The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

V. Professor Isaac Barrow—Temporal Offenders Not Punished Eternally

In the growing list of notable exponents of the various aspects of Conditionalism, we come to DR. ISAAC BARROW (1630-1677), distinguished English theologian, classical scholar, linguist, mathematician, and Cambridge professor. Educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, he traveled widely on the Continent, then took Anglican orders. He was first made professor of geometry, then professor of Greek, and finally of mathematics, at Cambridge. This high post he resigned in favor of his noted pupil Sir Isaac Newton, who succeeded him in the professorship in 1669, and who was said to have likewise been a Conditionalist, though not writing on the subject. (Newton was likewise succeeded by a Conditionalist—William Whiston, to be noted later.) CFF2 185.2

Barrow was then chaplain to Charles II, and became Master of Trinity College in 1672. He was further reputed to be one of the greatest scholars and Arminian preachers of the Church of England in his day. As to his competency in Biblical exposition, Barrow was recognized as one of the finest Greek scholars of his generation. And among his writings was the unique Two Dissertations on the Duration of Future Punishment, a scholarly contribution to Life Only in Christ and contingent truths. Maintaining that immortality is conditional, and holding to the utter destruction of the wicked, Barrow says such a concept comports with the justice of God—it being inconceivable that He would punish temporal offenses with eternal torments. Here is a key statement: CFF2 185.3

Picture 1: Dr. Isaac Barrow
Dr. Isaac Barrow (d. 1677), Distinguished Cambridge Professor—Temporal Offenders Not Punished Eternally.
Page 186

“Besides these arguments from express scripture, it may be considered whether this opinion [destruction of the wicked] do not better agree with the justice of God, especially with the great attribute of His mercy, so much magnified in scripture; for sure it is a hard question, never well resolved to the satisfaction of human understanding, how such temporal offences as are committed by men in this world, under so many temptations and infirmities of nature, not generally relieved by a sufficiency of auxiliary grace, as the common opinion is, should be justly punishable with eternity of extreme torments.” ²² CFF2 186.1

Commenting on such a course of unending torture, for which some contend, Barrow calls it— CFF2 187.1

“a severity of justice far above all example of repeated cruelty in the worst of men, there being no man presumably so prodigiously cruel or hardhearted, that could endure to see the worst of men, that had been guilty of the worst crimes imaginable, and the greatest injust and despite to himself, suffer perpetually in an actual extremity of torment: but would in time be moved to deliver, him at last by destruction of his being.” ²³ CFF2 187.2

“According to the words of our Saviour, ‘Fear not them which kill the body, ..: fear Him who hath power to destroy both body and soul in Hell.’ And sure no man doth doubt, but that God is able to destroy the soul as well as the body; and to say He can but will not do it, is a begging of the question, and a seeming contradiction of our Saviour’s words.” ²⁴ CFF2 187.3

Such were the convictions of the scholarly predecessor of Sir Isaac Newton at Cambridge University. They also show that the holding and publishing of such teachings was not, At the time, considered inconsistent with major responsibility in churchly and educational ranks. CFF2 187.4