The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

67/460

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