文翻译：

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回应保罗·格里菲思（Paul Griffiths）的歼灭计划

保罗·格里菲斯（Paul Griffiths）是一位着名的佛教学者和圣公会convert依天主教，在他最近的有影响力的神学著作中，他提出除其他外，歼灭主义对于包括天主教徒在内的基督徒都是可行的选择，尽管有明显的君主制禁止。实际上，他认为，每个生物都必须自然地成为凡人，因为包括天使在内的身体都是如此。因此，事实上的不朽生物不是天生的，而是除了创造行为之外，还通过上帝的积极作为。因此，断言永恒地狱的存在是没有道理的。相反，由于罪从根本上具有腐蚀性，因此那些选择继续沿着兔子的罪洞前进的人，从字面上看就什么也没有。那么，地狱是无处可去的。因此，只要被诅咒者继续存在，他们有机会进行最终的救赎和最终的自我毁灭。格里菲思（Griffiths）试图在与奥古斯丁（Augustine）的对话中捍卫这一论点，尤其是对阿奎那（Aquinas）的忽视，只是认为阿奎那（Aquinas）关于人类灵魂自然永生的论点是不连贯的。我反而会争辩说，存在着灵性存在，那自然是不朽的，阿奎那证明了两者，而且甚至像约瑟夫·拉特辛格这样的奥古斯丁主义者也承认并借鉴了阿奎那的神学见解。