The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

IV. High Lights of Dr. Schultz’s “Immortality” Treatise of 1861

As noted, in 1861 Dr. Schultz released a profound study o£ the Old Testament doctrine of Immortality. In 1890 Frederick Ash Freer made an analysis of its main argument, called “The First Foundations of the Christian Doctrine of Immortality.” This he presented, on June 9, ¹³ as a paper before the Theological Society of the Canton de Vaud. And, as already observed in a letter to Freer, subsequent to its publication, Schultz said that he felt more than ever assured of the correctness of his main thesis. Hence this epitome, translated by Freer, was personally approved by the author. Here are the high lights of Freer’s summary, from his English translation, appearing in Petavel, The Problem of Immortality. ¹⁴ CFF2 590.3

1. ABSOLUTE IMMORTALITY Is POSSESSION OF GOD ALONE

Throughout his treatise Schultz uses the word “immortality” in the strict sense of “a life beyond the reach of death or destruction,” not a mere “survival beyond bodily death.” In this strict sense, according to Schultz, immortality is “the absolute pos-session of God alone.” In its “relative sense” it can be “acquired by man only through constant communion with God.” Schultz divides his book into several leading divisions. The first deals with “human nature in the light of experience”; others deal with “human immortality in relation to creation, sin, and grace.” ¹⁵ CFF2 590.4

2. INNATE IMMORTALITY NOT POSSESSED BY ANY CREATURE

In the first division Schultz shows that “immortality cannot be a native quality in any created being”; that “God is the possessor and only source of life.” ¹⁶ Then he states: CFF2 591.1

“If, therefore, any being who is not God has life, and especially if that life be indestructible, that can be so only by virtue of some relation with God. All beings in the universe, visible and invisible, are in relation with God as creatures with their Creator. Man is no exception; his life is not inherent: it is derived, and therefore may be destroyed. That which God has created cannot be a part of God, and consequently cannot have in itself the source of life. The creature must, therefore, be always dependent upon that divine source for the continuance of its life, and cannot be essentially immortal, even though its life should be prolonged to eternity by a power outside itself.” ¹⁷ CFF2 591.2

After examining the various arguments-metaphysical, ontological, and teleological-used by various schools of philos-ophy, ancient and modern, he declares that “they are all insuffi-cient to prove the native and absolute immortality of the human soul.” ¹⁸ CFF2 591.3

3. MERE CREATION DID NOT ASSURE INDESTRUCTIBILITY

“The second division discusses human nature as it was before the fall.” Here Schultz says, “By creation man became a living, but not an immortal, being.” Man was “susceptible of immortal-ization; but it [the Creation record] certainly does not teach that the human soul is indestructible.... God alone is the source of life, and that the fact of having been created does not suffice to assure immortality to the creature. If man’s life were to be “maintained through eternity,” he would still not be innately “immortal, since his life would always come from with-out, and might at any time be withdrawn from him.” ¹⁹ CFF2 591.4

“Some special relation with God must be open to him whereby he may become partaker of the divine life.” It is made “possible for him by his own choice to become a sharer in the divine life,” and this calls for the “exercise of the creative power.” This is a special provision, or “creation,” on which “rest all our hopes of immortality.” It is described in Genesis 2, and is referred to in the New Testament. ²⁰ CFF2 592.1

4. TO ACQUIRE IMMORTALITY THROUGH SECOND CREATION

God is “the Supreme personality; man, who is a subordinate personality and an image of God, was not created” immortal, but was so “endowed” that he might “attain” to immortality. ²¹ “He is destined for union with God, but the union can only be voluntary and moral.” There must be a “second creation.” There was nothing in man’s original creation that gives him Innate Immortality, but the “purpose of his creation” was to “acquire immortality.” ²² CFF2 592.2

“But it is the whole man, not any separate portion of his being, that can become immortal. If he fails to attain the assigned purpose of his being, he also fails in his immortality.” ²³ CFF2 592.3

This failure, he adds, occurred when “Adam was driven forth from the garden and from access to the tree of life.” ²⁴ CFF2 592.4

5. IMMORTALITY FOR MAN POSSIBLE THROUGH CHRIST

“‘According to the New Testament,’ says Dr. Schultz, ‘... man can become immortal by his relation with the λόγος, the creative Word’”—that “in the Son of God he should have eternal life.” Immortality is thus “accessible to created beings.” ²⁵ The conclusion therefore naturally follows that “the creation of man did not confer immortality upon him, but made him capable of acquiring it by continuing in filial relation with God.” ²⁶ CFF2 592.5

6. “SECOND DEATH” INVOLVES “DEATH ABSOLUTE.”

Schultz’s third division pertains to “man and immortality as affected by sin and outside of the economy of grace.” Sin was “not a necessity of man’s nature. In his original and normal condition he needed only to avoid wilful disobedience.” He had only to withstand temptation “in order to become immortal.” ²⁷ CFF2 592.6

Death was the “consequence” of Adam’s “moral failure. This self-chosen separation from God leaves him [man] subject to the... law of mortality.” And the “death of the body cannot be regarded as a liberation of the soul.” When the fires of “‘divine judgement’” have completed their work, the soul “‘will itself become the prey of utter destruction.’ This second death will be the completion of the death penalty of sin.” It is the “last stage of the long road that leads to death absolute.” ²⁸ “When God is all in all, when sin and death are no more, there will be no place for beings who are without moral relation with God.” ²⁹ CFF2 593.1

Those were the high points in Dr. Schultz’s penetrating analysis as to the nature and destiny of man. CFF2 593.2