The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

V. Conditionalism Placed in Eschatological Setting

1. FALSE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY

Then, starting with chapter eight, Lactantius begins a recital of the paralleling, but false, teaching of the philosophers that aggressively persists on the immortality question. First, he says, “The one chief good, therefore, is immortality, for the reception of which we were originally formed and born.” Then he takes up specifically the specious “arguments of Plato,” who reasoned that “whatever has perception by itself, and always moves, is immortal,” but “that which has no beginning of motion is not about to have an end,” because it “cannot be deserted by itself.” ⁴⁰ CFF1 1043.2

But, Lactantius counters, “This argument would give eternal existence even to dumb animals,” which he denies. Plato adds that the human soul has the additional qualities of reflection, perception, memory, foresight, and knowledge. So the philosopher considered that the body is subject to “dissolution,” while the soul, when freed from the body prison, “flies to the heaven, and to its own nature.” This, Lactantius says, is a “brief summary of the tenets of Plato.” ⁴¹ And to this Pythagoras and Pherecydes agreed. CFF1 1044.1

Lactantius next cites Dicaearchus, Democritus, and Epicurus, as arguing against such an opinion, with Tullius as wholly uncertain. ⁴² Trismegistus is then mentioned, with his variant view that “the soul does not perish, nor undergo dissolution, but that it remains for ever.” Moreover, the philosopher maintains, “the gift of virtue to man alone is a great proof that souls are immortal.” Lactantius observes, “But when death has been undergone, what further good can be hoped for except immortality.” ⁴³ CFF1 1044.2

2. PHILOSOPHICAL CONFUSION REGARDING IMMORTALITY

Touching in chapter ten on Cicero’s Disputations—that the chief goal of man happens after death, and that for his good, death “does not extinguish man, but admits him to the reward of virtue,” while the evil will “suffer eternal punishment”—Lactantius says the Sacred Writings call this the “second death.” So, as “two lives are proposed to man,” so also are “two deaths.” ⁴⁴ CFF1 1044.3

Continuing the recital of the philosophical contention concerning “soul and body,” in relation to the “last times” (chapter eleven), Lactantius rehearses their contention that when “death itself shall be ended,” their souls will “rise again to everlasting life,” and receive the “fruits of immortality,” and “death must be eternal” with “perpetual punishments” and “infinite torments.” This is his full statement of their position: CFF1 1044.4

“Therefore, when the times which God has appointed for death shall be completed, death itself shall be ended. And because temporal death follows temporal life, it follows that souls rise again to everlasting life, because temporal death has received an end. Again, as the life of the soul is everlasting, in which it receives the divine and unspeakable fruits of its immortality; so also its death must be eternal, in which it suffers perpetual punishments and infinite torments for its faults.” ⁴⁵ CFF1 1045.1

“Now,” Lactantius says, “let us refute the arguments” that the body is “mortal” and that the soul is born with the body and “must necessarily die with the body,” referring especially to Lucretius. ⁴⁶ And he adds that “the soul cannot entirely perish, since it received its origin from the Spirit of God, which is eternal.” ⁴⁷ The statement is confused and confusing, but it is part of. the record. CFF1 1045.2

3. RIGHTEOUSNESS ALONE “PROCURES” ETERNAL LIFE

After playing up the conflicting opinions of the philosophers, Lactantius continues in chapter thirteen by stating that “man was created for the worship of God, and for receiving immortality from Him.” ⁴⁸ He next cites Hermes as placing man in a partly mortal and partly immortal position, then alludes to several other philosophers—Polites, Apollo of Miletus, as well as the Sibyllines—and to Aristoxenus, who “denied that there is any soul at all,” maintaining it is like the “harmony,” or music, of the lyre, produced by “the tightening of the strings.” ⁴⁹ CFF1 1045.3

Then, at the outset of chapter fourteen (“Of the First and Last Times of the World”), Lactantius discusses “how and when it [immortality] is given to man,” and turns to meeting the “errors” and “folly” of those who “imagine that some mortals have become gods by the decrees and dogmas of mortals.” ⁵⁰ He then sets forth his own position: CFF1 1045.4

“It is righteousness alone which procures for man eternal life, and that it is God alone who bestows the reward of eternal life. For they who are said to have been immortalized by their merits, inasmuch as they possessed neither righteousness nor any true virtue, did not obtain for themselves immortality, but death by their sins and lusts; nor did they deserve the reward of heaven, but the punishment of hell, which impends over them, together with all their worshippers. And I show that the time of this judgment draws near, that the due reward may be given to the righteous, and the deserved punishment may be inflicted on the wicked.” ⁵¹ CFF1 1045.5

4. BEGINNING AND END OF THE WORLD

Declaring that Plato and other philosophers are ignorant of the primal “origin of all things,” Lactantius states that only through Holy Scripture can we know the truth concerning the “beginning and the end of the world, respecting which we will now speak.” The philosophers fallaciously “enumerate thousands of ages from the beginning of the world,” whereas “the six thousandth year is not yet completed, and ... when this number is completed the consummation must take place,” and human affairs be “remodelled.” This was the literal Bible basis of Lactantius’ faith. And, he affirms, “God completed the world and the admirable work of nature in the space of six days [by fiat creation], as is contained in the secrets of Holy Scripture.” ⁵² CFF1 1046.1

5. FORMATION OF MAN AND RESULTS OF FALL

Man, Lactantius continues, was made on the sixth day of Creation week. And he adds that as the result of the Fall he became a “mortal and imperfect man,” “formed from the earth, that he might live a thousand years in this world.” Nevertheless, in “this earthly age” is to be formed a “perfect man,” that “being quickened by God” may “bear rule in this same world through a thousand [millennial] years.” And the prophets “announce the end and overthrow of all things after a short time,” in the “last old age of the wearied and wasting world.” ⁵³ CFF1 1046.2

And he repeats, in chapter fifteen, that in the “last consummation of the times,” as “the end of the world approaches, the condition of human affairs must undergo a change, and through the prevalence of wickedness become worse.” ⁵⁴ Faith will wane, righteousness decrease, justice be confounded, and laws be destroyed. Peace will be superseded by tumult and war, and the rulership of the West be threatened by the East. And the judgments of God will fall, for the “works of mortals are mortal.” ⁵⁵ Even the Sibyls, he adds, recognized that “Rome is doomed to perish,” under the judgments of God. CFF1 1046.3