The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

II. Blackburne’s Personal Views on Conditionalism

Blackburne left the defensive and took the offensive, showing the inconsistency of some of his antagonists, their recourse to unworthy tactics, and the specious arguments often resorted to—such as reducing “life” and “death” to mere figurative terms. Opponents felt the weight of his blows and his castigation of their “fine spun notions,” and of their “art of blowing scholastic bubbles.” ⁶ His was a masterful endeavor. CFF2 209.1

1. THE QUESTION OF DISEMBODIED SOULS

While his chief work had been to chronicle the views of other Conditionalists, Blackburne had his own deep convictions thereon. To him the entire issue revolved around the question of Innate Immortality and the “separate existence of the soul,” and particularly the “intermediate state between death and the resurrection” in “happiness or misery,” as contended. He carefully states the problem in the Introduction, phrased in the heavy style of the time:
“The question is, whether the scriptures afford any just and solid grounds for the doctrine of the immortality of the soul of man, and particularly, any evidence of its existence, when disunited from the body, in a state of conscious perception; and whether, in consequence of this notion, there is not a certain intermediate state of happiness and misery for good and wicked men respectively, between death and the general resurrection?” ⁷ CFF2 209.2

2. IMMORTALITY ONLY THROUGH RESURRECTION

In answering the questions he had propounded, he said:
“They who hold the negative in these points, allege, that according to the scriptures, life and immortality were brought to light by the Gospel of Christ, in a sense exclusive of all other teachers, and all other revelation, at least from the birth of Moses downwards; exclusive likewise of all information from the light of nature, or the result of philosophical disquisition on the substance or qualities of the human soul. They insist that Christ is the way, the truth, anal the life, so that no man cometh to the father [so as to be like him, and to see him as he is in a future state] but by the mediatorial power of Christ. That the way of coming to God, in the sense, and by the means above-mentioned, is the resurrection of the dead, of which, assurance is given unto all men, by the resurrection of JESUS.” ⁸ CFF2 209.3

3. NO SEPARATE INTERMEDIATE LIFE OF SOUL

Blackburne states that life and immortality come solely through Christ. He contends that death is the “total deprivation of life,” and that there is no “separate or intermediate life for the soul, when disunited from the body.” Thus:
“They [the Conditionalists] hold moreover, that the sentence pronounced upon our first parents, imported a total deprivation of life, without any reserve or saving to the life of the soul; and consequently, that eternal life, or a restoration and redemption from the consequences of this sentence, was effected for, revealed, consigned and insured to man, in and through Christ, and will be accomplished in no other way than that spoken of by Christ and his apostles, who have left no room to conclude that there is a separate or intermediate life for the soul, when disunited from the body.” ⁹ CFF2 210.1

4. REFORMERS LOPPED “BRANCHES,” LEFT “ROOT” OF ERROR

Blackburne shows how the issue strikes at the whole provision of redemption of souls through Christ and the sole purpose of the resurrection (p. xxix). He remarks concerning the Reformers:
“While our Reformers were studiously lopping the branches of superstition and imposture, they inadvertently left the stock, with a vigorous root in the ground, which their successors, with a surprising inattention to the pernicious consequences of their misapprehension, have been cultivating to a fresh growth, to the great hazard not only of the protestant religion, but even of Christianity itself, which is at this hour well nigh choaked and obscured under the thick shade of this venomous exotic.” ¹⁰ CFF2 210.2

To this charge Blackburne adds:
“It is remarkable that Protestants, who have on most occasions refused to be governed by tradition, seem to have submitted to it in this matter with the most implicit deference.” ¹¹ CFF2 210.3

On another page he adds:
“I cannot help commiserating the distress of these poor men, who having once allowed the Saints a conscious existence in heaven, were so hard put to it to keep it clear of the consequences.” ¹² CFF2 211.1

5. UNFAIRNESS OF CHARGE OF “HERESY.”

Feeling the sting of unjust criticism, and protesting against the acrimony and bigotry revolving around the issue, he says:
“It is not only unfair but inhuman for one sett of her [the Church’s] members to brand another with HERESY, merely for holding the negative side of this question.” ¹³ CFF2 211.2

6. RESTORATION OF “WHOLE MAN” TO LIFE

The heart of Blackburne’s position is simply this:
“The doctrine of the New Testament is, that men shall become immortal by the way of a resurrection of the dead, a restoration of the whole man to life; and the N.T. is so far from acknowledging any intermediate consciousness in man, between death and the resurrection, that it always speaks of that interval as a sleep, which implies a suspension of the thinking faculty, a rest from those labours, which require thought, memory, consciousness, etc. during which those faculties are useless.” ¹⁴ CFF2 211.3

7. DEAD MADE ALIVE ONLY THROUGH RESURRECTION

His line of reasoning and his emphasis on the resurrection, is stated thus:
“But this is not all. The scriptural system of immortality, supposes that man had forfeited his original title to immortality, and would never have recovered it but for the interposition of a redeemer. The consequence of this doctrine is, that between the time of the forfeiture, and the actual appearance of the Redeemer, the dead could have life in no sense at all: and that neither before nor after the appearance of the Redeemer, dead men were or would be restored to life, otherwise than in the way revealed by the Redeemer, namely a resurrection of the dead.” ¹⁵ CFF2 211.4

8. IMMORTAL-SOULISM “OVERTURNS WHOLE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM.”

The seriousness of the issue, as it appeared to Blackburne, is stated in these words:
“Hence to suppose the souls of dead men to be alive, conscious and active, and capable of happiness and misery, from the death of the first man, to the resurrection of the very last, and to pretend to demonstrate this by reason and philosophy, is plainly to overturn the whole Christian system.” ¹⁶ CFF2 211.5

Blackburne deeply deplored the “application of certain passages of scripture torn from their context, and wrested from their true meaning, in order to accommodate them to the pagan accounts of the nature and properties of the human soul.” ¹⁷ This hostility is aroused because the doctrine of the “sleep of the soul” strikes against the “pride of the philosopher, the enthusiastic visions of the mystic, the lucrative systems of the interested churchman, and the various prejudices and superstitions of their respective disciples.” As a result the holders of such Conditionalist views are the recipients of “all the obloquy and scandal which bigotted and provoked adversaries can lay upon it.” ¹⁸ And Blackburne knew by experience. CFF2 212.1

Conditionalism is, by such detractors, stigmatized as “an heresy, derogatory to the nature of man, subversive of his future hopes, and savouring not a little of atheism and impiety.” But Blackburne countercharged that defenders of “immortal-soulism” have to depend upon the “weight of tradition ... for a future state,” ¹⁹ tradition being the “deciding” factor in the issue. Then he reminds them, pointedly, that if the “soul sleepers” were disposed to seek reprisals upon the “Orthodox, what depredations might they not make,” ²⁰ because of their vulnerable positions and arguments. CFF2 212.2