The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

III. Conditionalism Expounded; and Challenged by Methodism

Volume two, comprising Nos. 35 to 70, continues the established pattern, with its parts published between 1900 and 1902. Passing No. 38 (“Christ the Source of Immortality”) by A. G. Wilkinson, we come to No. 40, a searching review of Bishop J. E. C. Welldon (Metropolitan of India), and his “The Hope of Immortality,” written by an Anglo-Indian. It was reprinted from The Calcutta Statesman of 1899, and marshaled the witness of twelve prominent British Conditionalists, together with four American and six Continental Conditionalists, and a missionary from Madagascar. And on a later page there is a list of twenty well-known proponents of Life Only in Christ. ³⁶ CFF2 463.2

In No. 42, W. G. Moncrieff deals with the technical Hebrew and Greek terms involved. No. 44 (“The Resurrection of the Dead”) is a convention address by Pettingell. No. 51 (“A Lie: Its History, Mystery and Destiny”) is by Editor Brooks. And No. 53 is an Edward White contribution, drawn from one of his smaller works. No. 58 is a review of Prof. J. Agar Beet’s Expositor articles, later issued in book form as The Immortality of the Soul-a protest against the innate postulate. CFF2 463.3

No. 59 is a “Manifesto,” a personal statement of “The Tenets of True Conditional ism.” The unnamed writer is an M.D., a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, as well as lecturer in a noted school of medicine. He was an Anglican of forty years’ standing, and for thirty years was a church warden. He writes as a Christian physician, and states CFF2 464.1

“that death is a sleep; that when a man dies-wicked or righteous-he falls ‘on sleep’ and awakes not until the trumpet summons him to appear before the judgment Seat. Life being dependent on a suitable organism for its manifestation in thought, word, and action, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that, when the connexion is severed between the spirit and body, a man cannot think or act until such time-as by the Resurrection-a re-union of both takes place. Thus the first death is an intermediate condition, a waiting time between natural or organic life and the final extinction of that life, on the one hand, in the Second Death, or the glorious realities of the Eternal State on the other.” ³⁷ CFF2 464.2

He adds that in death CFF2 464.3

“there is complete unconsciousness; the mind, in all its functions has been, as it were, suspended or dead until the blood returns again to the brain; and the awakening is without any remembrance of what has occurred in the interval-all is a blank.” ³⁸ CFF2 464.4

1. SILENCING OF DR. BEET BY METHODIST CONFERENCE ACTION

No. 69 (“Methodism and Immortality”) is a twenty-two page discussion of the relation of Dr. J. Agar Beet, well known professor of theology at the Western Theological Institution, ³⁹ to the 1902 Wesleyan Conference over the question of Innate Immortality, which he had vigorously protested in his book The Immortality of the Soul, stating that it forms no part of the true teaching of the Bible, ⁴⁰ and is inseparably connected with the “Doom of the Lost” and the ultimate “elimination of evil from the universe.” A. G. Wilkinson frankly discusses Beet’s position in relation to the renewal of his teaching appointment as a theological professor, and Beet’s statement that he had deliberately issued his book so all might “‘know exactly the doctrinal questions at issue,’” and thus determine whether to “‘elect or reject me.’” ⁴¹ CFF2 464.5

The difference between Dr. Beet and the out-and-out Conditionalists was so slight—“destruction” v. “ruin”—that Dr. Petavel, of Lausanne, appealed to Beet to take the “one step further.” ⁴² In fact, in a second appeal Petavel referred to it as “only a half-step further.” ⁴³ There was a tense session at the Wesleyan Conference at Manchester as the special committee rendered its report, stating: “The Committee find that this teaching falls short of and contravenes the doctrines held and taught in our [Methodist] church.” ⁴⁴ CFF2 465.1

2. PERPLEXING TO “BRITISH WEEKLY” EDITOR

The conference thus went on record as adhering to the doctrine of the universal Innate Immortality of the Soul and the endless suffering of the wicked. And Dr. Beet was restrained as to his freedom of expression in the pulpit, the press, and the classroom. Yet strangely enough his widely circulated offending book was left untouched. This led Dr. Robertson Nicoll, editor of the British Weekly, to write: “We understand neither the silencing of Dr. Beet by the Conference nor his submission to that silencing.” ⁴⁵ CFF2 465.2

Conditionalism was under searching scrutiny and challenge, and the situations were ofttimes tense. The Faith Library kept abreast of such developments. CFF2 465.3