If “eonian” in regard to the hills can be not-a-literal-eternal-but-still-participating-in-the-meaning-of-eternal, then so can the punishment in Matt 25 compared to the eonian life. Which, not-incidentally (as I also mentioned a couple of times in different ways), cannot be a literal ‘eternal’ either in regard to its object, since its object (saved sinners) had a beginning, both absolutely and in reception of the life.
Aside from noticing that the life is not literally eternal either (if we’re talking about the life of the saved person–and if we’re talking about God’s life being merely never-ending, then even the non-universalist has a major difference in terminological application of “eonian” between the life and the punishment): the reason we know there’s not a uniform meaning of the term “eonian” in Habbakkuk (and in Romans) is because of the context. I VERY EXPLICITLY STATED more than once, that merely observing the terms could be used in different ways in immediate comparison, did not necessarily mean the terms were being used in different ways in immediate comparison elsewhere. That was not my argument; my argument was ABOUT THE NARRATIVE AND THEMATIC CONTEXTS OF THE PARABLE, which TFan barely even mentioned, and definitely did not even discuss (except to briefly assert, without explanation, that it didn’t matter if the goats were baby goats).
The line of my argument there was:
1.) the term “eonian” itself doesn’t always mean “eternal”, especially if narrative and thematic context indicates otherwise (which I presumed in favor of TFan’s competence he knew already, but which I would be giving examples of later in my rebuttal anyway);
2.) here is the narrative and thematic context of the judgment of the sheep and the goats (the vaaaaassssst majority of my main argument on Matt 25);
3.) the context indicates that we had better interpret the punishment of the baby goats the way mature sheep would, not the way baby goats would!–i.e., hopefully, not hopelessly;
4.) therefore context indicates that in regard to the punishment, we should not treat “eonian” as necessarily meaning never-ending;
5.) but since there is a reasonable concern about the hope of the eonian life being threatened if the hopelessness of the eonian punishment is denied, then…
6.) …here is some auxiliary information, presented in the rebuttal, showing:
6.1.) even non-universalists interpret identical terms in substantially different ways (for whatever reasons) when defending against apparent testimony in favor of universal salvation;
and
6.2.) there are at least two notable examples (one from the NT, one from the OT), where authors did in fact use that term (in Greek and its underlying Hebrew original) for superficially similar and somewhat related but substantially different meanings.
So non-universalists as such also interpret identical terms in close context quite differently for what they suppose are good reasons; there are scriptural examples of that particular term being used in close context quite differently; and my MAIN ARGUMENT for Matt 25 indicates we ought to interpret the terms in superficially similar but substantially quite different ways.
The first point of that paragraph was not challenged (and is quite indisputable anyway); the second point was acknowledged; yet not only was the third point not discussed at all, but TFan tried to recover by in effect denying that any contextual case had been made to demonstrate the two paralleled uses of eonian at Matt 25 (regarding the life and the punishment) ought to be interpreted with some substantial difference from one another.
His rebuttal to my attempt totally hinges on no contextual case being demonstrated for Matt 25. But the vast majority of my main argument for Matt 25 was exactly that. He can’t just stop as though I never made a contextual argument for Matt 25, when I spent six minutes doing just that.
What he needed to do was demonstrate that my contextual argument for Matt 25 (i.e. MY MAIN ARGUMENT for Matt 25) didn’t add up. Then his rebuttal attempt would have worked. But he barely even mentioned it.
I suspect he probably didn’t even remember enough of its details to try to go after it, and so had to make as much of a rebuttal case as he could by (in effect) pretending I hadn’t even tried to show that Matt 25 was a case like Rom 16 and Hab 3, where the context indicates we should treat the two eonians differently.
To be fair, he didn’t have any way to go back and listen to my argument again. But you know what? He could have taken notes during my presentation (I did when he was presenting); and he could have bothered to research me on the topic to get an expectation of what I was going to do (which, again, I definitely did on his site). I’ve given my Matt 25 argument before on this site. He might even have been given a link to it by Chris, since I sent links of that sort to Chris to help him sell me as being someone interesting to debate (although on the other hand I have no idea whether he passed those links along to prospective debators.)
So on one hand I have some sympathy for him having to scat up a defense on short notice when steamrolled by an unexpected detailed argument–but my sympathy only goes so far. And my sympathy abruptly ends at the point where his rebuttal totally relies on me not having made such an argument as I spent a good six minutes detailing, as though I never even tried doing such a thing. (As far as his rebuttal went, I might as well have spent those six minutes playing a kazoo in accompaniment to the climactic action theme of “Ace Combat Zero”, while muttering “baby goat” once or twice for no reason. )