The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VII. Terse Excerpts From Locke’s Arguments

Here are typical extracts from The Reasonableness of Christianity, which exhibit Locke’s line of reasoning on Conditionalism: CFF2 191.1

Loss.—“By this fall he [Adam] lost paradise, wherein were tranquillity and the tree of life, i.e. he lost bliss and immortality.” ²⁸ CFF2 191.2

EXCLUSION.—“An exclusion from paradise and loss of immortality, is the portion of sinners.” ²⁹ CFF2 191.3

Of the death threatened in Genesis 2:17, Locke says: CFF2 191.4

CESSATION.—“I must confess, by death here, I can understand nothing but a ceasing to be, (the losing of all actions of life and sense),” ³⁰ CFF2 191.5

STRANGE.—“But it seems a strange way of understanding a law, which requires the plainest and directest words, that by ‘death’ should be meant eternal life in misery.” ³¹ CFF2 191.6

DUST.—“But when man was turned out [of Paradise], he was exposed to the toil, anxiety, and frailties of this mortal life, which should end in dust, out of which he was made, and to which he should return; and then have no more life or sense than the dust had.” ³² CFF2 191.7

To Locke, the philosopher and defender of free inquiry, the resurrection is the only gateway to life and immortality. CFF2 191.8