Yes, I was willing to agree with that.
Similarly, I’m willing to agree that the fire that destroyed Sodom was the fire of the age to come, invading this (or a prior) age, so to speak.
What that can or should mean, is quite another thing again.
Yes, I understand the conceptual distinction involved, but I’m not sure TFan does-or-would.
Most annihilationists, in my experience (Fudge especially included), would not think it proper to interpret eonian life the same way, i.e. the effect of the life is permanently eternal so that (in equal but opposite application compared to annihilation) the person is not conditionally immortal anymore.
As to the former, that may be true in a few OT examples, although in my experience it works in more examples than any other uniform interpretation. While I recommend that for simplicity’s sake if a single uniform interpretation must be used, I have no qualm about using another meaning–so long as the multi-form possibilities of the meaning (where they demonstrably exist) are recognized as needing contextual interpretation on a case-by-case basis. Which TFan kept wanting to get away from having to acknowledge: notably, he barely even mentioned my actual contextual argument for Matt 25, preferring to try to focus on the term usage of eonian instead, and thought that simply acknowledging some sort of feasible duration meaning solidly shut the case in his favor (as though any duration meaning must necessarily equate to never-ending duration).
As to the latter, the rarer (and perhaps more emphatic) term {aidios} itself, if interpreted as being something other than imperceptible or non-private, exemplifies how physical or natural imagery can be applied to God (or even to different natural phenomena) even though the base meaning if literally applied to God would crudely disaffirm supernaturalistic theism. “High-brightness” is not literally a characteristic of God (per the interpretation of its usage in Romans to parallel “theotes” for divine power); and is not even the same imagery category for duration in regard to God (per the interpretation of its usage in Romans as “everlasting” in regard to God). Similarly, the underlying Hebrew terms translated into Greek as “eonian”, are both physical metaphors regarding the horizon (up to and beyond it, especially the eastern horizon where the sun comes from), which not only have no literal application to God but are again a categorically different image type than a temporal term.
Certainly, one can see how the metaphor develops in various ways: the horizon line in the east indicates where the future is, so that direction is like traveling or looking into the future. But it would be clumsy to criticize “eonian” in a temporal sense as an interpretation for AHD and/or Olahm, on the ground that the idea of a horizon, or of space, seems to be missing from such an interpretation!
Similarly, God Most High transcends any high-brightness in a totally different way than any natural height, and transcends the future in a totally different way than any natural temporality. But no one complains about applying that language as a way of describing God.
Once that concept is in place, however, it becomes possible to speak of God as Most High (roughly the same as “high-brightness”) or as the Everlasting, and from there to speak of effects which properly belong to God as being most high or everlasting effects.
The question is whether there is evidence the authors are actually doing this. I think there is some evidence, although the case for such isn’t ironclad. But it doesn’t have to be ironclad, because the duration interpretation is definitely and demonstrably such that the terms cannot intrinsically mean never-ending.
That leaves me plenty of options, including that sometimes the term may indeed mean never-ending. The only option excluded is that the term always means never-ending. But then there cannot be much of a meaningful exegetical argument from the term-usage merely in itself for a doctrine of something described by the term to be never-ending.
Thus TFan’s attempts, two or maybe three times, to try to treat any duration acknowledgment at all as though that necessarily shuts the door. He has to necessarily shut the door by appeal to the term!–his case cannot stand, from reference to the term, and so at all in several places (including Matt 25), if the term varies in its duration usage, or only counts invariably when referring to something other than duration.