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I hear it often used by annihilationist the argument that since only Christians receive eternal life and on that basis, we know the unbeliever won’t be eternally living in the life to come. Hence eternal conscious torment is not the case. The issue with this point of view is that it assumes that we are merely biological creatures. Suppose that the case they provided was true. The dead are raised and I suppose that is elect and non-elect alike in the general resurrection. God seems to deem that they die again as a punishment. That just leaves the soul of the persons. Souls clearly survive the destruction of the body and clearly are not subject to fire of any kind. The other issue is what exactly does eternal life constitute? We have its mentionings in places such as:

John 3:15-16
15 so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. 16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

This is an example of the phrase appearing, but what does it mean? D. A. Carson states:

The expression eternal life (zōē aiōnios) here makes its first appearance in the Fourth Gospel. Properly it means ‘life of the age (aiōn) to come’, and therefore resurrection life. But in John’s Gospel that life may in some measure be experienced before the end, just as in the Synoptics the kingdom dawns before the end. Moreover, those who have read the Prologue will recall that life resides in the Word: ‘in him was life’ (1:4). The eternal life begun by the new birth is nothing less than the eternal life of the eternal Word.

Carson, D. A. (1991). The Gospel according to John (pp. 202–203). Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans.

That experiencing resurrection life in this life is found in texts such as:

1 John 5:11-13
11 And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

An obvious pointless act is that they probably maintain a general resurrection. But what is the point of bringing the dead non-elect back from the dead if God is simply going to have them die again? Seems like a pointless action. The other issue is that is misconstrued eternal life. Eternal life isn’t merely about duration but the quality of life as well.

One possible explanation, from a “traditionalist” perspective, is that “life” and “death” in some eschatological passages have a figurative significance that goes beyond biological life and death. So even though both the saved and the damned will be resurrected and exist forever, there will be a drastic difference in their respective quality of life.

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-general-resurrection.html

While annihilationist like to appeal to destruction language to argue that we cease to exists. The issue is that that is looking at the textual evidence with one eye closed. John 3:36 is such an example where it doesn’t seem like the author thought God’s wrath ceases to be on the non-elect. But if they were to later cease to exists how could it be that God’s wrath could be on a non-existent?

The Fourth Gospel does not contain the word “hell.” But the reality of unending affliction as a result of God’s wrath is present: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36). As we will see below, virtually everyone agrees that “eternal life” refers to unending blessedness in God’s presence. But some wish to limit the duration of “God’s wrath” to a limited time or experience. In this view, wrath “remains” but is not experienced consciously, despite other Johannine passages in which the same Greek word likely connotes everlasting duration (see, e.g., 6:27, 56; 8:35; 12:34). Those who the without Christ, it is argued, are eventually simply destroyed or annihilated and then cease all existence. The evidence of John’s Gospel makes this unlikely. Particularly in Jesus’ discourses, it juxtaposes “eternal life” and a cluster of negative expressions: “perish” (John 3:16; 10:28), “condemned” (3:18; 5:24, 28), “judgment” (5:22, 30), “death” (5:24), and “die” (6:50). The blessed state of eternal life is logically opposite to the condemned state of eternal destruction. If salvation and conscious bliss are everlasting, so are perdition and conscious torment.

Christopher W. Morgan; Robert A. Peterson. Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment (Kindle Locations 1621-1630). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Recommended:

TheCouncil:

Annihilationism annihilated