The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

II. Consistency and Obvious Soundness of Conditionalism

The key to the problem of life, death, and human destiny, as held by the conflicting schools of Conditionalism and Immortal-Soulism, is obviously to be found in the Biblical story of man’s creation and fall, and his redemption provided in Christ. Adam and Eve went tragically astray. Yielding to the tempter’s enticing promise, they stifled the voice of God. The allurement of superior wisdom, sensuous enjoyment, and the glamour of supposedly natural, inherent immortality (to be enjoyed in disobedience) led them swiftly and inexorably into the way of death. CFF1 20.2

As a result all seemed hopelessly lost. But unexpectedly, hope was proffered to distraught man. All might yet be recovered. Men might still find their way back to God and their lost estate, with Paradise and life regained through a Redeemer. Confession, faith, obedience, and resistance to temptation marked out the road back to the way of life. God would completely save contrite sinners who love, serve, and obey Him. CFF1 20.3

1. ADAM’S POTENTIAL FOR IMMORTALITY WAS CONDITIONAL

Here is God’s good news: Although man was not created unconditionally immortal, and is not today born immortal, yet he may become so—if he follows the provisions of God. According to the unfailing promise of the Almighty, he may require an immortality beyond the reach of death and time and destruction. That is the high privilege to be granted to the righteous—a favor conferred on the penitent believer. But it is always conditional. CFF1 20.4

The righteous will live again, forever; but the impenitent will finally be destroyed—likewise forever. Life is thereby conditional. These are the final endings of the two ways of life and death. That is the essence of Conditionalism, or Conditional Immortality. And such is the picture that grows increasingly clear and luminous in the dawning light of the Genesis introduction to the Old Testament. CFF1 21.1

So long as Adam remained in the Garden he was allowed to eat of the fruit of the tree of life. But, as mentioned, his potential for immortality was conditional. When once he made a breach in God’s protective and enabling conditions, he became subject to the death penalty. The primal pair was created “very good”—with a view to immortality. But they were not imperishable. They did not have an inherent, natural, and indefeasible immortality—that is, incapable of being annulled or made void. CFF1 21.2

It was indeed possible for Adam not to die. The possibility of immortality was within his reach. But he forfeited it. And holiness still comes by an act of free choice or decision, with death as the sequel to willful transgression. So immortality for Adam was clearly relative, or conditional, and the sin of disobedience made him mortal—subject to death and destined to die. CFF1 21.3

2. CONDITIONALISTS HARMONIZES DIVINE GOODNESS WITH HUMAN FREEDOM

Conditionalism provides a synthesis that coordinates the various doctrines of the gospel. The truth of Conditionalism is founded on positive Biblical declarations, not on negatives and inferences. Negations and inferences—not to mention parables or figurative or symbolic expressions—can never be a safe or satisfying foundation for any doctrine, much less a system of fundamental doctrine. The Creator gave man existence and offered him immortality. Moral reasoning likewise favors the hypothesis of attainable or conditional immortality. And every moral being is subject to certain conditions of existence. Thus Moses said: “I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil” (Deuteronomy 30:15). Again, this law “is your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong your days” (Deuteronomy 32:47). “But if thine heart turn away ...; ye shall surely perish, ... ye shall not prolong your days” (Deuteronomy 30:17, 18). ¹ CFF1 21.4

Thus it is that the doctrine of Conditionalism reconciles and harmonizes divine goodness with human freedom. Compulsory immortalization of the, wicked would be unworthy of the goodness and power of God, and tragic to the human recipient. Conditionalism is a return to the primitive gospel—the gospel of Eden. And it is making marked gains in advocates, as attested by the evidence set forth in volume 2. CFF1 22.1

The tremendous truth of “life only through the redemptive work of Christ” throws a flood of light upon the whole scope and system of revealed truth. It makes, as it were, a new book of the Bible. The gospel promise in Eden becomes luminous. The types and shadows of the Old Testament, and its sanctuary system and services, take on a meaning not before observable. And the moral law, which in its negative and prohibitory form failed to “make the comers thereunto perfect” (Hebrews 10:1), much less to give them spiritual life, takes on its higher spiritual meaning under the gospel. All is expressed in the one word “love”—love as the source and essence of spiritual recovery and everlasting life. That is the larger picture. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). CFF1 22.2

That is the heart of the gospel, the essence of revelation, the hope of man. CFF1 22.3

3. CONDITIONALISTS ATTESTED BIBLICALLY, LOGICALLY, HISTORICALLY

This, then, is our statement of purpose: Evidence will be submitted to support the contention that Conditionalism is (1) sound Biblically, both in the English rendering and even more so in the original Hebrew and Greek phraseology. It is (2) sound according, to the inexorable canons of logic. And it is (3) sound according to the unimpeachable testimony of history. CFF1 22.4

It was designed by God for man; lost through the historic deception visited on the race by Satan in Eden; and uniformly cherished by God’s ancient chosen people until shortly before the time of Christ. And when Immortal-Soulism was adopted from Greek Platonism lay the Alexandrian wing of the Jews, it was chiefly through Philo. But Conditionalism was maintained by Christ and the apostles, and sustained by the Apostolic Fathers and the earliest of the Ante-Nicene Fathers—and on with a continuing line for centuries, as we shall see. CFF1 23.1

On the contrary, Immortal-Soulism was not adopted in Christian thought until certain North African Platonic Church Father-philosophers espoused it after nearly two hundred years of the Christian Era had passed. But this segment split in the subsequent century into two antagonistic schools, divided over Eternal Torment and Universal Restoration. CFF1 23.2

Thus by A.D. 400 the Christian Church was divided into three distinct schools of eschatology—creating an astonishing theological trilemma that has persisted ever since. Though not widely held, Conditionalism persisted through the Middle Ages and underwent a distinct revival, beginning with the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. From then on, despite the preponderant Catholic and majority Protestant views, Conditionalism has gained steadily. And now, as never before, it is receiving attention and winning adherents among scholars of all faiths. That, in a word, is a thumbnail historical preview of the ground to the traversed. No position could be better sustained, as the facts is to be surveyed will disclose. CFF1 23.3