The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2
V. Italian Professor Pomponatius Precipitates a Crisis
For some time before the Reformation broke forth, scholastic philosophy was at low ebb. It was then that another episode in the Averroist drama was enacted, this time with a Christian believer as the principal actor. The fourteenth century thus marked the peak of Averroism. PETRUS POMPONATIUS, or in Italian, Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1524), of Mantua, Italy, came to be one of the most astute scholars and influential thinkers of his day. He taught philosophy at the university at Padua, then at Ferrara and Bologna, and was idolized by his students. CFF2 60.1
Like Averroes, he held to the ethics of Aristotle. And he too was plunged into trouble, this time by the monks, because of his views regarding the mortality of the soul. Denying the immortality of the soul, he was commonly classed as an Averroist. In fact, he was the leader of a formidable revolt against the immortality concept held by the dominant Roman Church. Jovius, one of his opponents, had formally accused him of saying, “The soul of man is not immortal, according to Aristotle’s opinions.” And Jovius added that this was “the most pernicious doctrine that ever was,” charging that denial of the immortality of the soul destroys all morality. 13 (Pictured on page 51.) CFF2 60.2
Pomponatius had simply said, however, that the immortality of the soul cannot be proved by the light of reason, nor by sheer philosophy—which left it, philosophically speaking, an “insoluble problem.” He contended that proof of future existence depends on the revelation of Scripture. But he held that the Old and New Testaments prove a future life, and declared his faith upon that. Nevertheless, he was accused of denying a future life, and was charged with having more regard for Aristotle than for the dictums of the church. What he asked for was simply that the schoolmen be consistent. He said: CFF2 60.3
“No rational arguments can demonstrate either that the soul is mortal or that it is immortal .... We must, with Plato, refer the question to the decision of God .... The divine verdict is as light itself compared with the darkness of our philosophy.” 14 CFF2 60.4
Pomponatius had declared, “As a Christian, I believe that which, as a philosopher or scientist, I cannot believe.” And to this Boccalini, another adversary, had replied, “Pomponatius should be absolved as a Christian and burnt alive as a philosopher.” It is significant that for years Pomponatius’ view was the general teaching in scholastic circles in Italy and the theme of special interest and agitation in the Italian universities. Indeed, by 1500 the immortality problem was the center around which all philosophical questions revolved. And in the sixteenth century it continued to be one of the favorite themes of student discussion. Indeed, so formidable was the movement among the learned men of Italy that the leaders of the church felt it necessary to intervene. That was why Leo X issued his noteworthy bull of December 19, 1513, designed to suppress the discussion. 15 CFF2 61.1
But, unimpressed by the bull of Leo X, supported by the Fifth Lateran Council, Pomponatius proceeded to publish a book on the immortality of the soul, titled Tractatus de Immortalitate Animae. In this he exposed the futility of the arguments by which the followers of Aristotle had sought to prove the immortality of the soul on the principles of philosophy alone—again declaring that the mortality of the soul could be “proved” thereby as easily as the contrary. CFF2 61.2
It is a “problematical question,” he wrote, and there can be “no assurance of the thing, but from revelation,” that is, the canonical Scriptures. And he warned against building upon any other foundation. 16 And all this, be it particularly noted, was in the year immediately preceding Luther’s nailing of the Ninety—five Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg. CFF2 61.3
The publication of Pomponatius’ book, which was widely read, especially in Italian universities, exposed him to the rage of the Roman priesthood, for it touched on one of the most lucrative doctrines of Rome. As a result, epithets of all sorts were hurled at him—“heretic,” “impious,” “atheist,” “Averroist.” But that was not all. Pomponatius was summoned before the Inquisition, where he confessed that he did not believe the current “proofs” of the doctrine, and challenged his judges to show a faith in the gospel equal to his own. However, through the influence of powerful friends, and especially of his defense by sympathetic Cardinal Bembo of Rome, he escaped condemnation and the stake, though his book was publicly burned at Venice by the public executioner. CFF2 62.1
Pomponatius was vigorously assailed by Contarenus, Javelli, Fornariis, and others. In 1518 he was induced, under pressure, to write an apology—Apologia pro suo Tractatu de Immortalitate Animae, but this was followed in 1519 by a defense of his original position—Defensorium sive Responsiones ad ea quae Augustinus Nophus adversus ipsum scripsit de Immortalitate Animae. 17 CFF2 62.2
Pomponatius still stood upon his original ground. CFF2 62.3
MAJOR MEDIEVAL AND PRE-REFORMATION WITNESSES TO CONDITIONALISM
| No. | Page | Name | Date | Place | Religion | Position | Nature of Man | Intermediate State | Punishment of Wicked | Concept of Purgatory |
| 1 | 15 | Sophronius | 7th cent. | Palestine | Christian | Patriarch—Jer. | Not innately immortal | |||
| 2 | 18 | Averroes | 12th cent. | Spain | Arab—Moslem | Prof—philos. | Mortal | Sleep of soul | ||
| 3 | 20 | Nicholas | 12th cent. | Greece | Gr.—Cath. | Bishop | Immortality a gift | Perish | ||
| 4 | 21 | Maimonides | 12th cent. | Sp.—Egypt | Jewish | Rabbi | For righteous only Immortality | Utterly destroyed | ||
| 5 | 24 | Nachmanides | 13th cent. | Spain | Jewish | Rabbi—phys. | (Not immortal) | Final extinction | ||
| 6 | 24 | Kimchi | 13th cent. | France | Jewish | Rabbi | (Not immortal) | Total extinction | ||
| 7 | 24 | Abravanel | 15th cent. | Portu.—Sp. | Jewish | Theol.— statesman | (Not immortal) | Final annihilation | ||
| 8 | 25 | Manasseh | 17th cent. | Holland | Jewish | Rabbi— publisher | (Not immortal) | Final extinction | ||
| 9 | 26 | Waldenses (It.) | 12th cent. | Italy | Christian | Dissentients | Mortal | Unconscious sleep | Papal fabrication | |
| 10 | 50 | Parisian Profs. | 13th cent. | France | Catholic | Professors | Soul is corruptible | Not suffer eternally | ||
| 11 | 50 | Wyclif, John | 14th cent. | England | Pre-Reformer | Prof—rector | Immortality at res. | Unconscious sleep | A myth | |
| 12 | 60 | Pomponatius | 15th cent | Italy | Catholic | Prof—philos. | Not innately immortal | |||
| (Leo X—Bull of Dec. 19, 1513, declared soul to be immortal.) | ||||||||||
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONALISM DURING SEVENTH TO SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.—Centuries seven to twelve are the bleak and silent centuries as regards Conditionalism. Catholicism was dominant, as was her triple dogma of (1) the universal innate immortality of all souls; (2) the going of the soul, immediately at death, to the felicities of heaven, the torments of hell, or the purifications of purgatory; and (3) the interminable tortures of the incorrigibly wicked in hell. This threefold postulate was practically universal among those professing adherence to her teaching, with opposition virtually crushed and opposers driven underground. During these five silent centuries dissentient voices, if any, were few and far between.
In the twelfth century, and outside her ranks, appeared the Arabian philosopher Averroes, and a Greek bishop, challenging her established innate immortality thesis. At the same time a series of noted Jewish rabbis in Spain, Portugal, and Holland began to contend for the ultimate, utter destruction of the incorrigibly wicked, thereby implying that not all souls are indefeasibly immortal. At the same time, some of the dissentient Waldenses, in the fastnesses of the Piedmontese Alps of Northern Italy—likewise outside the orbit of the Roman Church, and claiming unbroken ancestry back to Early Church times, and to never having accepted this triple dogma of Rome—maintained the mortality of man. Wave after wave of persecution swept over them. Theirs was evidently a perpetuation of Early Church Conditionalist beliefs, rather than a later repudiation of papal innovations formerly held, as with the later Reformers.
As the intrepid Waldensian missionaries penetrated England, their teachings concerning the mortality of man evidently took root in the heart of fourteenth-century pre-Reformer Wyclif, who likewise rejected the triple papal position on the soul, maintaining that immortality is received only at and through the resurrection, and that man sleeps in death awaiting the call of the Life Giver. Finally came the revolt voiced by philosopher Pomponatius of Italy, at the beginning of the sixteenth century—just before Luther’s break with Rome.
Such is the setting, and occasion, of the first formal pontifical declaration of the natural immortality of the soul, made by Pope Leo X, in 1513. Thus the stage was all set for the coming revolt over the consciousness of the soul in death, by such Reformation stalwarts as Luther and Tyndale, who likewise broke with Rome over her triple dogma as to the nature and destiny of man. Such is the significance of this bleak period, and the lesson of this chart, assessed from the historical facts.