The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

X. Sabatier-Not All Are Immortal; Some Head for Dissolution

Not only in English- and German-speaking countries but also in France, Switzerland, and Belgium do we hear the voice of Conditionalism in varying degree of clarity. Nor were these all theologians. One voice was that of DR. ARMAND SABATIER, a noted man of science, and dean of the Faculty of Sciences of the Zoological Institute of Montpellier, and director of the zoological station at Cette. In 1894 Dr. Sabatier delivered a series of lectures on immortality at the University of Geneva, and repeated them at the Sorbonne in Paris. CFF2 600.3

1. DENIES UNIVERSAL INNATE IMMORTALITY

In the sixth lecture he declares immortality will not be universal:
“What are we to think as to the aptitude for immortality of these moral personalities which are so different? Must we believe that every human being, whatever his place in the moral scale, is destined to immortality, merely because he is a human being? My reason and examination of that which is going on in the domain of earthly life forbid such a conclusion.” ⁵³ CFF2 600.4

2. DEATH INVOLVES LOSS OF PERSONALITY

As to the end of some, he adds that for the end of those given over to evil there is “dissolution” and loss of personality. CFF2 600.5

“The moral being that is destined to live must be complete and coherent. I see no reason why a conscient being should enjoy the privilege of immortality if he has constantly enfeebled, relaxed, decomposed, the bundle of psychic forces which might have made of him a moral personality. If in the case of the virtuous and upright man there is an integrity which defies disintegration, there is in the debilitated and bestial man a fatal dissolution.” ⁵⁴ CFF2 601.1

“What then can be the penalty reserved for those who have marched in the contrary direction, allowing their personality to remain incomplete, feeble, misdirected, or giving it over to dissolution? It can only be definitive death, that is to say the loss of the personality.” ⁵⁵ CFF2 601.2

Those were the convictions of a Frenchman of science. He, with others, was on the road to Conditionalism. CFF2 601.3